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  Why then? Why my partner? I almost didn’t want to go there.

  I gave Jamilla time to get inside, then I called her on my cell.

  “This is Jamilla Hughes. Your message is important to me. Please leave it at the beep.”

  Damn it! I hated those machines. We still didn’t have one back home.

  “Jamilla, this is Alex Cross. Call me. It’s important. Please—”

  “Hi, Alex. Where are you? How are you?” I could hear the smile in her voice, and it sounded inappropriate because of the emotional state I was in.

  “Please be careful.” I continued with what I was going to leave her as a message. I told her why I was concerned. Finally, I had to admit the worst: that I was on the street outside her apartment.

  “Well, come inside, for God’s sake,” she said. There were no recriminations, not even any surprise in her voice. “I think you’re overreacting. Maybe. Let’s talk about it, though. Let’s talk this thing through.”

  “No, let me stay out here for a while. I hope you don’t think I’m being too crazy. Whoever killed Betsey has contacted me ever since her death. The Mastermind could be here in San Francisco. He killed her right after we finished our case. Detective Cooke was murdered after the magicians were killed in New Orleans.”

  That gave her pause. “Maybe I think you’re a little crazy, Alex. But I understand why you would be. I see where you’re going with this. I’m also touched that you came here to watch over me. And what happened to your last partner does scare me.”

  It helped that I knew where Jam was and that I had actually talked to her. After we spoke, I sat in my car and watched her street. I had learned to follow my instincts over the years, even when my own logic system rejected them, even when everybody else did too. I don’t know how many times I had thought about Betsey Cavalierre’s murder and wondered who the killer was, but I did it again as I sat in the car.

  I stayed there for several hours. Jamilla and I talked a couple of times. She urged me to come up to her apartment. I said no. “Let me do it my way, Jam.”

  It was getting late, though, and I was beginning to fade. I saw the lights in her apartment go off. Good for her. At least one of us was acting sane.

  I continued to wait. Something powerful, dramatic, haunting was nagging at me. Something I almost didn’t want to face. The clues had been there, but I hadn’t wanted to see them for what they were. I’d wanted to follow my “famous instincts.” Look where it had gotten me. I had blown it for so long.

  Then I saw him, and everything made sense. Suddenly the puzzle was clear; all the pieces fit. Not just Betsey’s murder, but the Casanova murder, the stalking of Kate McTiernan—the fact that he’d always been able to keep a step ahead of me.

  The killer was here on Jamilla’s street.

  The Mastermind was here in San Francisco.

  I was sure, and it made me dizzy with fear. But it also filled me with incredible disappointment, sadness, confusion. I felt like I might throw up.

  It was Kyle Craig. He was watching Jamilla’s place, stalking her like the madman that he was. The goddamn Mastermind had come here to kill her.

  Now, how could I stop him?

  Chapter 97

  “JAMILLA, ARE you awake?” I said in a low, tense voice. I felt a shudder run through me. It couldn’t get any worse than this. I still had my eye on Kyle. He was definitely watching Jamilla’s building. God damn him to hell.

  “I am now. No, I was awake. Where are you, Alex? Don’t tell me you’re still outside? Please don’t tell me that. Alex, what the hell is going on?”

  “Listen to me. The Mastermind is outside your place. I can see him. I think he’ll try to get inside soon. I want to come up there and I don’t want him to see me. Is there a back way?”

  Then I told her who the killer was.

  She exploded with anger, most of it directed at Kyle. “I knew there was something seriously wrong with him—but not this wrong. We have to stop that sonofabitch. I don’t care how smart he’s supposed to be.”

  She told me where to look for a service entrance and then a fire escape that would take me to her floor. I hurried around in the shadows. I didn’t think that Kyle had seen me. I hoped not. But after all—he was the Mastermind.

  He was smart, as clever as anyone I’d ever worked against.

  He knew about surveillance, probably a lot more than I did.

  He didn’t make mistakes, at least not until now.

  I found the back entrance of her building easily, and I hurried up the stairs. I tried not to make noise. I had no way of knowing where Kyle was right now.

  When I got to her apartment the door was open. My stomach dropped, and I felt sick. “Jamilla?”

  She immediately peeked out through the doorway. “Come inside. I’m fine, Alex. We’ve got him now, not the other way around.”

  I hurried inside the apartment, and we kept all the lights off. I could still see most of the living room and kitchen, the doorway to a small terrace. A bay window with bench seating. Her home. The place where he wanted to violate her. I snuck a look outside—I didn’t see Kyle on the street. He was on the move.

  Jamilla didn’t look frightened, just perplexed and angry. She had her service revolver out. She was ready for whatever might happen.

  I don’t think that I had fully taken in what had just happened outside. Everything felt unreal; my vision was tunneled. My nerves felt shredded and raw. Kyle Craig had been my friend. We had worked half a dozen cases together.

  “Why is he outside, Alex?” Jamilla finally asked. “Why is he coming after me? I don’t understand that asshole. What did I do to him?”

  I stared into her eyes, hesitated a second or two, then finally spoke. “He’s not really here to get you; at least I don’t think so. It’s about me—it’s about Kyle and me. I’ve become part of his fantasy, the story he tells himself every day. He’s proving how much better than me he is. He has to prove that he really is the Mastermind.”

  Chapter 98

  THE MASTERMIND had already made his next move, though he knew it was only a half step in the greater scheme of things. He had pulled back. He was six blocks away from Jamilla Hughes’s apartment, standing on a hill past the Jackson Playground. It allowed him to watch her building, the bay window, the small terrace on one side.

  He enjoyed this—the intractable imposition of his will, his ego on the world. It had been this way for more than a dozen years. No one had come close to capturing him, or even suspecting who he really was.

  Cross was inside now, and that made everything either very hard or perhaps easier. There was another decision to be made soon. Should he risk everything at this point? Change everything? For years he had been living a complicated double life. He’d done whatever he wanted, wherever, whenever. He had enjoyed his freedom, and how many others had even tasted that forbidden fruit? He had been the cop and the criminal. But maybe it was time for a change. Maybe his life had become too safe, too predictable. Kyle loved the hunt—and in that way he was like Casanova and the Gentleman Caller, two very talented killers he had known well, one working in North Carolina, the other in southern California. He found that he agreed with Casanova that men needed to be hunters by nature. And so he hunted—men and women—and he enjoyed killing both sexes; but he went an important step further.

  He hunted their killers as well. He eliminated his competition. He beat them at their own games.

  He had known Casanova years before the meticulous and very nasty killer was caught by himself and Dr. Cross. He had played murder games with Casanova and with the Gentleman Caller. Kiss the girls and make them cry. Kyle had even fallen in love with one of the victims—young Kate McTiernan. He still had a soft spot for dear, sweet Kate. He had been so many things to so many people, played so many roles, and he had only just begun.

  He had been the Mastermind—but he also helped capture the man believed to be the Mastermind. How could you beat that for puzzle making and puzzle solving?r />
  He’d been an elusive killer in Baltimore; in Cincinnati; in Roanoke, Virginia; in Philadelphia, until he had tired of those cities and the minor roles he played in them. He was husband to Louise, father to Bradley and Virginia. He was on the fast track inside the FBI, with one significant problem: He believed they were finally onto him. He was sure of it—though, God, they were such obvious, plodding fools. So many exciting roles, so many poses, that sometimes Kyle Craig wondered who he actually was.

  Now the game with Alex Cross had to end. He’d felt the need to taunt and torture Cross, to prove he was the homicide detective’s master. And then he had gone over the edge a little himself. It had happened when he killed Betsey Cavalierre, one of his own agents. Actually, the killing couldn’t be helped. Cavalierre had become suspicious of him while she was chasing the Mastermind with Cross. She had to go, had to die.

  And so did Cross. Cross was loyal to his friends, trusting, and it had become his greatest flaw, his singular weakness. But Cross would have caught onto him, even if he hadn’t yet. And, of course, Cross’s instincts had brought him here to watch over Inspector Hughes. Cross needed to be a good man, an ethical cop, a protector. What a waste of intellect. What a pity that Cross couldn’t have been an even better adversary.

  Cross had seen him on the street—so what came next? Whatever it was, it certainly had his adrenaline flowing. This was so good. Kyle knew he had a little time to figure it out. What to do? They were inside Hughes’s apartment. He had the edge on them.

  He wouldn’t lose his edge, his advantage.

  He made his next move.

  Chapter 99

  “YOU KNOW, I never liked him, Alex,” Jamilla said as we waited in the semidarkness of her apartment. “He seemed so cold, almost mechanical to me. And I’m telling you, he doesn’t like women. I felt it instantly.”

  “Well, unfortunately, I did like Kyle. He’s clever as hell. He even rigged calls from the Mastermind when he and I were together. Now I need to figure out who he really was. There’s no psychosis involved, at least I don’t think so. He’s organized. He can obviously work out elaborate plans. For once, I wish he would call.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Jamilla said.

  She and I were sitting beside a shelving unit on the hardwood floor in her living room. There was also a workout bench; nothing too fancy, an older model. Five- and ten-pound free weights were scattered on the floor. So were magazines and sections of the Chronicle.

  I hoped that Kyle couldn’t see into the apartment, that he didn’t have binoculars. Or possibly a nightscope attached to a rifle. I knew he could shoot from the way he’d taken down Michael Alexander. He was good at a lot of things.

  Just in case, Jamilla and I tried to keep away from the windows.

  “It makes me dizzy to think about what he’s done so far. I wonder if we’ll ever know the extent of it,” she said.

  “If we catch him, he’ll want to talk. Kyle will want to show off what he’s done. If he comes after us tonight, maybe we’ll find everything out.”

  “You think he knows you’re here?”

  I sighed, shrugged. “He probably knows I’m here. Maybe tonight is his coming-out party. I know one thing: He won’t do what we expect. The Mastermind never does. That’s the only real pattern he has.”

  We talked about calling in reinforcements, but Jamilla thought it would probably scare Kyle off. He wanted the two of us, right? That’s what he would get. Do you want to taunt me anymore, you bastard? Go for it. Bring it, Kyle.

  So the two of us sat there in the dark, and it was almost cozy. Jamilla finally reached out and touched my hand. Then we moved together, leaned against each other. We waited.

  “At least it’s comfortable,” Jamilla whispered. “As stakeouts go.”

  “No place like home, right?”

  It was a little before four when we heard noises outside. Jamilla turned and looked at me. We raised our guns.

  For the first time, I confronted the idea of shooting Kyle, a man I had thought was my friend. I didn’t like the feeling. I wasn’t sure how I would react, and that scared me.

  There were soft footsteps outside on the terrace. In a way, I was relieved. This was the showdown Kyle wanted. He was coming. I figured that the story he’d been telling for so long, his fantasy life, had finally taken over. Maybe he was psychotic now. That would give us an advantage.

  “Real careful,” I whispered, and touched the back of Jamilla’s hand. “Try to look at it the way he does. Kyle thinks he has us where he wants us.”

  He picked the lock quickly and expertly. A minimum of effort. I realized that he had been watching her place. He knew enough to come up the back stairs, and then he’d climbed a metal ladder onto the terrace.

  The lock on the door to the terrace of the apartment made a soft click. Then nothing happened.

  “We’re good, everything’s cool,” Jamilla whispered. “This time we win.”

  We waited in the dark near the door. It finally opened, oh so slowly. Kyle came inside. He moved toward us in a low crouch. Obviously, he couldn’t see where we were, but we could see him.

  I hit Kyle with all my weight, full force, every ounce of strength that I had. I slammed him hard against the living room wall. The whole apartment shook. Books and glasses fell to the floor from open shelves. I was surprised that we didn’t go right through the wall.

  I clipped his chin with an elbow, as hard as I could. Felt good. Kyle was wiry and strong, but I was pumped to take him. I hit him with a hard, short right hand. It snapped into his jaw. I hit him in the solar plexus. A real gut-wrencher.

  I was going to hit him again. But then Jamilla flicked on the room lights. My brain caught fire. My body shuddered.

  It wasn’t Kyle Craig.

  Chapter 100

  “GET DOWN, get down! Get below the windows!” I yelled at Jamilla.

  I was afraid she might be hit by rifle fire. Kyle could be out there, and I knew that he could shoot. She went down and lay facing me, and also the man I had tackled coming in the door. He looked as confused as I felt. Who the hell was he? What had just happened? Who was this guy, and where was Kyle?

  Jamilla had her service revolver pointed at his chest. Her hand was amazingly steady. His nose was bleeding badly from where I’d hit him. He was well built, probably early thirties, short haired, a light-skinned black man.

  Everything was complete chaos in my brain.

  “Who the hell are you? Who are you?” I yelled at the dazed, bleeding man on the floor.

  “FBI,” he panted. “I’m a federal agent. Put down the gun. Put it down now.”

  Jamilla was yelling too. “I’m San Francisco PD, and I’m definitely not putting down my gun, mister. What are you doing in my apartment?” she shouted. I could almost see her mind working, and she wasn’t thinking nice thoughts. “Talk to us!”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have to answer your questions. Wallet’s in the rear left pocket. Badge and ID. I’m FBI, goddamnit!”

  “Stay down,” I yelled. “There could be someone outside with a gun. Did Kyle Craig send you here?” I asked.

  The look on the agent’s face answered the question for me, but he refused to confirm or deny. “I told you, I don’t have to answer questions.”

  “You sure as hell do.” Jamilla got in the last word.

  I did the only thing I could under the circumstances—I called the FBI.

  Four agents from the San Francisco office got to the apartment at a little past five in the morning. We were wary of the windows, though I doubted that Kyle was still nearby. Or even in San Francisco. The Mastermind was a step ahead. I should have known, and in a way I had known, that he wouldn’t do the expected.

  During the next couple of hours, exasperated agents from the Bureau tried to reach Kyle Craig. They couldn’t, and it shook them up. They began to give some credence to my story that Kyle might be the man behind murders going back for several years. Kyle had sent the agent to
Jamilla’s apartment and ordered him to break in. He’d told the agent that someone had murdered an SFPD inspector and Alex Cross inside.

  Then things started to get really hot.

  I was the one who heated them up.

  Chapter 101

  AT SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning, I was on the receiving end of a phone call from FBI director Ronald Burns in Washington. Burns was cautious and wary, so I knew he wouldn’t call me himself unless he had evidence that there were serious problems with Kyle. I was still confused, and hurt, but I recognized the emotions as appropriate and sane. Kyle Craig was the madman, not me.

  “Tell me whatever you know, Director,” I said. “I know a lot about Kyle, but you know things that I don’t. Tell me what they are. It’s important that I know everything.”

  Burns didn’t answer right away. There was a long pause on his end of the line. I knew him well enough to know that he was a friend of Kyle’s. At least he thought he had been. We’d all been wrong, for so long. We’d been fooled, and betrayed, by someone we had trusted.

  Finally, Burns began to speak. “This probably goes back to the days of the Kiss the Girls case. Maybe before it. You know that Kyle was an undergrad at Duke University. He knew Will Rudolph—the Gentleman Caller—from his student days at Duke. During the case, Kyle may have been responsible for the death of a reporter named Beth Lieberman with the L.A. Times. She was closing in on Will Rudolph.”

  I shut my eyes and shook my head. I had helped solve the “Kiss” case. I knew that Kyle had attended Duke, but not about his relationship with the Gentleman Caller, a killer who had terrorized L.A. I had briefly suspected Kyle in the case, but his alibis held up perfectly. Of course they had.

  “Why didn’t you talk to me?” I asked Burns. I was trying to understand the FBI’s position. So far, I couldn’t.