Violets Are Blue Read online

  “We didn’t begin to really suspect Kyle until the murder of Betsey Cavalierre. We had no proof, even then. We weren’t sure if he was a possible killer or the best agent in the Bureau.”

  “Jesus, Ron, we could have talked. We should have talked. Well, he’s on the run now. You should have told me. I hope you’re telling me everything now.”

  “Alex, you know what we know. Maybe more. I hope you’re telling us everything.”

  After I finished with Burns, I called Sampson in Washington. I told him the latest, and it blew John’s mind. He had moved Nana and the kids out of our house on Fifth Street. Only he and I knew where they were now.

  “Everything okay there?” I asked. “Everybody settled in all right?”

  “Are you fucking kidding, Alex? Nana is pissed off like I’ve never seen her before. If Kyle Craig came after her, I’d put my money on Nana. The kids are cool, though. They don’t know what’s happening, but they’ve guessed it isn’t good.”

  I cautioned him again. “Don’t leave them for a minute, not a second, John. I’m coming back to Washington on the next flight. I don’t know how Kyle could trace you there, but don’t underestimate him. He’s loose. He’s very dangerous. For some reason, he wants to hurt me, and maybe my family. If I can figure out why that is, maybe I can stop him.”

  “And if not?” Sampson asked.

  I let the question hang.

  Chapter 102

  I HAD to say good-bye to Jamilla Hughes again, and each time it was a little harder. We’d been through so much together in such a short time. I made her promise to be extremely careful, even paranoid, for the next few days. She promised. Then finally I got on a plane out of San Francisco International.

  The mysterious phone calls had finally stopped, but that was scary and unsettling too. I didn’t know where Kyle was, or what he was doing.

  Was he still watching me? Had he somehow followed me back to Washington? I shouldn’t have been entertaining thoughts like that, but I was, and I couldn’t stop them from coming.

  Did he have binoculars focused on me as I walked up the sidewalk to my Aunt Tia’s house in Chapel Gate, Maryland, about fifteen miles from Baltimore? How could Kyle know I was here? Why, because that’s what he did for a living. Could he get past Sampson and me? I didn’t think so. But how could I know with complete certainty?

  The kids were enjoying their short vacation from school. Aunt Tia had always spoiled them, just as she had spoiled me as a kid. “Same old, same old” she likes to say when she serves you a piece of hot pie in the middle of the afternoon, or gives you an unexpected present. Nana was more understanding than I thought she would be. I think she liked being with her “little sister.” Tia was younger than Nana, “only seventy-eight,” but she was spry, very contemporary in her outlook, and she was a fabulous cook. That night, she and Nana made penne with gorgonzola cheese, broccoli rabe, and sock-it-to-me cake. I ate as if it were my last meal.

  Then the kids and I played and talked until the outrageous hour of eleven o’clock, way past their usual bedtimes. They are by no means perfect, but the good times with them certainly outweigh the bad. I tend to talk more about the good, and why not? I’m a father and I love Damon, Jannie, and little Alex more than life itself. Maybe that says something too.

  I went back to Washington the following morning. A team of FBI agents had been assigned to my family. It was the kind of attention I’d hoped we would never need. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me.

  That afternoon, I attended a meeting at the FBI building and learned that more than four hundred agents were assigned to finding and capturing Kyle Craig. So far, nothing had gotten out to the press, and Director Burns wanted to keep it that way. So did I. More than that, I wanted to catch Kyle quickly, hopefully before he killed again.

  But who would he kill? Who might Kyle go after next?

  Chapter 103

  “CHRISTINE, IT’S Alex,” I said. I had butterflies in my stomach. “I hate to bother you like this. It’s important or I wouldn’t call.” That was sure the truth. God, I hadn’t wanted to make this call.

  “Is little Alex okay?” she asked. “Is it Nana?”

  “No, no. Everybody’s fine.” I told a half-truth.

  There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Christine and I had been engaged to be married. She was the one who had broken it off, because she couldn’t handle my life as a homicide detective. Too many bad scenes just like this one.

  “Alex, this isn’t good news, is it? Geoffrey Shafer? Is he back in the country?” she asked. She sounded afraid, and I felt for her. Geoffrey Shafer had kidnapped her.

  “No, this isn’t about Shafer.”

  I told her about Kyle Craig. She knew him, liked Kyle, and I could tell she felt violated. She had been hurt badly by the monsters I had met in my work. She couldn’t completely forgive me for that, and I didn’t blame her much. I couldn’t forgive myself sometimes. Talking to Christine made me remember how much I’d loved her. Probably, I still did.

  “Is there somewhere safe you can stay for a while? It’s important that you go there,” I finally said. “I hate to do this to you. Kyle is extremely dangerous, Christine.”

  “Oh, Alex. I came out here to be safe. I felt I was safe, but now you’re back in my life.”

  She said she would stay with somebody she trusted, a friend. I asked Christine not to say who or where it was over the phone. When she hung up, she was crying. I felt so bad for her, so terrible about what had happened. The call brought back everything that was wrong between us.

  I called Jamilla next. My excuse was that I wanted to remind her to be careful—even now. But I think I just wanted to talk to her. She’d been in on so much of this. Unfortunately, she was out when I called. I left a message that I was worried about her, and to please be careful.

  I kept calling people I cared about. I talked to everyone I could think of who had had some contact with Kyle.

  I warned a couple detective friends—Rakeem Powell and Jerome Thurman, who were still on the D.C. force. I doubted Kyle would come after them, but I didn’t know for sure.

  I phoned my chief contact at the Washington Post, a writer named Zachary Scott Taylor. Zach was also one of my best friends in Washington. He wanted to interview me, but I told Zach not to come. Kyle was jealous of the stories Zach had written about me. He had told me as much. For whatever reason, he didn’t like Zach.

  “This is serious,” I told Zach. “Don’t underestimate how crazy this man is. You’re on his shit list, and that’s a bad place to be.”

  I spoke to FBI agents Scorse and Reilly, who had worked with me on the kidnapping of Maggie Rose Dunne and Michael Goldberg. They knew about the manhunt for Kyle but hadn’t been concerned for their own safety. Now they were.

  I called my niece Naomi, who’d been kidnapped by Casanova. Naomi was practicing law in Jacksonville, Florida. She was living with a good guy named Seth Samuel Taylor. They were planning to marry later this year. “He likes to ruin other people’s happiness,” I told Naomi. “Be careful. I know you will be.”

  I called Kate McTiernan in North Carolina. I remembered the meal she’d had with Kyle and me. Had it meant anything more than what it had seemed to on the surface? Who knew with Kyle? Kate promised to be extra careful, and reminded me that she was a third-degree black belt now. Kyle had always liked Kate, and I reminded her of that. Actually, the more I talked to Kate, the more worried I was about her. “Don’t take any chances, Kate. Kyle is the craziest person I’ve ever met.”

  I contacted Sandy Greenberg, a good friend at Interpol who had worked with Kyle several times. She was shocked to learn that Kyle was a murderer. She promised to be extra careful until he was caught; Sandy also offered to help in any way that she could.

  Kyle Craig was a cold, heartless murderer.

  My partner at times, my friend, or so I’d thought.

  I still couldn’t believe it. Not completely. I tried to make up a possible hit list for Kyle.


  1. Myself

  2. Nana and the kids

  3. Sampson

  4. Jamilla

  I realized I was making the list from my point of view, not necessarily Kyle’s. I tried another list.

  1. Kyle’s family—every member

  2. Myself—and my family

  3. Director Burns of the FBI

  4. Jamilla

  5. Kate McTiernan

  I sat in my empty house on Fifth Street and wondered what the hell he would do next. It was driving me crazy; I felt like I was running in circles.

  Kyle was capable of anything.

  Chapter 104

  HE FINALLY called again.

  “I killed them and I don’t feel a thing. Nothing at all. You will, though, Alex. In a way, you’re to blame. Nobody but you. I didn’t even want to kill them, but I had to do it. That’s the way the horror story has to go. It’s out of control now. I’ll admit that.”

  The horrifying confession came at quarter past five in the morning. I had been asleep about three hours when the phone rang. Panic raced through my body. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.

  “Who did you kill?” I asked Kyle. “Who? Tell me who it was. Tell me.”

  “What difference does it make? They’re dead, slaughtered. It’s someone you care about. There’s nothing you can do now—except catch me. I suppose I could help you. Isn’t that what you want to hear? Would that make this more interesting for you? Would it make it fair?” He started to laugh uncontrollably. Christ, I had never known him to lose control.

  I let him go on. Inflated his ego. That’s what he wanted and needed, wasn’t it?

  Who had Kyle killed? Oh God, who was dead? It was more than one person—slaughtered.

  “We always worked as a team. In a way, it would be my crowning moment—to catch myself. I’ve thought about it, actually. Fantasized. What better challenge could there be? I can’t think of one. Me against myself.” He started to laugh again.

  I had to force myself not to ask again who he had murdered. It would just make Kyle angry. He might hang up. Still, my mind was grinding. I was incredibly afraid. Christine? Kate? Jamilla?

  Someone at the FBI? Who? Oh God, who was it? Have some mercy, have pity. Show me that you’re human, you bastard.

  “I’m not a highly trained psychologist like yourself, but here’s one amateur’s theory, anyway,” Kyle said. “I think this whole rage thing might be about sibling rivalry. Could it be? You know, Alex, I had a younger brother. He came along at the height of my Oedipus complex, when I was a mere lad of two. He displaced me with my mother and father. Check into it, Alex. Consult with Quantico. Could be important.”

  He was so calm, and he was ridiculing me—as a detective and as a psychologist.

  My hands were starting to shake. I’d had enough. “Who did you kill this time?” I yelled into the phone. “Who is it?”

  Kyle broke my heart. He told me about the murders he’d just committed in great detail. I was certain that he was telling the truth.

  Then he hung up, even as I cursed him to hell.

  Minutes later I was in my car, bleary eyed, numb, rushing across Washington to the terrible murder scene.

  Chapter 105

  NO, NO, no!

  I hadn’t expected this. It was like a knife thrust into my heart, then twisted until I screamed. Kyle had hurt me badly—and he wanted me to know something: There was worse to come. This was just the beginning.

  I stood silent and transfixed in the bedroom of Zach and Liz Taylor. My eyes were blurred by tears. Two of my dearest friends were dead. I had come to their house dozens of times before—for parties, dinner, late-night talks. Zach and Liz had visited on Fifth Street many times. Zach was the godfather to little Alex.

  My only consolation was that they had died quickly. Probably Kyle was nervous about getting caught. He knew he had to get in and out of their apartment in the Adams-Morgan section of Washington quickly.

  Whatever his reason, he had killed the Taylors with single gunshots to the head. He hadn’t bothered to mutilate the bodies. I thought that the message was clear. This wasn’t about them.

  It was about the two of us.

  Zach and Liz Taylor hadn’t mattered one way or the other to him. Maybe that was the worst thing of all. How easily he could kill. How much he wanted to hurt me.

  This was just the start of it.

  It would get worse.

  There was no evidence of rage, no passion at this crime scene. I almost got the sense that once he was inside their bedroom he’d had second thoughts. Oh Kyle, Kyle. Have mercy on us.

  I made mental notes—no need to write any of this down. I knew every horrifying detail by heart. I would never forget any of it until the day I died.

  The gunshots had blown away the sides of their faces. I had to force myself to look. I remembered how in love they had always seemed to me. Zach had once told me that “Liz is the only person I know who I enjoy being with on a long car ride.” That was the test for him. They never ran out of things to say to each other. I felt incredibly hollowed out as I stared at them. They were gone now. What a terrible waste, what a horror show.

  I walked past their bodies to a large casement window that looked out on the street. I was feeling so unreal. I saw the marquee sign for Café Lautrec, closed now. I thought about Kyle on the run, what he must be thinking, where he might go next.

  I wanted to catch him, to stop him. No, I wanted to kill Kyle. I wanted to hurt him in the worst way possible.

  Someone from the crime scene unit edged up to me, a sergeant named Ed Lyle. “Sorry about your loss. What do you want from us, Detective? We’re ready to get to work here.”

  “Sketch, video, photograph,” I told Lyle. But I really didn’t need any of it. I didn’t need any more graven images, or even any evidence.

  I knew who the killer was.

  Chapter 106

  I GOT home around one that afternoon. I needed to sleep, but I couldn’t stay down for more than a couple of hours. I got up and paced all through the empty house on Fifth Street.

  I kept walking from room to room. I felt the need to stop a terrible disaster from happening, but I didn’t know where to start. The possible hit lists for Kyle were continually running through my head: my family, Sampson, Christine, Jamilla Hughes, Kate McTiernan, my niece Naomi, Kyle’s own family.

  I couldn’t get the image of Zach and Liz out of my head. They had been executed in the prime of their lives—because of me. Finally, I was able to throw up, and it was the best thing that had happened to me that day. I pushed out my guts. Then I slammed the bathroom mirror with the heel of my hand and nearly broke it.

  Kyle was always a fucking step ahead, right? It had been that way for so many years now. He was such an unbelievable bastard.

  He had complete confidence in his abilities, including his power to elude us any time he wanted to. What would be next? Who would he kill? Who? Who?

  How could he make himself disappear after the killing? How did he blend in and become invisible when so many people were looking for him?

  He had money—Kyle had taken care of that when he’d played the role of the Mastermind. So what was next for him?

  I worked at my computer late into the night and early morning. The computer was beside my bedroom window. Was he outside watching? I didn’t think even Kyle would take that kind of chance now. But hell, how could I rule out anything?

  He was capable of large-scale mass murder. If that was his plan, where would he strike? Washington? New York City? L.A.? Chicago? His old hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina? Maybe somewhere in Europe? London?

  Was his family safe—his wife and his son and daughter? I had vacationed with them in Nags Head one summer. I’d stayed at their home in Virginia a few times over the years. His wife, Louise, was a dear friend. I had promised her I would try to bring Kyle in alive if I possibly could. But now I wondered—did I want to keep that promise? What would I do if I ever
caught up with Kyle?

  He might go after his own parents, especially since Kyle put part of the heavy blame for his behavior on his father. William Hyland Craig had been a general in the army, then chairman of the board of two Fortune 500 companies in and around Charlotte. Nowadays, he gave lectures at ten to twenty thousand a pop; he was on half a dozen boards. He had beaten Kyle as a boy, disciplined him ruthlessly, taught him to hate.

  Sibling rivalry? Kyle had brought it up himself. He had been highly competitive with his younger brother until Blake’s death in 1991. Had Kyle actually killed Blake? It had been ruled a hunting accident. What about the older brother, who still lived in North Carolina?

  Did he think of me as a younger brother? Did Kyle see Blake in me? He was competing with me, and he’d tried to control me from the start. The women in my life might have represented a threat to him, an extreme variant of sibling rivalry. Was that why he had killed Betsey Cavalierre? What about Maureen Cooke in New Orleans? And Jamilla?

  I made a note to carefully think and plot out one particular angle, a dysfunctional family triangle with both Kyle and me in it.

  One step ahead.

  So far, anyway.

  If he went after his parents or his brother we would have him. They were being closely protected in Charlotte. The FBI was all over them.

  Kyle knew that. He wouldn’t do something stupid—just cruel and nasty.

  One step ahead.

  That seemed to be the key to Kyle’s fantasy life, at least as I understood it so far. He wouldn’t make the obvious move. He would go at least one move, maybe two, beyond that. But how did he stay a step ahead—especially now? A very bad thought had been running through my head lately. Maybe there was someone else in the FBI helping him—maybe Kyle had a partner.

  I had finally drifted off to sleep when the phone in my bedroom woke me. It was three in the morning. God damn him. Doesn’t he ever sleep?