Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls Read online

  Watching Kate, I thought that she looked almost luminescent. She was back in good form. Her face was close to the way it had been, except for the dent. “It’s my stubborn streak,” she told me, “and it’s permanent until the day I die.”

  It was an idyllic time in many ways. Everything seemed just right for us. Kate and I felt that we both deserved a holiday, and much more.

  We ate breakfast together every morning on a porch made from long gray planks, which overlooked the shimmering Atlantic. (I made breakfast on my mornings to cook; Kate went to the Nags Head market and brought home sticky buns and Bavarian cream doughnuts on her days.) We went for long, long walks along the shoreline. We surf-cast for blues, and cooked the fresh fish right there on the beach. Sometimes, we just watched the shiny boats patrolling the water. We took a day trip to watch the crazy-ass hang gliders off the high dunes in Jockey’s Ridge State Park.

  We waited on Casanova. We were daring him to come after us. So far he wasn’t interested, at least he didn’t seem to be.

  I thought of the book and movie The Prince of Tides. Kate and I were a little bit like Tom Wingo and Susan Lowenstein, only mixed together in a different, though equally complex, way. Lowenstein had brought out Tom Wingo’s need to feel and give love, I remembered. Kate and I were learning everything about each other, the important things—and we were both quick learners.

  Early one August morning, we waded into the clear, deep blue water in front of the house. Most of the beach community wasn’t up yet. A lone brown pelican was skimming the water.

  We held hands above the low waves. Everything was picture-postcard perfect. So why was I feeling as if there was a gaping hole where my heart ought to be? Why was I still obsessed with Casanova?

  “You’re thinking bad thoughts, aren’t you?” Kate bumped me hard with her hip. “You’re on vacation. Think vacation thoughts.”

  “Actually, I was thinking very good thoughts, but they made me feel bad,” I told her.

  “I know that crazy-ass song,” she said. She gave me a hug, to reassure me that we were in this thing together, whatever it was that we were in.

  “Let’s take a run. I’ll race you to Coquina Beach,” she said. “Ready, set, prepare yourself to lose.”

  We started to jog. Kate showed no signs of a limp. The pace picked up. She was so strong—in all ways. We both were. At the end, we were running nearly full-out and we collapsed in a wall of silver-blue surf. I didn’t want to lose Kate, I was thinking as I ran. I didn’t want this to end. I didn’t know what to do about it.

  On a warm, breezy Saturday night, Kate and I lay on an old Indian blanket on the beach. We were talking on half a hundred subjects at one sitting. We had already feasted on roast Carolina duckling with blackberry sauce that we’d made together. Kate had on a sweatshirt that read: Trust me, I’m a doctor.

  “I don’t want this to end, either,” Kate said with a heavy sigh. Then, “Alex, let’s talk about some of the reasons we both believe this has to end.”

  I shook my head and smiled at her characteristic directness. “Oh, this will never really end, Kate. We’ll always have this time. It’s one of those special treasures you get every once in a while in life.”

  Kate grabbed and held my arm with both her hands. Her deep brown eyes were intense. “Then why does it have to end here?”

  We both knew some, though not all, of the reasons.

  “We’re too much alike. We’re both obsessively analytical. We’re both so logical that we know the half-dozen reasons this won’t work out. We’re stubborn and we’re strong-willed. Eventually, we would go boom,” I said in a half-teasing tone.

  “Sounds like the old self-fulfilling prophecy to me,” Kate said.

  We both knew I was telling the truth, though. Sad truth? Is there such a thing? I guess that there is.

  “We just might go boom,” Kate said, and she smiled sweetly. “Then we couldn’t even be friends. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing you as my friend. That’s still part of it for me. I can’t risk a big loss yet.”

  “We’re both physically too strong. We’d kill each other eventually, Nidan,” I told her. I was tying to lighten things up.

  She squeezed me a little tighter. “Don’t make jokes about it. Don’t make me laugh, damn you, Alex. I want this to be our sad time at least. It’s so sad I might cry. Now I am. See that?”

  “It is sad,” I said to Kate. “It’s the saddest thing.”

  We lay on the scratchy wool beach blanket and held each other until the morning. We slept under the stars and listened to the steady beat of the Atlantic. Everything seemed gently touched with the brush of eternity that night on the Outer Banks. Well, almost everything.

  Kate turned to me in between catnaps, in between dreams. “Alex, is he coming after us again? He is, isn’t he?”

  I didn’t know for sure, but that was the plan.

  Chapter 121

  TICK-COCK.

  Tick-cock.

  Tick-cock.

  He was still obsessed with Kate McTiernan, only it was much more disturbing and complex than just the fate of Doctor Kate now. She and Alex Cross had conspired to ruin his unique creation, his precious and very private art, his life as it had been. Nearly everything that he’d ever loved was gone now, or in disarray. It was time for a comeback. Time to show them once and for all. Time to show his true face.

  Casanova realized that he missed his “best friend” above all else. That was proof that he was sane, after all. He could love; he could feel things. He had watched in disbelief as Alex Cross shot down Will Rudolph on the streets of Chapel Hill. Rudolph had been worth ten Alex Crosses, and now Rudolph was dead.

  Rudolph had been a rare genius. Will Rudolph was Jekyll and Hyde, but only Casanova had been able to appreciate both sides of his personality. He remembered their years together, and couldn’t put them out of his thoughts anymore. They had both understood that exquisite pleasure intensified the more it was forbidden. That was a ruling principle behind the hunts, the collection of bright, beautiful, talented women, and eventually the long string of murders. The unbelievable, matchless thrill of breaking society’s sacred taboos, of living out elaborate fantasies, was absolutely irresistible. These were pleasures not to be believed.

  So were the hunts themselves: the choosing, observing, and taking of beautiful women and their most personal possessions.

  But now Rudolph was gone. Casanova understood that he wasn’t merely alone; he was suddenly afraid to be alone. He felt as if he’d been cut in half. He had to take control again. That’s what he was doing now.

  He had to give Alex Cross some credit. Cross had come close to catching him. He wondered if Cross knew how close? Alex Cross was obsessed: that was his edge on all the others in the chase. Cross would never give up, not until he was killed.

  Cross had set up this delicious little trap in Nags Head for him, hadn’t he? Of course he had. Cross had figured that he would come after him and Kate McTiernan, anyway, so why not have it happen under controlled circumstances? Why not, indeed.

  It was almost a full moon the night he arrived at the Outer Banks. Casanova could make out two men in the tall, wavering dune grass up ahead. They were the FBI agents assigned to watch over Cross and Dr. Kate. The hand-picked guardians.

  He flicked on his flashlight so that two of them would see him coming. Yes, he could fit in anywhere. That was just part of his genius, though, just a small part of his act.

  When he got within voice range, Casanova called out to the agents. “Yo, it’s only me.”

  He tilted the flashlight upward to expose his face. He let them see him, see who he was.

  Tick-cock.

  Chapter 122

  IT WAS my morning to take care of our breakfast, and I democratically decided on Kate’s favorite sticky buns to top off my infamous Monterey Jack cheese and sautéed onion omelet.

  I figured I would jog to and from the tiny, overpriced bakery in Nags Head. Jogging helps me think in
straight lines, sometimes.

  I ran on a zigzag path through softly waving, waist-high dune grass that eventually met with the paved road over the marshes and into town. It was a beautiful late-summer day.

  I began to relax as I jogged. My guard was down so I almost didn’t see him.

  A blond man in a navy blue windbreaker and stained khaki pants lay spread-eagled in the tall grass, just off the dirt path. He looked as if his neck had been broken. He hadn’t been dead very long. His body was still warm when I felt for a pulse.

  The dead man was FBI. He was a pro who wouldn’t have been easy to take out. He had been stationed out here to watch over Kate and me, to help trap Casanova. The plan was Kyle Craig’s, but Kate and I had agreed to it.

  “Oh goddammit, no,” I groaned. I took out my gun and began to sprint back to the house and Kate. She was in terrible danger. We both were.

  I tried to concentrate on thinking like Casanova, on what he might do next, what he was capable of doing. Clearly, the perimeter defense around the house had been broken.

  How did he keep doing that? Who the hell was he? Who did I have to fight?

  I wasn’t expecting the second body and almost tripped over it. It was hidden in the dune grass. The agent also wore a navy blue windbreaker. He was lying on his back and his red hair was neatly combed. There was no sign of a struggle, his lifeless brown eyes were staring up at circling gulls and a buttery-yellow sun. Another FBI bodyguard dead.

  I was in a panic now as I raced through the stiff wind and flowing grass to the beach house. It was quiet and still, just as I had left it.

  I was almost certain that Casanova was already there. He had come hunting for us. It was payback time. He had to get this just right, didn’t he? He had to make it “perfect.” Or maybe he just needed revenge for Rudolph.

  I raised my Glock pistol and went cautiously inside the front screen door. Nothing moved in the living room. The only sound was the ancient refrigerator humming in the kitchen, singing like a nest of insects.

  “Kate!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “He’s here! Kate! Kate! He’s here! Casanova is here!”

  I rushed through the living room to the first-floor bedroom and flung open the door.

  She wasn’t in there.

  Kate wasn’t where I had left her minutes ago.

  I ducked into the hallway again. A closet door opened suddenly. A hand reached out and grabbed me.

  I swung around hard to my right.

  It was Kate. The look on her face was one of determination and sheer hatred. I saw no fear in her eyes. She put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. Shhh,” she whispered. “I’m okay, Alex.”

  “Me too. So far,”

  We proceeded in lock-step toward the kitchen, where the house phone was located. I had to get the Cape Hatteras police here now. They would contact Kyle and the FBI.

  It was dark in the narrow hallway, and I didn’t see the flash of metal until it was too late. A sharp pain shot through me as a longish dart stuck into the left side of my chest.

  It was a heart shot. Perfectly delivered. He’d hit me with a state-of-the-art Tensor stun gun.

  A powerful shock of electrical current streaked through my body. My heart fluttered. I could smell my own flesh burning.

  I don’t know how I did it, but I went at him. That’s the problem with stun guns, even an expensive eighty-thousand-volt Tensor. They don’t always bring down a big man. Especially a crazed one with a sense of purpose.

  I didn’t have enough strength left. Not for Casanova. The agile and powerful killer sidestepped me and chopped my neck hard. He hit me a second time and brought me to my knees.

  He wore no mask this time.

  I looked up at him. He had a light beard now, like Harrison Ford’s at the start of The Fugitive. His brown hair was slicked straight back, longer now, and unruly. He was letting himself go a bit. Was he mourning his best friend?

  No mask. He wanted me to see who he was. His game had been destroyed, hadn’t it.

  Here was Casanova, finally.

  I had been close with Davey Sikes. I felt sure it had to be someone connected with the Durham police force. I felt it was someone attached to the original golden couple murder case. He had covered every trace, though. He’d had alibis that made it impossible for him to be the killer.

  He had figured everything out so beautifully. He was a genius—that was why he had succeeded for such a long time.

  I stared into the impassive face of Detective Nick Ruskin.

  Ruskin was Casanova. Ruskin was the Beast. Ruskin! Ruskin! Ruskin!

  “I can do anything I want to do! Don’t you forget that, Cross,” Ruskin said to me. He had been so perfect in his art. He had fit in, blended so well, created the best possible façade as a detective. The local star; the local hero. The one most above suspicion.

  Ruskin stepped toward Kate as I lay helpless from the Tensor dart. “I missed you, Katie. Did you miss me?’”

  He laughed easily as he spoke. There was madness in his eyes, though. He had finally gone over the edge. Was it because his “twin” was dead? What in hell did he want to do now?

  “So, did you miss me?” he repeated as he came toward her with the powerful, incapacitating Tensor in hand.

  Kate didn’t answer the question. She went for him instead. She’d wanted this for so long.

  An explosive kick to Casanova’s right shoulder spun the gun from Nick Ruskin’s outstretched hand. The kick was a beauty, perfectly delivered. Hit him again, then get out of there, I wanted to yell to Kate.

  I couldn’t speak yet. Nothing came out when I tried. I finally managed to get up on one elbow.

  Kate was flowing the way she did when she practiced on the beach. Casanova was a big man, powerful, but Kate’s strength seemed to surge from a rage equal to his. He comes, we tangle, she had said once upon a time.

  She was a blur, a perfect fighter. Even better than I had expected.

  I didn’t see the next punch. I was blocked by his body. I saw Nick Ruskin’s head snap sharply to the side, and his long hair flew out in every direction. His legs wobbled badly. She’d hurt him.

  Kate pivoted and hit him again. A lightning-quick punch caught the left side of his face. I wanted to cheer for her. The punch didn’t stop him, though. Ruskin was relentless, but so was she.

  He lunged at her and Kate hit him yet again. His left cheek appeared to collapse. It was a mismatch all the way.

  She crunched a hard fist into his nose and he went down. He moaned loudly. He was beaten; he wasn’t getting up again. Kate had won.

  My heart was thundering inside my chest. I saw Ruskin reaching for his ankle holster. Casanova wasn’t going to lose to a woman, or anyone else.

  The gun appeared like some clever sleight-of-hand trick. It was a semiautomatic. Smith and Wesson. He was changing the rules of the fight.

  “Nooo!” Kate shouted at him.

  “Hey, asshole,” I said in a hoarse whisper. I was changing the rules, too.

  Casanova turned. He saw me and pivoted the semiautomatic in my direction. I was holding the Glock with both hands. My arms were shaking some but I was able to sit up. I emptied almost a full clip into him. Drive a stake through his heart. That’s what I did.

  Casanova flew back hard against the wall of the house. His body thrashed. His legs didn’t work. Numbness was already spreading through his body. The expression on his face was one of shock. He realized he was human, after all.

  His eyeballs seemed to float upward and disappear into the top of his head. Only the whites of his eyes showed. His legs kicked, kicked again, then stopped. Casanova died almost instantly on the beach-house floor.

  I stood up on rubbery legs. I noticed that I was glazed with sweat. Icy cold. Unpleasant as hell. I struggled over to Kate, and we held on to each other for a long time. We were both trembling with fear, but also triumph. We had won. We had beaten Casanova.

  “I hated him so much,” Kate whispered. “I never even unde
rstood the word before.”

  I telephoned the Cape Hatteras police. Then I called the FBI, and my kids and Nana in Washington. It was finally over.

  Chapter 123

  I SAT on the familiar sun porch of my home sweet home in Washington. I was sipping a cold beer with Sampson.

  It was fall, and the crisp, cool bite of winter was already in the air. Our beloved and despised Redskins were already in football training camp; the Orioles were out of the pennant race again. “And so it goes,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote once upon a time, when I was at Johns Hopkins and susceptible to such easy, breezy sentiments.

  I could see my kids in the living room. They were on the couch together watching Beauty and the Beast for the leventy-leventh time. I didn’t mind. It was a good, strong story and it bore repeating. Tomorrow, it would be Aladdin again, my personal favorite.

  “I saw today that D.C. deploys three times as many police as the national average,” Sampson was telling me.

  “Yeah, but we have twenty times as much crime. We didn’t get to be the capital city of America for nothing,” I said. “Like one of our past mayors said, ‘Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.’”

  Sampson laughed. We both did. Life was finally returning to normal.

  “You all right?” Sampson asked me after a while. He hadn’t asked that since I’d been back from the South, from the Outer Banks, my “summer vacation,” as I called it.

  “I’m just fine. I’m a big macho, kickass detective like you.”

  “You’re a lying sack of shit, Alex. Ten pounds in a one-pound bag.”

  “That, too. Goes without saying.” I admitted to my faults with him.

  “I asked you a serious damn question,” he said. He was giving me a flat, cold stare from behind his shades. Kind of reminded me of Hurricane Carter when he was a fighter. “You miss her, man?”

  “Of course I miss her. Hell, yes. I told you that I’m all right, though. I never had a woman friend like that. You?”