Kyle massaged his scalp with one hand. He was also shaking his head. “You’ve been given no information, no help whatsoever. But zip-a-dee-doo-dah”—he smiled at me—“you’re still a half-step ahead of our people. I haven’t heard that theory about the ‘rejects.’ It’s pretty good, Alex, especially if he’s a control freak.”
“He could definitely be a control freak, Kyle. There has to be a damn good reason why he got rid of those three women. Now, I thought you were going to tell me some things I didn’t know.”
“Maybe, if you pass a few more simple tests, that is. What else have you figured out?”
I bad-eyed Kyle while I slowly sipped my beer. “You know, I thought you were all right, but you’re just another FBI prick.”
“I was programmed at Quantico,” Kyle said in a passable computer voice. “Have you done a psych profile on Casanova?”
“I’m working on it.” I told him what he already knew. “As much as I can with virtually no information available.”
Kyle beckoned with the cupped fingers of his right hand. He wanted it all, and then maybe he’d share something with me.
“He has to be someone who blends into the community well,” I said. “No one’s even come close to catching him. He’s probably driven by the same obsessive sexual fantasies that he’s had since he was a boy. He could have been the victim of abuse, maybe incest. Maybe he was a Peeping Tom, a rapist, or a date rapist. Now he’s a very fancy collector of extremely beautiful women; he seems to choose only the extraordinary ones. He’s researching them, Kyle. I’m almost sure of it. He’s lonely. Maybe he wants the perfect woman.”
Kyle shook his head back and forth. “You are so goddamn crazy, man. You think like him!”
“Not funny.” I grabbed Kyle’s cheek between my thumb and forefinger. “Now you tell me something I don’t know.”
Kyle pulled away from my cheekhold. “Let me run a deal by you, Alex. This is a good deal, so don’t get cynical on me.”
I raised my hand high in the air for the table waitress. “Check! Separate checks, please.”
“No, no. Wait. This is a good deal, Alex. I hate to say, ‘Trust me,’ but trust me. Just to prove my truthfulness, I simply can’t tell you everything right now. I’ll admit that the case is definitely bigger than anything you’ve seen so far. You’re right about Burns. The deputy director wasn’t down here by accident.”
“I figured Burns wasn’t here to see the azaleas.” I felt like yelling at Kyle inside the quiet hotel bar. “Okay, tell me one thing I don’t know already.”
“I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”
“Damn you, Kyle. You haven’t told me a goddamn thing.” I raised my voice. “What’s the deal you have for me?”
He put up a hand. He wanted me calm for this. “Listen. As you know, or suspect, this is already a four-star, multijurisdictional nightmare, and it hasn’t really heated up yet. Believe me on that. Nobody’s getting anything done, Alex. Here’s what I’d like you to consider.”
My eyes rolled back. “I’m glad I’m sitting down for this,” I said.
“This is an excellent offer for a man in your position to consider. Since you’re already outside the multijurisdictional mess, and therefore immune to it, why don’t you keep it that way. Stay on the outside, and work directly with me.”
“Work with the Federal Bureau?” I choked on my beer. “Collaborate with the Feebies?”
“I can give you access to all the information we get, as soon as we get it. I’ll give you everything you need in terms of resources and information and all of our current data.”
“And you don’t have to share anything I come up with? Not even with the local or state police?” I said.
Kyle had become his intense self again. “Look, Alex, this investigation is large and expensive, but it’s getting nowhere. Officers are falling over one another while women all over the South, including your niece, are disappearing right under our noses.”
“I understand the problem, Kyle. Let me think about your solution. Give me a little space on this one.”
Kyle and I talked some more about his offer, and I was able to pin him down on a few specifics. Basically I was sold, though. Working with Kyle would give me access to a first-rate support team, and I’d have clout whenever I needed it. I wouldn’t be alone anymore. We ordered burgers and more beers, and continued to talk and put the final touches on my deal with the Devil. For the first time since I’d come South, I was feeling a little hopeful.
“I do have something else to share with you,” I finally told him. “He dropped me a note last night. It was a nice note, thoughtful, welcoming me to the area.”
“We know.” Kyle grinned like the grown-up Andy Hardy that he is. “It was a postcard, actually. It showed an odalisque, a love slave from a harem.”
CHAPTER 32
BY THE time I got back to my room it was a little late, but I called Nana and the kids, anyway. I always call home when I’m away, twice every day, morning and night. I hadn’t missed yet, and didn’t plan to start that night.
“Are you listening to Nana and being a good girl for a change?” I asked Jannie when she came on the phone.
“I’m always a good girl!” Jannie squealed with little-girl glee. She loves talking to me. I feel the same way about her. Amazing, we were still madly in love after five years together.
I closed my eyes and visualized my girl. I could just see her puffing out her little chest, making her face look defiant, but smiling pointy crooked teeth at the same time. Once, Naomi had been a sweet little girl like that. I remembered everything about those times. I chased away the thought, the vivid portrait of Scootchie.
“Well, how about your big brother? Damon says he’s being especially good, too. He says Nana’s called you ‘the holy terror’ today. Is that so?”
“Unh-uh, Daddy. That’s what Nana called him. Damon’s the holy terror in this house. I’m Nana’s angel all the time. I’m Nana Mama’s good girl angel. You can axt her.”
“Uh-huh. That’s good to hear,” I told my little spin-doctor. “Did you pull Damon’s hair just a tiny bit at Roy Rogers junk-food restaurant today?”
“Not junk food, pally-wally! He pulled my hair first. Damon almost pulled my hair out, like I was Baby Clare without her hair now.”
Baby Clare had been Jannie’s main doll since she was two years old. The doll was “her baby,” absolutely sacred to Jannie. Sacred to all of us. Once we had left Baby Clare at Williamsburg during a day trip, and we had to drive all the way back. Magically, Clare was waiting for us at the front-gate office, having a nice chat with the security guard.
“I couldn’t pull Damon’s hair, anyway. He’s almost bald, Daddy. Nana got him his summer haircut. Wait’ll you see my bald brother. He’s a pool ball!”
I could hear her laughing. I could see Jannie laughing. In the background, Damon wanted the phone back. He wanted his rebuttal about the state of his haircut.
After I finished with the kids, I talked to Nana.
“How are you holding up, Alex?” She went right to the point, as she always does. She would have made an outstanding detective, or anything else she wanted to be. “Alex, I asked how you’re doing?”
“I’m doing just fine and dandy. Love my work,” I told her. “How are you, old woman?”
“Never mind that. I would watch these children in my sleep. You don’t sound good to me. You’re not sleeping, and you haven’t made a lot of progress, have you?”
Man, she was tough when she wanted to be. “It’s not going as well as I would have hoped,” I told her. “Something good might have just happened tonight.”
“I know,” Nana said, “that’s why you’re calling up so late. But you can’t share the good news with your grandmother. You’re afraid I might call the Washington Post.”
We’d had this discussion before on cases I was working on. She always wants inside information, and I can’t give it up.
“I lov
e you,” I finally said to her. “That’s the best I can do right now.”
“And I love you, Alex Cross. That’s the best I can do.”
She had to have the final word.
After I finished with Nana and the kids, I lay in the dark on the unmade, unwelcoming hotel bed. I didn’t want maids or anyone else in the room, but the Do Not Disturb tag hadn’t deterred the FBI.
A bottle of beer sat upright on my chest. I slowed my breathing, let the bottle balance there. I’ve never liked hotel rooms, not even on a vacation.
I started thinking about Naomi again. When she was a little girl like Jannie, she used to ride up on my shoulders, so she could see “far, far away in the Big People’s World.” I remembered that Naomi thought Christmas was “Kissmass,” so she would kiss everybody during the holidays.
Finally, I let my mind settle on the monster who had taken Scootchie away from us. The monster was winning so far. He seemed invincible, uncatchable; he didn’t make any mistakes, and didn’t leave any clues. He was very sure of himself…. he even left me a cute little postcard for sport. What should that tell me?
He might have read my book about Gary Soneji, I thought. He just might have read my book. Had he taken Naomi to challenge me? Maybe to prove how good he was.
I didn’t like that thought very much.
CHAPTER 33
I’M ALIVE, but I’m in hell!
Kate McTiernan tucked her legs close against her chest and shivered. She was certain that she’d been drugged. Severe tremors, accompanied by gnawing nausea, swept over her in powerful waves that would not stop no matter what she tried.
She didn’t know how long she had been asleep on the cold floor, or what time it was now. Was he watching her? Was there a peephole hidden in the walls? Kate could almost feel his eyes crawling all over her.
She remembered every gruesome and hideous detail of the rape. The feel of it was so vivid. The thought of being touched by him was repulsive, and the most horrifying images snapped at her.
Anger, guilt, violation all fused in her mind. Adrenaline surged powerfully through her body. “Hail Mary, full of grace… the Lord is with thee.” She thought she had forgotten how to pray. She hoped that God hadn’t forgotten her.
Kate’s head was spinning. He was definitely trying to break her will, break her resistance. That was his plan, wasn’t it?
She had to think, make herself think. Everything in the room was out of focus. The drugs! Kate tried to figure what he might be using. What drug? Which one?…
Perhaps it was Forane, a strong muscle relaxant that was used prior to anesthesia. It came in a one-hundred-milliliter bottle. It could be sprayed directly into a victim’s face, or poured over a cloth and held to someone’s face. She tried to remember the drug’s aftereffects. Shivering and nausea. Dry throat. Decrease in intellectual functioning for a day or two. She had those symptoms! All of them!
He’s a doctor! The thought struck her like a low punch. It made perfect sense to her. Who else would have access to a drug like Forane?
At the dojo in Chapel Hill, a discipline was taught to help students control their emotions. You had to sit in front of a blank dojo wall, and remain sitting no matter how much you wanted, or thought you needed, to move.
Kate’s body was drenched with perspiration, but she was determined. She would never let him break her will. She could be unbelievably strong when she needed to be. That was how she’d gotten through medical school on no money and against all odds.
She sat in a lotus position for more than an hour in “her prison room.” She breathed quietly and concentrated on clearing her mind of the pain, the nausea, and the rape. She focused on what she had to do next.
One simple concept.
Escape.
CHAPTER 34
KATE ROSE slowly to her feet after the hour of meditation. She was still woozy, but she felt a little better, more in control. She decided to search for his peephole. It had to be there, hidden somewhere in the natural wood walls.
The bedroom was exactly twelve by fifteen. She’d measured it several times. In a tiny alcove the size of a closet, there was the equivalent of an outhouse.
Kate carefully looked for even the tiniest slit in the wall, but she saw nothing. The toilet in the alcove seemed to empty directly into the ground. There was no plumbing, at least not in this part of the building. Where am I being kept? Where am I?
Her eyes watered from the acrid odor as she knelt over the black wooden seat and squinted into the dark hole. She had learned to put up with the overpowering smell, and only a single dry heave came this time.
The opening looked as if it dropped about ten or twelve feet. Dropped to what? Kate wondered.
It looked very narrow, and she didn’t think she could squeeze through it, not even if she took off all her clothes. Maybe she could, though. Never say never.
She heard his voice directly behind her. Her heart dropped and she felt faint.
There he was! No shirt again. Rippling muscles everywhere, but especially around his stomach and thighs. He was wearing another mask. An angry-looking one. Crimson and bone-white swatches against a shiny black background. Was he angry today? Were the masks like mood rings for him?
“Not one of your better ideas, Katie. It’s been tried by someone slimmer than you are,” he said in a singsongy voice. “I won’t go down there to help you back up. Very shitty way to die. Think it through.”
Kate struggled to her feet and began to retch. She did her best to do it convincingly. “I’m sick. I thought I was going to throw up,” she said to Casanova.
“I definitely believe you do feel sick,” he said. “That will pass. But it isn’t the real reason you were kneeling over the toilet. Tell the truth, and shame the devil.”
“What do you want from me?” Kate asked. He sounded different today… maybe the drugs were distorting her hearing. She studied the mask. It seemed to turn him into another person. Another kind of creep. Was he a split personality?
“I want to be in love. I want to make love to you again. I want you to get beautiful for me. Maybe one of the lovely dresses from Neiman Marcus. Nylons and high heels.”
Kate was terrified and disgusted, but trying not to show it. She had to do something, say something, that would keep him away from her for now.
“I’m not in the mood, honey,” Kate shot back an answer. “I don’t feel up to getting dressed.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm completely out of her voice. “I have a headache. What kind of day is it, anyway? I haven’t been outside yet.”
He laughed. An almost-normal laugh; a nice-enough laugh from behind his nasty mask. “Sunny Carolina blue skies, Kate. Temperature in the high seventies. One of the ten best days of the year.”
With one hand, he suddenly yanked her to her feet. He pulled her arm hard—as if he were trying to tear it from its socket. Kate yelled as violent pain shot up her arm. It exploded in the soft space, the hollow behind her eyes.
In a fury, in panic, she reached out and pulled down on the mask
“Stupid! Stupid!” he yelled into her face. “And you’re not a stupid woman!”
Kate saw the stun gun in his hand and realized she had made a terrible mistake. He leveled it at her chest and shot her.
She tried to keep standing, willed herself to stay up, but her body didn’t work anymore, and she slumped to the floor.
He was going crazy now. She stared at him in muted horror as he raised his boot and began to kick out at her. A tooth spun in slow motion, spun over and over on its trail across the wooden floor.
The revolving tooth fascinated her. It took her a moment to realize that it was her tooth.
She could taste blood, and feel her lips swelling.
There was a hollow ringing in Kate’s ears, and she knew she was slipping into unconsciousness. She clung to what she had seen behind the mask.
Casanova knew she had seen a part of his face.
A smooth pink cheek; no beard or mustache visible.<
br />
His left eye—blue.
CHAPTER 35
NAOMI CROSS was trembling as she pressed herself hard against the bolted door that sealed off her room. Somewhere in the house of horror a woman was screaming.
The sound was muffled by the walls, by the soundproofing he’d built into the house, but it was still terrifying. Naomi realized that she was biting down on her hand. Hard. She felt sure he was killing someone. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The screams stopped.
Naomi pressed harder against the door, straining to hear some sound.
“Oh, no, please,” she whispered, “don’t let her be dead.”
Naomi listened to the electric silence for a long time. Finally, she moved away from the door. There was nothing she could do for the poor woman. Nothing anyone could do.
Naomi knew she had to be very good right now. If she broke any of his rules, he would beat her. She couldn’t let that happen.
He seemed to know everything about her. What clothes she liked to wear, all her underwear sizes, her favorite colors, even the shades she preferred. He knew about Alex, and Seth Samuel, and even about her friend Mary Ellen Klouk. “The tall, pretty blond thing,” he called her. Thing.
Casanova was very kinky; he was into play-acting and fantasy psychodramas. He loved to talk to her about pornographic acts: sex with prepubescent girls and animals; nightmarish sadism; masochism; gynecocracy; enema torture. He talked about everything so casually. At times he would even be poetic, in a sick way. He quoted from Jean Genet, John Rechy, Durrell, de Sade. He was well read, probably well educated.
“You’re smart enough to understand me when I talk,” he had told Naomi on one of his visits. “That’s why I picked you, sweet darling.”
Naomi was startled by the sound of more screaming. She ran to the door and placed her cheek against the cool thick wood. Was it the same woman, or was he killing someone else? she wondered.