Kiss the Girls

by James Patterson

I pulled out Duke University NCAA champion basketball T-shirts for Jannie and Damon. The trick with those two is they have to get the same thing. Same exact design. Same exact color. That will last for another couple of years, and then neither one of them will be caught dead in anything vaguely associated with the other.

  “Thank you, y’all,” the kids said one after the other. I could feel their love—it was so good to be home. On leave, or otherwise. Safe and sound for a few hours.

  I turned to Nana. “You probably thought I forgot all about you,” I said to her.

  “You will never forget me, Alex.” Nana Mama squinted her brown eyes hard at me.

  “You got that right, old woman.” I grinned.

  “I surely do.” She had to have the last word.

  I took a beautifully wrapped package from my duffel bag of wonders and surprises. Nana unwrapped it, and she found the most handsome handmade sweater that I had ever seen anywhere. It had been created in Hillsborough, North Carolina, by eighty- and ninety-year-old women who still worked for a living.

  For once, Nana Mama had nothing to say. No smart comebacks. I helped her on with the hand-knitted sweater, and she wore it for the rest of the day. She looked proud, happy, and beautiful, and I loved seeing her like that.

  “This is the nicest gift,” she finally said with a tiny crack in her voice, “other than you being home, Alex. I know you’re supposed to be a tough hombre, but I worried about you down there in North Carolina.”

  Nana Mama knew enough not to ask too much about Scootchie yet. She also knew exactly what my silence meant.

  CHAPTER 39

  IN THE late afternoon, thirty or so of my very closest friends and relatives swarmed through the house on Fifth Street. The investigation in North Carolina was the topic of discussion. This was natural even though they knew I would have told them if I had any good news to report. I made up hopeful leads that just weren’t there. It was the best I could do for them.

  Sampson and I finally got together on the back porch after we’d had a little too much imported beer and rare beefsteaks. Sampson needed to listen; I needed some cop talk with my friend and partner.

  I told him everything that had happened so far in North Carolina. He understood the difficulty of the investigation and manhunt. He’d been there with me before, on cases without a single clue.

  “At first, they shut me out completely. Wouldn’t listen to squat from me. Lately, it’s been a little better,” I said to him. “Detectives Ruskin and Sikes dutifully check in and keep me up to date. Ruskin does, anyway. Occasionally, he even tries to be helpful. Kyle Craig is on the case, too. The FBI still won’t tell me what they know.”

  “Any guesses, Alex?” Sampson wanted to know. He was intense as he listened and occasionally made a point.

  “Maybe one of the kidnapped women is connected to somebody important. Maybe the number of victims is a lot higher than they’re letting on. Maybe the killer is connected to somebody with power or influence.”

  “You don’t have to go back down there,” Sampson said after he’d heard all the details. “Sounds like they’ve got enough ‘professionals’ on the case. Don’t start on one of your vendettas, Alex.”

  “It’s already started,” I told him. “I think Casanova’s enjoying the fact that he has us stumped with his perfect crimes. I think he likes it that I’m stumped and frustrated, too. There’s something else, but I can’t figure it out yet. I think he’s in heat now.”

  “Mmm, hmm. Well it sounds to me like you’re in heat, too. Back the hell off him, Alex. Don’t play Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes with this kinky madman.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just shook my head, my very hard head.

  “What if you can’t get him,” Sampson finally said. “What if you can’t solve this case? You have to think about that, Sugar.”

  That was the one possibility I wouldn’t consider.

  CHAPTER 40

  WHEN KATE MCTIERNAN woke up, she knew immediately that something was very wrong, that her impossible situation had gotten even worse.

  She didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, where she was being held. Her vision was blurred. Her pulse was jumpy. All her vital signs seemed off kilter.

  She had gone from extreme feelings of detachment, to depression, to panic, in just the few moments she had been conscious. What had he given her? What drug would produce these symptoms? If she could solve that puzzle, it would prove she was still sane, at least still competent to think things through clearly.

  Maybe he’d given her Klonopin, Kate considered.

  Ironically, Klonopin was usually prescribed as an anti-anxiety medication. But if he started her at a high-enough dosage, say five to ten milligrams, she would experience approximately the same side effects she was feeling now.

  Or maybe he’d used Marinol capsules? They were prescribed for treatment of nausea during chemotherapy. Kate knew Marinol was a real beaut! If he put her on, say, two hundred milligrams a day, she’d be bouncing off the walls. Cottonmouth. Disorientation. Periods of manic depression. A dosage of fifteen hundred to two thousand milligrams would be lethal.

  He had taken away her escape plan with the powerful drugs. She couldn’t fight him like this. Her karate training was useless. Casanova had seen to that.

  “You fucker,” Kate said out loud. She almost never swore. “You motherfucker,” she whispered between clenched teeth.

  She didn’t want to die. She was only thirty-one years old. She was finally trained to be a doctor, a good one, she hoped. Why me? Don’t let this happen. This man, this awful maniac, is going to kill me for no good reason!

  Shivers as cold as icicles ran up and down her spine. She felt as if she were going to throw up, or maybe even pass out. Orthostatic hypotension, she thought. It was the medical term for fainting when you get up fast from a bed or chair.

  She couldn’t defend herself against him! He’d wanted her powerless, and he’d apparently succeeded. More than anything else that finally got to her, and she started to cry. That made her even angrier.

  I don’t want to die.

  I don’t want to die.

  How do I stop it from happening?

  How do I stop Casanova?

  The house was so very quiet again. She didn’t think he was there. She desperately needed to talk to somebody. To the other women prisoners. She had to work herself up to it again.

  He could be hiding in the house. Waiting. Watching her right at this second.

  “Hello out there,” she finally called, surprised at the raspiness of her own voice.

  “This is Kate McTiernan. Please listen. He’s given me a lot of drugs. I think he’s going to kill me soon. He told me that he was. I’m very afraid… I don’t want to die.”

  Kate repeated the same message once more, word for word.

  She repeated it again.

  There was silence; no response from anybody. The other women were afraid, too. They were right to be petrified. Then a voice came floating down from somewhere above her. The voice of an angel.

  Kate’s heart jumped. She remembered the voice. She listened closely to every word from her brave friend.

  “This is Naomi. Maybe we can help each other somehow. Every so often he gets us together, Kate. You’re still on probation. He kept each of us in the downstairs room at first. Please don’t fight him! We can’t talk anymore. It’s too dangerous. You’re not going to die, Kate.”

  Another woman called out. “Please be brave, Kate. Be strong for all of us. Just don’t be too strong.”

  Then the women’s voices stopped, and it became very quiet again, very lonely, in her room.

  The drug, whatever he had pumped into her, was working full blast now. Kate McTiernan felt as if she were going mad.

  CHAPTER 41

  CASANOVA WAS going to kill her, wasn’t he? It was going to happen soon.

  In the terrible silence and loneliness, Kate felt the overwhelming need to pray, to talk to God. God would still hea
r her in this grotesquely evil place, wouldn’t He?

  I’m sorry if I only partially believed in You for the last few years before this. I don’t know if I’m agnostic, but at least I’m honest. I have a pretty good sense of humor. Even when humor is inappropriate.

  I know this isn’t Let’s Make a Deal, but if You can get me out of this one, I’ll be eternally grateful.

  Sorry about that. I keep saying this can’t happen to me, but it’s happening. Please help me. This is not one of Your better ideas….

  She was praying so hard, concentrating, that she didn’t hear him at the door. He was always so quiet, anyway. A phantom. A ghost.

  “You don’t listen a whit, do you? You just don’t learn!” Casanova said to her.

  He held a hospital syringe in one hand. He had on a mauve-colored mask smeared with thick white and blue paint. It was the most gruesome and upsetting mask he’d worn so far. The masks did match his moods, didn’t they?

  Kate tried to say don’t hurt me, but nothing came out. Only a little pff sound escaped from her lips.

  He was going to kill her.

  She could barely stand, or even sit, but she gave him what she thought was a faint smile.

  “Hi… good to see you.” She got that much out. Had she made any sense? she wondered. She didn’t know for sure.

  He said something back to her, something important, but she had no idea what it was. The mysterious words echoed inside her brain… meaningless mumbo jumbo. She tried to listen to what he was saying. She tried so hard….

  “Dr. Kate… talked to the others… broke house rules!

  “Best girl, the best!… Could have been… so smart that you’re stupid!”

  Kate nodded her head as if she understood what he’d just told her, followed his words and logic perfectly. He obviously knew she had talked to the others. Was he saying that she was so smart that she was stupid? That was true enough. You got that right, pal.

  “I wanted… talk,” she managed. Her tongue felt as if it were enclosed in a woolen mitten. What she had wanted to say was Let’s talk. Let’s talk this all out. We need to talk.

  He wasn’t much into talking on this visit, though. He seemed inside of himself. Very distant. The Iceman. Something especially inhuman about him. That hideous mask. Today, his persona was Death.

  He was less than ten feet away, armed with the stun gun and a syringe. Doctor, her brain screamed. He’s a doctor, isn’t he?

  “Don’t want to die. Be good,” she managed to say with great effort. “Get dressed up… high heels….”

  “Should have thought of that earlier, Dr. Kate, and you shouldn’t have broken the rules of my house every chance you got. You were a mistake on my part. I don’t usually make mistakes.”

  She knew that the electric shocks from the gun would immobilize her. She tried to concentrate on what she could do to save herself.

  She was on full automatic pilot now. All learned reflexes. One straight, true kick, she thought. But that seemed impossible right now. She reached deep inside herself, anyway. Total concentration. All of her years of karate practice channeled into one slender chance to save her life.

  One last chance.

  She’d been told a thousand times in the dojo to focus on a single target, and then use the enemy’s force and energy against him. Total focus. As much as she could right now.

  He came toward her and raised the stun gun to his chest. He was moving very purposefully.

  Kate rasped out “kee-ai!” or something like that. The best she could manage right then. She kicked out with all of her remaining strength. She aimed for his kidneys. The blow could incapacitate him. She wanted to kill him.

  Kate missed the kick of her life, but something happened. She did connect solidly with bone and flesh.

  Not the kidney, not even close to her intended target. The kick had slammed into his hip, or his upper thigh. No matter—it had hurt him.

  Casanova yelped in pain. He sounded like a dog clipped by a speeding car. She could tell that he was surprised, too. He took a sudden stutter-step backward.

  Then Jack and the Goddamn Beanstalk Giant toppled over hard. Kate McTiernan wanted to scream for joy.

  She had hurt him.

  Casanova was down.

  CHAPTER 42

  I WAS BACK in the South, back on this ugly homicide and kidnapping investigation. Sampson had been right—this time it was personal. It was also an impossible case, the kind that can go on for years.

  Everything was being done that could be done. There were eleven suspects currently under surveillance in Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh. Among them were assorted deviates, but also university professors, doctors, and even a retired cop in Raleigh. On account of the “perfect” crimes, all area policemen had been checked by the Bureau.

  I didn’t concern myself with these suspects. I was to look where no one else was looking. That was the deal I had made with Kyle Craig and the FBI. I was the designated hitter.

  There were several ongoing cases across the country at that time. I read hundreds of detailed FBI briefs on all of them. A killer of gay men in Austin, Texas. A repeat killer of elderly women in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo, Michigan. Pattern killers in Chicago, North Palm Beach, Long Island, Oakland, and Berkeley.

  I read until my eyes burned and my insides felt even worse.

  There was a nasty case that was grabbing national headlines—the Gentleman Caller in Los Angeles. I pulled up the killer’s “diaries” on Nexus. They had been running in the Los Angeles Times since the beginning of the year.

  I began to read the L.A. killer’s diaries. I short- circuited as I read the next-to-last diary entry from the Times. It took my breath away. I almost didn’t believe what I’d just read on the computer.

  I backed the story up on the screen. I reread the entry one more time, very slowly, word for word.

  It was a tale about a young woman who was being held “captive” by the Gentleman Caller in California.

  The young woman’s name: Naomi C. Her occupation: Second-year law student.

  Description: Black, very attractive. Twenty-two years old.

  Naomi was twenty-two… a second-year law student…. How could a savage, recreational killer in Los Angeles know anything about Naomi Cross?

  CHAPTER 43

  I IMMEDIATELY called the reporter at the paper whose byline appeared on the diary stories. Her name was Beth Lieberman. She answered her own phone at the Los Angeles Times.

  “My name is Alex Cross. I’m a homicide detective involved with the Casanova murders in North Carolina,” I told her. My heart was pounding as I tried to quickly explain my situation.

  “I know exactly who you are, Dr. Cross,” Beth Lieberman cut me off. “You’re writing a book about this. So am I. For obvious reasons, I don’t think I have anything to say to you. My own book proposal is circulating around New York right now.”

  “Writing a book? Who told you that? I’m not writing any book.” My voice level was rising in spite of my better instincts. “I’m investigating a spree of kidnappings and murders in North Carolina. That’s what I’m doing.”

  “The chief of detectives in D.C. says otherwise, Dr. Cross. I called him when I read you were involved with the Casanova case.”

  The Jefe strikes again, I thought. My old boss in D.C., George Pittman, was a complete asshole, who also wasn’t a fan of mine. “I wrote a book about Gary Soneji,” I said. “Past tense. I needed to get it out of my system. Trust me, I’m—”

  “History!”

  Beth Lieberman hung up on me. Bang!

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered into the dead receiver in my hand. I dialed the paper again. This time I got a secretary on the line. “I’m sorry, Ms. Lieberman has left for the day,” she said in a staccato cadence.

  I was a little hot. “She must have left in the ten seconds it just took me to get reconnected. Please put Ms. Lieberman back on the phone. I know she’s there. Put her on now.”

  The secretary
also hung up on me.

  “You’re a son of a bitch, too!” I said to the dead phone line. “Dammit all to hell.”

  I was getting noncooperation in two cities on the same case now. The infuriating part was that I thought I might be on to something. Was there some kind of bizarre connection between Casanova and the killer on the West Coast? How could the Gentleman Caller possibly know about Naomi? Did he know about me as well?

  It was just a hunch so far, but much too good to brush aside. I called the editor in chief at the Los Angeles Times. It was easier to get through to the big man than it was to his reporter. The editor’s assistant was a male. His phone voice was crisp, efficient, but as pleasant as Sunday brunch at the Ritz-Carlton in D.C.

  I told him that I was Dr. Alex Cross, that I’d been involved in the Gary Soneji investigation, and that I had some important information on the Gentleman Caller case. Two-thirds of that was absolutely true.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Hills,” the assistant informed me, still sounding as if he were pleased as punch to hear from me. I was thinking it would be nifty to have an assistant like that.

  It didn’t take long for the editor in chief to come on the phone himself. “Alex Cross,” he said, “Dan Hills. I read about you during the Soneji manhunt. Glad to take your call, especially if you have something for us on this messy affair.”

  As I talked to Dan Hills, I pictured a big man in his late forties. Tough enough, but California-dapper at the same time. Pin-striped shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. Hand-painted tie. Stanford all the way. He asked me to call him Dan. Okay, I could do that. He seemed like a nice guy. Probably had a Pulitzer or two.

  I told him about Naomi, and my involvement with the Casanova case in North Carolina. I also told him about the Naomi entry in the L.A. diaries.

  “I’m sorry about your niece’s disappearance,” Dan Hills said. “I can imagine what you’re going through.” There was a pause over the line. I was afraid that Dan was about to be either politically or socially correct with me. “Beth Lieberman is a good young reporter,” he went on. “She’s tough, but she’s professional. This is a big story for her, and for us as well.”