Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

by Patterson, James

  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.

  Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

  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 I7 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 of 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 an dover 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.

  His left eye blue.

  Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

  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 hitting someone else? she wondered.

  “Somebody please help me!” she heard. The woman was screaming at the top of her voice. She was breaking the house rules.

  “Somebody help! I'm being held captive in here. Somebody help ... my name is Kate ... Kate Mctiernan. Somebody help!” Naomi shut her eyes. This was so bad. The woman had to stop. But over an dover again the calls for help were repeated. That meant Casanova wasn't in the house. He must have gone out.

  “Somebody please help me. My name is Kate Mctiernan. I'm a doctor from the University of North Carolina hospital.” The screams continued ... ten times, twenty times. Not in panic, Naomi began to realize. In rage! He couldn't be in the house. He wouldn't let her go on this long.

  Naomi finally summoned up her courage and shouted as loud as she could.

  “Stop it! You must stop calling for help. He'll kill you! Shut up! That's all I'm going to say!”

  There was silence
... blessed silence, finally. Naomi thought she could hear the tension all around her. She certainly felt it.

  Kate Mctiernan didn't stop for long. “What's your name? How long have you been here? Please, talk to me ... hey, I'm talking to you!” she shouted.

  Naomi wouldn't answer her. What was wrong with the woman? Had she lost it after the last beating?

  Kate Mctiernan called out again. “Listen, we can help each other. I'm sure we can. Do you know where you're being kept?” The woman was definitely brave ... but she was being foolish, too. Her voice was strong, but it was beginning to sound hoarse. Kate.

  “Please talk to me. He isn't here now, or he would have come with his stun gun. You know I'm right! He won't know if you talk to me. Please ... I have to hear your voice again.” "Please. For two minutes. That's all. I promise you. Two minutes.

  Please. Just one minute."

  Naomi still refused to answer her. He could have come back by now. He might be in the house, listening to them. Even watching them through the walls.

  Kate Mctiernan was back on the air. “All right, thirty seconds. Then we'll stop. Okay? I promise I'll stop ... otherwise, I'll keep this up until he does come back ... ” Oh, God, please, stop talking, a voice inside Naomi was screaming. Stop it, right now.

  “He'll kill me,” shouted Kate. “But he's going to do that, anyway! I saw part of his face. Where are you from? How long have you been here?” Naomi felt as if she were suffocating. She couldn't breathe, but she stayed at the door and listened to every word the woman had to say. She wanted to talk to her so badly.

  “He may have used a drug called Forane. Hospitals use it. He might be a doctor. Please. What do we have to fear except torture and death?” Naomi smiled. Kate Mctiernan had guts, and also a sense of humor. Just hearing another voice was so unbelievably good.

  The words tumbled out of Naomi's mouth, almost against her will. “My name is Naomi Cross. I've been here for eight days, I think. He hides behind the walls. He watches all the time. I don't think he ever sleeps. He raped me,” she said in a clear voice. It was the first time she had said the words out loud. He raped me.

  Kate answered right back. “He raped me, too, Naomi. I know how you feel, terribly bad ... dirty all over. It's so good to hear your voice, Naomi. I don't feel so alone anymore.” “Me, too, Kate. Now please shut up.” Downstairs in her room, Kate Mctiernan felt so tired now. Tired, but hopeful. She was slumped against one of the walls when she heard the voices around her.

  “Maria Jane Capaldi. I think I've been here about a month.” “My name is Kristen Miles. Hello.” “Melissa Stanfield. I'm a student nurse. I've been here nine weeks.” “Christa Akers, North Carolina State. Two months in hell.” There were at least six of them.

  Part Two Hide and Seek

  Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

  CHAPTER 36.

  A TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Los Angeles Times reporter named Beth Lieberman stared at the tiny, blurred green letters on her computer terminal. She watched with tired eyes as one of the biggest stories at the Times in years continued to unfold. This was definitely the most important story of her career, but she almost didn't care anymore.

  “This is so crazy and sick ... feet. Jesus Christ,” Beth Lieberman groaned softly under her breath. “Feet.” The sixth “diary” installment sent to her by the Gentleman Caller had arrived at her West Los Angeles apartment early that morning. As had been the case with the previous diary entries, the killer supplied the precise location of a murdered woman's body before starting into his obsessive, pyschopathic message for her.

  Beth Lieberman had immediately called the FBI from her home, and then she drove quickly to the offices of the Times on South Spring Street.

  By the time she arrived, the Federal Bureau had verified the latest murder.

  The Gentleman had left his signature: fresh flowers.

  The body of a fourteen-year-old Japanese girl had been found in Pasadena. As was the case with the five other women, Sunny Ozawa had disappeared without a trace two nights ago. It was as if she'd been sucked up into the damp, muggy smog.

  To date, Sunny Ozawa was the Gentleman's youngest reported victim. He'd arranged pink and white peonies on her lower torso. Flowers, of course, remind me of a woman's labia, he'd written in one of the diary entries. The isomorphism is obvious, no?

  At quarter to seven in the morning, the Times offices were deserted and eerie. Nobody should be up this early except head-bangers who haven't been to bed yet, Lieberman thought. The low hum from the central air conditioning, mingling with the faint roar of traffic outside, was annoying to her.

  “Why feet?” the reporter muttered.

  She sat before her computer, almost comatose, and wished she had never written an article about mail-order pornography in California. That was how the Gentleman claimed he had “discovered” her; how he had chosen her to be his “liaison with the other citizens of the City of Angels.” He proclaimed that they were on the same “wavelength.” Following endless administrative meetings at the highest levels, the Los Angezes Times had decided to publish the killer's diary entries.

  There was no doubt that they had actually been written by the Gentleman Caller.

  He knew where the murder victims' bodies were before the police did. He also threatened “special bonus kills” if his diary wasn't published for everyone in Los Angeles to read over breakfast. “I am the latest, and I'm by far the greatest,” the Gentleman had written in one diary entry.

  Who could argue with that? Beth wondered. Richard Ramirez? Caryl Chessman? Charles Manson?

  Beth Lieberman's job right now was to be his contact. She also got to make the first edit of the Gentleman's words. There was no way the intense, graphic diary entries could run intact. They were filled with obscene pornography and the most brutally violent descriptions of the murders he had committed.

  Lieberman could almost hear the madman's voice as she typed the latest entry on her word processor. The Gentleman Caller was speaking to her again, or through her: Let me tell you about Sunny, as much as I know about Sunny, anyway.

  Listen to me, dear reader. Be there with me. She had small, delicate, clever feet. That's what I remember best; that's what I will always remember about my beautiful Sunny night.

  Beth Lieberman had to shut her eyes. She didn't want to listen to this shit. One thing was certain: the Gentleman Caller had definitely given Beth Lieberman her first break at the Times. Her byline appeared on each of the widely read frontpage features. The murderer had made her a star, too.

  Listen to me. Be there with me.

  Think about fetishism, and all its amazing possibilities to liberate the psyche. Don't be a snob. Open up your mind. Open your mind right now! Fetishism holds a fascinating array of diverse pleasures that you may be missing out on.

  Let us not become too sentimental about “young” Sunny. Sunny Ozawa was into the games of the night. She told me that, in confidence of course. I had picked her up at the Monkey Bar. We'd gone to my place, my hideaway, where we began to experiment, to play the night away.

  She asked me if I'd ever done it with a Japanese woman before. I told her that I hadn't, but I'd always wanted to. Sunny told me that I was “quite the gentleman.” I was honored.

  This night, it seemed to me that nothing was so libertine as to focus on a woman's feet, to caress them as I made love to Sunny. I'm talking about sun browned feet covered in luxurious nylon and semi pricey high-heeled pumps from Saks. I'm talking about clever little feet.

  Very sophisticated communicators.

  Listen. To really appreciate the very erotic mime show of a beautiful woman's feet, the woman should be on her back while the man stands.

  That's how it was with Sunny and me earlier tonight.

  I lifted up her slender legs and watched closely where they joined together in such a way that the vulva puckered from her buttocks. I kissed the top of her stockings repeatedly. I fixated on her well-formed ankle, the lovely lines leading to he
r shiny black pump.

  I concentrated all my attention on that flirtatious pump as our fevered action set her foot into rapid motion. Her little feet were talking to me now. An absolutely manic excitement rose in my chest. It felt as if there were live birds tweeting and twittering in there.

  Beth Lieberman stopped typing and closed her eyes again. Fight! She had to stop the images that were flashing out at her. He had murdered the young girl that he was talking about so blithely.

  Soon the FBI and the Los Angeles police would come storming into the relatively sedate offices of the Times. They would ask the usual battery of questions. They had no answers yet themselves. No significant leads so far. They said that the Gentleman committed “perfect crimes.” The FBI agents would want to talk for hours about the gruesome details of the murder scene. The feet! The Gentleman had cut off Sunny Ozawa's feet with some kind of razor-sharp knife. Both her feet were missing from the crime scene in Pasadena.

  Brutality was his trademark, but that was the only consistent pattern so far. He had mutilated genitalia in the past. He had sodomized one victim, then cauterized her. He had cut open a woman investment banker's chest and removed her heart. Was he experimenting? He was no gentleman once he selected his victim. He was ajekyll and Hyde in the 1990s.

  Beth Lieberman finally opened her eyes and saw a tall, slender man standing very close to her in the newsroom. She sighed loudly and she held back a frown.

  It was Kyle Craig, the special investigator from the FBI.

  Kyle Craig knew something that she desperately needed to know, but he wouldn't tell her what. He knew why the deputy director of the FBI had flown to Los Angeles the previous week. He knew secrets that she needed to know.

  “Hello, Ms. Lieberman. What do you have for me?” he asked.

  Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls