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.
C
ASANOVA 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 hear 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 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.
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?
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.
Pinstriped 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.”
“Listen,” I cut off Hills—I had to. “Naomi wrote me a letter almost every week that she was in school. I saved those letters,
all of them. I helped to bring her up. We’re close.
That
means a lot to me.”
“I hear you. I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though.”
“No promises, Dan.”
Good to his word, Dan Hills called me back at the FBI offices within the hour. “Well, we had a meeting of the minds out here,”
he told me. “I talked to Beth. As you can imagine, this puts both of us in a tough spot.”
“I understand what you’re telling me,” I said. I was cushioning myself for a soft blow, but I got something else.
“There are mentions of Casanova in the unedited versions of the diaries that the Gentleman sent her. It sounds like the two
of them
could be
talking, even sharing exploits. Almost as if they’re friends. It seems like they’re communicating for some reason.”
Bingo!