Patterson, James - Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

263

Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Ninety-Seven

< T amilla, are you awake?'! said in a low, tense voice. I felt a shudder | run through me. It couldn't get any worse than this. I still had my eye on Kyle. He was definitely watching Jamilla's building. Goddamn him to hell. 'I am now. No, I was awake. Where are you, Alex? Don't tell me you're still outside? Please don't tell me that. Alex, what the hell is going on?' 'Listen to me. The Mastermind is outside your place. I can see him. I think he'll try to get inside soon. I want to come up there and I don't want him to see me. Is there a back way?' Then I told her who the killer was. She exploded with anger, most of it directed at Kyle.'I knew there was something seriously wrong with him - but not this wrong. We have to stop that sonofabitch. I don't care how smart he's supposed to be.' She told me where to look for a service entrance and then a fire escape that would take me to her floor. I hurried around in the shadows. I didn't think that Kyle had seen me. I hoped not. But then - he was the Mastermind. He was smart, as clever as anyone I'd ever worked against. He knew about surveillance, probably a lot more than I did. He didn't make mistakes, at least not until now. I found the back entrance of her building easily, and I hurried up the stairs. I tried not to make a sound. I had no way of knowing where Kyle was right now.

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When I got to her apartment the door was open. My stomach dropped, and I felt sick. 'Jamilla?' She immediately peeked out through the doorway. 'Come inside. I'm fine, Alex. We've got him now, not the other way around.' I hurried inside the apartment, and we kept all the lights off. I could still see most of the living room and kitchen, the doorway to a small terrace. A bay window with bench seating. Her home. The place where he wanted to violate her. I snuck a look outside -1 didn't see Kyle on the street. He was on the move. Jamilla didn't look frightened, just perplexed, and angry. She had her service revolver out. She was ready for whatever might happen. I don't think that I had fully taken in what had just happened. Everything felt unreal; my vision was tunneled. My nerves were shredded and raw. Kyle Craig had been my friend. We had worked a half-dozen cases together. 'Why is he outside, Alex?'Jamilla finally asked.'Why is he coming after me? I don't understand that asshole. What did I do to him?' I stared into her eyes, hesitated a second or two, then finally spoke. 'He's not really here to get you, at least I don't think so. It's about me - it's about Kyle and me. I've become part of his fantasy, the story he tells himself every day. He's proving how much better than me he is. He has to prove that he really is the Mastermind.'

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Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Ninety-Eight

The Mastermind had already made his next move, though he knew it was only a half-step in the greater scheme of things. He had pulled back. He was six blocks away from Jamilla Hughes's apartment, standing on a San Francisco hill past the Jackson Playground. It allowed him to watch her building, the bay windows, the small terrace on one side. He enjoyed this - the intractable imposition of his will, his ego on the world. It had been this way for more than a dozen years. No one had come close to capturing him, or even suspecting who he really was. Cross was inside now, and that made everything either very hard or perhaps, easier. There was another decision to be made soon. Should he risk everything at this point? Change everything? For years, he had been living a complicated double life. He'd done whatever he wanted, wherever, whenever. He had enjoyed his freedom, and how many others had even tasted that forbidden fruit? He had been the cop and the criminal. But maybe it was time for a change? Maybe his life had become too safe, too predictable. Kyle loved the hunt - and in that way he was like Casanova and the Gentleman Caller, two very talented killers he had known well, one working in North Carolina, the other in southern California. He found that he agreed with Casanova that men needed to be hunters by nature. And so he hunted - men and women - and found he enjoyed killing both sexes; but he went an important step farther.

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He hunted their killers as well. He eliminated his competition. He beat them at their own game. He had known Casanova years before the meticulous and very nasty killer was caught by himself and Dr Cross. He had played murder games with Casanova and with the Gentleman Caller. Kiss the girls and make them cry. Kyle had even fallen in love with one of the victims - young Kate McTieman. He still had a soft spot for dear, sweet Kate. He had been so many things to so many people, played so many roles, and he had only just begun. He had been the Mastermind - but he'd also helped capture the man believed to be the Mastermind. How could you beat that for puzzle-making and puzzle-solving. He'd been an elusive killer in Baltimore; in Cincinnati; in Roanoke, Virginia; in Philadelphia, until he tired of those cities and the minor roles he played in them. He was husband to Louise, father to Bradley and Virginia. He was on the fast track inside the FBI, with one significant problem: he believed they were finally on to him. He was sure of it - though God, they were such obvious, plodding fools. So many exciting roles, so many poses that sometimes Kyle Craig wondered who he actually was. Now the game with Alex Cross had to end. He'd felt the need to taunt and torture Cross, to prove he was the homicide detective's master. And then he had gone over the edge a little himself. It happened when he killed Betsey Cavalierre, one of his own agents. Actually, the killing couldn't be helped. Cavalierre had become suspicious of him while she was chasing the Mastermind with Cross. She had to go, had to die. And so did Cross. Cross was loyal to his friends, trusting, and it had become his greatest flaw, his singular weakness. But Cross would have caught on to him, even if he hadn't yet. And, of course, Cross's instincts had brought him here to watch over Inspector Hughes. Cross needed to be a good man, an ethical cop, a protector. What a waste of intellect. What a pity that Cross couldn't have been an even better adversary. Alex had seen him on the street - so what came next? Whatever it

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was, it certainly had his adrenaline flowing. This was so good. Kyle knew he had a little time to figure it out. What to do? They were inside Hughes's apartment. He had the edge on them. He wouldn't lose his edge, his advantage. He made his next move.

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Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Ninety-Nine

t'VT'ou know, I never liked him, Alex/Jamilla said as we waited in I the semidarkness of her apartment/He seemed so cold, almost mechanical to me. And I'm telling you, he doesn't like women. I felt it instantly.' 'Well, unfortunately, I did like Kyle. He's clever as hell. He even rigged calls from the Mastermind when he and I were together. Now I need to figure out who he really is. There's no psychosis involved, at least I don't think so. He's organized. He can obviously work out elaborate plans. For once, I wish he would call.' 'Be careful what you wish for,'Jamilla said. She and I were sitting beside a shelving unit on the hardwood floor in her living room. There was also a workout bench; nothing too fancy, an older model. Five- and ten-pound free weights were scattered on the floor. So were magazines and sections of the Chronicle. I hoped that Kyle couldn't see into the apartment, that he didn't have binoculars. Or possibly a nightscope attached to a rifle. I knew he could shoot from the way he'd taken down Michael Alexander. He was good at a lot of things. Just in case, Jamilla and I tried to keep away from the windows. 'It makes me dizzy to think about what he's done so far. I wonder if we'll ever know the extent of it?' she asked. 'If we catch him, he'll want to talk. Kyle will want to show off what he's done. If he comes after us tonight, maybe we'll find everything out.'