Patterson, James - Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

'We love you,' Michael whispered. 'We know you can hear us. You're still here in your body, aren't you. We know, Diana. We know exactly how you feel. We're the undead.'

Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Nineteen

I continued to be impressed with the tremendous discipline and hard work of Jamilla Hughes. What drove her? Something buried in her past? Something more obvious in the present? The fact that she was one of two women homicide inspectors in the San Francisco Police Department? Maybe all of the above? Jamilla had already told me that she hadn't taken a day of comp time in almost two years. That sounded kind of familiar.

A couple of times during the next day at the Hall of Justice I mentioned her incredible work ethic, but she shrugged it off. She was well respected by the other homicide inspectors. She was a regular person. No false airs. No bullshit about her. I found out that she had a nickname. It suited her - Jam.

I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon finding out what I could about tigers. Area zoos and shelters were being canvassed in an attempt to locate every single tiger in California. The murderous cat was our best lead so far.

I was keeping my own list of facts, different things that struck me.

Someone had been able to command and control the tiger before and after it had attacked and bitten Davis O'Hara in Golden Gate Park. An animal trainer? A vet?

The jaw of a tiger was so strong that it could crush bone, and then pulverize it. And yet, someone had been able to call the tiger off its prey.

All tiger species were considered endangered. Their existence was being challenged by both loss of habitat and poaching. Could the killers also be environmentalists ?

Tigers were being poached for their suspected healing powers. Almost every part of the cat was considered valuable, and in some cases, sacred.

Tigers had magical significance in some cultures, especially in parts of Asia. Could that be important to the case?

I had lost track of the time, and when I looked up from my note-taking it was already getting dark outside. Jamilla was striding down the corridor in my direction.

She had on a long black leather jacket, and looked ready to leave. She'd put on lipstick. Maybe she had a date. She looked terrific. 'Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,' she recited a line from Blake's poem.

I answered with the only other line I could remember. 'Did He who made the Lamb make thee?'

She looked pensive, then she smiled. 'What a team. The poet detectives. Let's get a beer.'

'I'm pretty beat and I have a few more files to check. I think I'm still jet-lagged.'Even as I was saying the words, I wasn't sure why the hell I was saying them.

She put up her hand.'All right already. You could have just said no, you're not my type. Jeez, man. I'll see you in the morning. But thanks for all your help. I mean that.' I saw her smile as she turned, then walked away, down the long hall to the elevators. But then I saw her shake her head.

After she was gone, I sat at the desk overlooking the streets of San Francisco. I sighed, and then I shook my head. I could feel a familiar weariness settling in. I was alone again and I had no one to blame. Why had I turned Jamilla down for a couple of beers? I liked her company. I didn't have any other plans; and I wasn't that jet-lagged.

But I thought I knew the reason. It wasn't too complicated. I had gotten close to my last two partners on homicide cases. Both Patsy and Betsey were women I liked. Both had died.

The Mastermind was still out there.

Could he be in San Francisco right now?

Was Jamilla Hughes safe in her own city?

Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Twenty

The ringing of the telephone in my hotel room woke me early the next morning. I was groggy, still half-asleep when I picked up.

It was Jamilla, and she sounded a little breathless. 'I got a call late last night from my friend Tim at The Examiner,' she told me.'He's got a lead for us. This could be good stuff.' She quickly rilled me in on the sketchy details of an attempted murder, an old case. We had a witness this time. She and I were going on the road again. She didn't ask if I wanted to go - it was apparently a done deal.

'I'll pick you up in half an hour, forty minutes at the latest. We're going to LA. Wear black. Maybe you'll get discovered.'

United flies an hourly shuttle between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We just made the nine o'clock and were in LA an hour or so later. We didn't stop talking for the entire trip. We rented a car at Budget and headed to Brent-wood. I was as pumped up about the new lead as she was. The FBI was also in on the game in LA.

On the way to Brentwood, she checked in with her pal Tim at The Examiner. I wondered if Tim was a boyfriend. 'You find out any more for us?' she asked. She listened, then repeated what she heard for me. Part of it we already knew.

'Two men attacked the woman we're going to see. She managed to get away from them. Lucky girl, incredibly lucky. They bit her severely. Chest, neck, stomach, face. She thought the perps were in their mid-forties to mid-fifties. The attack occurred over a year ago, Alex. It was a big story in the supermarket tabloids.'

I didn't say anything, just listened to her, took it all in. This case was so strange. I hadn't seen anything quite like it.

'They were going to hang her from a tree. There was no mention of a tiger in any of the articles my friend was able to dig up. A detective from the LAPD is meeting us at the station house. I'm sure we'll hear more details from him. He was the lead detective on the case.'

She looked over at me. She had something here, something good. 'Here's the kicker, Alex. According to my source, the woman believes her attackers were vampires.'

Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Twenty-One

We met with Gloria dos Santos at the police station in the Brentwood section of LA. It was a one-story concrete building, about as non-descript as a post office. Detective Peter Kim joined us in a small interview room, which was about six by five feet, soundproof, with padded walls. Kim was slender, around six feet, in his late twenties. He dressed well, and seemed more like an up-and- coming Los Angeles business executive than a policeman to me.

Gloria dos Santos obviously knew Kim, and they didn't seem too fond of each other. She called him'Detective Fuhrman', and she used the name over and over, until Kim told her to'can it'or he would lock her the hell up.

dos Santos wore a short black dress, high black boots, leather wristbands. There were about a dozen earrings in strategic locations on her body. Her frizzy black hair was piled high, but some also cascaded down to her shoulders. She was only an inch or two over five feet and had a hard face. Her lashes were thick with mascara and she used purple eye shadow. She looked to be in good physical shape - like all the other victims so far.

She stared at Kirn, then at me, and finally at Jamilla Hughes. She shook her head and smirked. She didn't like us, which was fine - I didn't much like her either.

She sneered. 'Can I smoke in this rat-trap? I'm going to smoke, like it or not. If you don't like it, then I'm going the hell home.'

'So smoke,' Kim said. 'But you're not going home under any fucking circumstances.' He took out some David's ranch-style seeds and started to eat them. Kim was a strange boy himself.

dos Santos lit up a Camel and blew out a thick stream of smoke in Kim's face.

'Detective Fuhrman knows everything that I know. Why don't you just get it all from him? He's brilliant, yknow. Just ask him about it. Graduated with some cumma honors from UCLA.'