Patterson, James - Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

The TV cameras at the scene moved in on Shaw, who was U.S. Army from Fort Bragg. An attractive woman reporter nearby received a dab of makeup before she spoke into the lens of a camera.

“They've just found victim number twenty-three,” the reporter said with appropriate solemnity. “All the victims so far appear to have been young women. The grisly murders ” 1 turned away from the TV coverage and I had to sigh out loud.

I thought of children like my own Damon and Janelle, watching this spectacle in their homes. This was a world they were inheriting. Human monsters roaming the earth, a majority of them in America and Europe. Why was that? Something in the water? In the high-fat fast food? On Saturday morning TV?

“Go the hell home, Alex,” Kyle said to me. “It's over now. You won't catch him, I promise you.”

Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

CHAPTER 115.

NEVER SAY NEVER. That's one of my few mottos as a cop. My body was bathed in a cold sweat. My pulse was jumpy and irregular. This was it, wasn't it? I needed to believe that it was.

I waited in the hot, still darkness outside a small wood-shingled house in the Edgemont section of Durham. It was a typical middle-class Southern neighborhood. Nice middle-class houses, American and Japanese cars in about equal numbers, mower-striped lawns, familiar cooking smells. It was where Casanova had chosen to live for the past seven years.

I had spent the early part of that night at the offices of the Herald Sun. I had reread everything written in the newspaper about the unsolved murders of Roe Tierney and Tom Hutchin-son. A name mentioned in the Herald Sun helped put it together for me, confirmed my suspicions and fears, anyway. Hundreds of hours of investigating.

Reading and rereading Durham police briefs. Then, pay dirt on a single line of newsprint.

The name was in a story lost in the Durham newspaper's middle pages. It appeared just once. I found it, anyway.

I had stared for a long time at the familiar name in the news article.

I thought about something I'd noticed during the shoot-out in Chapel Hill. I thought about the whole subject of “perfect crimes.” It all fit together for me now. Game, match, set, bingo.

Casanova had blinked just once. I had seen it with my own eyes, though. The name in the news article was verification. It materially linked Will Rudolph and Casanova for the first time. It also explained to me how they had met, and why they had talked.

Casanova was sane and completely responsible for his actions. He had planned every step in cold blood. That was the most horrifying and unusual thing about the long trail of crimes. He knew what he was doing. He was a slime who had chosen to abduct beautiful young students in their prime. He'd chosen to rape and murder again and again. He was obsessed with perfect young women, with loving them as he called it.

I conducted an imaginary interview with Casanova as I waited outside his house in the car. I could see his face as clearly as the numbers on the dashboard.

You don't feel anything one way or the other, do you?

Oh, I do. I feel elation. I feel the most tremendous high when I take another lady. I feel varying levels of excitement, anticipation, animal lust. I feel an incredible sense of freedom that most people will never feel.

But not guilt?

I could see him smirk as I sat in my car. I'd seen that smirk before, in fact. I knew who he was.

Nothing that would make me want to stop.

Was there any nurturing, any love given and received when you were a boy?

They tried. I wasn't really a boy, though. I don't remember acting or thinking like a boy.

I had begun to think like the monsters again. I was the dragon slayer I hated the responsibility. I also hated the part of me that was becoming a monster. There was nothing I could do to stop it at this point.

I was outside Casanova's house in Durham. Hammers of fear tapped lightly in my heart. I waited there for four nights.

No partner. No backup.

No problem whatsoever. I could be as patient as he was.

I was hunting now.

Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

CHAPTER 116.

I SUCKED IN a harsh, deep breath and felt a little lightheaded. There he was! Casanova was leaving the house. I watched his face, watched his body language. He was confident, very sure of himself.

Detective Davey Sikes sauntered out to his car at a little past eleven on the fourth night. He was a powerful man, athletic. He wore jeans, a dark Windbreaker, high topped black sneakers. Sikes climbed into a tenor twelve-year-old Toyota Cressida he kept in the garage.

The sedan had to be his cruising car; his troller; his anonymous pickup vehicle. “Perfect crimes.” Davey Sikes definitely had the know-how.

He was a detective on the case, and had been for over a dozen years.

He'd known the FBI would investigate every local policeman when they entered the case. He had been ready with his “perfect” alibis. Sikes had even altered the date of a kidnapping to “prove” he was out of town when it happened.

I wondered if Sikes would dare to go after another woman now. Had he been out carefully stalking and hunting already?

What was he feeling now? What was he thinking right at this moment, I wondered, as I watched the dark Toyota back out of the driveway in suburban Durham. Was he missing Rudolph? Would he continue their game, or maybe stop now? Could he stop the game?

I wanted him so badly. Sampson had said at the beginning that this case was too personal for me. He was right on. No case had ever been more personal for me, not even close to this.

I tried to think the way he might. I tried to get into his rhythm. I suspected that he had already picked out a victim, even if he didn't dare take her yet. Would she be another smart, beautiful college student? Maybe he would change his pattern now. I doubted it. He loved his life, his creation, too much.

I followed the human monster down dark, deserted streets in southwest Durham. Blood pumped loudly through my head. I couldn't hear much of anything else. I drove with my headlights off for as long as Davey Sikes stayed on the side streets. Maybe he was just headed to the Circle K for cigarettes and beer.

I thought that I had finally figured out what had happened back in 1981, that I had probably solved the golden couple murder which had shocked the university community here and in Chapel Hill. Will Rudolph had planned and committed the violent sex murders while he was a student. He had “loved” Roe Tierney, but she was interested in football stars. Detective Davey Sikes had met and questioned Rudolph during the subsequent police investigation.

At some point, he had begun to share his own dark, forbidden secrets with the brilliant medical student. They had known about each other.

Felt it, sensed it. Both of them desperately wanted to share their secret need with someone. Suddenly, they had each other. Twinning.

Now I had killed his only friend. Did Davey Sikes want to kill me for that? Did he know I was coming for him? What was he thinking right at this moment? I didn't just want to catch him, I needed to capture his thoughts.

Casanova turned onto Interstate 40 and headed south. He was traveling toward Garner and Mccullers, according to bright white-on-green road signs. There was relatively heavy traffic on the interstate, and I was able to follow him in a safe cluster with four or five other cars. So far, so good. Detective against detective.

He got off at Exit 35, which was boldly marked for Mccullers. He'd gone a little over thirty miles. It was approaching eleven-thirty at night. The witching hour.

I was going to take him out tonight, no matter what. I had never done that before, not in all my time as a homicide detective in Washington.