Patterson, James - Alex Cross 1 - Along Came A Spider

“ You were. Occasionally, I want to be pretty, but most times I just want to be Plain Jane. Wear big pink curlers to bed and watch old movies.”

“ You've been beautiful all weekend. No pink curlers. Ribbons and fresh flowers in your hair. Strapless bathing suits. Occasionally, no bathing suits.”

“I want to be pretty right now. In Washington, it's different. It's one more problem to solve. Imagine going to see your boss. Important report you've been working on for months. The first thing he says is, 'You look terrific in a dress, babe.' You just want to say, 'Fuck you, asshole.' ”

I reached out and we held hands. “Thank you, for the way you look,” I said. “You look so beautiful.”

“I did it just for you.” Jezzie smiled. “And I'd like to do something else for you. I'd like you to do something for me, too.”

And so we did one another.

So far, Jezzie and I weren't getting tired of each other. Quite the opposite was happening down here in paradise.

That night, we sat at an outdoor raw bar in town. We watched the carefree island world go by, and wondered why we didn't just drop out and become part of it. We ate shrimp and oysters and talked for a couple of hours straight. We let our hair down, especially Jezzie.

“I've been a really driven person, Alex,” Jezzie said to me. “I don't mean just on the kidnapping case, butting my way into every briefing, every wild goose chase. I've been that way ever since I can remember. Once I start on an idea, I can't, turn it off.”

I didn't say anything. I wanted to listen to her. I wanted to know all there was to know.

She raised her mug. “I'm sitting here with a beer in my hand, right. Well, both my parents were alcoholics. They were dysfunctional before it was fashionable. Nobody outside our house knew how bad it was. They would have screaming fights constantly. My dad usually passed out. Slept in 'his chair.' My mother would stay awake half the night at the dining-room table. She loved her Jameson's. She'd say, 'Get me another of my Jameson's, Little Jezzie.' I was their little cocktail waitress. That's how I earned my allowance until I was eleven.”

Jezzie stopped talking and looked into my eyes. I hadn't seen her so vulnerable and unsure of herself. She projected such confidence most of the time. That was her reputation in the Secret Service. “Do you want to leave now? Want me to lighten up?”

I shook my head. “No, Jezzie. I want to listen to whatever you have to say. I want to know all about you. ”

“Are we still on vacation?”

“Yes, and I really want to hear about this. Just talk to me. Trust me. If I get bored, I'll just get up and leave you with the bar tab.”

She smiled and went on. “I loved both my parents in a strange-way. I believe that they loved me. Their 'Little Jezzie.' I told you once how I didn't want to be a smart failure like my parents.”

“Maybe you understated things just a little. ” I smiled.

“Yeah. Well, anyway, I worked long nights and weekends when I got into the Service. I set impossible goals for myself-supervisor at twenly-eight-and I beat every goal. That's part of what happened with my Ifusband. I put my job ahead of our marriage. Want to know why I started riding the motorcycle?”

“Yep. Also why you make me ride your motorcycle. ”

“Well, see,” Jezzie said, “I could never make work stop. Couldn't turn it off when I went home at night. Not until I got the bike. When you're doing a hundred and twenty, you have to concentrate on the road. Eve rything else goes away. The Job finally goes away.”

“That's partly why I play the piano,” I said to her. “I'm sorry about your parents, Jezzie.”

“I'm glad I finally told you about them,” Jezzie said. “I've never told anyone before you. Not one other person knows the whole true story.”

Jezzie and I held each other at the little island raw bar. I'd never felt so close to her. Sweet little Jezzie. Of all the times we were together, it was one I'd never forget. Our visit to paradise.

Suddenly, and way too quickly, our busman's holiday was over. We found ourselves trapped on board an American Airlines flight back to Washington, back to dreary, rainy weather, according to reports. Back to The Job.

We were a little distant from each other during the flight. We started sentences at the same time, then had to play “you go first” games. For the first time during the entire trip, we talked shop, the dreaded shoptalk.

“Do you really think he has a multiple personality, Alex? Does he know what happened to Maggie Rose? Soneji knows. Does Murphy know?”

“On some level, he knows. He was scary that one time he talked about Soneji. Whether Soneji is a separate personality or his real persona, he's frightening. Soneji knows what happened to Maggie Rose.”

“Too bad we never will now. It seems that way, anyhow. ”

“Yeah. Because I think I could get it out of him. It just takes some time.”

National Airport in D.C. was a natural disaster that several thousand of us got to experience together. Traffic just barely crept along. The line for cabs curled back into the terminal. Everybody looked soaked to the skin. Neither Jezzie nor I had raincoats and we were getting soaked through. Life was suddenly depressing, and all too real again. The stalled investigation was here in D.C. The trial was coming. I probably had a message from Chief Pittman on my desk.

“Let's go back. Let's turn around.” Jezzie took my hand, and she pulled me close in front of the glass doorway to the Delta Shuttle

The warmth and familiar smells of her body were still nice. The last scents of cocoa butter and aloe still lingered.

People turned to stare at us as they passed. They looked. They judged. Almost every person who passed uslooked. “Let's get out of here,” I said.

Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 54

At 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon (I got back to

Washington at eleven o'clock), I got a call from

Sampson. He wanted to meet me at the Sanders house. He thought we'd made a new connection be tween the kidnapping and the project murders. He was pumped as hell with his news. Hard work was paying

,off on one of our early leads.

I hadn't been back to the Sanders crime scene in several months, but it was all sadly familiar. The windows were dark from the outside. I wondered if the house would ever be sold, or even rented again.

I sat in my car in the Sanders driveway, and read through the original detectives' report. There was nothing in the reports I didn't already know and hadn't gone over a dozen times. I kept staring at the house. The yellowing shades were drawn, so I couldn't see inside. Where was Sampson, and what did he want with me here?

He pulled up behind me at three o'clock sharp. He

284 climbed out of his battered Nissan and joined me in the front seat of the Porsche.

“Oh, you are brown sugar now. You look sweet enough to eat.”

“You're still big and ugly. Nothing changes. What do you have here?”

“Police work at its very best,” Sampson said. He lit up a Corona. “By the way, you were right to keep after this thing.”

Outside the car, the wind was bowling and heavy with rain. There had been tornadoes down through Kentucky and Ohio. The weather had been bizarre the whole weekend that we were away.

“Did you snorkel, and sail, play @tennis in your club whites?” Sampson asked.

“We didn't have time for that kind of stuff. We did a lot of spiritual bonding you wouldn't understand.”

“My, my.” Sampson talked like a black girlfriend, played the part well. “I love to talk the trash, don't you, sister?”

“Are we going inside?” I asked him.

Selective scenes from the past had been flashing into my head for several minutes, none of them pleasant. I remembered the face of the fourteen-year-old Sanders girl. And three-year-old Mustaf. I remembered what beautiful children they had been. I remembered how nobody cared when they died here in Southeast. “Actually, we're here to visit the next-door neighbors,” he finally said. “Let's go to work. Something happened here that I don't understand yet. It's important, though, Alex. I need your head on it.”