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

“What time would you like me to come back?” the boat driver asked. “It's your choice.”

He was a muscular fisherman-a sailor in his forties. A happy-go-lucky type, he had shared big-fish and other colorful island stories on the way out. He seemed to think nothing of Jezzie and my being together.

“Oh, I think two or three o'clock?” I looked for some help from Jezzie. “What time should Mr. Richards come back for us?”

She was busy laying out beach towels and the rest of our exotic gear. “I think three is good. That sounds great, Mr. Richards.”

“All right, then, have fun, you two.” He smiled. “You're all alone. I can see my services are no longer required. ”

Mr. Richards saluted us, then hopped back into the boat. He started the engine, and soon had vanished from sight.

We were all alone on our private island. Don't worry, be happy.

There is something so strange and unreal about lying on a beach towel next to a kidnapper and murderer. I went over and over all of my feelings, plans, the things I knew I had to do.

I tried to get control of my confusion and rage. I had loved this woman who was now such a stranger. I closed my eyes and let the sun relax my muscles. I needed to untense, or this wouldn't work.

How could you have murdered the little girl, Jezzie? How could you do that? How could you tell so many lies to everybody?

Gary Soneji flew out of nowhere! He came suddenly, and with no warning.

He had a foot-long hunting knife like the one he'd used in the D.C. ghetto killings. He was arched high overhead, his shadow covering me completely.

There was no way he could have gotten onto the island. No way.

“Alex. Alex, you were dreaming,” Jezzie said. She put a cool hand on my shoulder. She gently touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers.

The long, mostly sleepless night... the warm sun and the cooling sea breeze... I had fallen asleep on the beach.

I looked up at Jezzie. She had been the shadow over my body, not Soneji. My heart was pounding loudly. Dreams are as powerful as the real world to our nervous systems.

“How long was I out?” I asked. “Whew.” itiust a couple of minutes, baby,“ she said. ”Alex, let me hold you - "

Jezzie moved against me on the beach towel. Her breasts brushed my chest. She had taken off her bathingsuit top while I slept. Her smooth skin glowed with tanning oil. A thin line of moisture beaded on her upper lip. She couldn't help looking good. I sat up and moved away from Jezzie on the towel. I pointed to where a garden of bougai-nvillea grew, almost to the seawater.

“Let's walk down along the beach. Okay? Let's take a walk. I want to talk to you about a few things.”

“What kind of things?” Jezzie asked me. She was clearly disappointed that I was putting her off, even for a moment. She'd wanted to make love on the beach. I didn't.

“C'mon. Let's walk and talk a little,” I said. “This sun feels so good.”

I pulled Jezzie up and she came along with me somewhat reluctantly. She didn't bother to put her top back on.

We walked along the shoreline with our feet in the clear, calm water. We weren't touching now, but we were only inches apart. It was so strange and unreal. It was one of the worst moments of my life, if not the worst.

“You're being so serious, Alex. We were going to have fun, remember? Are we having fun yet?”

“I know what you did, Jezzie. It's taken a while, but I finally pulled it together,” I told her. “I know that you took Maggie Rose Dunne from Soneji. I know that you killed her.”

Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 85

WANT TO TALK about all of it. I don't have a wire on me, Jezzie. Obviously."

She half smiled at that. Always the perfect actress. “I can see you don't,” she said.

My heart was booming at a tremendous rate. “Tell me what happened. Just tell me why, Jezzie. Tell me what I spent almost two years trying to find out, and you knew all the time. Tell me your side of this.”

Jezzie's mask, which was always her perfectly beautiful smile, had finally disappeared. She sounded resigned. “All right, Alex. I'll tell you some of what you want to know, what you just wouldn't leave alone.”

We continued to walk, and Jezzie finally told me the truth.

"How did it happen? Well, in the beginning, we were just doing our job. I swear that's true. We were babysitting the secretary's family. Jerrold Goldberg wasn't used to getting threats. The Colombians made a threat against him. He acted like the civilian that he is.

He overreacted. He demanded Secret Ser,,ice protection for his entire family. That's how it all began. With a surveillance detail that none of us thought was necessary. "

“So you assigned two lightweight agents.”

“Two friends, actually. Not lightweights at all. We figured the detail would be a boondoggle. Then Mike Devine noticed that one of the teachers, a math teacher named Gary Soneji, had made a couple of passes by the Goldberg house. At first we thought he had a crush on the boy. Devine and Chakely thought he might be a pederast. Nothing much more than that. We had to check him out, anyway. It was in the original logs that Devine and Chakely kept.”

“One of them followed Gary Soneji?”

“A couple of times, yes. To a couple of places. We weren't really concerned at that point, but we were following through. One night, Charlie Chakely tailed him into Southeast. We didn't connect Soneji to the murders there, especially since the story never made any splash in the papers. Just more inner-city murders, you know.”

“Yeah. I do know. When did you suspect something else about Gary Soneji?”

"We didn't suspect a kidnapping until he actually picked up the two kids. Two days before that, Charlie Chakely had followed him out to the farm in Maryland. Charlie didn't suspect a kidnapping at the time. No reason to.

'But he knew where the farm was located now. Mike Devine called me from the school when it all came crashing down. They wanted to go after Soneji then.

That's when it struck me about taking the ransom ourselves. I don't know “for sure. Maybe I'd thought of it before. It was so easy, Alex. Three or four days and it would be over. Nobody would be hurt. Not any more than they'd already been hurt. We'd have the ransom money. Millions. ”

The way Jezzie spoke about the kidnapping plot so casually was scary. She downplayed it, but it had been her idea. Not Devine's or Chakely's idea, Jezzie's. She was the mastermind. “What about the children?” I asked. “What about Maggie Rose and Michael?”

“They'd already been kidnapped. We couldn't stop what had already happened. We staked out the farm in Maryland. We were confident that nothing could happen to the kids. He was a math teacher. We didn't think he'd hurt them. We thought he was nothing but an amateur. We were completely in control.”

“He buried them in a box, Jezzie. And Michael Goldberg died. ”

Jezzie stared out to sea. She nodded slowly. “Yes, the little boy died. That changed everything, Alex. Forever. I don't know if we could have prevented it. We moved in and took Maggie Rose then. We made our own kidnap demands. The whole plan changed.”

The two of us continued to walk along the edge of the shimmering water. If anyone had seen us, they probably would have thought we were lovers, having a serious talk about our relationship. The second half of that was true enough.

Jezzie finally looked at me. “I want to tell you how it was between us, Alex. My side of things. It's not what you think.”

I had no words for her. It felt as if I were standing on the dark side of the moon again, and about to explode. My mind was screaming. I let Jezzie go on, let her talk. It didn't really matter now.