I, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 16)

There was no sound, but the way she was moving looked more alluring than scared or defensive to me. Still, I had a fierce knot in my stomach. Whatever this was, I didn’t think I wanted to see it proceed.

A man walked into the frame—a real creep wearing full S&M garb, with either rubber or latex pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Also heavy boots and a fitted hood that zipped all the way up the back of his head. Other than the fact that he was tall and well muscled, I couldn’t tell much more about him.

“He knows the camera’s there,” Sampson said. “Maybe he wanted this filmed.”

“Let’s just watch, John.”

I couldn’t talk much right now. I was already thinking about what had happened to Caroline, possibly in this room, and maybe at the hands of the same creep we were watching.

Zeus, or whoever it was, bent over the girl and placed a black kidney-shaped blindfold over her eyes. “There’s a ring,” I said. “On his right hand.”

It looked like a class ring, but the image quality wasn’t good enough to make it out.

He took his time, pulled a few more things out of the dresser, a spreader bar that he cuffed to both of her ankles; a small brown bottle of something, possibly amyl nitrate.

When he waved it under her nose, the blond girl’s face went very red. Then her head lolled from side to side.

Sampson and I watched silently as they had sex. Most of the time, the creep kept one hand on the mattress for balance and the other over her throat. It looked like he was performing asphyxophilia to me, controlling the girl’s oxygen, giving it and then taking it away.

The girl played along and didn’t seem distressed, which was distressing to watch. Then suddenly he arched up off of her, climaxing, I think, raised his free hand like he’d just won some kind of contest.

All his weight appeared to be on her throat, and suddenly her movements became jerky and desperate. Her legs jutted straight out under him. It was a horrible thing to watch, like it was happening right now, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

The more the blond girl struggled, the more excited he got, until finally her body went limp and she stopped moving altogether. Only then did he kiss her.

“Oh, Christ,” Sampson said under his breath. “What’s the matter with the world?”

The killer climbed off the bed after that. There was no lingering, no fetishizing with the body. In less than a minute, he was gone from the private suite.

Twenty seconds later, the video cut out altogether.

“Come on, John. We’re going to Alexandria. We need to find out if that was Zeus.”

Chapter 85

AT THE DETENTION center in Alexandria, Sampson and I walked in through the visitors’ area. We went down a familiar path—past Records and Door 15, where inmates are released, until we got to the Command Center.

At that point, our police IDs were enough to get us buzzed through another pair of steel doors, to the booking desk.

All that was the easy part.

As usual, three guards were stationed on the desk. Two of them were middle-aged and hung in the background. One younger guy had the grunt job of processing walk-ins like us. A gold tooth caught the light when he spoke.

&nbs

p; “State your business.”

“Detectives Cross and Sampson, MPD. We need a temporary custody order on two prisoners, Anthony Nicholson and Mara Kelly.”

“You got a letter on file?” He was already picking up the phone.

“We’ve interviewed them before,” I said. “Just a few follow-up questions and we’re out of here.”

It was worth a shot, anyway. Maybe there was a crack we could fall through.

The deputy wasn’t on the phone for long, and he shook his head at me as he hung up.

“Well, A, you don’t have a letter for today, and B, it don’t matter anyway. Your people are gone, Nicholson and Kelly both.”