Double Cross (Alex Cross 13)

She nodded in agreement, then held up her hands to be heard. “Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s all the questions we can take right now. We’ll work to keep you as informed as possible, as frequently as possible. Thank you for your patience.”

“My daughter is dead!” Alberto Ramirez was shouting from the rear. “My little girl died on your watch! My Lydia is dead!”

It was a terrible indictment, and I knew it rang true, at least for the press. Most of them knew that we were looking for a needle in a haystack, how impossible this kind of manhunt was, but they wouldn’t report it that way. They preferred their own bullshit act, sanctimonious and dumb.

Chapter 57

KYLE CRAIG WAS ON THE ROAD AGAIN, and he was excited to be moving fast through time and space and fantasy. For a while during the car ride east, he let the sameness of the farms and fields rush past him and cool his overheated brain. Then—finally—he arrived in Iowa City, which was surrounded by rolling hills and woods and which he knew to be a picturesque and much-loved college town. Just what he needed for the next step in his plan, or his “recovery program,” as he liked to call it.

It took him another half hour to find the main library building at the University of Iowa, which was situated east of the Iowa River on Madison Street. He had to show one of several IDs and then locate a computer that he could use for a while. A nice, quiet reading room would be perfect for his needs.

At this moment, Kyle knew two ways to get a message to DCAK. The more complicated involved the use of steganography, which would mean sending a message hidden in a picture or audio file. He didn’t think he needed to go to that much trouble just yet. Nobody seemed to know about his relationship to the killer in DC. Or, as he knew, the killers.

Instead, he chose a faster, low-tech method. He knew how and where to locate DCAK from Mason Wainwright, his former lawyer and loyal fan. He typed in www.myspace.com, then clicked on a name from “Cool New People.” Easy as that, actually.

He typed a message to DCAK, wanting to strike just the right tone.

It’s good to be free again, free in the way that only you and I can understand. The possibilities are endless now, don’t you think? I marvel at your art and your exquisitely complex mind. I have followed every event closely—that is, as closely as I could under the circumstances. Now that I’m out and around, I would like to meet with you in person. Leave me a message if this is as desirable to you as it is to me. I believe we could do even greater things together.

What Kyle Craig kept to himself were his true feelings about DCAK. The word he wanted to type and send out to the killer was amateur.

Or perhaps imitation, if he wanted to be kind.

Chapter 58

NO ONE WHO HADN’T spent time in a supermaximum-security prison could possibly understand his feelings now. That night in Iowa City—wearing another of his prosthetic masks—Kyle Craig roamed around, taking in the sights, savoring being there.

He checked out the campus, which was situated on both sides of the river. The school was nicely integrated into the downtown area, and there were lots of quaint clothing, jewelry, and bookstores, and an incredible number of places to eat and drink. He happened on something interesting called the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk, which featured the words of writers with “Iowa ties”—Tennessee Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, even Flannery O’Connor, one of his favorites because she was so wonderfully wrong in the head.

Just past nine, he stopped into a bar called the Sanctuary. It looked like it might actually cater to some adults, not just college students, so he wouldn’t stand out too much. There were oodles of wainscoting inside and booths that looked like old church pews. And, yes indeed, an older crowd.

“Yes, sir. What can I get you?” he heard the very instant he sat at the bar.

The bartender looked as if he’d probably been a student at the university and then had decided to stay in town, which seemed like a reasonable choice. White-blond hair cut short, with a contemporary flip in the front. Probably midtwenties. Depressingly dull from the look of his eyes and his broad, welcoming smile.

“How ya doing, buddy?” said Craig. No more or less than a cordial greeting. He asked about the wines, then ordered a Brunello di Montalcino that seemed to tower in quality above the other reds served in the restaurant.

“The Brunello is available only by the bottle. I don’t know if I made that clear, sir.”

“It’s not a problem. I’m not driving after I leave here,” Kyle Craig said, and affected a pleasant chuckle. “I’ll take the bottle. Uncork it and let it breathe for me, please. And I’d like the Brie-and-apple appetizer. Could they please cut a fresh apple?”

“I could help you with that Brunello. If you need help?”

A voice—female—came from Kyle’s right. He turned and saw a woman seated a few stools away. She was by herself. Smiling pleasantly at him. Police? he wondered. Then—No. Then—Unless she’s very good at what she does.

“I’m Camille Pogue,” she said, and smiled in a manner that struck him as both shy and slightly sly. Dark hair, petite, probably no more than five feet in her stockings. Mid-to-late thirties, he guessed. Obviously lonely, though she shouldn’t be, given her looks, which interested him somewhat. He was drawn to people who had a little complexity to them, at least until he had them figured out.

“I think I’d enjoy the company,” Kyle said, and cast a smile back her way. Nothing too aggressive. “I’m Alex . . . Cross. Nice to meet you.”

“Hello, Alex.”

Kyle moved down the bar and sat beside Camille, and they talked rather easily for the next half hour or so. She turned out to be bright and only mildly neurotic on the face of things. She taught art history at the university, specializing in the Italian Renaissance. She had lived in Rome, Florence, and Venice, and now she was back in the United States but not sure if she wanted to stay here, meaning in America, not just Iowa City.

“Because America isn’t as you remembered it or because it is exactly as you remembered it?” Kyle asked.

She laughed. “I think it’s a little of both, Alex. The political naïveté and indifference in the States just drives me crazy sometimes. But what bothers me most is the conformity. It’s a cancer, and it appears to be spreading, especially in the media. Everybody seems afraid to have an opinion of their own.”

Kyle nodded. “You might accuse me of the latter for saying this, Camille, but I couldn’t agree more.”