Yes, he was a prick. Consummate indeed.
Chapter 18
ROSIE THE CAT was perched on the windowsill, watching me dress for my date with Christine. I envied the simplicity of her life: Love to eat those mousies, mousies what I love to eat.
I finally headed downstairs. I was taking the night off from work, and I was more nervous, distracted, and fidgety than I had been in a long time. Nana and the kids knew something was up, but they didn’t know what, and it was driving my three favorite busybodies crazy.
“Daddy, tell me what’s going on, please?” Jannie clasped her hands in prayer and begged.
“I told you no, and no is no. Not even if you get down on your bony little knees,” I said, and smiled. “I have a date tonight. It’s just a date. That’s all you need to know, young lady.”
“Is it with Christine?” Jannie asked. “At least you can tell me that much.”
“That’s for me to know,” I said as I knotted my tie in the mirror beside the stairs. “And you not to find out, my overinquisitive girlfriend.”
“You’re wearing your fancy blue-striped suit, your fancy dancing shoes, that fancy tie you like. You’re so fancy.”
“Do I look good?” I turned and asked my personal clothier. “For my date?”
“You look beautiful, Daddy.” My girl beamed, and I knew I could believe her. Her eyes were shiny little mirrors that always told the truth. “You know you do. You know you’re handsome as sin.”
“That’s my girl,” I said, and laughed again. Handsome as sin. She got that one from Nana, no doubt.
Damon mimicked his sister. “You look beautiful, Daddy. What a little brownnoser. What do you want from Daddy, Jannie?”
“Do I look good?” I turned to Damon.
He rolled his eyes. “You look all right. How come you’re all duded up? You can tell me. Man to man. What’s the big deal?”
“Answer the poor children!” Nana finally said.
I looked her way and offered up a wide grin. “Don’t use the ‘poor children’ to try to get your gossip quotient for the day. Well, I’m off,” I announced. “I’ll be home before sunrise. Mooha-ha-ha.” I did my favorite monster imitation, and all three of them rolled their eyes.
It was a minute or so before eight, and as I stepped onto the porch, a black Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of the house. It was right on time, and I didn’t want to be late.
“A limousine?” Jannie gasped, and nearly swooned on the front porch. “You’re going out in a limousine?”
“Alex Cross!” Nana said. “What is going on?”
I practically danced down the steps. I got into the waiting car, shut the door, told the driver to go. I waved out the back window and stuck out my tongue as the car smoothly pulled away from our house.
Chapter 19
MY LAST IMAGE was of the three of them—Jannie, Damon, and Nana—all mugging and sticking out their tongues at me. We do have some fabulously good times together, I was thinking as the car headed over to Prince Georges County, where I had once confronted a homicidal twelve-year-old during the halcyon days of the Jack and Jill killers, and where Christine Johnson lived.
I had my mantra all set for tonight: Heart leads head. I needed to believe that was so.
“A private car? A limousine?” Christine exclaimed when I picked her up at her house in Mitchellville.
She looked as stunningly beautiful as I’ve ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot. She wore a long, sleeveless black shift, black satin pumps with straps, and had a floral brocade jacket draped over her arm. The heels made her a little over six feet tall. God, how I loved this woman, everything about her.
We walked to the car and got inside.
“You haven’t told me where we’re going tonight, Alex. Just that it was fancy. Someplace special.”
“Ah, but I’ve told our driver,” I said. I tapped the partition window, and the Town Car moved off into the summer night. Alex the mysterious.
I held Christine’s hands as we drove along on the John Hanson Highway, back toward Washington. Her face tilted toward mine, and I kissed her in the cozy darkness. I loved the sweetness of her mouth, her lips, the softness and smoothness of her skin. She was wearing a new perfume that I didn’t recognize, and I liked that, too. I kissed the hollow of her throat, then her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. I would have been happy to do just this for the rest of the night.