Cat and Mouse (Alex Cross 4)

“Christine doesn’t want to see me.”

“Oh, dear,” Nana said.

“Yeah, oh, dear. She can’t see herself involved with a homicide detective.”

Nana smiled. “The more I hear about Christine Johnson, the more I like her. Smart lady. Good head on those pretty shoulders.”

“Are you going to let me talk?” I asked.

Nana frowned and gave me her serious look. “You always get to say what you want, just not at the exact moment you want to say it. Do you love this woman?”

“From the first time I saw her, I felt something extraordinary. Heart leads head. I know that sounds crazy.”

She shook her head and still managed to sip steaming hot tea. “Alex, as smart as you are, you sometimes seem to get everything backwards. You don’t sound crazy at all. You sound like you’re better for the first time since Maria died. Will you look at the evidence that we have here? You have a spring back in your step again. Your eyes are bright and smiling. You’re even being nice to me lately. Put it all together — your heart is working again.”

“She’s afraid that I could die on the job. Her husband was murdered, remember?”

Nana rose from her chair at the kitchen table. She shuffled around to my side, and she stood very close to me. She was so much smaller than she used to be, and that worried me. I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it.

“I love you, Alex,” she said. “Whatever you do, I’ll still love you. Marry her. At least live with Christine.” She laughed to herself. “I can’t believe I said that.”

Nana gave me a kiss, and then headed back to bed.

“I do too have suitors,” she called from the hall.

“Marry one,” I called back at her.

“I’m not in love, lemon meringue man. You are.”

Chapter 24

FIRST THING in the morning, 6:35 to be the exact, Sampson and I took the Metroliner to New York’s Penn Station. It was almost as fast as driving to the airport, parking, finagling with the airlines — and besides, I wanted to do some thinking about trains.

A theory that Soneji was the Penn Station slasher had been advanced by the NYPD. I’d have to know more about the killings in New York, but it was the kind of high-profile situation that Soneji had been drawn to in the past.

The train ride was quiet and comfortable, and I had the opportunity to think about Soneji for much of the trip. What I couldn’t reconcile was why Soneji was committing crimes that appeared to be acts of desperation. They seemed suicidal to me.

I had interviewed Soneji dozens of times after I had apprehended him a few years ago. That was the Dunne-Goldberg case. I certainly didn’t believe he was suicidal then. He was too much of an egomaniac, even a megalomaniac.

Maybe these were copycat crimes. Whatever he was doing now didn’t track. What had changed? Was it Soneji who was doing the killings? Was he pulling some kind of trick or stunt? Could this be a clever trap? How in hell had he gotten my blood on the sniper’s rifle in Union Station?

What kind of trap? For what reason? Soneji obsessed on his crimes. Everything had a purpose with him.

So why kill strangers in Union and Penn Stations? Why choose railroad stations?

“Oh ho, smoke’s curling out of your forehead, Sugar. You aware of that?” Sampson looked over at me and made an announcement to the nice folks seated around us in the train car.

“Little wisps of white smoke! See? Right here. And here.”

He leaned in close and started hitting me with his newspaper as if he were trying to put out a small fire.

Sampson usually favors a cool deadpan delivery to slapstick. The change of pace was effective. We both started to laugh. Even the people sitting around us smiled, looking up from their newspapers, coffees, laptop computers.

“Phew. Fire seems to be out,” Sampson said and chuckled deeply. “Man, your head is hot as Hades to the touch. You must have been brainstorming some powerful ideas. Am I right about that?”

“No, I was thinking about Christine,” I told Sampson.

“You lying sack. You should have been thinking about Christine Johnson. Then I would have had to beat the fire out someplace else. How you two doing? If I might be so bold as to ask.”