Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

At the end of the film, Lena and Johnny had driven off into a sunset on an English coast, presumably to live happily ever after. The Hitchcock movie was an elegant, witty, mysterious game, just as this was.

Their game. The most exquisite game two people had ever played together.

Will we drive off into the sunset after all this? Sara Rosen wondered. Oh, I think not. I don’t suppose that we will. What will happen to us, then? Oh, what will happen to us? What will become of Jack and Jill?

“I’ve only been to the Cipriani in my dreams,” she confessed to Sam. “Only in dreams. But, yes, I’ve been there many, many times.”

“Is this all a dream, Monkey Face?” Sam asked. His look was serious for a moment. She couldn’t help thinking how precious every moment like this was, and how fleeting. She had secretly yearned for this all of her life, for one truly romantic experience.

“I think it’s a dream, yes. It’s like a dream anyway. Please don’t wake me, though, Sam.”

“It’s not a dream,” Sam whispered. “I love you. You are the most lovable woman I’ve ever met. You are, Sara. You’re like staying at the Cipriani every day for me. Please believe that, Monkey Face. Believe in us. I do.”

He clasped Sara from behind and pulled her closer. She savored the sweetness of his breath, the smell of his cologne, the smell of him.

He began to move inside her and she felt herself melting into a liquid force. She did love him—she did, she did, she did. Her hands ran all over him, touching, possessing. There had never been anything like this before in her life, nothing even close.

She slithered up and down on his long, powerful pole, his strength, his exquisite maleness. Sara couldn’t stop herself now, and she didn’t want to. She was choking with her own passion.

She heard her voice crying out and almost didn’t recognize herself. She was joined with him in a simple rhythm that got faster and faster as the two of them came closer to being one—Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill, Jack and Jill!

CHAPTER

32

THEIR FAIRY TALE ended with a quiet, almost disheartening thud, and Sara felt herself cr

ashing back to earth, tumbling, being rushed along in a powerful tide. Monday morning meant a return to the dreary work world again, to real life.

Sara Rosen had held “normal,” boring jobs around Washington for fourteen years, ever since she’d graduated from Hollins College in Virginia. She had a day job now. A perfect job for their purposes. The dreariest and weariest of jobs.

That morning, she rose early to get ready. She and Sam had separated on Sunday night at the Four Seasons. She missed him, missed his humor, missed his touch, missed everything about him. Every inch.

She had gotten lost in that thought. Inches. Millimeters. The essence of Sam. His tremendous inner strength. She glanced at the luminescent face of the clock on her bed stand. She groaned out loud. Quarter to five. Dammit, she was already late.

Her bathroom had a yoga corner with a custom-made leather mat. No time for that, though her body and mind ached for the discipline and the release.

She took a quick shower and washed her hair with Salon Selectives shampoo. She put on a navy Brooks Brothers suit, low pumps, a leather-strapped Raymond Weil watch. She needed to look sharp, look alert, look freshly scrubbed this morning.

Somehow, she always came out like that anyway. Sara the freshly starched.

She hurried outside, where a grimy yellow cab was already waiting at the curb, wagging a tail of smoke. The wind whooped and howled up and down K Street.

At five-twenty, the yellow cab pulled up in front of her workplace. The Liberty Cab driver smiled and said, “A famous address, my lady. So, are you somebody famous?”

She paid the driver and collected change from a five-dollar bill. “Actually, I might be someday,” she said. “You never know.”

“Yeah, maybe I’m somebody, too,” the driver said with a crooked smile. “You never know.”

Sara Rosen climbed out of the cab and felt the early December wind in her face. The pristine building before her looked strangely beautiful and imposing in the early-morning light. It appeared to be shining, actually, glowing from the inside out.

She showed her ID card, and security let her pass inside. She and the guard even shared a quick laugh about her being a workaholic. And why not? Sara Rosen had worked inside the White House for nine years.

PART III

THE PHOTOJOURNALIST

CHAPTER