Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross 2)

He grabbed Juliette and held the cleaver up high. Shades of Hitchcock’s Psycho and also Frenzy. High-concept melodrama.

“Don’t make me hurt you. It’s all in your control,” he said softly.

She stopped the scream before it got out of her mouth, but the scream was in her eyes. He loved the look on Juliette’s face. Lived for it.

“I won’t hurt you as long as you don’t do anything to hurt me. Are we all right so far? Are we clear as a bell?”

She nodded her head curtly. A couple of nods. Her blue-green eyes were tilted up strangely. She was afraid to move her head too much for fear he’d slash her.

She sighed. Amazing. She seemed to trust him a little. His voice had that effect on people. His style and fine manners. Mr. Hyde. The Gentleman Caller.

She was looking deeply into his eyes, searching for some explanation. He had seen that questioning look so many times before. Why? it said.

“I’m going to take your panties off now. No doubt this has been done for you before, so there’s no reason to panic. You have the softest, nicest skin. I mean that,” said the Gentleman.

The cleaver slashed quickly.

“I like you, Juliette, I really do… as much as I’m able to like anyone,” the Gentleman said in his softest voice.

CHAPTER 78

KATE MCTIERNAN was home again. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig. First thing she did was to call her sister Carole Anne, who lived far away in Maine now. Then she called a few close friends in Chapel Hill. She reassured them that she was perfectly all right.

That was total bullshit, of course. She knew that she wasn’t anything close to all right, but why cause them to worry? It wasn’t Kate’s way to inconvenience other people with her unsolvable problems.

Alex didn’t want her to go back to her house, but she had to. This was where she lived. She tried to calm herself a little, to slow down the big bad world in her head, at least. She drank wine and watched late-night TV. She hadn’t done that in years. Centuries!

She was missing Alex Cross already, and more than she wanted to admit to herself. Staying home and watching TV was a good test, but she was failing miserably. She was such a schlump sometimes.

She had developed—what?—a schoolgirl crush on Alex? He was strong, smart, funny, kind. He loved children, and was even in touch with the child in himself. He had a sculpted body, fabulous bone structure, a sensational torso, also. Yes, she had a crush on Alex Cross.

Understandable; nice. Only maybe it was more than a crush. Kate wanted to call Alex at his hotel in Durham. She picked up the phone a couple of times. No! She wouldn’t let herself do it. Nothing was going to happen between her and Alex Cross.

She was an intern, and she wasn’t getting any younger. He lived in Washington with his two children and his grandmother. Besides, they were too much alike, and it wouldn’t work out. He was a willful black man; she was an extremely willful white woman. He was a homicide detective… but he was also sensitive and sexy and generous. She didn’t care whether he was black, green, or purple. He made her laugh; he made her as happy as a clam in deep wet sand.

But nothing was going to happen between her and Alex.

She would just sit here in her scary apartment. Drink her cheap Pinot Noir. Watch her bad, semiromantic Hollywood movie. Be afraid. Be a little horny. Let it get worse. That’s what she would do, dammit. Build her character.

She had to admit she was frightened to be in her own house, though. She hated that feeling. She wanted all of this shitty madness to stop, but it wouldn’t. Not even close. There were still two horrifying monsters on the loose out there.

She kept hearing creepy noises all around her in the house. Old creaking wood. Banging shutters. Wind chimes she had put on an old elm tree outside. The chimes reminded her of the cabin in Big Sur. They had to come down tomorrow—if not sooner.

Kate finally fell asleep with the wineglass, which was really an old Flintstones jelly glass, balanced in her lap. The glass was a holy relic from the house in West Virginia. She and her sisters used to fight over it sometimes at breakfast.

The glass tipped and spilled onto her bedcovers. It didn’t matter. Kate was dead to the world. For one night at least.

She didn’t usually drink much. The Pinot Noir hit her like the freight trains that used to rumble through Birch when she was a kid. She woke up 3:00 A.M. with a throbbing headache, and hurried into her bathroom, where she got sick.

Images of Psycho flashed through her mind as she bent over the sink. She thought of Casanova in the house again. He was in the bathroom, wasn’t he? No—of course no one was there… please, make this stop. Make this end… right… now!

She went back to bed and crawled under the covers. She heard the wind rattling the shutters. Heard those stupid chimes. She thought about death—her mother, Susanne, Marjorie, Kristin. All gone now. Kate McTiernan pulled the blanket over her head. She felt like a little girl again, afraid of the bogeyman. Okay, she could handle that.

Trouble was, she could see Casanova and the horrifying death mask whenever she closed her eyes. She held a secret thought buried in the center of her chest: He was coming for her again, wasn’t he?

At seven in the morning her phone rang. It was Alex.

“Kate, I was in his house,” he said.