Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

We didn’t stop hurtling through time and space until we came down, until we landed at a run-down Mobil gas station in Lumberton, North Carolina.

It was almost six in the morning. We must have looked as crazed as the local gas jockey ever got to see. Black man; blond white woman. Big-assed motorcycle. Hot time in the old town tonight.

The attendant at the station looked kind of out of sorts himself. He had skateboard pads over his farmer-gray blue jeans. He was in his early twenties, with one of those spiked or “skater” haircuts you’re more likely to see on the beaches of California than in this part of the country. How had the hairdo gotten to Lumberton, North Carolina, so quickly? Was it just more madness in the air? Free flow of ideas?

“Morning, Rory.” Jezzie smiled at the boy.

She peeked between two of the gas pumps and winked at me.

“Rory’s the eleven-to-seven shift here. Only station open for fifty miles either way. Don’t tell anybody you’re not sure about.” She lowered her voice. “Rory sells ups and downs around these parts. Anything necessary to get you through the night. Bumblebees, black beauties, diazepam?”

She had slipped into a slight drawl, which sounded pretty to the ear. Her blond hair was all blown out, which I liked, too. “Ecstasy, methamphetamine hydrochloride?” she went on with the menu.

Rory shook his head at her, as if she were crazy. I could tell that he liked her. He brushed imaginary hair away from his eyes. “Man oh man,” he said. A very articulate young man.

“Don’t worry about Alex.” She smiled again at the gas jockey. His spiked hair made him three inches taller. “He’s okay. He’s just another cop from Washington.”

“Oh, man! Jezzie, goddamn you! Jee-zus! You and your cop friends.” Rory spun on his engineer’s boot heels as if he’d been burned by a torch. He’d seen plenty of crazy out here, working the emergency-room shift off the interstate. The two of us were crazy for sure. Tell me about it. What other cop friends?

Less than fifteen minutes later, we were at Jezzie’s lake house. It was a small A-frame cottage sitting right on the water, surrounded by fir and birch trees. The weather was near perfect. Indian summer, later than it ever ought to come. Global warming marches on.

“You didn’t tell me you were landed gentry,” I said as we sped down a picturesque winding road toward the cottage.

“Hardly, Alex. My grandfather left this place to my mother. Grandpop was a local scoundrel and thief. He made a little money in his day. The only one in our family who ever did. Crime seems to pay.”

“So they say.”

I hopped off the bike, and immediately stretched out my back muscles, then my legs. We went inside the house. The door had been left unlocked, which stretched my imagination some.

Jezzie checked out the fridge, which was generously stocked. She put on a Bruce Springsteen tape, then she w

andered outside.

I followed her down toward the shimmering, blue-black water. A new dock had been built on the water. A narrow walkway went out to a broader dock set up with bolted-down chairs and a table. I could hear music from the Nebraska album playing.

Jezzie pulled off her boots, then her striped-blue knee socks. She dipped one foot in the perfectly still water.

Her long legs were wonderfully athletic. Her feet were long, too, nicely shaped, as beautiful as feet get. For the moment, she reminded me of ladies who went to the University of Florida, Miami, South Carolina, Vanderbilt. I hadn’t found a part of her that wasn’t special to look at.

“Believe it or not, this water’s seventy-five degrees,” she said with a big slow-motion smile.

“On the dot?” I asked.

“I’d have to say so. On the button. Are you game, or are you lame?”

“What will the neighbors say? I didn’t pack my bathing suit. Or anything else.”

“That was the basic plan, no plan. Imagine. A whole Saturday with no plan. No trial. No press interviews. No missiles from the Dunnes. Like Thomas Dunne on Larry King this week. Complaining about the investigation leading up to the trial, peppering my name everywhere again. No earthshaking kidnapping case to weigh down on you. Just the two of us out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“I like the sound of that,” I told Jezzie. “In the middle of nowhere.” I looked around, following the line where the fir trees met clear blue sky.

“That’s our name for this place, then. In the Middle of Nowhere, North Carolina.”

“Seriously, Jez. What about the neighbors? We’re in the Tarheel State, right? I don’t want any tar on my heels.”

She smiled. “There’s nobody around for a couple of miles at least, Alex. No other houses, believe it or not. It’s too early for anybody but the bass fishermen.”

“I don’t want to meet a couple of backwoods Tarheel bass fishermen, either.” I said. “In their eyes, I might be a black bass. I’ve read James Dickey’s Deliverance.”