Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

in playing shape before she’d gone away. Jezzie was also tan all over.

“Who’s darker?” I asked her and grinned.

“I definitely am. Brown as a berry, as they say around the lake.”

“You’re just dazzling me with your brilliance,” I told her.

“Uh huh. How long can we keep this up? Talking and looking, not touching. Will you unbutton the rest of your shirt buttons? Please.”

“Does that excite you?” I asked. My voice caught in my throat a little.

“Uh huh. Actually, you can take the shirt off.”

“You were going to tell me something about who you are, what you learned on your retreat,” I reminded her. Confessor and lover. A sexy concept in itself.

“You can kiss me now. If you want to, Alex. Can you kiss me without anything but our lips touching?”

“Uhm, I’m not sure about that. Let me turn a little this way. And that way. Are you trying to shut me up, by the way?”

“Why would I want to do that? Doctor Detective?”

CHAPTER 70

I THREW MYSELF into work again. I had promised myself that I’d solve the kidnapping case somehow. The Black Knight would not be vanquished.

One miserable, cold, rainy night I trudged out by myself to see Nina Cerisier again. The Cerisier girl was still the only person who’d actually seen Gary Soneji’s “accomplice.” I was in the neighborhood, anyway. Right.

Why was I in the Langley Terrace projects, at night, in a cold, drizzling rain? Because I had become a nut case who couldn’t get enough information about an eighteen-month-old kidnapping. Because I was a perfectionist who had been that way for at least thirty years of my life. Because I needed to know what had really happened to Maggie Rose Dunne. Because I couldn’t escape the gaze of Mustaf Sanders. Because I wanted the truth about Soneji/Murphy. Or so I kept telling myself.

Glory Cerisier wasn’t real happy to see me camped on her front doorstep. I’d been standing on the porch for ten minutes before she finally opened the door. I’d knocked on the dented aluminum door a half dozen times.

“Detective Cross, it’s late, you know. Can’t we be allowed to move on with our lives?” she asked as she finally swung open the door. “It’s hard for us to forget the Sanderses. We don’t need you to remind us over and over.”

“I know you don’t,” I agreed with the tall, late fortyish woman eyeballing me. Almond-shaped eyes. Pretty eyes on a not-very-pretty face. “These are murder cases, though, Mrs. Cerisier, terrible murders.”

“The killer has been caught,” she said to me. “Do you know that, Detective Cross? Have you heard? Do you read newspapers?”

I felt like crap being out there again. I believe she suspected I was crazy. She was a smart lady.

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” I shook my head and laughed out loud. “You know, you’re absolutely right. I’m just fucked up. I’m sorry, I really am.”

That caught her off guard, and Glory Cerisier smiled back at me. It was a kindly, crooked-toothed grin that you see sometimes in the projects.

“Invite this poor nigger in for some coffee,” I said. “I’m crazy, but at least I know it. Open the door for me.”

“All right, all right. Why don’t you come in then, Detective. We can talk one more time. That’s it, though.”

“That’s it,” I agreed with her. I had broken through by simply telling her the truth about myself.

We drank bad instant coffee in her tiny kitchen. Actually, she loved to talk. Glory Cerisier asked me all sorts of questions about the trial.

She wanted to know what it was like being on TV. Like many people, she was curious about the actress Katherine Rose. Glory Cerisier even had her own private theory about the kidnapping.

“That man didn’t do it. That Gary Soneji, or Murphy, or whoever he is. Somebody set him up, you see,” she said and laughed. I suppose she thought it funny that she was sharing her crazy ideas with a crazy D.C. policeman.

“Humor me one last time,” I said, finally getting around to what I really wanted to talk to her about. “Run me through what Nina said she saw that night. Tell me what Nina told you. As close as you remember it.”

“Why you doin’ this to yourself?” Glory wanted to know from me first. “Why you here, ten o’clock at night?”