Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross 2)

They had been near a crest of a steep hill in the woods. Had they gone over the top? If they had, were they waiting for me on the other side? I slowly moved out from the safe cover of the tree and looked around.

It was eerie and quiet again. No screams. No gunshots. No one seemed to be there. What the hell were they up to? I had just learned something new about them, though. I had another clue to go on. I’d seen something important a moment ago.

I sprinted to the balding crest of the hill up ahead. Nothing! My heart sank, fell a million miles into the abyss. Had they gotten away? After all this?

I kept running. I couldn’t let this abomination happen. I wouldn’t let the monsters go free.

CHAPTER 111

I THOUGHT I knew the direction of the state highway, and I headed that way. I had my second wind, or maybe my third, and ran more easily now. Alex the Pathfinder.

Maybe two hundred yards ahead of me, I spotted them again. Then I saw a familiar flash of gray: a curling ribbon of highway. I could make out a few white-shingled buildings and ancient-looking telephone fines. A highway. The way for them to escape.

The two of them were running in the direction of a shambling roadhouse. They still wore their death masks. That told me Casanova was in charge. The natural leader. He loved his masks. They represented who he believed he really was: a dark god. Free to do whatever he chose. Superior to the rest of us.

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sp; A red-and-blue neon sign blinked Trail Dust on the roadhouse roof. It was one of those country gin mills that got good customer traffic all day. The monsters were heading that way.

Casanova and the Gentleman Caller climbed into a late-model blue pickup truck parked in the lot. Busy tavern lots were a good place to park a car inconspicuously. I knew that as a detective. I raced across the state road toward the roadhouse.

A man with long, frizzy red hair was just climbing into his Plymouth Duster in the parking area. He wore a wrinkled Coca-Cola workshirt, and had a bulky brown bag shoved under one arm. Liquid groceries.

“Police.” I flashed my badge a foot from his lightly bearded chin. “I have to take your car!” I had my pistol out, ready for trouble if it came at me. I was definitely taking the car.

“Jesus Christ, man. This here’s my girlfriend’s car,” he drawled rapidly. His eyes stayed on the Glock. He handed over the car keys.

I pointed back toward where I’d come from. “Call the police right now. The missing women are back there, maybe a mile and a half. Tell them there’s an officer down! Tell them it’s Casanova’s hideaway.”

I jumped into the Duster, and was doing forty before I got out of the parking lot. In the rearview mirror I could see the man with the six-pack still staring at me. I wanted to call Kyle Craig myself and have him send help, but I couldn’t stop now, couldn’t lose Casanova and his friend.

The dark blue pickup headed toward Chapel Hill… where Casanova had tried to kill Kate, where he had originally kidnapped her. Was that his home base, after all? Was he someone from the University of North Carolina? Another doctor? Someone we had never even heard of? Not only was that possible, it was likely.

I closed to within four car lengths of them inside the city limits. No way to tell if they knew I was there. Probably they did. Chapel Hill’s version of rush hour was in progress. Franklin Street was a narrow winding stream of traffic rolling slowly alongside the tree-lined campus.

Up ahead I could see the funky Varsity Theatre, where Wick Sachs had gone to a foreign movie with a woman named Suzanne Wellsley. It had been adultery, nothing more, nothing less. Dr. Wick Sachs had been set up by Casanova and Rudolph. Sachs had made a perfect suspect in the case. The local pornographer. Casanova had known all about him. How was that?

I was close to getting them now; I could feel it. I had to think like that. They caught a red light at the corner of Franklin and Columbia. Students wearing ratty T-shirts with Champion and Nike and Bass Ale logos jaywalked between the stopped cars. Shaquille O’Neal’s “I know I Got Skillz” played loudly from somebody’s radio.

I waited a few seconds after the stoplight turned red with a noisy click-click sound. Then I went for the whole enchilada. Ready or not, here I come.

CHAPTER 112

I SLID out of the Duster and ran in a low crouch down the middle of Franklin Street. The Glock was out, but held flat against my leg to be less conspicuous. Nobody panic and scream now. Let this go right one time.

The two of them must have spotted the trailing Duster earlier. I’d figured as much. As soon as I hit the street, they threw themselves out of opposite sides of the pickup.

One turned and fired off three quick shots. Pop. Pop. Pop. Only one of them had a gun out. Something clicked inside my head again: I remembered a quick scene from the woods. A connection made. A flash of recognition.

I ducked down behind a black Nissan Z that was waiting for the light, and yelled at the top of my lungs. “Police! Police! Get down! Get down on the ground! Get out of these cars!”

Most of the drivers and pedestrians did as they were told. What a difference between Chapel Hill and the streets of D.C., in that regard. I took a quick peek up the sheet-metal lane between the cars. I didn’t see either of the killers anywhere.

I slid alongside the black sports car, bent over more than double in a low-slung crouch. Students and store owners watched me warily from the sidewalk. “Police! Get down. Get down. Get that little boy the hell out of here!” I yelled.

I saw crazy things in my mind’s eye. Flashing images. Sampson… with a knife in his back. Kate… after they had beaten her to a bloody, helpless mess. The sunken eyes of the women prisoners back at the house.

I was keeping low to the ground, but one of the monsters saw me and went for a head shot. We both fired at almost the same time.