Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross 2)

El pais grande del sur at three o’clock in the morning. Rudolph had come to a lonely outpost on the edge of the earth. Casanova had a house in the South, in the deep woods, too. A “disappearing” house where he kept a collection of young women.

I thought of the spooky diaries in the Los Angeles Times. Could Naomi have been moved out here for some crazy, psychopathic reason? Maybe she was being kept in the cabin, or somewhere nearby?

I stopped walking suddenly. I could hear wind chimes, which sounded particularly creepy under the circumstances. Up ahead, a small cabin was visible. It was pink, with white doors and white window trim. It looked like a pleasant-enough summer place.

“He left a light for us,” Kate whispered behind me. “I remember that Casanova used to play loud rock ’n’ roll music when he was in the house.”

I could tell it was painful for her to be thinking about her captivity again, to be reliving it. “You see any similarities to this cabin?” I asked her. I was trying to be very still inside, trying to get ready for the Gentleman.

“No. I only saw the inside of the other place, Alex. Let’s hope it won’t disappear on us.”

“I’m hoping for a lot of things right now. I’ll put that on the list.”

The cabin was an A-frame, and probably built to be a vacation home or weekend retreat. There were three or four bedrooms from the look of it.

I took out my Glock as we got closer. The Glock was the weapon of choice these days in the inner city; it weighed a little over a pound when loaded and was easily concealed. It would probably work fine in el pais grande del sur, too.

Kate kept behind me as we moved toward a clearing in the trees that served as a backyard. There were actually two lights glittering and drawing bugs to the house. One was the front-porch lamp. The second was in the back of the cabin. I made my way toward the second, dimmer light in back. I gestured for Kate to stay back, which she did.

This could be the Gentleman Caller, I warned myself. Take it very slow. This could also be a trap. Anything could happen here. There’s no predicting from here on.

I could see into a rear bedroom window. I was less than ten steps away from the cabin walls, and probably the mass murderer who was terrifying the West Coast. Then I saw him.

Dr. Will Rudolph was pacing around the small wood-paneled room and he was talking to himself. He appeared to be highly agitated. He was hugging himself with both arms. As I moved closer, I could see that he was perspiring heavily. Not in good shape at all. The scene reminded me of “quiet rooms” in mental hospitals, where patients sometimes go to act out their problems and volatile emotions.

Rudolph suddenly screamed at someone… but there was no one else in the room.

His face and his neck were bright crimson red as he screamed again and again… at absolutely no one!

He was screaming at the top of his lungs. His veins looked ready to burst.

Seeing him like this chilled me, and I slowly backed away from the cabin.

I could still hear his voice, hear the words ringing in my ears: “Goddamn you, Casanova! Kiss the girls! Kiss the fucking girls yourself from now on!”

CHAPTER 67

WHAT THE hell is Cross doing?” Agent John Asaro asked his partner. They were in the thick woods on the other side of the cabin at Big Sur. The cabin reminded Asaro of The Band’s first album, Music from Big Pink. He half expected flower children and hippies to step out of the fog.

“Maybe Cross is a peeping Tom, Johnny. What do I know? He’s a guru, a squirrel profiler. He’s Kyle Craig’s boy,” Ray Cosgrove said with a shrug.

“So that means he can do whatever he wants to do?”

“Probably.” Cosgrove shrugged a second time. He had seen far too many crazy situations, too many “special accommodations,” in his Bureau career to let this one bother him.

“First of all,” Cosgrove said, “whether we like it or not, he has Washington’s blessing.”

“I hate Washington with a freaking passion that just won’t quit,” Asaro said.

“Everybody hates Washington, Johnny. Second, Cross strikes me as a pro at least. He’s not just some glory hound. Third,” the older, more experienced partner continued, “and most important, what we have on Dr. Rudolph is hardly conclusive evidence that he’s our squirrel. Otherwise, we would have called in the LAPD, army, navy, and marines.”

“Maybe the late Ms. Lieberman made a mistake when she logged his name into her computer?”

“She definitely made some kind of mistake somewhere, Johnny. Maybe her hunch was all wrong.”

“Maybe Will Rudolph was an ex-boyfriend of hers? She was just doodling his name on her PC?”

“Doubtful. But a possibility,” Cosgrove said.