Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

He waited in his tree hut. He hung out with himself, which he liked to do anyway.

“Got to waste some-body to-day,” he hummed a little non-song to a non-melody. “Got to, got to. Just gotta, gotta, gotta,” he sang and kind of liked the riff.

He heard something move near his hiding place. Something cracked. A branch or something? Somebody come to visit?

He listened closely. Tree branches were definitely being moved, stepped on, broken. Everything sounded amplified—like SNAPPP!

His mind had slipped away and the noise startled the hell out of him, if anybody really wanted to know the truth. His adrenaline was kicking in like crazy. He almost swallowed his Adam’s apple.

Suddenly, the top half of a face appeared, came into his view. Just the forehead and the whites of someone’s eyes.

THE WHITES OF HER EYES!

Peeking through the tree branches at him.

He saw the face of a tiny black girl. Five or six years old, really cute. She saw him, too. Fair and square.

I SEE YOU, HONEYPIE. YES, I DO. I SEE YOU!

“Hi.” He said it real nice and polite, which he could be when he wanted to. He smiled, and she almost smiled back.

He spoke softly. “You want a big balloon? I’ve got plenty of extra balloons, balloons-a-plenty, balloons galore. Here’s a cherry red balloon with your name on it.”

The little girl just stared at him. She didn’t speak a syllable. Didn’t move. She was afraid of him—imagine that. Probably confused because he’d said her name was on one of the balloons.

“Okay, no balloon then. Fine. Forget about the free balloon offer. No balloon for you, little girl. That’s okey-dokey with me. No free balloon today! No sir!”

“Yessss, please,” she suddenly said. Her brown eyes widened like blossoming flowers. Beautiful little girl, right? Beautiful, chestnut brown eyes.

“Stop being so shy, girl. Come over here, I’ll give you a big, beautiful balloon. Let’s see, I’ve got stop-sign red, sky blue, Popsicle orange, mellow yellow. Every color in the rainbow and then some.”

He mimicked somebody—maybe it was that nutcase Kevin Bacon in The River Wild, which he’d rented a week or so back. Two weeks back? Who knew? Who cared! As he was speaking, his hand tightened on the handle of a miniature baseball bat, which was reinforced with electrical tape. The bat was eighteen and a half inches long, the kind the local gangbangers used to keep law and order in the projects.

He continued to speak to the little girl in a happy singsong that was actually sarcastic and ironic as hell.

“Red one,” the girl finally chirped. Of course. She had a red ribbon in her hair. Red is the color of my true love’s love.

She lightly, very tentatively, stepped out into the clearing. He noticed her feet were so tiny. Like a size minus three. She reached toward the colorful balloons clutched tightly in his outstretched hand. She didn’t seem to notice that his hand was shaking badly.

Behind his back, he gripped the short, powerful ballbat. Then he swung—real hard.

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

III

COULD THEY actually get away with murder—especially a high-level, provocative murder like this? Jack was confident they could. It was easier than anyone knew to kill another human being, or several of them, and never get caught, never even be suspected. It happened all the time.

Jill was scared and visibly tense, though. He couldn’t blame her. In “real life,” she was a Washington careerist, well-bred, bright, certainly not the typical murderous kook you read about. Not a very likely Jill, and therefore perfect for her part in the game of games. Almost as perfect as he was for his.

“He’s drunk, completely out,” she whispered as they stood in the dark foyer of the apartment. “It helps that he’s such an absolutely repellent snake.”

“You know what they say about our Dannyboy. He’s a very bad senator, but a much worse date.”

A hint of a smile—a nervous smile—from her. “Bad joke, but I can vouch for that. Let’s go. Jack.”

Jill turned on her bare heels, and he followed close behind. He watched the slight hitch in her step. Bewitching in its way. He watched her slender figure retreat through a tiny sitting room that was dimly lit by the hallway lamp. This was the way to the flat’s bedroom, he knew.

They walked silently through a small living room. An American flag proudly stood beside the stone fireplace. The sight of the flag turned his stomach. Color photographs on the wall of a sailing regatta somewhere, probably Cape Cod.