Cat and Mouse (Alex Cross 4)

Suddenly, sunbathers were pointing to something out over the ocean.

I turned and I looked up, shading my eyes with one hand.

A prop plane was lazily making its way down the shoreline from the north. It was the kind of plane you rented for commercial messages. Most of the messages on forty-foot banners hyped the hotels, local bars, area restaurants, and casinos.

A banner waved behind the sputtering plane, which was getting closer and closer. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was another message.

Mr. Smith is gone for now! Wave good-bye.

Chapter 119

EARLY THE next morning, I headed home to Washington. I needed to see the kids, needed to sleep in my own bed, to be far, far away from Thomas Pierce and his monstrous creation — Mr. Smith.

Inez had turned out to be an escort from a local service. Pierce had called her to his room at Bally’s Park Place. I was starting to believe that Pierce could find intimacy only with his victims now, but what else was driving him to commit these horrifying murders? Why Inez? Why the Jersey Shore?

I had to escape for a couple of days, or even a few hours, if that was all I could get. At least we hadn’t already gotten another name, another location to rush off to.

I called Christine from Atlantic City and asked her if she wanted to have dinner with my family that night. She said yes, she’d like that a lot. She said she’d “be there with bells on.” That sounded unbelievably good to me. The best medicine I could imagine for what ailed me.

I kept the sound of her voice in my head all the way home to Washington. She would be there with bells on.

Damon, Jannie, and I spent a hectic morning getting ready for the party. We shopped for groceries at Citronella, and then at the Giant. Veni, vidi, Visa.

I had almost put Pierce–Mr. Smith out of my mind, but I still had my Glock in an ankle holster to go grocery shopping.

At the Giant, Damon scouted on ahead to find some RC Cola and tortilla chips. Jannie and I had a chance to talk the talk. I knew she was dying to bzzz-bzzz-bzzz. I can always tell. She has a fine, overactive imagination, and I couldn’t wait to hear what was on her little mind.

Jannie was in charge of pushing the shopping cart, and the metal handle of the cart was just above her eye level. She stared at the immense array of cereals in our aisle, looking for the best deals. Nana Mama had taught her the fine art of grocery shopping, and she can do most of the math in her head.

“Talk to me,” I said. “My time is your time. Daddy’s home.”

“For today.” She sent a hummer right past my ear, brushed me right back from home plate with a high, hard one.

“It’s not easy being green,” I said. It was an old favorite line between us, compliments of Kermit the Frog. She shrugged it off today. No sale. No easy deals.

“You and Damon mad at me?” I asked in my most soothing tones. “Tell me the truth, girlfriend.”

She softened a little. “Oh, it’s not so much that, Daddy. You’re doing the best you can,” she said, and finally looked my way. “You’re trying, right? It’s just hard when you go away from home. I get lonely for you. It’s not the same when you’re away.”

I shook my head, smiled, and wondered where she got much of her thinking from. Nana Mama swears that Jannie has a mind of her own.

“You okay with our dinner plans?” I asked, treading carefully.

“Oh ab-solutely.” She suddenly beamed. “That’s not a problem at all. I love dinner parties.”

“Damon? Is he okay with Christine coming over tonight?” I asked my confidante.

“He’s a little scared ’cause she’s the principal of our school. But he’s cool, too. You know Damon. He’s the man.”

I nodded. “He is cool. So dinner’s not a problem? You’re not even a little scared?”

Jannie shook her head. “Nope. Not because of that. Dinners can’t scare me. Dinner is dinner.”

Man, she was smart, and so subtle for her age. It was like talking to a very wise adult. She was already a poet, and a philsopher, too. She was going to be competition for Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison one day. I loved that about her.

“Do you have to keep going after him? After this bum Mr. Smith?” Jannie finally asked me. “I guess you do.” She answered her own question.

I echoed her earlier line. “I’m doing the best I can.”