Violets Are Blue (Alex Cross 7)

It happened so fast that it almost didn’t seem possible. Suddenly Michael had locked the handcuffs onto Andrew’s wrists. Then he took the actor down on the carpet. He was all over Andrew. He and William gagged him with silk scarves. They moved so fast. They took off Andrew’s clothes. They tied his ankles with more scarves.

“Trust us, Andrew. This will be great. You can’t imagine,” William whispered. Then he watched Michael bite into Andrew’s throat. Just a sip. A few delicious drops. An aperitif.

Andrew Cotton’s beautiful eyes went wild with fear and confusion. The look was priceless. He knew that he was going to die. Soon, very soon. Maybe in just a couple of minutes.

Dara couldn’t see what was happening on the floor. “Hey. What are you men doing down there? Is it dirty? Are you buggering one another? I’m feeling neglected up here. Somebody come to bed with me. Bugger me.”

William rose up to her, and his penis was large and beautiful, his stomach impossibly flat, his smile enchanting, irresistible, and he knew it.

“Up popped the devil,” he said.

“Kiss me, devil,” she whispered, and fluttered her eyelashes. “Make love to me. Forget about old Andrew. And Michael. You’re not in love with your own brother, are you?”

“Who wouldn’t be?” William asked.

He knelt over her and then he lowered his body very slowly. He closed his arms around her. Suddenly Dara was shaking. She knew, without really knowing. Like so many men and women William had feasted on, she wanted to die without knowing what it was that she wanted. He knew she could see herself reflected in his deep blue eyes. He knew Dara felt she had never looked more desirable.

And he did desire her. Right now, he wanted Dara more than anything else on the earth. William inhaled Dara’s smells—flesh, soap, a citrus fragrance, the rich blood coursing through her veins. Then William’s tongue gently lapped at her earlobe. He knew that Dara felt as if she had been touched inside. It wasn’t physically possible, but she had felt William’s tongue deep inside her.

Suddenly Michael was lifting Andrew up onto the immense bed. There was room for everyone. Andrew was bound in colorful scarves and shiny silver handcuffs. There was a harsh red mark on his neck. And blood running down his chest. The actor was already dead.

Dara was beginning to understand everything. William was right—this was so much better without the cocaine. He was touching her everywhere and he was so warm, so hot, this was exquisite. She was writhing, ready to come already, bursting with yearning and desire.

“This is just the beginning,” William whispered against her throat. “Your pleasure is only just starting. I promise, Dara.”

He licked away her bittersweet perfume. He kissed her again and again. Then William bit down into her throat.

It got better and better.

The ecstasy of pain.

Dying like this.

No one understood that until the end.

Chapter 34

IT HAD happened again. Jesus. Two more ungodly murders. An FBI helicopter was waiting for me at the airport in Fresno. I was flown to Las Vegas, where an FBI sedan was waiting. The driver, an agent named Carl Lenards, informed me that Director in Charge Craig was already at the crime scene. Then Lenards filled me in on the rest.

The latest murders had taken place at a five-diamond luxury hotel, the Bellagio. When it opened in 1998, the Bellagio was the most expensive hotel ever built. It was upscale and family friendly—until now, anyway. There was hardly a trace of the old Las Vegas—no naked ladies, no mobsters in shiny sharkskin suits.

Las Vegas police cars and EMS vehicles were parked all over the

approach driveway from Boulevard South, which is Route 604. There were at least a half dozen TV vans on the property. I estimated that five to six hundred onlookers were gathered outside the hotel. Why was the crowd so large? Exactly what had happened inside? All I had so far were sketchy details of the murders. I knew that the bodies had been drained. But not hung.

As I made my way through the onlookers, I saw something that bothered me, shook me up even more than the news of the murders.

There were at least a dozen men and women dressed in Goth attire: black frock coats, top hats, leather pants, long boots. One of them smiled right at me. He showed off a set of sharpened, very nasty looking fangs. He had on bloodred contacts that glowed. He seemed to know who I was. “Dude.” He smirked. “Welcome to hell.”

There was nothing I could do about the ghouls. I kept on walking toward the Bellagio. These strange role-players seemed to have no qualms about being at the crime scene. Were the killers here? Were they watching? What did they expect to see next? What did the murders mean?

I hoped that the Vegas police or the FBI was filming the crowd gathering outside the hotel. I figured that Kyle would have taken care of that. I was here for one reason: I can put together details at a murder scene that other cops usually can’t. It was why Kyle Craig had asked for me. He understood my strengths, and probably also my weaknesses.

The suite where the couple had been murdered was large and relatively tasteful by resort standards. The first thing anyone entering the bathroom would notice was a marble bathtub in a tinted-glass window overlooking a manmade lake and several fountains.

Two bodies were in the tub. I could see the tops of their heads and a couple of bare feet. As I got closer, I saw that the man and woman had been bitten and also cut several times. The nude corpses were eerily white.

There hadn’t been anywhere to hang them inside the suite.