Double Cross - James Patterson [62]
He turned the corner—and saw a housekeeper, a young black woman. Listening to her iPod. Oblivious to the world, and who could blame her? Not bad-looking, actually. Chesty, long skinny legs, working barefoot on the rug. Smooth skin. Hair in a tight ponytail. Lord, he had missed this—longed for it every day in jail, several times a day.
“I’m sor-ry,” the girl drawled when she saw him standing there, the gun tucked behind his back now. No need to frighten the poor thing half to death.
“Oh, it’s not a problem. Just finish up what you’re doing,” he said, slipping the gun back into the holster under his vest.
He took out his ice pick instead. Fingered it, like Queeg with those metal balls.
“You’re too pretty to be working here like this, cleaning rooms. I’m sorry if that’s insulting. I’ve forgotten my manners lately.”
The girl stammered without looking at him. “I’ll c-come back,” she said.
“No,” Kyle said. “Actually, you won’t. There is no afterlife.” Then, “In my honor,” he whispered as he struck the maid’s chest, once, twice—for symmetry, for art’s sake, for the joy of it. And he thought, She reminds me of one of Alex Cross’s girlfriends. And he stabbed her again.
He even left another little clue before he abandoned the room—a bobble-head figure of the great outlaw Jesse James.
Jesse James! Would anybody get that one?
Anybody in their right mind?
Chapter 80
NANA SWEARS that good, positive things happen in twos and threes, though I can’t remember that actually happening to me. Lately, even one positive thing in a row was hard to come by.
In the morning, I spoke with Tess Olsen’s editor at a New York publishing house, then to the author’s personal assistant in Maryland, and I was able to get a copy of the proposal for the book that Olsen had planned to write about Kyle Craig. A few lines from the thirty-page outline and pitch were particularly interesting to me.
Olsen had written:
It is important that I gain Kyle Craig’s trust and confidence so that he believes I will write a flattering book detailing his cunning and his brilliance.
Based on our meetings at ADX Florence, I am fairly certain I can do this. Kyle Craig likes me. I can tell that already. I know the criminal mind as well as anyone out there, don’t I?
In my opinion, Kyle Craig believes that he will get out of ADX Florence someday. He is making plans for the future.
He even went so far as to tell me that he is innocent. Is that possible?
Clearly, Kyle had fooled someone else . . . and then what? Had he arranged her murder? Or had the killer, or killers, in Washington murdered Tess Olsen as some kind of homage to Craig? Was that a possibility?
Either way, there had to be a connection, and it was one of the few real leads we had toward the capture of DCAK. Or Kyle Craig, for that matter.
The second positive thing happened while I was going over everything about the case again. Suddenly I figured out a piece of the puzzle, and it tied into my earlier findings about Tess Olsen.
The Hallmark card—I finally got it! It hit me that Hallmark’s headquarters were in Kansas City—KC.
KC—Kyle Craig.
A couple of other clues quickly became clear.
A figurine of The Scout had been left at the apartment of a murdered woman in Iowa City. Kyle Craig was a suspect in the homicide. The Scout was a famous statue located in Kansas City.
A bottle of Arthur Bryant’s barbecue sauce had been left out in his mother’s kitchen. Arthur Bryant’s was a famous restaurant in KC.
We were finally making some breakthroughs, even if they were clues the killers wanted us to find.
Why was that? Were we proving ourselves worthy? Was I proving myself worthy of this manhunt?
Was I?
Chapter 81
WE FOUND OUT about DCAK’s next move less than three days later. After I saw my slate of morning patients—including the vet Anthony Demao, who was back and who had had a minor meltdown during our session to prove it—I connected with Bree at the Daly Building. My own desk at the Daly was counterproductively