Violets Are Blue - James Patterson [65]
And then, just down the street, he saw a young girl. She was maybe fourteen, sitting on her front porch, gently stroking a Persian cat. She was pretty, even sultry.
The girl had long brown hair that flowed down to her small breasts. A diaphanous snakeskin-print top over a belly-length tank top. Tight, dark blue jeans, hip hugging and flared just right. Stud and hoop earrings, both gold and silver. Toe rings. Bracelets of multiple colors on one slender arm. A typical teenager — except that she was so stunning. A complete turn-on. And arrogant, just like he was.
William stopped and called out to her. “Your cat is beautiful,” he said, and smiled wickedly.
She looked up, and he saw that she had the same piercing green eyes as the Persian. The girl ran her eyes all over him. He could actually feel her gaze against his skin. He knew that she wanted him. Men and women always did.
“Why do you hold back?” he asked, and continued to smile. “If you want something, then you should take it. Always. That’s your lesson for the day, free of charge.”
“Oh, and you’re a teacher?” she called from the porch. “You don’t look like any teacher I’ve ever had.”
“A teacher, but also a student.”
He had desire for this girl. Not only was she a beautiful physical specimen, she had good instincts. She was sexual and knowing for her age. She used her gifts, unlike most young people, who wasted their talent and potential. She wouldn’t speak again, wouldn’t even smile, but she didn’t look away either.
William loved her confidence, the way her bright green eyes tried to mock him but couldn’t quite do it. The way she thrust her small breasts at him, her only weapons. He wanted to go up on the porch and take the beautiful girl right there. Bite her, drink her. Spill her blood all over the whitewashed wooden planks.
No. Not now, not yet, not here. God, he hated this, hated not being himself. He wanted to exercise his power, to use his gifts.
Finally, William began to walk away. It took all his will, all his power, to leave this beautiful prize sitting so invitingly on the porch.
It was then that the girl finally spoke again. “Why do you hold back?” she called, and laughed pitilessly.
William smiled, and then he turned around.
He walked back toward the girl.
“You’re very lucky,” he said. “You’ve been chosen.”
Chapter 70
SOMETHING HAD to break for us. At seven in the morning, I sat alone at a table outside the Café Du Monde across from Jackson Square. I ate sugar-dusted beignets and sipped chickory-laced coffee. I stared off in the direction of the spires of St. Louis Cathedral and listened to the bleating horns of riverboats coming down the Mississippi.
It should have been a nice time in the morning, except that I was frustrated and angry and filled with energy that I didn’t know what to do with.
I had seen a lot of bad cases, but this was possibly the most difficult to comprehend. The gruesome murders had been going on for more than eleven years, but the pattern was still unclear and so was the motivation of the killers.
As soon as I reached the FBI offices, I got the disturbing news that a fifteen-year-old girl was missing and that she lived less than six blocks from the magicians. It was possible that she was a runaway, but it didn’t seem likely to me. Still, she had been gone less than twenty-four hours.
There was a briefing scheduled, and I went upstairs to find out more, and also why I hadn’t been alerted earlier. When I entered the session that morning, I sensed the frustration everywhere I looked. It was hard to imagine a worse result: We suspected that we had tracked down the murderers, but there was nothing we could do about it. And now, possibly, they had murdered another victim right under our noses.
I sat down beside Jamilla. Both of us had containers of hot coffee plus the morning edition of the Times-Picayune. There was nothing about the missing girl. Apparently the New Orleans police had sat on the disappearance