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Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue
Chapter Sixty-Eight
I stared out at the great, sweeping live oaks. Then I noticed the plump magnolias and sloppy, fanning banana trees of the Garden District. There was nothing else for me to do. The surveillance continued. Jamilla was starting to repeat herself. We both were, and that became a running gag between us. Sections of the day's Times-Picayune were all over the backseat of the car. We had read it cover to cover. "There's no physical evidence tying Daniel or Charles to a single murder. Not in any of the cities, Alex. Everything we have on them is circumstantial, or theoretical, hypothetical bullshit. Does that make any sense to you? It doesn't to me.' She was talking, probably just to talk, but she was making sense. 'It just doesn't add up. They can't be that good. No one is.' We were parked four blocks north of the house on LaSalle. The domain. We could get there in seconds if anything developed, but so far, nothing had. That was the problem. Daniel and Charles rarely left their two-hundred-year-old mansion, and when they did, it was only to go shopping, or to a fancy restaurant downtown. Not surprisingly, they had good taste. I tried to answer Jamilla's question. 'It makes some sense to me that we can't link them to the early murders.You know as well as I do - once a murder case gets old it's almost impossible to find witnesses, or compelling evidence. I don't understand why we haven't found anything on the recent murders, though.' 'That's what I'm thinking too. We have witnesses to the killings in -------------- 185 --------------
JAMES PATTERSON
Savannah and in Charleston, but no one recognizes photos of Daniel or Charles. Why not? What are we missing?' 'Maybe they don't commit the actual murders themselves,' I said. 'Maybe they used to, but not anymore.' 'Don't they want to feast on the kills? Drink the blood? What other purpose do the murders serve? Are they symbolic? Is this part of some arcane mythology? Are they creating a new mythology? Jesus, Alex, what the hell are these two monsters doing in New Orleans?' I didn't have answers to her questions, or my own. No one did, unfortunately. So we sat in the car, tried to keep cool in the heat, and waited for Daniel and Charles to make their next move. If they were so careful and so good then why did we know about them, why were we here?
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Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue
Chapter Sixty-Nine
William found this laughable. God, it was good! Priceless. He was watching the police as they in turn watched the house of horrors owned by Daniel and Charles. It was too much. The young prince walked down LaSalle, puffing on a cigarette, haughty, confident, unafraid of anyone, superior in every way he could imagine. Michael was home sleeping, so he had decided to take a stroll. This was rich. Maybe he would see one of the local celebrities who lived in the Garden District. Like the fabulous Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, or some asshole from MTV's Real World house in the Big Easy. There were two nondescript Lincolns parked on the street. He wondered if the magicians had noticed the cars. He smiled, shook his head. He wondered what the hell Daniel and Charles were thinking. They would be careful, of course. They had been committing murders for a long time, years and years. So now what? Something had to give-He continued to the end of the street, then walked south toward Sixth. Most of the houses there had screened-in porches crawling with vines. Along the way, he saw a fine physical specimen - a male, twenty-one or so, shirt off, pecs gleaming with sweat. That picked up his spirits. The man was hosing down a silver BMW convertible, the James Bond car. His chiseled body, the spurting water hose, and the shiny car turned William on like a light switch. But he controlled himself and walked on.
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JAAAES PATTERSON
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.7 He 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 them 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 physical specimen, but 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 out 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.
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VIOLETS ARE BLUE
It was then that the girl finally spoke again. 'Why do you hold back?7 she called, and laughed pitilessly. William smiled and turned around. He walked back toward the girl. 'You're very lucky/he said.'You've been chosen.'
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Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue
Chapter Seventy
Something had to break for us. At seven in the morning, I sat alone at a table outside the Cafe du Monde across from Jackson Square. I ate sugar-dusted beignets and sipped chickory-laced coffee. I stared off in the direction of the spire of St Louis Cathedral and listened to the bleating horns of riverboats coming down the Mississippi. It should have been a nice time of 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 that 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 there was a possibility they had murdered another victim right under our noses.
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