Kiss the Girls

CHAPTER 19.

EARLY ON SUNDAY MORNING it got even worse on the Casanova case. I had to drive Sampson to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. He needed to be back on The Job in Washington that afternoon. Someone had to protect the capital while I was working down here.

The investigation was getting hotter and nastier now that the third woman's body had been found. Not only local police and FBI, but also field-and-game officials had joined in the physical search at the homicide site. Deputy Director Ronald Burns had been here last night.

Why was that?

Sampson gave me a bear hug at the American Airlines security gate. We must have looked like a couple of Washington Redskins linebackers after they won the Super Bowl, or maybe after they didn't even get into the play-offs in 1991.

“I know what Naomi means to you,” he whispered against the side of my skull. “I know some of what you're feeling. You need me again, you call.” We gave each other a quick kiss on the cheek, like Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas used to before their NBA basketball games. That drew a few stares from the peanut gallery milling around the metal detectors.

Sampson and I love each other, and we're not ashamed to show it.

Unusual for tough-as-nails men of action like the two of us.

"Watch out for the Fed Bureau. Watch your back with the local folk.

Watch your front, too. I don't like Ruskin. I really don't like Sikes,“ Sampson continued to give me instructions. ”You'll find Naomi.

I have confidence in you. Always have. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

The Big Man finally walked away, and never once looked back.

I was all alone down South.

Chasing monsters again.