Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls

CHAPTER 42.

I WAS BACK in the South, back on this ugly homicide and kidnapping investigation. Sampson had been right this time it was personal. It was also an impossible case, the kind that can go on for years.

Everything was being done that could be done. There were eleven suspects currently under surveillance in Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh. Among them were assorted deviates, but also university professors, doctors, and even a retired cop in Raleigh. On account of the “perfect” crimes, all area policemen had been checked by the Bureau.

I didn't concern myself with these suspects. I was to look where no one else was looking. That was the deal I had made with Kyle Craig and the FBI. I was the designated hitter.

There were several ongoing cases across the country at that time. I read hundreds of detailed FBI briefs on all of them. A killer of gay men in Austin, Texas. A repeat killer of elderly women in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo, Michigan. Pattern killers in Chicago, North Palm Beach, Long Island, Oakland, and Berkeley.

I read until my eyes burned and my insides felt even worse.

There was a nasty case that was grabbing national headlines the Gentleman Caller in Los Angeles. I pulled up the killer's “diaries” on Nexus. They had been running in the Los Angeles Times since the beginning of the year.

I began to read the L.A. killer's diaries. I short-circuited as I read the next-to-last diary entry from the Times. It took my breath away. I almost didn't believe what I'd just read on the computer.

I backed the story up on the screen. I reread the entry one more time, very slowly, word for word.

It was a tale about a young woman who was being held “captive” by the Gentleman Caller in California.

The young woman's name: Naomi C. Her occupation: Second-year law student.

Description: Black, very attractive. Twenty-two years old.

Naomi was twenty-two ... a second-year law student ... How could a savage, recreational killer in Los Angeles know anything about Naomi Cross?