Along Came a Spider

again.

CHAPTER 79

    JEZZIE FLANAGAN walked down the hall to room 427 inside the Marbury Hotel in Georgetown. She was feeling compulsive again. Driven. She wasn’t happy about this secretive meeting and wondered what it was about. Jezzie
thought
that she knew, and hoped she was wrong. She wasn’t wrong too often.
    Jezzie rapped her knuckles against the door. She peered around behind her. It wasn’t paranoia on her part. She knew half the people in Washington were busy watching the other half.
    “It’s open. C’mon in,” she heard from inside.
    Jezzie opened the door and saw him lounging on the couch. He’d gotten a suite, which was a bad sign. He wanted to burn money.
    “Suites for the sweet.” Mike Devine smiled from the couch. He was watching the Redskins on TV. Cool as could be. In a lot of ways, he reminded Jezzie of her father. Maybe that was why she’d gotten involved with him. The perversity of it had been a turn-on.
    “Michael, this is very dangerous right now.” Jezzie stepped into the hotel room and shut the door. Bolted it. She made her voice seem concerned, rather than angry at him. Sweet, nice Jezzie.
    “Dangerous or not, we have to talk. You know, your boyfriend came to see me recently. He was parked outside my building this morning.”
    “He’s not my boyfriend. I’ve been pumping him for information that
we’ve
needed.”
    Mike Devine smiled. “You pump him, he pumps you. Is
every-body
happy? I’m not.”
    Jezzie sat down next to Devine on the couch. He was definitely sexy and he knew it. He had Paul Newman’s looks, minus the unbearably beautiful blue eyes. He also liked women, and it showed.
    “I shouldn’t be here, Michael. We shouldn’t be together now.” Jezzie rubbed her head against his shoulder. She gently kissed his cheek, his nose. She felt like doing anything but cuddling up with him now. But she could do it if she had to. She could do whatever it took.
    “Yeah, you
should
be here, Jezzie. What good is all this money if we can’t spend it, and we can’t be together.”
    “I seem to remember a few days down at the lake recently. Did I imagine that?”
    “To hell with stolen moments. Come to Florida with me.”
    Jezzie kissed his throat. He was clean-shaven and he always smelled nice. She unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hand in. Then she let her fingers graze the lump in his trousers. She was on automatic control now. Whatever it took.
    “We might have to get rid of Alex Cross. I’m serious,” he said in a whisper. “You hear me, Jezzie?”
    She knew he was testing her, trying to get a reaction. “It’s a serious thing to say. Let me work on it a little. I’ll find out what Alex knows. Be patient.”
    “You’re fucking him, Jezzie. That’s why you’re patient.”
    “No,
I’m not
.”
    She was undoing his belt, being a little clumsy with her left hand. She needed to keep him in line for a while longer.
    “How do I know you haven’t fallen for Alex Cross?” he persisted.
    “Because, Michael, I’m in love with you.” She pushed closer to Devine and held him. He was easy to fool. They all were. All she had to do now was wait out the FBI, and they were home free. Perfect. The crime of the century.

CHAPTER 80

    I WAS ASLEEP when I got the call at four in the morning. A devastated Wallace Hart was on the line. He was calling from Fallston, where he had a serious problem on his hands. An hour later I was at the prison. I was one of four privileged insiders secreted in Wallace’s cramped, overheated office.
    The press hadn’t been told about the sensational escape yet. They had to be alerted soon — there was no getting around that. They’d have a field day with the news flash that Soneji/ Murphy was back on the loose.
    Wallace Hart was slumped over his paper-littered desk as if he’d been gut-shot. The others in the office were the prison warden and the prison’s attorney.
    “What do you know about this missing guard?” I asked Wallace at the first opportunity.
    “His name’s Fishenauer. Thirty-six years old. He’s been at the prison eleven years with a good service record,” said Hart. “Until today, he did his job.”
    “What’s your best guess? Is this guard Gary’s latest hostage?” I asked Wallace.
    “I don’t think so. I think the son-of-a-bitch bastard
helped
Soneji escape.”

    That same morning, the FBI set up round-the-clock surveillance on Michael Devine and Charles Chakely. One theory was that Soneji/Murphy might come