Double Cross

incredible number of places to eat and drink. He happened on something interesting called the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk, which featured the words of writers with “Iowa ties”—Tennessee Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, even Flannery O’Connor, one of his favorites because she was so wonderfully wrong in the head.
    Just past nine, he stopped into a bar called the Sanctuary. It looked like it might actually cater to some adults, not just college students, so he wouldn’t stand out too much. There were oodles of wainscoting inside and booths that looked like old church pews. And, yes indeed, an older crowd.
    “Yes, sir. What can I get you?” he heard the very instant he sat at the bar.
    The bartender looked as if he’d probably been a student at the university and then had decided to stay in town, which seemed like a reasonable choice. White-blond hair cut short, with a contemporary flip in the front. Probably midtwenties. Depressingly dull from the look of his eyes and his broad, welcoming smile.
    “How ya doing, buddy?” said Craig. No more or less than a cordial greeting. He asked about the wines, then ordered a Brunello di Montalcino that seemed to tower in quality above the other reds served in the restaurant.
    “The Brunello is available only by the bottle. I don’t know if I made that clear, sir.”
    “It’s not a problem. I’m not driving after I leave here,” Kyle Craig said, and affected a pleasant chuckle. “I’ll take the bottle. Uncork it and let it breathe for me, please. And I’d like the Brie-and-apple appetizer. Could they please cut a fresh apple?”
    “I could help you with that Brunello. If you need help?”
    A voice—female—came from Kyle’s right. He turned and saw a woman seated a few stools away. She was by herself. Smiling pleasantly at him.
Police
? he wondered. Then—
No
. Then—
Unless she’s very good at what she does
.
    “I’m Camille Pogue,” she said, and smiled in a manner that struck him as both shy and slightly sly. Dark hair, petite, probably no more than five feet in her stockings. Mid-to-late thirties, he guessed. Obviously lonely, though she shouldn’t be, given her looks, which interested him somewhat. He was drawn to people who had a little complexity to them, at least until he had them figured out.
    “I think I’d enjoy the company,” Kyle said, and cast a smile back her way. Nothing too aggressive. “I’m Alex . . . Cross. Nice to meet you.”
    “Hello, Alex.”
    Kyle moved down the bar and sat beside Camille, and they talked rather easily for the next half hour or so. She turned out to be bright and only mildly neurotic on the face of things. She taught art history at the university, specializing in the Italian Renaissance. She had lived in Rome, Florence, and Venice, and now she was back in the United States but not sure if she wanted to stay here, meaning in America, not just Iowa City.
    “Because America isn’t as you remembered it or because it is exactly as you remembered it?” Kyle asked.
    She laughed. “I think it’s a little of both, Alex. The political naïveté and indifference in the States just drives me crazy sometimes. But what bothers me most is the conformity. It’s a cancer, and it appears to be spreading, especially in the media. Everybody seems afraid to have an opinion of their own.”
    Kyle nodded. “You might accuse me of the latter for saying this, Camille, but I couldn’t agree more.”
    She leaned in close but not in a way that could be off-putting or threatening. “So, are you different, Alex?” she asked.
    “I’m different, I think. No, I’m sure that I am. In a good way, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    They walked around the town square after they finished off the Brunello. Then she took him home to a pretty gray-and-white Colonial on a side street off Clinton, with window boxes bursting with colorful flowers. The teacher had the entire ground floor, which was decorated with European furniture and art, and was quite spacious and open and welcoming. Another side of her revealed, a nice side too.
Homey? Homespun
?
    “Have you eaten, Alex? Other than your apple and cheese? Your freshly cut apple,” she said, swinging toward him, a bit more forward inside her own place. She had soft breasts, but the rest of her seemed firm. Very nice and desirable, and suddenly Kyle knew exactly how he wanted her. Actually, he felt an incredible rush of lust.
    But first, he yanked off his mask—and her eyes went wide with