Jack & Jill

like Jake or Cliff would fit the escort better. He was a tad older than Robinson had expected, possibly in his mid-thirties, but he was more than acceptable. He was near perfect, actually. Michael Robinson was already hard, and he was lubricated.
Armed and dangerous,
he called the ready state.
    “How are you doing tonight?” The actor put out his hand and lightly touched the other man’s arm. He wanted “Jasper” to know that he was down-to-earth, unaffected, and most of all, a warm person. He truly
was
all of that.
USA Today
had recently published a list of the “nicest” stars in Hollywood. He was on it, courtesy of his business agent and lawyer, who spoke exceedingly well of him.
    Jack unleashed his best smile as he entered Michael Robinson’s
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
hotel suite. He shut the door behind him. He figured he had about half an hour before the real escort arrived from the service. That would be enough time.
    At any rate, Jill was watching the lobby of the Willard, just in case the male prostitute arrived early. She would take care of things downstairs. Jill was excellent with the details, all the loose ends. Jill was excellent, period.
    “I’m a real fan,” Jack said to the big Hollywood star. “I’ve been following your career closely, actually.”
    Michael Robinson spoke in a near-whisper that would have shocked male and female fans of his action-romance films. “Oh, really, Jasper? That’s always so nice for me to hear. It’s kind of you to say, anyway.”
    “I swear to God, it’s true.” Sam Harrison continued his act “My name is Jack, by the way. Jill is down in the lobby. Maybe you’ve heard of us?”
    Jack pulled out a Beretta with a silencer and aimed it between the actor’s startled deep-blue eyes. He fired. It fit the pattern of Jack and Jill. People in high places. Execution-style murder. Kinky touches and poem to follow.

Jack and Jill came to The Hill.
To kill, to kill, to kill.

CHAPTER
29

    ONE SPECIFIC, and particularly fascinating, detail about the murders was weighing heavily on my mind, troubling the hell out of me. I thought about it as I turned onto crowded Pennsylvania Avenue and double-parked in front of the Willard Hotel—the latest helter-skelter murder scene.
    I thought about the troubling detail as I marched inside and headed up to Michael Robinson’s suite.
    I thought about it as the smooth-riding elevator whooshed open on the seventh floor, where half a dozen uniforms were standing around, and rolls of crime-scene tape ribboned the hallway like a tangle of distasteful Christmas wrapping.
    There wasn’t much evidence of passion in the first two killings,
I was thinking.
Especially the second murder. The murders were so cold-blooded and efficient. The arrangement of the bodies of the victims seemed to have been art-directed. The kinkiness of the scenes seemed too directed and orderly. This is the exact opposite of the Sojourner Truth School murders, which were violent explosions of pent-up anger and pure rage.
    I didn’t get the full significance yet, and neither did anyone else I spoke to about the murder case. Not inside the D.C. police, and not at the Federal Bureau in Quantico. If, as a detective, I had one basic rule about premeditated murders, it was this: they were almost always based on passion. There usually had to be extreme love. Or hate. Or greed… but these killings seemed to have none of that. It kept bugging me.
    Why Michael Robinson?
I wondered as I walked toward the hotel room where he had been murdered.
What are these two bizarre psychopaths doing here in Washington? What sick and cruel game are they playing… and why do they crave millions of spectators for their sensational blood sport?
    I spotted Kyle Craig once again. The FBI senior agent and I talked for several moments outside the suite. All around us, usually sangfroid D.C. cops appeared in mild shock. A lot of them were probably disappointed Michael Robinson fans.
    “The medical examiner figures he’s been a famous corpse for about seven hours. So it happened around twelve last night,” Kyle told me, giving me the lay of the land. “Two shots fired to his head, Alex. Close range, just like the others. Take a look at the tattooing for yourself. Whoever did the shooting is a real heartless bastard.”
    I agreed with what Kyle was saying.
    Heartless.
    No passion.
    No rage.
    “How was Michael Robinson found?”
    “Oh, that’s another good part, Alex. A new