Kiss the Girls

Carolina.”
    Nana Mama knew enough not to ask too much about Scootchie yet. She also knew exactly what my silence meant.

Chapter 39

    I N THE late afternoon, thirty or of my very closest friends and relatives swarmed through the house on Fifth Street. The investigation in North Carolina was the topic of discussion. This was natural even though they knew I would have told them if I had any good news to report. I made up hopeful leads that just weren’t there. It was the best I could do for them.
    Sampson and I finally got together on the back porch after we’d had a little too much imported beer and rare beefsteaks. Sampson needed to listen; I needed some cop talk with my friend and partner.
    I told him everything that had happened so far in North Carolina. He understood the difficulty of the investigation and manhunt. He’d been there with me before, on cases without a single clue.
    “At first, they shut me out completely. Wouldn’t listen to squat from me. Lately, it’s been a little better,” I said to him. “Detectives Ruskin and Sikes dutifully check in and keep me up to date. Ruskin does, anyway. Occasionally, he even tries to be helpful. Kyle Craig is on the case, too. The FBI still won’t tell me what they know.”
    “Any guesses, Alex?” Sampson wanted to know. He was intense as he listened and occasionally made a point.
    “Maybe one of the kidnapped women is connected to somebody important. Maybe the number of victims is a lot higher than they’re letting on. Maybe the killer is connected to somebody with power or influence.”
    “You
don’t
have to go back down there,” Sampson said after he’d heard all the details. “Sounds like they’ve got enough ‘professionals’ on the case. Don’t start on one of your vendettas, Alex.”
    “It’s already started,” I told him. “I think Casanova’s enjoying the fact that he has us stumped with his perfect crimes. I think he likes it that
I’m
stumped and frustrated, too. There’s something else, but I can’t figure it out yet. I think he’s in heat now.”
    “Mmm, hmm. Well it sounds to me like
you’re
in heat, too. Back the hell off him, Alex. Don’t play Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes with this kinky madman.”
    I didn’t say anything. I just shook my head, my very
hard
head.
    “What if you can’t get him,” Sampson finally said. “What if you can’t solve this case? You have to think about that, Sugar.”
    That was the one possibility I
wouldn’t
consider.

Chapter 40

    W HEN KATE McTiernan woke up, she knew immediately that something was very wrong, that her impossible situation had gotten even worse.
    She didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, where she was being held. Her vision was blurred. Her pulse was jumpy. All her vital signs seemed off kilter.
    She had gone from extreme feelings of detachment, to depression, to panic, in just the few moments she had been conscious. What had he given her? What drug would produce these symptoms? If she could solve that puzzle, it would prove she was still sane, at least still competent to think things through clearly.
    Maybe he’d given her Klonopin, Kate considered.
    Ironically, Klonopin was usually prescribed as an antianxiety medication. But if he started her at a high-enough dosage, say five to ten milligrams, she would experience approximately the same side effects she was feeling now.
    Or maybe he’d used Marinol capsules? They were prescribed for treatment of nausea during chemotherapy. Kate knew Marinol was a real beaut! If he put her on, say, two hundred milligrams a day, she’d be bouncing off the walls. Cottonmouth. Disorientation. Periods of manic depression. A dosage of fifteen hundred to two thousand milligrams would be lethal.
    He had taken away her escape plan with the powerful drugs. She couldn’t fight him like this. Her karate training was useless. Casanova had seen to that.
    “You fucker,” Kate said out loud. She almost never swore. “You motherfucker,” she whispered between clenched teeth.
    She didn’t want to die. She was only thirty-one years old. She was finally trained to be a doctor, a good one, she hoped.
Why me? Don’t let this happen. This man, this awful maniac, is going to kill me for no good reason!
    Shivers as cold as icicles ran up and down her spine. She felt as if she were going to throw up, or maybe even pass out.
Orthostatic hypotension,
she thought. It was the medical term for fainting when you get up fast from a bed or