Kiss the Girls

crime and all that,” Kate muttered.
    Wick Sachs finally stopped in front of the nicely retro Varsity Theatre in downtown Chapel Hill. He stood next to a community billboard covered with all sorts of handwritten notices and posters, mostly aimed at university students and faculty members.
    “Why would that scum be going to a movie?” Kate whispered, sounding more incensed than ever.
    “Maybe because he likes to escape, as in
sublimate.
This is the secret life of Wick Sachs. We’re watching it.”
    “I’d kind of like to go after him right now. Rumble,” Kate said.
    “Yeah, me too. Me too, Kate.”
    I had noticed the cluttered community billboard on one of my walks here before. There were several notices about missing persons in the Chapel Hill area.
Missing students.
All of them were women. It struck me that this was a cruel plague that had come to the community, and no one had been able to do anything to stop it. No one had the cure.
    Wick Sachs seemed to be waiting for something or somebody. “Who the hell is he going to meet here in Chapel Hill?” I muttered.
    “Will Rudolph,” Kate said without missing a beat. “His old school chum. His best friend.”
    I’d thought about Rudolph coming back to North Carolina, actually. Twinning could be an almost physical addiction. In its negative form, it was based on codependency or enabling behavior. The two of them abducted beautiful women, and then tortured or killed them. Was that their shared secret? Or was there even more to it than that?
    “He looks like Casanova would look without the mask,” Kate said. We had slipped inside a small cutesie-pie shop called School Kids. “He has the same color hair. But why wouldn’t he disguise his hair?” she muttered. “Why only a mask?”
    “Maybe the mask isn’t a disguise at all? It might mean something different in his private fantasy world,” I suggested. “It’s possible that Casanova is his real persona. The mask, the whole human-sacrifice aura, the symbolism—all of that would be very important for him.”
    Sachs was still waiting in front of the community billboard. Waiting for what? I had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right with this picture. I sneaked a peek at him through the binoculars.
    His face was unconcerned, almost serene. A day in the park for the vampire Lestat. I wondered if he might be high on some kind of drug. He certainly knew about sophisticated tranquilizers.
    Behind him on the community board were all sorts of messages. I could read them with the binoculars.
Missing—Carolyn Eileen Devito
Missing—Robin Schwartz
Missing—Susan Pyle
Women for Jim Hunt for Governor
Women for Lt. Governor Laurie Garnier
The Mind Sirens at the Cave

    All of a sudden, I had a possible answer.
Messages!
    Casanova was sending out a cruel message for us—for anyone who was watching him, anyone who dared to follow him.
    I slammed my hand down hard against the dusty windowsill inside the small store.
    “The son of a bitch is playing mind games!” I nearly shouted in the crowded shop where we were watching Wick Sachs. The elderly shopkeeper eyed me as if I were dangerous. I
was
dangerous.
    “What’s wrong?” Kate was suddenly peering over my shoulder, leaning her body against me, trying to see whatever it was that I saw up the street.
    “It’s the
poster
behind him. He’s been standing under it for the past ten minutes. That’s his message, Kate, to whoever’s following him. That bright orange-and-yellow poster says it all.”
    I handed her the binoculars. One poster on the bulletin board was larger and more prominent than the others. Kate read it out loud.
    “Women and children are starving… as you walk by with loose change in your pocket. Please change your behavior now! You can actually save lives.”

Chapter 83

    O H, JESUS, Alex.” Kate spoke in a tense whisper. “If he can’t go out to the house, they’ll starve, and if he’s followed he won’t go out to the house. That’s what he’s telling us! Women are starving… change your behavior now.”
    I wanted to take out Wick Sachs right there. I knew there was nothing we could do to him. Nothing legal, anyway. Nothing sane.
    “Alex, look.” Kate sounded an alarm. She handed me the glasses.
    A woman had come up to Sachs. I squinted through the binoculars. The noonday sun was bright off shiny glass-and-metal surfaces up and down Franklin Street.
    The woman was slender and attractive, but she was older than the women who