As I watched Kate speak, I asked myself some questions: Does he take only extraordinary women? Not just beauties, but women who are special in every way? What did that mean? What was Casanova really up to?
What game was he playing?
My suspicion was that the killer was obsessed with physical beauty, but that he couldn't bear to be around women who weren't as smart as he was. I sensed that he craved intimacy also.
Finally, Kate stopped speaking. Tears were shining in her eyes, like perfect glass drops. “I'm through now,” she said in a soft voice.
“Thank you for taking this message out to the families of the missing women. I hope that it helped a little bit. Please, no more questions for now. I still can't remember everything that happened to me. I've told you what I can.” At first there was an unnatural silence. There wasn't a single question. She had been clear about that. Then the reporters and the hospital personnel began to clap. They knew, just as Casanova knew, that Kate Mctiernan was an extraordinary woman.
I had one fear. Was Casanova there clapping, too?
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 53.
AT 4:00 A. M." Casanova packed a spanking-new, green-and-gray Lands' End knapsack with necessary food and supplies. He headed out to his hideaway for a morning of long-awaited pleasures. He actually had a favorite catch phrase for his forbidden games: Kiss the girls.
He fantasized about Anna Miller, his newest captive, on the car drive there, and then as he hiked through thick woods. He visualized over and over what he was going to do to Anna today. He remembered something, a quite wonderful and appropriate line, out of E Scott Fitzgerald: The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female, implying in a complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before. It was all biological, wasn't it? Tick-cock.
When he finally arrived at the hideaway, he turned on the Stones full volume. The incomparable Beggar's Banquet album. He needed to hear loud, antisocial rock music today. Mick Jagger was fifty, right? He was only thirty-six himself. This was His moment.
He posed naked in front of a floor-length mirror and admired his slender, well-muscled physique. He combed out his hair. Then he slipped into a shimmery hand-painted silk robe that he'd bought once upon a time in Bangkok. He left it open to expose himself.
He selected a different costume mask, a beautiful one from Venice, originally purchased for just such a special occasion. A moment of mystery and love. At last he was ready to see Anna Miller.
Anna was so haughty. Absolutely untouchable. Exquisite physically. He needed to break her quickly.
Nothing could match this physical and emotional feeling: adrenaline pumping, heart beating loudly, total exhilaration in every part of his body. He brought warm milk in a glass pitcher. Also a small wicker basket with a special surprise for Anna.
In truth, it was something he'd been planning for Dr. Kate. He'd wanted to share this moment with her.
He had put on the loud rock '' roll so that Anna would know it was time to get ready. It was a signal. He was certainly ready for her.
Pitcher full of warm milk. Long rubber tubing with a nozzle. Cuddly present in the wicker basket. Let the games begin.
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 54.
CASANOVA couldn't take his eyes off Anna Miller. The air around him seemed to roar. Everything was charged with high expectations. He was feeling more than a little out of control. Not like himself. More like the Gentleman Caller.
He looked down on his art his creation. He held a thought: Anna has never looked like this for anyone else.
Anna Miller lay on the bare wooden floor of the downstairs bedroom. She was naked, except for her jewelry, which he wanted her to wear. Her arms were bound with leather behind her back. A comfortable pillow was propped underneath her buttocks.
Anna's perfect legs hung from a rope tied to a ceiling beam. This was how he wanted her; this was exactly the way he'd imagined her so many times.
You can do anything that you want to do, he thought.
And so, he did.
Most of the warm milk was already inside her. He'd used the rubber hose and nozzle to do that.
She reminded him a little of Annette Bening, he was thinking, except that she was his now. She wasn't a flickering image on some Cineplex movie screen. She would help him get over Kate Mctiernan, and the sooner the better.
Anna wasn't so haughty anymore; she wasn't supremely untouchable, either. He was always curious about how much it took to break someone's will. Not so much, usually. Not in this age of cowards and spoiled brats.
“Please take it away. Don't do this to me. I've been good, haven't I?” Anna pleaded convincingly. She had such a beautiful and interesting face in happiness and especially in sorrow.
Her cheeks rose sharply whenever she spoke. He memorized the look, everything he could about this special moment. Details to dream about later on. Like the exact tilting angle of her derriere.
“It can't harm you, Anna,” he told her truthfully. “Its mouth is sewn shut. I sewed it myself. The snake is harmless. I would never hurt you.” “You're sick and vile,” Anna suddenly snapped at him. “You're a sadist!” He merely nodded. He had wanted to see the real Anna, and there she was: another snapping dragon.
Casanova watched the milk as it slowly dripped from her anus. So did the small black snake. The sweet fragrance of the milk drew it forward across the wooden two-by-fours of the bedroom floor. It was quite magnificent to observe. This truly was an image for beauty and the beast.
The cautiously alert black snake paused, then suddenly jutted its head forward. The head smoothly slid inside Anna Miller. The black snake cleverly gathered itself in folds and slid farther inside.
Casanova closely watched Anna's beautiful eyes widen. How many other men had ever seen this, or felt anything like what he was experiencing now? How many of those men were still alive?
He had first heard of this sexual practice for enlarging the anus on his trips to Thailand and Cambodia. Now he'd performed the ceremony himself. It made him feel so much better about the loss of Kate, about other losses.
That was the exquisite and surprising beauty of the games he chose to play at his hideaway. He loved them. He couldn't possibly stop himself.
And neither could anyone else. Not the police, not the FBI, and not Dr. Alex Cross.
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 55.
KATE still couldn't remember much from the actual day of her escape from hell. She agreed to be hypnotized, at least to let me try, though she thought her natural defenses might be too strong. We decided to do it late at night in the hospital, when she was already tired and might be more susceptible.
Hypnotism can be a relatively simple process. First, I asked Kate to close her eyes, then to breathe slowly and evenly. Maybe I would finally meet Casanova tonight. Maybe through Kate's eyes I'd see how he worked.
“In with the good air, out with the bad,” Kate said, keeping her good humor most of the time. “Something like that. Right, Dr. Cross?” “Clear your mind as much as you can, Kate,” I said.
“I don't know about the wisdom of that.” She smiled. “There's an awful lot bumping around in there right now. Rather like an old, old attic filled with unopened dressers and portmanteaus.” Her voice was beginning to sound a little sleepy. That was a hopeful sign.
“Now just count back slowly from a hundred. Begin whenever you feel like it,” I told her.
She went under easily. That probably meant that she trusted me somewhat. With the trust came responsibility on my part.