Kate was vulnerable now. I didn't want to hurt her under any circumstances. For the first few minutes, we talked as we often did when she was fully conscious and awake. We had enjoyed talking to each other from the start.
“Can you remember being kept in the house with Casanova?” I finally asked her a leading question.
“Yes, I remember quite a lot now. I remember the night he came into my apartment. I can see him carrying me through some kind of woods, to wherever I was kept. He carried me like my weight was nothing.” “Tell me about the woods you went through, Kate.” This was our first dramatic moment. She was actually with Casanova again. In his power.
A captive. I suddenly realized how quiet the hospital was all around us.
"It was too dark, really. The woods were very thick, very creepy. He had a flashlight with him, kept it on a string or rope around his neck ... He's unbelievably strong. I thought of him as an animal, physically. He compared himself to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.
He has a very romantic view of himself and what he's doing. That night ... he whispered to me as if we were already lovers. He told me he loved me. He sounded ... sincere."
“What else do you remember about him, Kate? Anything you recall is helpful. Take your time.” She turned her head, as if she were looking at someone off to my right.
“He always wore a different mask. He wore a reconstructive mask one time. That was the scariest one. They're called ' masks' because hospitals and morgues sometimes use them to help identify accident victims who are unrecognizable.” “That's interesting about the death masks. Please go on, Kate. You're being incredibly helpful.” “I know that they can make them right from a human skull, pretty much any skull. They'll take a photo of it ... cover the photo with tracing paper ... draw the features. Then they build an actual mask from the drawing. There was a death mask in the movie Gorky Park. They aren't usually meant to be worn. I wondered how he'd gotten it.” Okay, Kate, I was thinking to myself, now keep going about Casanova.
“What happened on the day that you escaped?” I asked her, leading her just a little.
For the first time, she seemed uncomfortable with a question. Her eyes opened for a split second, as if she were in a light sleep and I had woken her, jarred her. Her eyes shut again. Her right foot was tapping very rapidly.
“I don't remember very much about that day, Alex. I think I was drugged out of my mind, off the planet.” "That's okay. Anything you remember is very good for me to know.
You're doing beautifully. You told me once that you kicked him. Did you kick Casanova?"
“I kicked him. About three-quarters speed. He yelled out in pain, and he went down.” There was another long pause. Suddenly, Kate started to cry. Tears welled up in her eyes, and then she was sobbing very, very hard.
Her face was wet with perspiration as well. I felt that I should bring her out of the hypnosis. I didn't understand what had just happened, and it scared me a little.
I tried to keep my own voice very calm. "What's the matter, Kate?
What's wrong? Are you okay?"
“I left those other women there. I couldn't find them at first. Then I was so unbelievably confused. I left the others.” Her eyes opened and they were filled with fear, but also tears. She had brought herself out. She was strong like that.
“What made me so afraid?” she asked me. “What just happened?” “I don't know for sure,” I told Kate. We would talk about it later, but not right now.
She averted her eyes from mine. It wasn't like her. “Can I be alone?” she whispered then. “Can I just be alone now? Thank you.” I left the hospital room feeling almost as if I had betrayed Kate. But I didn't know if there was anything that I could have done differently.
This was a multiple-homicide investigation. Nothing was working so far. How could that be?
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 56.
KATE WAS RELEASED from University Hospital later that week. She had asked if we could talk for a while each day. I readily agreed.
“This isn't therapy in any way, shape, or form,” she told me. She just wanted to vent with somebody about some difficult subjects. Partly because of Naomi, we had formed a quick, strong bond.
There was no further information, no more clues about Casanova's link with the Gentleman Caller in Los Angeles. Beth Lieberman, the reporter at the Los Angeles Times, refused to talk to me. She was peddling her hot literary property in New York.
I wanted to fly out to L.A. to see Lieberman, but Kyle Craig asked me not to. He assured me that I knew everything the Times reporter had on the case. I needed to trust someone; I trusted Kyle.
On a Monday afternoon, Kate and I went for a walk in the woods surrounding the Wykagil River, where she'd been found by the two boys.
It was still unspoken, but we seemed to be in this thing together now.
Certainly no one knew more about Casanova than she did. If she could remember anything more it would be so useful. The smallest detail could be a clue that might open up everything.
Kate became quiet and unusually subdued as we entered the dark, brooding woods east of the Wykagil River. The human monster could be lurking out here, maybe prowling in the woods right now. Maybe he was watching us.
“I used to love walking in woods like these. Blackberry brambles and sweet sassafras. Cardinals and blue jays feeding everywhere. It reminds me of when I was growing up,” Kate told me as we walked. “My sisters and I used to go swimming every single day in a stream like this one. We swam nekkid, which was forbidden by my father. Anything my father strictly forbade, we tried to do.” “All that swimming experience came in handy,” I said. “Maybe it helped get you safely down the Wykagil.” Kate shook her head. “No, that was just pure stubbornness. I vowed I wasn't going to die that day. Couldn't give him the satisfaction.” I was keeping my own discomfort about being in the woods to myself.
Some of my uneasiness had to do with the unfortunate history of these woods and the surrounding farmlands. Tobacco farms had been spotted all through here once upon a time. Slave farms. The blood and bones of my ancestors. The extraordinary kidnapping and subjugation of more than four million Africans who were originally brought to America. They had been abducted. Against their will.
“I don't remember any of this terrain, Alex,” Kate said. I had strapped on a shoulder holster before we left the car. Kate winced and shook her head at the sight of the gun. But she didn't protest beyond the baleful look. She sensed that I was the dragon slayer She knew there was a real dragon out here. She'd met him.
“I remember I ran away, escaped into woods just like these. Tall Carolina pines. Not much light getting through, eerie as a bat cave. I remember clearly when the house disappeared on me. I can't remember too much else. I'm blocking it. I don't even know how I got into the river.” We were about two miles from where we'd left the car. Now we hiked north, staying close to the river Kate had floated down on her miraculous, “stubborn” escape. Every tree and bush reached out relentlessly toward the diminishing sunlight.
“This reminds me of the Bacchae,” Kate said. Her upper lip curled in an ironic smile. “The triumph of dark, chaotic barbarism over civilized human reason.” It felt as if we were moving against a high, relentless tide of vegetation.
I knew she was trying to talk about Casanova and the terrifying house where he kept the other women. She was trying to understand him better. We both were.
“He's refusing to be civilized, or repressed,” I said. “He does whatever he wants. He's the ultimate pleasure seeker, I suppose. A hedonist for the times.” “I wish you could hear him talk. He's very bright, Alex.” “So are we,” I reminded her. “He'll make a mistake, I promise.” I was getting to know Kate very well by now. She was getting to know me. We had talked about my wife, Maria, who was killed in a senseless drive-by shooting in Washington, D.C. I told her about my kids, Jannie and Damon. She was a good listener; she had excellent bedside-manner potential. Dr. Kate was going to be a special kind of doctor.