“My Sunday-go-to-eatin' clothes,” Kate said with a conspiratorial wink.
“Except I can never afford to go out to eat on my post-med-school budget. Occasionally KFC or Arby's.” “You have a hot date tonight?” I asked her in my usual kidding tone. I wondered who was kidding whom, though.
She casually took my arm in the crook of hers. “As a matter of fact, maybe I do. You look nice tonight. Very dashing, very cool.” I had abandoned my usual has couture look, too. I'd decided on dashing and cool instead.
I don't remember much about the car ride to the Durham restaurant, except that we talked all the way. We never had any trouble talking. I don't exactly remember the meal, except that it was very good regional continental grub. I have the recollection of Muscovy duck, of blueberries and plums in whipped cream.
What I remember most clearly is Kate sitting with one arm propped on the table, her face resting easily on the back of her hand. A very nice picture-portrait. I remember Kate taking off the yellow scarf at one point during dinner. “Too much,” she said and grinned.
“I have a new pet theory, theory du jour, about the two of us. I think it's right. Do you want to hear it?” she asked me. She was in a good mood, in spite of the harrowing and frustrating investigation. We both were.
“Nah,” said the wise guy in me, the part afraid of too much in the way of emotions. Lately, anyway.
Kate wisely ignored me and went on with her theory. “I'll start ... Alex, we're both really, really afraid of attachments right now in our lives. That's obvious. We're both too afraid, I think.” She was carefully leading the way. She sensed this was difficult territory for me, and she was right.
I sighed. I didn't know if I wanted to get into any of this right now, but I plunged ahead. “Kate, I haven't told you much about Maria ... We were very much in love when she died. It was like that between us for six years. This isn't selective memory on my part. I used to tell myself, ”God I'm unbelievably lucky I found this person.“ Maria felt the same way.” I smiled. “Or so she told me. So yes, I am afraid of attachments. Mostly I'm afraid of losing someone I love that much again.” “I'm afraid of losing someone else, too, Alex,” Kate said in a soft voice. I could barely hear her words. Sometimes she seemed shy, and it was touching. “There's a magical line in The Pawnbroker, magical to me, anyway. ”Everything I loved was taken away from me, and I did not die."
"
I took her hand and kissed it lightly. I felt an overwhelming tenderness toward Kate at that moment. “I know the line,” I said.
I could see anxiety in her dark brown eyes. Maybe we both needed to take this thing forward, whatever was beginning to happen between us, whatever the risks might be.
“Can I tell you something else? One more true confession that doesn't come easily? This is a bad one,” she said.
“I want to hear it. Of course I do. Anything you want to tell me.” “I'm afraid I'm going to die just like my sisters, that I'll get cancer, too. At my age, I'm a medical time bomb. Oh, Alex, I'm afraid to get close to someone, and then get sick on them.” Kate let out a long, deep breath. It was obviously a hard thing for her to say.
We held hands for a long time in the restaurant. We sipped port wine.
We were both a little quiet, letting powerful new feelings wash over us, getting used to them.
After dinner we went back to her apartment in Chapel Hill. The first thing I did was to check around for uninvited houseguests. I had tried to talk her into a hotel room during the car ride, but, as usual, Kate said no. I remained paranoid about Casanova and his games.
“You're so damn stubborn,” I told her as we both checked all the doors and windows.
“Fiercely independent is a much better description,” Kate countered.
“It comes with the black belt in karate. Second degree. Watch yourself.” “I am.” I laughed. “I've also got eighty pounds on you.” Kate shook her head. “Won't be enough.” “You're probably right.” I laughed out loud.
No one was hiding in the apartment on Old Ladies Lane. No one was there except the two of us. Maybe that was the scariest thing of all.
“Please don't run off now. Stay for a while. Unless you want to or have to,” Kate said to me. I was still standing in her kitchen. My hands were awkwardly jammed into my pockets.
“I've got nowhere I'd rather be,” I told her. I was feeling a little nervous and keyed up.
“I have a bottle of Chateau de la Chaize. I think that's the name. It only cost nine bucks, but it's decent wine. I bought it just for tonight, even though I didn't know it at the time.” Kate smiled, “Three months ago when I made the purchase.” We sat on Kate's couch in the living room. The place was neat but still funky. There were black-and-white photos on the walls of her sisters and her mother. Happier times for Kate. There was an amazing picture of her in her pink uniform at the Big Top Truck Stop, where she worked to pay her way through school. The waitressing job was part of the reason medical school had meant so much to her.
Maybe the wine made me tell Kate more about Jezzie Flanagan than I wanted to. It had been my only attempt at a serious attachment since Maria's death. Kate told me about her friend, Peter Mcgrath. History professor at the University of North Carolina. As she talked about Peter, I had the disturbing thought that maybe he was one suspect we had glossed over too quickly.
I couldn't leave the case alone, not even for one night. Maybe I was just trying to escape into my work again. Still, I made a mental note to check out Dr. Peter Mcgrath a little more carefully.
Kate leaned in close to me on the couch. We kissed. Our mouths made a perfect fit. We had both done this before, kissed, but maybe never as well.
“Will you stay tonight? Please stay,” Kate whispered. “Just this one night, Alex. We don't have to be scared about this, do we?” “No, we don't have to be scared,” I whispered back. I felt like a schoolboy. Maybe that was okay, though.
I didn't know exactly what to do next, how to touch Kate, what to say, what not to do. I listened to the soft hum of her breathing. I let everything take its natural course.
We kissed again, as gently as I ever remember kissing anyone. We were both needy. But we were so vulnerable at that moment.
Kate and I went to her room. We held each other for a long time. We talked in whispers. We slept together. We didn't make love that night.
We were best friends. We didn't want to ruin it.
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 85.
NAOMI THOUGHT that she was finally losing the last pieces of her sanity. She had just seen Alex Mil Casanova, even though she knew it hadn't really happened. She'd seen the shooting with her own eyes. She was hallucinating, and she couldn't stop the waves of delusion anymore.
She talked to herself sometimes. The sound of her own voice was comforting.
Naomi became quiet and thoughtful as she sat on an armchair in the darkened prison cell. Her violin was there, but she hadn't played it in days. She was afraid for a whole new reason now. Maybe he wasn't coming back again.
Maybe Casanova had been caught, and he wouldn't tell the police where he kept his captives. That was his ultimate leverage, wasn't it? That was his diabolical secret. His final edge and bargaining chip.
Maybe he'd already been killed in a shootout. How could the police hope to find her and the others if he was dead? Something's happened, she thought. He hasn't been here in the last two days. Something has changed.
She desperately wanted to see sunny blue skies, grass, the Gothic spires of the university, the layered terraces at the Sarah Duke Gardens, even the Potomac River in all of its muddy-gray glory back home in Washington.
She finally got up from the easy chair beside her bed. Very, very slowly, Naomi shuffled across the bare wooden floor, and stood by the locked door with her cheek pressed against the cool wood.