Kiss The Girls Part 36

He laughed easily as he spoke. There was madness in his eyes, though. He had finally gone over the edge. Was it because his "twin" was dead? What in h.e.l.l did he want to do now?

"So, did you miss me?" he repeated as he came toward her with the powerful, incapacitating Tensor in hand.

Kate didn't answer the question. She went for him instead. She'd wanted this for so long.

An explosive kick to Casanova's right shoulder spun the gun from Nick Ruskin's outstretched hand. The kick was a beauty, perfectly delivered. Hit him again, then get out of there, Hit him again, then get out of there, I wanted to yell to Kate. I wanted to yell to Kate.

I couldn't speak yet. Nothing came out when I tried. I finally managed to get up on one elbow.

Kate was flowing flowing the way she did when she practiced on the beach. Casanova was a big man, powerful, but Kate's strength seemed to surge from a rage equal to his. the way she did when she practiced on the beach. Casanova was a big man, powerful, but Kate's strength seemed to surge from a rage equal to his. He comes, we tangle, He comes, we tangle, she had said once upon a time. she had said once upon a time.

She was a blur, a perfect fighter. Even better than I had expected.

I didn't see the next punch. I was blocked by his body. I saw Nick Ruskin's head snap sharply to the side, and his long hair flew out in every direction. His legs wobbled badly. She'd hurt him.

Kate pivoted and hit him again. A lightning-quick punch caught the left side of his face. I wanted to cheer for her. The punch didn't stop him, though. Ruskin was relentless, but so was she.

He lunged at her and Kate hit him yet again. His left cheek appeared to collapse. It was a mismatch all the way.

She crunched a hard fist into his nose and he went down. He moaned loudly. He was beaten; he wasn't getting up again. Kate had won.

My heart was thundering inside my chest. I saw Ruskin reaching for his ankle holster. Casanova wasn't going to lose to a woman, or anyone else.

The gun appeared like some clever sleight-of-hand trick. It was a semiautomatic. Smith and Wesson. He was changing the rules of the fight. He was changing the rules of the fight.

"Nooo!" Kate shouted at him.

"Hey, a.s.shole," I said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. I was changing the rules, too.

Casanova turned. He saw me and pivoted the semiautomatic in my direction. I was holding the Glock with both hands. My arms were shaking some but I was able to sit up. I emptied almost a full clip into him. Drive a stake through his heart. Drive a stake through his heart. That's what I did. That's what I did.

Casanova flew back hard against the wall of the house. His body thrashed. His legs didn't work. Numbness was already spreading through his body. The expression on his face was one of shock. He realized he was human, after all.

His eyeb.a.l.l.s seemed to float upward and disappear into the top of his head. Only the whites of his eyes showed. His legs kicked, kicked again, then stopped. Casanova died almost instantly on the beach-house floor.

I stood up on rubbery legs. I noticed that I was glazed with sweat. Icy cold. Unpleasant as h.e.l.l. I struggled over to Kate, and we held on to each other for a long time. We were both trembling with fear, but also triumph. We had won. We had beaten Casanova.

"I hated him so much," Kate whispered. "I never even understood the word before."

I telephoned the Cape Hatteras police. Then I called the FBI, and my kids and Nana in Was.h.i.+ngton. It was finally over.

Chapter 123.

I SAT on the familiar sun porch of my home sweet home in Was.h.i.+ngton. I was sipping a cold beer with Sampson. SAT on the familiar sun porch of my home sweet home in Was.h.i.+ngton. I was sipping a cold beer with Sampson.

It was fall, and the crisp, cool bite of winter was already in the air. Our beloved and despised Redskins were already in football training camp; the Orioles were out of the pennant race again. "And so it goes," "And so it goes," Kurt Vonnegut wrote once upon a time, when I was at Johns Hopkins and susceptible to such easy, breezy sentiments. Kurt Vonnegut wrote once upon a time, when I was at Johns Hopkins and susceptible to such easy, breezy sentiments.

I could see my kids in the living room. They were on the couch together watching Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast for the leventy-leventh time. I didn't mind. It was a good, strong story and it bore repeating. Tomorrow, it would be for the leventy-leventh time. I didn't mind. It was a good, strong story and it bore repeating. Tomorrow, it would be Aladdin Aladdin again, my personal favorite. again, my personal favorite.

"I saw today that D.C. deploys three times as many police as the national average," Sampson was telling me.

"Yeah, but we have twenty times as much crime. We didn't get to be the capital capital city of America for nothing," I said. "Like one of our past mayors said, 'Outside of the killings, Was.h.i.+ngton has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.'" city of America for nothing," I said. "Like one of our past mayors said, 'Outside of the killings, Was.h.i.+ngton has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.'"

Sampson laughed. We both did. Life was finally returning to normal.

"You all right?" Sampson asked me after a while. He hadn't asked that since I'd been back from the South, from the Outer Banks, my "summer vacation," as I called it.

"I'm just fine. I'm a big macho, kicka.s.s detective like you."

"You're a lying sack of s.h.i.+t, Alex. Ten pounds in a one-pound bag."

"That, too. Goes without saying." I admitted to my faults with him.

"I asked you a serious d.a.m.n question," he said. He was giving me a flat, cold stare from behind his shades. Kind of reminded me of Hurricane Carter when he was a fighter. "You miss her, man?"

"Of course I miss her. h.e.l.l, yes. I told told you that I'm all right, though. I never had a woman friend like that. You?" you that I'm all right, though. I never had a woman friend like that. You?"

"No. Not like that. You understand that both both of you are very of you are very odd? odd?" He shook his head and didn't know what to make of me. I didn't either.

"She wants to set up practice where she grew up. She made a promise to her family. That's what she's decided to do for the time being. I need to be here right now. Make sure you grow up all right. That's what I decided to do. That's what we decided together down in Nags Head. It's the right thing."

"Uh, huh."

"It's the right thing, John. It's what the two of us decided."

Sampson sipped his beer thoughtfully, as us macho men often do. He rocked in his easy chair, and watched me suspiciously over the mouth of the beer bottle. He "watched over me" is what he did.

Later that night, I sat all alone on the porch.

I played "Judgment Day," then "G.o.d Bless the Child" on the piano. I thought about Kate again and about the th.o.r.n.y subject of loss. Most of us learn to deal with it somehow. We get better at it anyhow.

Kate had told me a powerful story while we were in Nags Head. She was a good storyteller, a reincarnated Carson McCullers.

When she was twenty, she said, she learned that her father was tending bar in a honky-tonk near the Kentucky border, and she went to the bar one night. She told me that she hadn't seen her father in sixteen years. She sat in the seedy, bad-smelling bar and watched him for almost half an hour. She hated what she saw. Finally she left, without ever introducing herself to her own father, without even telling him who she was. Kate just left.

She was so tough, and mostly in good ways. That was how she had survived all of those deaths in her family. It was probably why she was the one who had escaped from Casanova's house.

I remembered what she had told me-just one night, Alex. A night neither of us would ever be able to forget. I hadn't been able to forget it. I hoped Kate hadn't either. A night neither of us would ever be able to forget. I hadn't been able to forget it. I hoped Kate hadn't either.

As I stared out the porch window into the darkness, I couldn't shake the eerie feeling that I was being watched. I solved the problem in true Doctor-Detective fas.h.i.+on. I stopped staring out the grime-stained window.

I know they are out there, though.

They know where I live.

I finally went to bed, and had no sooner fallen off to sleep, when I heard a banging sound in the house. Loud banging. Persistent noise. Trouble.

I grabbed my service revolver and hurried downstairs, where the banging noise continued. I glanced at my wrist.w.a.tch. It was three-thirty. A witching hour. Trouble for me.

I found Sampson lurking at the back door. He was the noise-maker.

"There's been a murder," he said as I unlocked, unchained, and opened up for him. "This one is a honey, Alex."

Also by James Patterson:

Available in eBook*

The Thomas Berryman Number

Season of the Machete

See How They Run

The Midnight Club

Along Came a Spider*

Kiss the Girls*

Hide & Seek

Jack & Jill*

Miracle on the 17th Green

(with Peter de Jonge)

Cat & Mouse*

When the Wind Blows*

Pop Goes the Weasel*

Black Friday

Cradle and All

Roses Are Red*

1st to Die*

Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas*

Violets Are Blue*

2nd Chance*