Jack & Jill

Book 3: Alex Cross

by James Patterson

Genres: Suspense; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

In the middle of the night, a controversial US senator is found murdered in bed in his Georgetown pied-à-terre. The police turn up only one clue: a mysterious rhyme signed “Jack and Jill” promising that this is just the beginning. Jack and Jill are out to get the rich and famous, and they will stop at nothing until their fiendish plan is carried out.

Meanwhile, Washington, DC, homicide detective Alex Cross is called to a murder scene only blocks from his house, far from the corridors of power where he spends his days. The victim: a beautiful little girl, savagely beaten—and deposited in front of the elementary school Cross’ son, Damon, attends.

Could there be a connection between the two murders? As Cross tries to put the pieces together, the killer—or killers—strike again. And again. No one in Washington is safe—not children, not politicians, not even the president of the United States. Only Alex Cross has the skills and the courage to crack the case—but will he discover the truth in time?

A relentless roller coaster of heart-pounding suspense and jolting plot twists, Jack & Jill proves that no one can write a more compelling thriller than James Patterson—the master of the nonstop nightmare.

Release date: January 1, 2003

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 448

Sample

I CAME FULLY awake, and I wondered what I was afraid of, what the hell was happening here. My first conscious fear was that I was having a heart attack in my own bed.

I was spacey and woozy, still flying high from the party. My heart was beating loudly, thundering in my chest.

I thought that I had heard a deep, low, pounding noise from somewhere inside the house. The noise was close. It sounded as if a heavy weight, maybe a club, had been striking something down the hallway. My eyes weren’t adjusted to the darkness yet. I listened for another noise. I was frightened. I couldn’t remember where I left my Glock last night. What could possibly make that heavy pounding sound inside the house? I listened with all the concentration I could command.

The refrigerator purred down in the kitchen.

A distant truck changed gears on the mean streets.

Still, something about that sound, the pounding noise, bothered me a lot.

Had there even been a sound? I wondered. Was it just the first warnings of a powerful headache coming on?

Before I realized what was happening, a shadowy figure rose from the other side of the bed.

Soneji! He’s kept his promise. He’s here in the house!

“Aaagghhgghh!” the attacker screamed and swung at me with a large club of some sort.

I tried to roll, but my body and mind weren’t cooperating. I’d had too much to drink, too much party, too much fun.

I felt a powerful blow to my shoulder! My whole body went numb. I tried to scream, but suddenly I had no voice. I couldn’t scream. I could barely move. The club descended swiftly again—this time it struck my lower back.

Someone was trying to beat me to death. Jesus, God. I thought of the loud pounding sounds. Had he gone to Nana’s room first? Damon and Jannie’s? What was happening in our house?

I reached for him and managed to grab his arm. I yanked hard and he shrieked again, a high-pitched sound, but definitely a man’s voice.

Soneji? How could it be? I’d seen him die in the tunnels of Grand Central Station.

What was happening to me? Who was in my bedroom? Who was upstairs in our house?

“Jannie? Damon?—” I finally mumbled, tried to call to them. “Nana? Nana?”

I began scratching at his chest, his arms, felt something sticky, probably drawing blood. I was fighting with only one arm, and barely able to do that.

“Who are you? What are you doing? Damon! Damon!” I called out again. Much louder this time.

He broke loose and I fell out of the bed, face first. The floor came at me hard, struck, and my face went numb.

My whole body was on fire. I began to throw up on the carpet.

The bat, the sledgehammer, the crowbar, whatever in hell it was—came down again and seemed to split me in two. I was burning up with pain. Ax! Has to be ax!

I could feel and smell blood everywhere around me on the floor. My blood?

“I told you there was no way to stop me!” he screamed. “I told you.”

I looked up and thought I recognized the face looming above me. Gary Soneji? Could it possibly be Soneji? How could that possibly be? It couldn’t!

I understood that I was dying, and I didn’t want to die. I wanted to run, to see my kids one more time. Just one more look at them.

I knew I couldn’t stop the attack. Knew there was nothing I could do to stop this horror from happening.

I thought of Nana and Jannie, Damon, Christine. My heart ached for them.

Then I let God do His will.

Read an extended excerpt and learn more about Cat & Mouse.

Excerpt from Cat & Mouse copyright © 1996 by James Patterson

HE CHANGED IDENTITY LIKE MANY warriors do before battle. He called himself Mercury on nights like these.

Dressed in black from his visor helmet to his steel-toe boots, Mercury had his motorcycle backed up into a huge rhododendron bush by the Rock Creek Parkway south of Calvert Street. He sat astride the idling bike and cradled a U.S. Army surplus light detection and ranging device. He trained the lidar on every vehicle that went past him, checking its speed.

Forty-five miles an hour, on the money. Forty-four. Fifty-two. Routine stuff. Safe numbers. Boring numbers.

Mercury was hoping to see a more exotic and inflated figure on the screen. He had good reason to believe a bloated number like that would appear before this night was over. He was certainly in the right place for it.

Built in the 1920s, Rock Creek Parkway had been designed to preserve the natural scenic beauty of the area. The winding four-lane road ran from the Lincoln Memorial north through parks, gardens, and woods. It was 2.9 miles long and split in Northwest DC. Beach Drive, the right fork, headed northeast, deeper into the park. The parkway itself continued on to the left and curled back northwest to the intersection with Calvert Street.

Forty-three miles an hour, according to the lidar display. Forty-seven. Forty-five.

These numbers were not surprising. The parkway was on the National Register of Historic Places and was maintained by the National Park Service; it had a set speed limit of forty-five miles an hour.

But the parkway’s meandering route was about as close to a Grand Prix circuit as you could find in or around the District of Columbia. Elongated S curves, chicanes, a few altitude changes, straightaways that ran down the creek bottom—they were all there, and the road was almost twice the length of the fabled Grand Prix course at Watkins Glen, New York.

That alone makes it a target, Mercury thought. That alone says someone will try. If not tonight, then tomorrow, or the night after.

He’d read an article in the Washington Post that said that on any given night, the odds were better than one in three that some rich kid or an older prick sucking big-time off the federal teat would bring out the new Porsche or the overhorsed BMW and take a crack at Rock Creek. So might the suburban kid who’d snuck out the old man’s Audi, or even a middle-aged mom or two.

All sorts of people seemed obsessed by it. One try every three nights, Mercury thought. But tonight, the odds were even better than average.

A few days ago, a budget crisis had closed the U.S. government. All funding for park law enforcement had been frozen. No salaries were being paid. Park rangers had been sent home for liability reasons. There was no one looking but him.

Hours went by. Traffic slowed to a trickle, and still Mercury aimed the lidar gun and shot, read the verdict, and waited. He was nodding off at a quarter to three that morning and thinking that he should pack it in when he heard the growl of a big-bore engine turning onto the parkway from Beach Drive.

On that sound alone, Mercury’s right hand shot out and fired up the bike. His left hand aimed the lidar at the growl, which became a whining, buzzing wail of fury coming right at him.

The instant he had headlights, he hit the trigger.

Seventy-two miles an hour.

He tossed the lidar into the rhododendrons. He’d return for it later.

The Maserati blew by him.

Mercury twisted the accelerator and popped the clutch. He blasted out of the rhododendrons, flew off the embankment, and landed with a smoking squeal in the parkway not a hundred yards behind the Italian sports car.

THE MASERATI WAS BRAND-NEW, sleek, black; a Quattroporte, Mercury thought, judging by the glimpse he had gotten of the car as it roared past him, and probably an S Q5.

Mercury studied such exotic vehicles. A Maserati Quattroporte S Q5 had a turbo-injected six-cylinder engine with a top speed of 176 miles per hour, and it boasted brilliant transmission, suspension, and steering systems.

Overall, the Maserati was a worthy opponent, suited to the parkway’s challenges. The average man or woman might think a car like that would be impossible to best on such a demanding course, especially by a motorcycle.

The average person would be wrong.

Mercury’s bike was a flat-out runner of a beast that could hit 190 miles an hour and remain nimble through curves, corkscrews, and every other twist, turn, and terrain change a road might throw at you. Especially if you knew how to drive a high-speed motorcycle, and Mercury did. He had been driving fast bikes his entire life and felt uniquely suited to bring this one up to speed.

Eighty miles per hour; ninety. The Maserati’s brake lights flashed in front of him as the parkway came out of the big easterly curve. But the driver of the Italian sports car was not set up for the second turn of a lazy and backward S.

Mercury pounced on the rookie mistake; he crouched low, gunned the bike, and came into the second curve on a high line, smoking-fast and smooth. When he exited the second curve, he was right on the Maserati’s back bumper and going seventy-plus.

The parkway ran a fairly true course south for nearly a mile there, and the Italian sports car tried to out-accelerate Mercury on the straight. But the Maserati was no match for Mercury’s custom ride.

He drafted right in behind the sports car, let go of the left handlebar, and grabbed the Remington 1911 pistol Velcroed to the gas tank.

Eighty-nine. Ninety.

Ahead, the parkway took a hard, long left turn. The Maserati would have to brake. Mercury decelerated, dropped back, and waited for it.

The second the brake lights of the Italian sports car flashed, the motorcyclist hit the gas and made a lightning-quick jagging move that brought him right up next to the Maserati’s passenger-side window. No passenger.

Mercury got no more than a silhouette image of the driver before he fired at him twice. The window shattered. The bullets hit hard.

The Maserati swerved left, smacked the guardrail, and spun back toward the inside lane just as Mercury’s bike shot ahead and out of harm’s way. He downshifted and braked, getting ready for the coming left turn.

In his side-view mirror, he watched the Maserati vault the rail, hit trees, and explode into fire.

Mercury felt no mercy or pity for the driver.

The sonofabitch should have known that speed kills.

LEAVING THE GLUTEN-FREE AISLE at Whole Foods, Tom McGrath was thinking that the long, lithe woman in the teal-colored leggings and matching warm-up jacket in front of him had the posture of a ballerina.

In her early thirties, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and jet-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, she was lovely to look at, exotic even. She seemed to sense his interest and glanced back at him.

In a light Eastern European accent, she said, “You walk like old fart, Tom.”

“I feel like one, Edita,” said McGrath, who was in his mid-forties and built like a wide receiver gone slightly to seed. “I’m stiff and sore where I’ve never even thought of being stiff and sore.”

“Too many years with the weights and no stretching,” Edita said, putting two bottles of kombucha tea in the cart McGrath was pushing.

“I always stretch. Just not like that. Ever. And not at five in the morning. I felt like my head was swelling up like a tick’s in some of those poses.”

Edita stopped in front of the organic produce, started grabbing the makings of a salad, said, “What is this? Tick?”

“You know, the little bug that gives you Lyme disease?”

She snorted. “There was nothing about first yoga class you liked?”

“I gotta admit, I loved being at the back of the room doing the cobra when all you fine yoga ladies were up front doing downward dog,” McGrath said.

Edita slapped him good-naturedly on the arm and said, “You did not.”

“I got out of rhythm and found I kind of liked being out of sync.”

She shook her head. “What is it with the men? After everything, still a mystery to me.”

McGrath sobered. “On that note, any luck finding what I asked you about the other day?”

Edita stiffened. “I told you this is not so easy, Tom.”

“Just do it, and be done with them.”

She didn’t look at him. “School? My car? My apartment?”

“I said I’d help you.”

Torn, Edita said, “They don’t give a shit, Tom. They—”

“Don’t worry. You’ve got the warrior McGrath on your side.”

“You are hopeless,” she said, softening and touching his cheek.

“Just when it comes to you,” he said.

Edita hesitated and then blew him a kiss before leading them to the checkout line. McGrath helped her unload the cart.

“Why do you look like the lonely puppy?” Edita asked him as the checker began ringing them through.

“I’m just used to a grocery cart with a little vice in it. Beer, at a minimum.”

She gestured to a bottle on the conveyor belt. “This is better for you.”

McGrath leaned forward and took it before the checker could.

“Cliffton Dry?”

“Think champagne made with organic apples, no grapes.”

“If you say so,” McGrath said skeptically.

As he loaded the food in cloth bags, Edita paid with cash from a little fanny pack around her waist. McGrath wondered what his childhood buddies would say about his hanging out with a woman who bought Cliffton Dry instead of a six-pack of Bud. They’d bust him mercilessly. But if apple bubbly was Edita’s thing, he’d give it a try.

He knew their relationship was a strange one, but he’d decided recently that Edita was, for the most part, good for him. She made him happy. And she made him feel young and think young, which was also a good thing.

They grabbed the shopping bags. He followed her out into a warm drizzle that made the sidewalk glisten. Traffic was already building in the southbound lane of Wisconsin Avenue even at that early-morning hour, but it was still light going north.

They turned to head south, Edita a step or two ahead of him.

A second later, McGrath caught red fire flashing in his peripheral vision, heard the boom-boom-boom of rapid pistol fire, and felt bullets hit him, one of them in his chest. It drove him to the ground.

Edita started to scream but caught the next two bullets and fell beside McGrath, the organic groceries tumbling across the bloody sidewalk.

For McGrath, everything became far away and slow motion. He fought for breath. It felt like he’d been bashed in the ribs with sledgehammers. He went on autopilot, fumbled for his cell phone in his gym-shorts pocket.

He punched in 911, watched dumbly as the unbroken bottle of Cliffton Dry rolled away from him down the sidewalk.

A dispatcher said, “District 911, how may I help you?”

“Officer down,” McGrath croaked. “Thirty-two hundred block of Wisconsin Avenue. I repeat, officer…”

He felt himself swoon and start to fade. He let go of the phone and struggled to look at Edita. She wasn’t moving, and her face looked blank and empty.

McGrath whispered to her before dying.

“Sorry, Ed,” he said. “For all of it.”

LIGHT RAIN HAD BEGUN TO fall when John Sampson and I climbed out of our unmarked car on Rock Creek Parkway south of Mass. Avenue. It was only six thirty a.m. and the humidity was already approaching steam-room levels.

The left lane was closed off for a medical examiner’s van and two DC Metro patrol cars and officers. Morning traffic was going to be horrendous.

The younger of the two officers looked surprised to see us. “Homicide? This guy kissed a tree going ninety.”

“Reports of gunfire before the crash,” I said.

Sampson asked, “We have an ID on the victim?”

“Car’s registered to Aaron Peters. Bethesda.”

“Thanks, Officer,” I said, and we headed to the car.

The Maserati was upside down with the passenger side wrapped around the base of a large Japanese maple tree. The sports car was heavily charred and all the windows were blown out.

The ME, a plump, brassy, extremely competent redhead named Nancy Ann Barton, knelt by the driver’s side of the Maserati and peered in with a Maglite.

“What do you think, Nancy?” I asked.

Barton looked up and saw me, then stood and said, “Hi to you too, Alex.”

“Hi, Nancy,” I said. “Anything?”

“No ‘Good morning’? No ‘Top of the day to you’?”

I cracked a smile, said, “Top of the morning, Doc.”

“That’s better,” Barton said and laughed. “Sorry, Alex, I’m on an old-school kick. Trying to bring congeniality back to humankind, or at least the humankind around me.”

“How’s that working for you, Nancy?” Sampson asked.

“Pretty well, actually,” she said.

“This an accident?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said, and she squatted down again.

I knelt next to Barton, and she shone the light into the Maserati, showing me the driver. He was upside down, hanging from a harness, wearing a charred Bell helmet with a partially melted visor, a neck brace, and a Nomex fire suit, the kind Grand Prix drivers used, right down to the gloves and booties.

“The suit worked,” Barton said. “No burn-through that I can see. And the air bag gave him a lot of protection. So did the internal roll bar.”

“Aaron Peters,” Sampson said, looking at his smartphone. “Former Senate staffer, big-time oil lobbyist. No wonder he could afford a Maserati.”

Standing up to dig out my own flashlight, I said, “Enemies?”

“I would think by definition a big-time oil lobbyist would have enemies.”

“Probably so,” I said, squatting back down. I flipped my light on and probed around the interior. My beam came to rest on a black metal box mounted on the dashboard.

“What is it?” the ME asked.

“If I’m right, that’s a camera inside that box, probably a GoPro. I think he may have been filming his run.”

“Would something like that survive a fire?” Sampson asked.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” I said, then I trained the beam on the driver’s blackened helmet. I noticed depressions in the upper part of it that didn’t look right.

“You’ve photographed it?” I asked.

Barton nodded. I reached up and released the buckle of the chinstrap. Gently but firmly, I tugged on the helmet, revealing Aaron Peters. His Nomex balaclava looked untouched by the fire, but it was blood-soaked from two through-and-through bullet wounds to Peters’s head.

“Not an accident,” I said.

“Impossible,” Barton agreed.

My phone rang. I was going to ignore it but then saw it was chief of police Bryan Michaels.

“Chief,” I said.

“Where are you?”

“Rock Creek,” I said. “Murder of an oil lobbyist in his car.”

“Drop it and get to Georgetown. One of our own is down, part of a double drive-by, and I want our best on the scene.”

I stood, motioned Sampson back toward the car, and broke into a trot, saying, “Who is it, Chief?”

He told me. My stomach turned over hard.

SAMPSON PUT THE BUBBLE UP on the roof and hit the siren, and we sped toward Georgetown. I noticed the light rain had finally stopped as I was punching in the number for Detective Bree Stone, my wife. Bree was testifying in court that day and I hoped she’d—

Bree answered, said, “Rock Creek an accident?”

“Murder,” I said. “But FYI, Michaels just moved us to Georgetown. Two shooting victims. I’m afraid one is Tommy McGrath.”

There was a long stunned silence before Bree choked out, “Oh Jesus, Alex. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Exactly my response. Anything I should know?”

“About Tommy? I’m not sure. He and his wife separated a while back.”

“Reasons?”

“We didn’t talk about personal stuff, but I could tell he was quietly upset about it. And about the fact that the new job kept him from working cases. He said he missed the streets.”

“I’ll keep it all in mind, and I’ll text you when we get on the scene.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m going to have a cry.”

She hung up, and my stomach felt sour all over again because I knew how much Tom McGrath meant to her. McGrath had been DC Metro’s controversial chief of detectives and our boss. But back when Bree was a junior-grade detective, and McGrath was still working cases, he had taken her under his wing and guided her, even served as her partner for a brief time. He’d mentored her as she rose in the ranks and was the one who’d recommended that she move to the major cases.

As the COD, McGrath was a competent and fair administrator, I thought. He could be tough, and he played politics at times, the kind of cop who made enemies. One of his former partners even thought McGrath had turned on him, planting evidence and driving him from the force.

As a detective, though, Tommy had keen instincts. He was also genuinely curious about people and a good listener, and as I drove across the city toward his death scene, I realized I would miss him a great deal.

There were patrol cars with flashing blue lights, uniformed cops, and barriers closing off the 3200 block of Wisconsin Avenue. We parked down the street, and I took a moment to steel myself for what I was about to see and do.

I’ve spent years as an investigator with the FBI and with DC Metro, so I have been to hundreds of murder scenes, and I usually go to work inside a suit of psychological armor that keeps me at an emotional distance from all victims. But this was Tommy McGrath. One of the brethren was down, one of the good guys, and that put chinks in my armor. It made this all personal, and when I’m dealing with murder, I don’t like it to be personal. Rational, observant, and analytical—that’s my style.

I got out of the unmarked car trying to be that detached observer. When I reached the bloody scene, however, and saw McGrath in his workout shorts and T-shirt lying next to a beautiful woman in yoga gear, both of them dead of multiple gunshot wounds, the cold, rational Alex Cross took a hike. This was personal.

“I liked McGrath,” Sampson said, his face as hard and dark as ebony. “A lot.”

A patrolman approached and laid out for us what seemed to have happened based on the initial statements he’d taken from witnesses. They said the car had come rolling toward McGrath and the woman. There were shots, three and then two. On that, all the witnesses agreed.

McGrath was hit first, then Jane Doe. Chaos ensued, as it always does when there’s gunfire involved, witnesses diving out of the way, trying to find cover or safety, which is entirely understandable. Folks have the right to survive, but fear and panic make my job harder, because I have to be sure those emotions don’t cloud their judgments or taint their memories.

The witnesses were waiting for us inside the Whole Foods, but before I went in, I walked the perimeter of the scene, seeing the organic goods strewn about the bodies: fresh produce, beeswax candles, and two broken bottles of kombucha tea.

Lying in the gutter about ten feet from the corpses was a bottle of Cliffton Dry, some kind of bubbly apple wine, which I thought was odd.

“What are you seeing, Alex?” Sampson asked.

I shrugged, said, “I thought Tommy McGrath always drank Bud.”

“So it’s her bottle. They together?”

“Bree said McGrath and his wife were separated.”

“Divorce is always a possible motive in a murder,” Sampson said. “But this looks gangland to me.”

“Does it?” I asked. “This wasn’t the normal spray-a-hail-of-bullets-and-hope-you-hit-something killing. This was precision shooting. Five shots fired. Five hits.”

We looked over at the woman, who lay on her side at an awkward angle.

I noticed the fanny pack, put on gloves, and knelt down to open it.

Learn more about Cross the Line.

Excerpt of Cross the Line copyright © 2016 by James Patterson

SAM HARRISON swung his agile body out of the silver blue Ford Aerostar, which he had parked on Q Street in the Georgetown section of Washington.
Horror stories and games are popular for a good reason, he was thinking as he locked the vehicle and set its alarm. Not the comfortable sit-around-the-campfire horror tales and games we used to cherish as kids, but the real-life horror stories
that are around us everywhere these days.

Now I’m living one myself. I’m about to become part of the horror. How easy it is. How terribly, terribly easy to move past
the edge and into the darkness.

He had stalked and shadowed Daniel Fitzpatrick for two long weeks. He’d done his job in New York City, London, Boston, and
finally, here in Washington, D.C. Tonight he was going to murder the United States senator. In cold blood, execution-style.
No one would be able to figure out why. No one would have a clue that might matter later on.


That was the first and most important rule of the game called Jack and Jill.

In many ways this was a textbook celebrity-stalker pattern. He knew it to be true as he took up his post across from 211 Q
Street.


And yet, if anyone bothered to look more closely, it was like no other stalking pattern before. What he was going to do now
was more provocative than secretly observing Senator Fitzpatrick down obscene numbers of Glenlivet cocktails at The Monocle,
his favorite bar in Washington. This was the truest form of madness, Sam Harrison knew. It was pure madness. He didn’t believe he was mad. He believed only in the validity of the game of chance.

And then, less than thirty yards across the shiny-wet street—there was Daniel Fitzpatrick himself. Right on schedule. At least,
close enough.


He watched the senator stiffly climb out of a gleaming, navy blue Jaguar coupe, a 1996 model. He wore a gray topcoat with
a paisley silk scarf. A sleek, slender woman in a black dress was with him. A Burberry raincoat was casually thrown over her
arm. She was laughing at something Fitzpatrick had said. She threw her head back like a beautiful, spirited horse. A wisp
of her warm breath met the cool of the night.


The woman was at least twenty years the senator’s junior. She wasn’t his wife, Sam knew. Dannyboy Fitzpatrick rarely if ever
slept with his wife. The blond woman walked with a slight limp, which made the two of them even more intriguing. Memorable,
actually.


Sam Harrison concentrated fiercely. Measure twice, measure five times, if necessary. He took stock of all the details one final time. He had arrived in Georgetown at eleven-fifteen. He looked as if he belonged
in the chic, attractive, fashionable neighborhood around Q Street. He looked exactly right for the part he was going to play.


A very big part in a very big story, one of the biggest in America’s history. Or some would say American theater.

A leading-man role, to be sure.

He wore professorial, tortoiseshell glasses for the part. He never wore glasses. Didn’t need them.

His hair was light blond. His hair wasn’t really blond.

He called himself Sam Harrison. His name wasn’t really Sam. Or Harrison.

For that night’s special occasion, he’d carefully selected a soft black cashmere turtleneck, charcoal gray trousers, which
were pleated and cuffed, and light-brown walking boots. He wasn’t really such a dapper, self-absorbed dresser. His thick hair was cut short, vaguely reminiscent of the actor Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard, one of his least-favorite movies. He carried a small black duffel bag, swinging it like a baton as he now walked briskly
toward 211. A camcorder was tucked inside the bag.


He planned to capture as much of this as possible on film. This was history in the making. It really was history: America
at the end of its century, America at the end of an era, America at the end.


At quarter to twelve, he entered 211 through a darkened service entryway that smelled strongly of ammonia and of dust and
decay. He walked up to the fourth floor, where the senator had his flat, his study, his love nest in the capital.


He reached Daniel Fitzpatrick’s door, 4J, at ten minutes to twelve. He was still pretty much on time. So far, so good. Everything
was going exactly as planned.


The highly polished mahogany door opened right in his face.

He stared at an ash-blond woman who was slender and trim and well kept. She was actually somewhat plainer looking than she
had appeared from a distance. It was the same woman who had gotten out of the blue Jag with Fitzpatrick. The woman with the
limp.


Except for a gold barrette in her hair, a lioness from a trip to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a gold choker, she was gloriously naked.


“Jack,” she whispered.

“Jill,” he said, and smiled.

IN A DIFFERENT PART of Washington, in a different world, another would-be killer was playing an equally terrifying game. He had found an absolutely
terrific hiding place among the thick pines and a few towering, elderly oaks at the center of Garfield Park. He made himself
comfortable inside a kind of tent formed by the overhanging tree limbs and a few sturdy, overgrown shrubs.


“Let’s get busy,” he whispered, though no one was in the hiding place with him. This was going to be a wonderful adventure, a great fantasy.
He believed it with his whole heart, body, and what remained of his soul.


He sat cross-legged on the damp grass and began to work on his face and hair. A tune from the rock band Hole was blasting
from the speakers inside his head. This was really good stuff. He loved it to death. Disguises and costumes were a rush. They
were about the only thing that let you truly escape, and goddamn, did he ever need to escape.

When he eventually finished with the costume, he emerged from the shadows of the trees. He had to laugh. He was cracking himself
up today. This was the best yet. It was so goofy that it was great. Reminded him of a