Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls Read Online Free PDF

across the kitchen table at me.
     “I don’t think he
could
talk.”
    “FBI?” I asked. It was the obvious guess when things get overly secretive. The FBI understands better than Bell Atlantic,
     the
Washington Post,
and the
New York Times
that information is power.
    “That could be the problem. Ruskin wouldn’t admit it on the phone.”
    “I better talk to him,” I said. “In person would probably be best, don’t you think?”
    “
I
think that would be good, Alex.” Cilla spoke up from her end of the table.
    “Maybe I’ll tag along,” Sampson said, grinning like the predatory wolf that he is.
    There were sage nods and at least one hallelujah in the overcrowded kitchen. Cilla came around the table and hugged me tight.
     My sister-in-law was shaking like a big, spreading tree in a storm.
    Sampson and I were going South. We were going to bring back Scootchie.

Chapter 8
    I HAD to tell Damon and Jannie about their “Auntie Scootch,” which is what the kids have always called her. My kids sensed
     something bad had happened. They knew it, just as they somehow know my most secret and vulnerable places. They had refused
     to go to sleep until I came and talked to them.
    “Where’s Auntie Scootch at? What happened to her?” Damon demanded as soon as I entered the kids’ bedroom. He had heard enough
     to understand that Naomi was in some kind of terrible trouble.
    I have a need always to tell the kids the truth, if it’s possible. I’m committed to truth-telling between us. But every once
     in a while, it is so hard to do,
    “We haven’t heard from Aunt Naomi in a few days,” I began. “That’s why everybody is worried tonight, and why they came over
     to our house,” I said.
    I went on. “Daddy’s on the case now. I’m going to do my best to find Aunt Naomi in the next couple of days. You know that
     your daddy usually solves problems. Am I right?”
    Damon nodded to the truth in that, and seemed reassured by what I had told them, but mostly by my serious tone. He came into
     my arms and gave me a kiss, which he hasn’t been doing as much lately. Jannie gave me the softest kiss, too. I held them both
     in my arms. My sweet babies.
    “Daddy’s on the case now,” Jannie whispered. That warmed my spirits some. As Billie Holiday put it, “God bless the child who’s
     got his own.”
    By eleven the kids were sleeping peacefully, and the house was beginning to clear. My elderly aunts had already gone home
     to their quirky old-lady nests, and Sampson was getting ready to leave.
    He usually lets himself in and out, but this time, Nana Mama walked Sampson to the door, which is a rarity. I went with them.
     Safety in numbers.
    “Thank you for going down South with Alex tomorrow,” Nana said to Sampson in confidential tones. I wondered who she thought
     might be listening, trying to overhear her intimacies. “You see now, John Sampson, you
can
be civilized and somewhat useful when you want to be. Didn’t I always tell you that?” She pointed a curled, knobby finger
     at his massive chin. “Didn’t I?”
    Sampson grinned down at her. He revels in his physical superiority even to a woman who is eighty. “I let Alex go by himself,
     I’d only have to come later, Nana. Rescue him
and
Naomi,” he said.
    Nana and Sampson cackled like a pair of cartoon crows on an old familiar fencepost. It was good to hear them laugh. Then she
     somehow managed to wrap her arms around Sampson and me. She stood there—like some little old lady holding on to her two favorite
     redwood trees. I could feel her fragile body tremble. Nana Mama hadn’t hugged the two of us like that in twenty years. I knew
     that she loved Naomi as if she were her own child, and she was very afraid for her.
    It can’t be Naomi. Nothing bad could happen to her, not to Naomi.
The words kept drifting through my head. But something had happened to her, and now I would have to start thinking and acting
     like a policeman. Like a homicide