Pop Goes the Weasel (7 page)

He sighed theatrically behind the rigid tent he’d made with his fingers. He wondered if Sarah noticed the length of his fingers
and if she ever thought about how large he was elsewhere. He would bet anything that she did. It was how people’s minds worked,
though women like Sarah would never admit to it.

She cleared her throat, then put her hands on her knees. The knuckles of her fingers were white. Christ, he was enjoying her
obvious discomfort. She looked ready to jump out of her skin. How about out of her tight little skirt and blouse?

He began to stretch the fingers on his right hand, playing his part as dominator to the hilt. “Sarah, I think I have some
bad news—quite unfortunate, really, but can’t be avoided.”

She sat nervously forward in her chair. She really was nicely built up top. He was getting hard now. “What is it, Mr. Shafer?
What do you mean? You
think
you have bad news? You do or you don’t?”

“We have to let you go.
I
have to let you go. Budget cuts, I’m afraid,” he said. “I know you must find this immensely unfair, and unexpected as well.
Particularly when you moved halfway across the world from Australia to take this job, and you’ve been living in Washington
for less than six months. Suddenly, the ax falls.”

He could tell she was actually fighting back tears. Her lips were trembling. Obviously, she never expected this. She had no
idea. She was a reasonably smart and controlled woman, but she couldn’t help herself now.

Excellent. He had succeeded in breaking her down. He wished he had a movie camera this minute to record the look on her face
and play it back countless times in private.

He saw the very instant that she lost it, and treasured it. He watched her eyes moisten, saw the large tears roll over her
cheeks, streaking her working-girl makeup.

He felt the power, and it was as good as he’d hoped it would be. A small insignificant game, certainly, but a delicious one.
He loved being able to instill such shock and pain.

“Poor Sarah. Poor, poor dear,” he murmured.

Then Shafer did the cruelest, most unforgivable thing. Also the most outrageous and dangerous. He got up from his desk and
came around to comfort her. He stood behind her, pressing himself against her shoulders. He knew it was the last thing she
wanted, to be touched by him, to feel that he was aroused.

She stiffened and pulled away from him as if he were on fire. “Bastard,” she said, between clenched teeth. “You are a consummate
prick!”

Sarah left his office, shaking and in tears, running in that stumbling way women often do in heels. Shafer loved it. The sadistic
pleasure, not only of hurting someone but of destroying this innocent woman. He memorized the stunning image for all time.
He would play it back, over and over.

Yes, he was a prick. Consummate indeed.

ROSIE THE CAT was perched on the windowsill, watching me dress for my date with Christine. I envied the simplicity of her
life:
Love to eat those mousies, mousies what I love to eat
.

I finally headed downstairs. I was taking the night off from work, and I was more nervous, distracted, and fidgety than I
had been in a long time. Nana and the kids knew something was up, but they didn’t know what, and it was driving my three favorite
busybodies crazy.

“Daddy, tell me what’s going on,
please?
” Jannie clasped her hands in prayer and begged.

“I told you no, and no is no. Not even if you get down on your bony little knees,” I said, and smiled. “I have a date tonight.
It’s just a date. That’s all you need to know, young lady.”

“Is it with Christine?” Jannie asked. “At least you can tell me
that
much.”

“
That’s
for me to know,” I said as I knotted my tie in the mirror beside the stairs. “And
you not
to find out, my overinquisitive girlfriend.”

“You’re wearing your fancy blue-striped suit, your fancy dancing shoes, that fancy tie you like. You’re
so
fancy.”

“Do I look good?” I turned and asked my personal clothier. “For my date?”

“You look beautiful, Daddy.” My girl beamed, and I knew I could believe her. Her eyes were shiny little mirrors that always
told the truth. “You know you do. You know you’re handsome as sin.”

“That’s my girl,” I said, and laughed again.
Handsome as sin
. She got that one from Nana, no doubt.

Damon mimicked his sister. “You look beautiful, Daddy. What a little brownnoser. What do you want from Daddy, Jannie?”

“Do I look good?” I turned to Damon.

He rolled his eyes. “You look all right. How come you’re all duded up? You can tell me. Man to man. What’s the big deal?”

“Answer the poor children!” Nana finally said.

I looked her way and offered up a wide grin. “Don’t use the ‘poor children’ to try to get your gossip quotient for the day.
Well, I’m off,” I announced. “I’ll be home before sunrise.
Mooha-ha-ha
.” I did my favorite monster imitation, and all three of them rolled their eyes.

It was a minute or so before eight, and as I stepped onto the porch, a black Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of the house.
It was right on time, and I didn’t want to be late.

“A limousine?” Jannie gasped, and nearly swooned on the front porch. “You’re going out in a
limousine?
”

“Alex Cross!” Nana said. “What
is
going on?”

I practically danced down the steps. I got into the waiting car, shut the door, told the driver to go. I waved out the back
window and stuck out my tongue as the car smoothly pulled away from our house.

MY LAST IMAGE was of the three of them—Jannie, Damon, and Nana—all mugging and sticking out their tongues at me. We do
have some fabulously good times together, I was thinking as the car headed over to Prince Georges County, where I had once
confronted a homicidal twelve-year-old during the halcyon days of the Jack and Jill killers, and where Christine Johnson lived.

I had my mantra all set for tonight:
Heart leads head
. I needed to believe that was so.

“A private car? A limousine?” Christine exclaimed when I picked her up at her house in Mitchellville.

She looked as stunningly beautiful as I’ve ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot. She wore a long, sleeveless black shift,
black satin pumps with straps, and had a floral brocade jacket draped over her arm. The heels made her a little over six feet
tall. God, how I loved this woman, everything about her.

We walked to the car and got inside.

“You haven’t told me where we’re going tonight, Alex. Just that it was fancy. Someplace special.”

“Ah, but I’ve told our driver,” I said. I tapped the partition window, and the Town Car moved off into the summer night. Alex
the mysterious.

I held Christine’s hands as we drove along on the John Hanson Highway, back toward Washington. Her face tilted toward mine,
and I kissed her in the cozy darkness. I loved the sweetness of her mouth, her lips, the softness and smoothness of her skin.
She was wearing a new perfume that I didn’t recognize, and I liked that, too. I kissed the hollow of her throat, then her
cheeks, her eyes, her hair. I would have been happy to do just this for the rest of the night.

“It is unbelievably romantic,” she finally said. “It
is
special. You are something else…
sugar
.”

We cuddled and hugged all the way into Washington. We talked, but I don’t remember the subject. I could feel her breasts rising
and falling against me. I was surprised when we arrived at the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues. We were
getting close to the surprise.

True to her word, Christine hadn’t asked any more questions. Not until the car eased up in front of Washington National Cathedral,
and the driver got out and held the door open for us.

“The National Cathedral?” she said. “We’re going in here?”

I nodded and stared up at the stunning Gothic masterpiece that I’d admired since I was a boy. The cathedral crowns over fifty
acres of lawns and woods and is Washington’s highest point, even higher than the Washington Monument. If I remembered correctly,
it was the second-largest church in the United States, and possibly the prettiest.

I led the way, and Christine followed me inside. She held my hand lightly. We entered the northwest corner of the nave, which
extends nearly a tenth of a mile to the massive altar.

Everything felt special and very beautiful, spiritual, just right. We walked up to a pew under the amazing Space Window at
midnave. Everywhere I looked there were priceless stained-glass windows, over two hundred in all.

The light inside was exquisite; I felt blessed. There was a kaleidoscope of changing colors on the walls: reds, warm yellows,
cool blues.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I whispered. “Timeless, sublime, all that good Gothic stuff Henry Adams used to write about.”

“Oh, Alex, I think it’s the prettiest spot in Washington. The Space Window, the Children’s Chapel—I’ve always loved it here.
I told you that, didn’t I?” she asked.

“You might have mentioned it once,” I said. “Or maybe I just knew it.”

We continued walking until we entered the Children’s Chapel. It is small, beautiful, and wonderfully intimate. We stood under
a stained-glass window that depicts the story of Samuel and David as children.

I turned and looked at Christine, and my heart was beating so loud I was sure she could hear it. Her eyes were sparkling like
jewels in the flickering candlelight. The black dress shimmered and seemed to flow over her body.

I knelt on one knee and looked up at her.

“I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you at the Sojourner Truth School,” I whispered, so that only she could hear me.
“Except that when I saw you the first time, I had no way of knowing how incredibly special you are on the inside. How wise,
how good. I didn’t know that I could feel the way I do—whole and complete—whenever I’m with you. I would do anything for
you. Or just to be with you for one more moment.”

I stopped for the briefest pause and took a deep breath. She held my eyes, didn’t pull away.

“I love you so much, and I always will. Will you marry me, Christine?”

She continued to look into my eyes, and I saw such warmth and love, but also humility, which is always a part of who Christine
is. It was almost as if she couldn’t imagine my loving her.

“Yes, I will. Oh, Alex, I shouldn’t have waited until tonight. But this is so perfect, so special, I’m almost glad I did.
Yes, I will be your wife.”

I took out an antique engagement ring and gently slid it onto Christine’s finger. The ring had been my mother’s, and I’d kept
it since she died, when I was nine. The exact history of the ring was unclear, except that it went back at least four generations
in the Cross family and was my one and only heirloom.

We kissed in the glorious Children’s Chapel of the National Cathedral, and it was the best moment of my life, never to be
forgotten, never to be diminished in any way.

Yes, I will be your wife
.

TEN DAYS HAD PASSED without another fantasy murder, but now a powerful mood swing had taken hold of Geoffrey Shafer, and he
let himself go with the flow.

He was flying high as a kite—hyper, manic, bipolar, whatever the doctors wanted to call his condition. He’d already taken
Ativan, Librium, Valium, and Depakote, but the drugs seemed only to fuel his jets.

That night at around six he pulled the black Jaguar out of the lot on the north side of the embassy, passing by the larger-than-life
Winston Churchill statue with its stubby right hand raised in
V
for Victory, its left hand holding his trademark cigar.

Eric Clapton played guitar loudly on the car’s CD. He turned up the volume higher, slapping his hands hard on the steering
wheel, feeling the rhythm, the beat, the primal urge.

Shafer turned onto Massachusetts Avenue and then stopped at a Starbucks. He hurried in and fixed up three coffees his way.
Black as his heart, with six sugars.
Mmm, hmmm
. As usual, he had nearly finished the first before he got out the door.

Once he was inside the cockpit of his Jag again, he sipped a second cup at a more leisurely pace. He downed some Benadryl
and Nascan. Couldn’t hurt; might help. He took out the twenty-sided game dice. He had to play tonight.

Anything twelve or higher would dispatch him directly to Boo Cassady’s place for a kinky quickie before he went home to the
dreaded family. A seven to eleven was total disaster—straight home to Lucy and the kids. Three, four, five, or six meant
he could go to the hideaway for an unscheduled night of high adventure.

“Come three, four, five. Come, baby, come! I need this tonight. Need a fix! I need it!”

He shook the dice for what must have been thirty seconds. He made the suspense last, drew it out. Finally, he released the
dice onto the gray-leather car seat. He watched the roll closely.

Jesus, he’d thrown a four! Defied the odds! His brain was on fire. He could play tonight. The dice had spoken; fate had spoken.

He excitedly punched a number on his cell phone.
“Lucy,”
he said, and he was smiling already.

“Glad I caught you at home, darling…. Yes, you guessed it, first try. We’re completely swamped here again. Can you believe
it? I certainly can’t. They think they own me, and I suppose they’re half right. It’s the drug-trafficking rubbish again.
I’ll be home when I can. Don’t wait up, though. Love to the kids. Kisses to everybody. Me, too, darling. I love you, too.
You’re the best, the most understanding wife alive.”

Very well played
, Shafer thought as he breathed a sigh of relief. Excellent performance, considering the drugs he’d taken. Shafer disconnected
from his wife, whose family money, unfortunately, paid for the town house, the holidays away, even the Jag, and her fashionable
Range Rover, of course.