ALONG
CAME A SPIDER – He had always wanted to be famous. When he kidnapped two
well-known rich kids it was headline news. Then one of them was found – dead.
For such a high-profile case, they needed Alex Cross, a psychologist and Jezzie
Flanagan, a Secret Service agent – yet even they were no match for the killer. Alex
Cross is a homicide detective with a Ph. D in Psychology. He works and lives in
the ghettos of D.C. and looks like Muhammad Ali in his prime. He’s a tough guy
from a tough part of town who wears Harris Tweed jackets and likes to relax by
banging out Gershwin tunes on his baby grand piano. But he also has two
adorable kids of his own, and they are his own special vulnerabilities. Jezzie
Flanagan is the first woman ever to hold the highly sensitive job as supervisor
of the Secret Service in Washington. Blond, mysterious, seductive, she’s got an
outer shell that’s as tough as it is beautiful. She rides her black BMW
motorcycle at speeds of no less than 100 mph. What is she running from? What is
her secret? Alex Cross and Jezzie Flanagan are about to have a forbidden love
affair- at the worst possible time for both of them. Because Gary Soneji, who
wants to commit the crime of the century, is playing at the top of his game.
Soneji has outsmarted the FBI, the Secret Service and the police. Who will be his
next victim? Gary Soneji is every parents’ worst nightmare. He has become Alex
Cross’s nightmare. And now, reader, he’s about to become yours. When
nine-year-old Maggie Rose and her best friend, Michael Goldberg, are kidnapped
from their exclusive school in Washington D.C., it is clear this is not an
ordinary case. Maggie’s mother is a superstar actress, and Michael’s father is
Secretary of the Treasury. Together Alex Cross, Deputy Chief of detectives, and
Jezzie Flanagan, Supervisor in the Secret Service, must race to save the
children. New Jersey, near Princeton, March 1932: The Charles Lindbergh farmhouse
glowed with bright, orangish lights. It looked like a fiery castle, especially in
that gloomy, fir-wooded region of Jersey. Shreds of misty fog touched the boy
as he moved closer and closer to his first moment of real glory, his first
kill. It was pitch-dark and the grounds were soggy and muddy and thick with puddles.
He had anticipated as much. He’d planned for everything, including the weather.
He wore a size nine man’s work boot. The toe and heel of the boots were stuffed
with torn cloth and strips of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He wanted to leave
footprints, plenty of footprints. A man’s footprints. Not the prints of a twelve-year-old
boy. They would lead from the county highway called the Stoutsburg-Wertsville
Road, up to, then back from, the farmhouse. He began to shiver as he reached a
stand of pines, not thirty yards from the sprawling house. The mansion was just
as grand as he’d imagined: Seven bedrooms and four baths on the second floor
alone. Lucky Lindy and Anne Morrow’s place in the country. Cool beans, he thought. The boy inched closer and closer toward the
dining-room window. He was fascinated by this condition know as fame. He thought a lot about it. Almost
all the time. What was fame really like? How did it smell? How
did it taste? What did fame look like
close up? “The most popular and glamorous man in the world” was right there,
sitting at the table. Charles Lindbergh was
tall, elegant, and fabulously golden haired, with a fair complexion. “Lucky
Lindy” truly seemed above everyone else. So did his wife, Anne Morrow
Lindbergh. Anne had short hair. It was curly and black, and it made her skin look
chalky white. The light from the candles on the table appeared to be dancing
around her. Both of them very straight in their chairs. Yes, they certainly
looked superior, as if they were God’s special gifts to the world. They kept
their heads high, delicately eating their food. He strained to see what was on the
table. It looked like lamb chops on their perfect China. “I’ll be more famous
than either of you pitiful stiffs,” the boy finally whispered. He promised that
to himself. Every detail had been thought through a thousand times, at least
that often. He very methodically went to work. The boy retrieved a wooden
ladder left near the garage by workingmen. Holding the ladder tightly against
his side, he moved toward a spot just beyond the library window. He climbed
silently up to the nursery. His pulse was racing, and his heart was pounding so
loud he could hear it. Light cast from a hallway lamp illuminated the baby’s
room. He could see the crib and the snoozing little prince in it. Charles Jr. “the
most famous child on earth.” On one side, to keep away drafts, was a colorful screen
with illustrations of barnyard animals. He felt shy and cunning. “Here comes
Mr. Fox,” the boy whispered as he quietly slid open the window. Then he took another
step up the ladder and was inside the nursery at last. Standing over the crib, he stared at the
princeling. Curls of golden hair like his father’s but, fat. Charles Jr. was gone, to fat at only twenty months. The boy could
no longer control himself. Hot tears streamed from his eyes. His whole body began
to shake, from frustration and rage – only mixed with the most incredible joy
of his life. “Well, daddy’s little man.
It’s our time now,” he muttered to himself. He took a tiny rubber ball with
an attached elastic band from his pocket. He quickly slipped the odd-looking
looped device over Charles Jr.’s head, just as the small blue eyes opened. As the
baby started to cry, the boy plopped the rubber ball right into the little
drooly mouth. He reached down into the crib and took Baby Lindberg into his
arms and went swiftly back down the ladder. All according to plan. The boy ran
across the muddy fields with the precious struggling bundle in his arms and disappeared
into the darkness. Less than two miles from the farmhouse, he buried the spoiled-rotten
Lindbergh baby – buried him alive.
That
was only the start of things to come. After all, he was only a boy himself. He,
not Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was the Lindbergh baby kidnapper. He had done it
all by himself. Cool beans.
KISS
THE GIRLS – In Los Angeles, a reporter investigating a series of murders is killed.
In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a beautiful medical intern suddenly disappears.
In the sequel to Along Came a Spider, Washington D.C.’s Alex Cross is back to
solve the most baffling and terrifying murder case ever. Tow clever pattern
killers are collaborating, cooperating and they are working coast to coast. The
second novel in the bestselling Alex Cross series. Detective Alex Cross is caught
between two murderous masterminds – and so is his family… When his niece Naomi
goes missing, Alex Cross follows the trail – and discovers links to a string of
recent abductions and murders, with one horrifying complication. There are two
killers at work on opposite sides of the country, collaborating and competing
to commit the worst crimes the country has ever seen. With his family at risk,
Cross knows that his investigation is putting him directly in the line of fire…
Adapted as a major Hollywood movie, starring Morgan Freeman. This time it’s
personal for Cross. The most elusive of killers has abducted Cross’s niece,
Naomi, a talented law student. Only such a devastating blow could bring the
detective back – this time to the Deep South, where old slave prisons are
buried in the forests, and houses of horror can disappear as in your worst
nightmare. Naomi’s kidnapping rips Alex Cross away from his kids and his jazz
piano and sends him south with several questions burning in his mind? Why did
the police wait seventy-two hours before beginning their search? And what is
the head of the FBI doing at the scene of a small-town crime? Meanwhile, somewhere
out there Casanova is living a secret fantasy. In his private hideaway, the world’s
greatest lover has assembled seven of the South’s most extraordinary young women
for his personal use. It’s an accomplishment he can share with only one other
soulmate – and that’s definitely not his wife back in suburbia. But Casanova
doesn’t count on the exceptional abilities of one of his harem – or having Alex
Cross as a nemesis. CASANOVA – Boca Raton, Florida, June 1975: For three weeks,
the young killer lived inside the walls of
an extraordinary fifteen-room beach house. He could hear the whispery Atlantic
surf outside, but he was never tempted to look out at the ocean or the private white-sand
beach that stretched to three hundred feet or more along the shore. There was
too much to explore, to study, to accomplish, from his hiding place inside the
dazzling Mediterranean-revival-style house in Boca. His pulse hadn’t stopped
hammering for days. Four people lived in the huge house.: Michael and Hannah Pierce
and their two daughters. The killer spied on the family in the most intimate
ways, and at their most intimate moments. He loved all the little things about the
Pierces, especially Hannah’s delicate seashell collection and the full fleet of
teak sailboats that hung from the ceiling in one of the guest rooms. He watched
the elder daughter, Cory, day and night. She attended St. Andrews High School
with him. She was stunning. No girl in school was as beautiful or as smart as
Cory. He was also keeping his eye on Karrie Pierce. She was only thirteen, but
already a budding fox. Although he was more than six feet tall, he easily fit
into the air-conditioning ducts of the house. He was wire thin and hadn’t
started to fill out yet. The killer was handsome in an Eastern preppy way.
Stashed in his hiding place were a handful of dirty novels, highly erotic books
he had found during fevered shopping trips to Miami. He had become addicted to The Story of O, School Girls in Paris
and Voluptuous Initiations. He also
kept a Smith and Wesson revolver in the walls with him. He went in and out of
the house through a casement window in the cellar that had a broken latch.
Sometimes he even slept down there, behind an old, gently purring Westinghouse
refrigerator, where the Pierces kept extra beer and soda pop for their gala
parties, which often ended with a bonfire on the beach. Truth be told, he was
feeling a little extra weird that night in June, but nothing to worry about. No
problema. Earlier in the evening, he had hand painted his body in bright
streaks and splashes of cherry red, orange, and cadmium yellow. He was a warrior; a hunter. He huddled with
his chrome-plated .22-caliber revolver, flashlight and grope-books in the
ceiling over Cory’s bedroom. Right on top of her, so to speak. Tonight was the
night of nights. The beginning of everything that really mattered in his life.
He settled in and began to reread favorite passages from School Girls in Paris. His pocket flashlight cast a dim light on
the pages. The book was definitely a major turn-on, but also a big yuk. It was
about a “respectable” French lawyer who paid a buxom headmistress to let him spend
nights inside a hotsy-totsy boarding school for girls. The story was filled
with the hokiest language: “his silver-tipped ferrule.,” “his faithless truncheon,”
“he gamahuched the ever-willing schoolgirls.” After a while, he got tired of
reading, and peeked at his wristwatch. It was time now, almost 3:00 A.M. His
hands were shaking as he put the book aside and peered through the
cross-hatching of the grill. He could barely catch his breath as he watched Cory
in bed. The very real adventure was now before him. Just as he had imagined it.
He savored a thought: My real life is
about to begin. Am I really going to do this? Yes, I am!... He was definitely living in the walls of the Pierce
beach house. Soon that nightmarish, eerie fact would dominate the front page of
every major newspaper throughout the United States. He could hardly wait to
read the Boca Raton News. THE BOY IN
THE WALLS! THE KILLER WHO ACTUALLY LIVED IN THE WALLS OF A FAMILY’S HOUSE! A
STARK-RAVING HOMICIDAL MANIAC COULD BE LIVINIG IN YOUR HOUSE! Coty Pierce was
sleeping like the most beautiful little girl. She had on an oversized University
of Miami Hurricanes T-shirt, but it had moved up and he could see the pink silk
bikini panties underneath. She slept on her back, one sun browned leg crossed
over the other. Her pouty mouth was just slightly open, forming the tiniest o, and she looked all innocence, and
light from his vantage point. She was almost a full-grown woman now. He’d
watched her preen in front of the wall mirror just a few hours before. Watched
her take off her pink lacy push-up bra. Watched her as she stared at her
perfect breasts. Coty was unbearably haughty and untouchable. Tonight he was going to change all that. He was going
to take her. Carefully, silently, he removed the metal grill in the ceiling.
Then he crawled out of the wall and down into Coty’s sky-blue-and-pink bedroom.
His chest felt constricted, and his breathing was quick and labored. One minute
he felt hot, the next he was shivering and cold. Two small plastic trash bags
covered his feet and were secured around his ankles, and he wore the light blue
rubber gloves that the Pierces’ maid used for housekeeping. He felt like a
sleek Ninja warrior and looked like Terror itself with his naked hand painted
body. The perfect crime. He loved the feeling. Could this be a dream? No, he knew
it wasn’t a dream. This was the real deal. He was actually going to do this! He
took a deep breath and felt a burning inside his lungs,. For a brief moment, he
studied the peaceful young girl he’d admired so many times at S.t Andrews. Then
he quietly slipped into bed with the one-and-only Coty Pierce. He took off his
rubber glove and gently caressed her perfect sun-bronzed skin. He pretended
that he was smoothing coconut-scented suntan oil all over Coty. He was rock-hard
already. Her long blond hair was sun bleached and felt as soft as rabbit’s fur.
It was thick and beautiful and smelled forest-clean, like balsam. Yes, dreams do come true. Coty suddenly
popped open her eyes. They were shiny emerald green gems, and they looked like
priceless jewels from Harry Winston’s in Roca. She breathlessly said his name –
the name she knew by at school. But he had given himself a new name; he’d named himself, re-created himself. “What
are you doing here?” she gasped. “How did you get in?” “Surprise, surprise. I’m
Casanova,” he whispered against her ear.
His pulse was racing off the charts. “I chose you from all the beautiful girls
in Boca Raton, in all of Florida. Aren’t your pleased?” Coty started to scream.
“Shush now,” he said, and smothered her small lovely mouth with his own. With a
loving kiss. He also kissed Hannah Pierce on that unforgettable evening of
mayhem and murder in Boca Raton. Shortly after, he kissed thirteen-year-old
Karrie. Before he was finished for the night, he knew he really was Casanova – the
world’s greatest lover. THE GENTLEMAN CALLER: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, May
1981 – He was the perfect Gentleman.
Always a Gentleman. Always
unobtrusive and polite. He thought about that as he listened to the two lovers
talking in sibilant whispers as they strolled near University Lake. It was all
so dreamily romantic. It was so right for him.. ”Is this a good idea, or is
this too dumb for words?” he heard Tom Hutchinson ask Roe Tierney. They were
maneuvering into a teal blue rowboat that was gently rocking alongside a long dock
on the lake. Tom and Roe were going to “borrow” the boat for a few hours.
Sneaky college mischief. “My great-granddaddy says drifting downstream in a
rowboat doesn’t count against your life span,” Roe said. “It’s a great idea, Tommy.
Let’s go for it.” Tom Hutchinson started to laugh. “What if you do other things
in said boat?” he asked. “Well, if that includes aerobics of any sort, it might
actually extend your life span.” Roe’s skirt rustled against her smooth thighs
as she crossed her legs.
