I called my niece Naomi, who'd been kidnapped by Casanova. Naomi was practicing law in Jacksonville, Florida. She was living with a good guy named Seth Samuel Taylor. They were planning to marry later this year. "He likes to ruin other people's happiness," I told Naomi. "Be careful. I know you will be."

  I called Kate McTiernan in North Carolina. I remembered the meal she'd had with Kyle and me. Had it meant anything more than what it had seemed to on the surface? Who knew with Kyle? Kate promised to be extra careful, and reminded me that she was a third-degree black belt now. Kyle had always liked Kate, and I reminded her of that. Actually, the more I talked to Kate, the more worried I was about her. "Don't take any chances, Kate. Kyle is the craziest person I've ever met."

  I contacted Sandy Greenberg, a good friend at Interpol who had worked with Kyle several times. She was shocked to learn that Kyle was a murderer. She promised to be extra careful until he was caught; Sandy also offered to help in any way that she could.

  Kyle Craigwas a cold, heartless murderer.

  My partner at times, my friend, or so I'd thought.

  I still couldn't believe it. Not completely. I tried to make up a possible hit list for Kyle.

  1. Myself

  2. Nana and the kids

  3. Sampson

  4. Jamilla

  I realized I was making the list from my point of view, not necessarily Kyle's. I tried another list.

  1. Kyle's family — every member

  2. Myself — and my family

  3. Director Burns of the FBI

  4. Jamilla

  5. Kate McTiernan

  I sat in my empty house on Fifth Street and wondered what the hell he would do next. It was driving me crazy; I felt like I was running in circles.

  Kyle was capable of anything.

  Chapter 104

  He finally called again.

  "I killed them and I don't feel a thing. Nothing at all. You will, though, Alex. In a way, you're to blame. Nobody but you. I didn't even want to kill them, but I had to do it. That's the way the horror story has to go. It's out of control now. I'll admit that."

  The horrifying confession came at quarter past five in the morning. I had been asleep about three hours when the phone rang. Panic raced through my body. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.

  "Who did you kill?" I asked Kyle. "Who? Tell me who it was. Tell me."

  "What difference does it make? They're dead, slaughtered. It's someone you care about. There's nothing you can do now — except catch me. I suppose I could help you. Isn't that what you want to hear? Would that make this more interesting for you? Would it make it fair?" He started to laugh uncontrollably. Christ, I had never known him to lose control.

  I let him go on. Inflated his ego. That's what he wanted and needed, wasn't it?

  Who had Kyle killed? Oh God, whowas dead? Itwas more than one person— slaughtered.

  "We always worked as a team. In a way, it would be my crowning moment — to catch myself. I've thought about it, actually. Fantasized. What better challenge could there be? I can't think of one. Me against myself." He started to laugh again.

  I had to force myself not to ask again who he had murdered. It would just make Kyle angry. He might hang up. Still, my mind was grinding. I was incredibly afraid. Christine? Kate? Jamilla?

  Someone at the FBI? Who? Oh God, who was it? Have some mercy, have pity. Show me that you're human, you bastard.

  "I'm not a highly trained psychologist like yourself, but here's one amateur's theory, anyway," Kyle said. "I think this whole rage thing might be about sibling rivalry. Could it be? You know, Alex, I had a younger brother. He came along at the height of my Oedipus complex, when I was a mere lad of two. He displaced me with my mother and father. Check into it, Alex. Consult with Quantico. Could be important."

  He was so calm, and he was ridiculing me — as a detective and as a psychologist.

  My hands were starting to shake. I'd had enough. "Who did you kill this time?" I yelled into the phone. "Who is it?"

  Kyle broke my heart. He told me about the murders he'd just committed in great detail. I was certain that he was telling the truth.

  Then he hung up, even as I cursed him to hell.

  Minutes later I was in my car, bleary eyed, numb, rushing across Washington to the terrible murder scene.

  Chapter 105

  No, no, no!

  I hadn't expected this. It was like a knife thrust into my heart, then twisted until I screamed. Kyle had hurt me badly — and he wanted me to know something: There was worse to come. This was just the beginning.

  I stood silent and transfixed in the bedroom of Zach and Liz Taylor. My eyes were blurred by tears. Two of my dearest friends were dead. I had come to their house dozens of times before — for parties, dinner, late-night talks. Zach and Liz had visited on Fifth Street many times. Zach was the godfather to little Alex.

  My only consolation was that they had died quickly. Probably Kyle was nervous about getting caught. He knew he had to get in and out of their apartment in the Adams-Morgan section of Washington quickly.

  Whatever his reason, he had killed the Taylors with single gunshots to the head. He hadn't bothered to mutilate the bodies. I thought that the message was clear. This wasn't about them.

  Itwas about the two of us.

  Zach and Liz Taylor hadn't mattered one way or the other to him. Maybe that was the worst thing of all. How easily he could kill. How much he wanted to hurt me.

  This was just the start of it.

  It would getworse.

  There was no evidence of rage, no passion at this crime scene. I almost got the sense that once he was inside their bedroom he'd had second thoughts. Oh Kyle, Kyle. Have mercy on us.

  I made mental notes — no need to write any of this down. I knew every horrifying detail by heart. I would never forget any of it until the day I died.

  The gunshots had blown away the sides of their faces. I had to force myself to look. I remembered how in love they had always seemed to me. Zach had once told me that "Liz is the only person I know who I enjoy being with on a long car ride." That was the test for him. They never ran out of things to say to each other. I felt incredibly hollowed out as I stared at them. They were gone now. What a terrible waste, what a horror show.

  I walked past their bodies to a large casement window that looked out on the street. I was feeling so unreal. I saw the marquee sign for Cafe Lautrec, closed now. I thought about Kyle on the run, what he must be thinking, where he might go next.

  I wanted to catch him, to stop him. No, I wanted to kill Kyle. I wanted to hurt him in the worst way possible.

  Someone from the crime scene unit edged up to me, a sergeant named Ed Lyle. "Sorry about your loss. What do you want from us, Detective? We're ready to get to work here."

  "Sketch, video, photograph," I told Lyle. But I really didn't need any of it. I didn't need any more graven images, or even any evidence.

  I knew who the killer was.

  Chapter 106

  I got home around one that afternoon. I needed to sleep, but I couldn't stay down for more than a couple of hours. I got up and paced all through the empty house on Fifth Street.

  I kept walking from room to room. I felt the need to stop a terrible disaster from happening, but I didn't know where to start. The possible hit lists for Kyle were continually running through my head: my family, Sampson, Christine, Jamilla Hughes, Kate McTiernan, my niece Naomi, Kyle's own family.

  I couldn't get the image of Zach and Liz out of my head. They had been executed in the prime of their lives — because of me. Finally, I was able to throw up, and it was the best thing that had happened to me that day. I pushed out my guts. Then I slammed the bathroom mirror with the heel of my hand and nearly broke it.

  Kyle was always a fucking step ahead, right? It had been that way for so many years now. He was such an unbelievable bastard.

  He had complete confidence in his abilities, including his power to elude us any time he wanted to. What would be next? Who would he kill? Who? Who?

  How could he make himself disappear after the killing? How did he blend in and become invisible when so many people were looking for him?

  He had money — Kyle had taken care of that when he'd played the role of the Mastermind. So what was next for him?

  I worked at my computer late into the night and early morning. The computer was beside my bedroom window. Was he outside watching? I didn't think even Kyle would take that kind of chance now. But hell, how could I rule out anything?

  He was capable of large-scale mass murder. If that was his plan, where would he strike? Washington? New York City? L.A.? Chicago? His old hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina? Maybe somewhere in Europe? London?

  Was his family safe — his wife and his son and daughter? I had vacationed with them in Nags Head one summer. I'd stayed at their home in Virginia a few times over the years. His wife, Louise, was a dear friend. I had promised her I would try to bring Kyle in alive if I possibly could. But now I wondered — did I want to keep that promise? What would I do if I ever caught up with Kyle?

  He might go after his own parents, especially since Kyle put part of the heavy blame for his behavior on his father. William Hyland Craig had been a general in the army, then chairman of the board of two Fortune 500 companies in and around Charlotte. Nowadays, he gave lectures at ten to twenty thousand a pop; he was on half a dozen boards. He had beaten Kyle as a boy, disciplined him ruthlessly, taught him to hate.

  Sibling rivalry? Kyle had brought it up himself. He had been highly competitive with his younger brother until Blake's death in 1991. Had Kyle actually killed Blake? It had been ruled a hunting accident. What about the older brother, who still lived in North Carolina?

  Did he think of me as a younger brother? Did Kyle see Blake in me? He was competing with me, and he'd tried to control me from the start. The women in my life might have represented a threat to him, an extreme variant of sibling rivalry. Was that why he had killed Betsey Cavalierre? What about Maureen Cooke in New Orleans? And Jamilla?

  I made a note to carefully think and plot out one particular angle, a dysfunctional family triangle with both Kyle and me in it.

  One step ahead.

  So far, anyway.

  If he went after his parents or his brother we would have him. They were being closely protected in Charlotte. The FBI was all over them.

  Kyle knew that. He wouldn't do something stupid— just cruel and nasty.

  One step ahead.

  That seemed to be the key to Kyle's fantasy life, at least as I understood it so far. He wouldn't make the obvious move. He would go at least one move, maybe two, beyond that. But how did he stay a step ahead — especially now? A very bad thought had been running through my head lately. Maybe there was someone else in the FBI helping him — maybe Kyle had a partner.

  I had finally drifted off to sleep when the phone in my bedroom woke me. It was three in the morning. God damn him. Doesn't he ever sleep?

  I picked it up, clicked it off, then unplugged the phone from the wall.

  No more phone tag, Kyle.Fuck you.

  I was setting the rules now. This was my game, not his.

  Chapter 107

  In the morning, I drank too much black coffee and thought about our last case together: Daniel and Charles, Peter Westin, the Alexander brothers. What did it mean in Kyle's fantasy? The macabre story he was plotting out involved both of us. He had asked me into the investigation, then used it to control me. Was that where it ended for him, and me?

  I kept trying to piece together the puzzlefrom a psychologist's point of view. The rest might flow from that. Might. With Kyle, there was no knowing for sure. If he saw a clear pattern, he might break it; if he understood his own pathology, and maybe he did, he would use that in his favor too.

  Around noon, I called Kyle's older brother, Martin, a radiologist living outside Charlotte — where we had once believed that Daniel and Charles had begun their murder spree. Did Kyle have a previous connection with them? Was that a possibility too?

  Martin Craig tried to help, but he finally admitted that he and his brother hadn't spoken during the past ten years. "We saw each other at my brother Blake's funeral," Martin said. "That was the last time. I don't like my brother, Detective Cross. He doesn't like me. I don't know if he likes anybody."

  "Was your father especially rough on Kyle?" I asked Martin.

  "Kyle always said so, but to tell the truth, I never saw much of it. Neither did my mother. Kyle liked to make up stories. He was always the big hero or the pathetic victim in them. My mother used to say that Kyle had an ego only second to God's."

  "What did you think about that? Your mother's assessment of your brother?"

  "Detective Cross, my brother didn't believe in God, and he wasn't second to anyone."

  The continuing theme throughout the three brothers' relationship had been competition, and Kyle had always believed that Martin and Blake won in the eyes of his parents. Kyle had been a starter on the high school basketball team, but Martin had been the clever all-county point guard who also played bass guitar in a local band and had an enviable social life. There had once been a feature story in the local paper about the basketball-playing brothers, but most of the article dealt with Blake and Martin. They had all attended Duke undergraduate, but Martin and Blake went on to medical school. Kyle became a lawyer, a career choice his father deplored. Kyle had talked to me about sibling rivalry, and maybe I was beginning to understand a little of the origins of his fantasy world.

  "Martin," I finally asked, "is it possible that Kyle murdered your younger brother Blake?"

  "Blake died in a hunting accident — supposedly," Martin Craig said. "Detective Cross, my brother Blake was an incredibly responsible and careful man, almost as careful as Kyle. He didn't accidentally shoot himself. I believe with all my heart that Kyle had something to do with it. That's why he and I haven't spoken in ten years. My brother is Cain. I believe he's a murderer, and I want to see him caught. I want to see my brother go to the electric chair. That's what Kyle deserves."

  Chapter 108

  Nothing ever starts where we think it does. I kept remembering that Kyle had done nearly all of the TV and print interviews after the capture of Peter Westin in the foothills outside Santa Cruz. He'd wanted the praise. He wanted to be the star, the only one. In a way, that's what he was now: the brightest star of all.

  I had one decent idea about what to do next, something proactive that might bother Kyle. I contacted the FBI and discussed it with Director Burns. He liked it too.

  At four o'clock that afternoon, a press conference was called in the lobby of the FBI building. Director Burns was there to speak briefly and then to introduce me. Burns stated in no uncertain terms that I would be involved in the manhunt until Kyle Craig was brought to justice, and that Kyle would definitely be caught.

  I was wearing a black leather car coat and I buttoned it up as I stepped to the mikes. I was playing this for all it was worth. I wanted to look self-important. I wanted to look like the star. Not Kyle. This was my manhunt. Not his. He was the prey.

  There was the usual mechanical buzz and hum of cameras, the incessant flashes, and all those inquiring minds of the press, those mostly cynical eyes staring up at me, waiting for answers that I couldn't give them now. It set my nerves on edge.

  My voice was as grave and important sounding as I could make it. "My name is Alex Cross. I'm a homicide detective in D.C. I've worked closely with Special Agent in Charge Kyle Craig over the past five years. I know him extremely well." I went into some detail on our past together. I tried to sound like a pompous know-it-all. The doctor-detective.

  "Kyle has been helpful in solving a few murders. He was a competent number two, excellent support for me. He was an overachiever type but a tireless worker.

  "We will capture him soon, but Kyle, if you can hear me, wherever you are, I urge you to listen closely. Give yourself up. I can help you. I've always been able to help. Give yourself up to me. It's the only chance you have."

  I paused and stared into the TV cameras, then I slowly stepped back from the microphones. The camera flashes were everywhere. They were treating me like the star now. Just as I had hoped they would.

  Director Burns said a few more words about his concern for public safety and the extent of the FBI manhunt. He thanked me profusely for being there.

  As I stood there beside Director Burns, I continued to stare out into the TV cameras. I knew that Kyle would be looking right at me. I was sure that he'd see this segment and that it would infuriate him.

  I was sending Kyle a clear message, and a challenge.

  Come and get me, if you can. You're not the Mastermind anymore— I am.

  Chapter 109

  Now I waited.

  I went to visit Nana and the kids early the next morning.

  My aunt Tia had a small clapboard house that was painted yellow with white aluminum shutters. It was located on a quiet street in Chapel Gate, which she called "the country." As I drove up to the small house, I saw no evidence of the FBI, which was a good sign, I thought. They were doing their job well.

  The special agent in charge was a man named Peter Schweitzer. He had an excellent reputation. Schweitzer met me at the front door and introduced me to the six other agents inside Tia's house.

  When I was fully satisfied about security, I went to see Nana and the kids. "Hello, Daddy."

  "Hello, Dad."

  "Hello, Alex." Everybody seemed especially glad to see me, even Nana. They were having a big breakfast in the kitchen, and Tia was busy making pancakes and hot sausages. She put out her arms for a hug, and then everybody grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. I must admit, I liked the attention; I needed the hugs.