Damn! Her farsightedness was getting worse at almost thirty-one years old! She was an old lady. She'd been the grandam of the University of North Carolina Medical School. It was already nine-thirty past her bedtime.
Kate decided to pass on Spanky's and head back to the hacienda. She'd heat up some fourth- degree chili, and maybe have hot chocolate with about an inch topping of Marshmal-low Fluff.
Curling up in bed with some junk food, Cormac Mccarthy, and maybe REM. didn't sound half bad, actually.
Like many of the students at Chapel Hill as opposed to the wealthier crowd up Tobacco Road at “Dook” Kate had a major cash-flow problem. She lived in a three-room apartment that was the top floor of a frame house, a North Carolina “country” house. All the paint was peeling, and the house looked as if it were molting. It was at the ass-end of Pittsboro Street in Chapel Hill. She had gotten a good deal on the rent.
The first thing she had noticed about the neighborhood were the exquisite trees. They were old and stately hardwoods, not pines. Their long branches reminded her of the arms and fingers of wizened old women. She called her street “Old Ladies Lane.” Where else would the old lady of the medical school live?
Kate arrived home at about a quarter to ten. Nobody was living downstairs in the house that she rented from a widowed lady who lived in Durham.
“I'm home. It's me, Kate,” she called to the family of mice who lived somewhere behind the refrigerator. She couldn't bring herself to exterminate them. “Did you miss me? You guys eat yet?”
She flipped on the overhead kitchen light and listened to the irritating electric buzz that she hated. Her eyes caught the blowup of a quote from one of her med-school teachers: “Medical students have to practice humility.” Well she was definitely practicing humility.
Inside her small bedroom, Kate pulled on a wrinkled black polo shirt that she never ever bothered to iron. Ironing clothes was not a priority these days. It was one reason to have a man around, though someone to clean, maintain, take out the trash, cook, iron. She was fond of a particular old feminist line: “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Kate yawned just thinking about the sixteen-hour day that would start for her at five the next morning. Dammit, she loved her life! Loved it! She fell onto the creaking double bed that was covered with plain white sheets. The only flourish was a couple of colored chiffon scarves which hung from the bedpost.
She canceled her order for chili and hot chocolate with Marshmallow Fluff, and she set All the Pretty Horses on top of unread copies of Harper's and The New Yorker. Kate flipped off her lamp and was asleep in five seconds. End of wonderfully illuminating discussion with herself for the night.
Kate Mctiernan had no idea, no suspicion, that she was being watched, that she had been followed ever since she'd walked down crowded, colorful Franklin Street, that she had been chosen.
Dr. Kate was next.
Tick-cock.
Alex Cross 2 - Kiss the Girls
CHAPTER 17.
No! KATE THOUGHT. This is my home. She almost said it out loud, but she didn't want to make a sound.
There was someone in her apartment! She was still half asleep, but she was almost sure about the intruding noise that woke her up.
Her pulse was already racing. Her heart floated up into her throat. Jesus God, no.
She stayed very still, huddled near the head of her bed. A few more nervous seconds passed slowly, like centuries. Not a move from her.
Not a breath. Bone-white slants of moonlight played across the windowpanes, creating eerie shadows in her bedroom.
She listened to the house, listened with total concentration to every creak and crack the old building made.
She didn't hear anything unusual now. But she was sure she had. The recent murders and the news stories about the kidnappings in the Research Triangle area made her fearful. Don't be gruesome, she thought. Don't get melodramatic.
She sat up slowly in bed and listened. Maybe a window had blown open.
She had better get out of bed and check the windows and doors.
For the first time in four months, she actually missed Peter Mcgrath.
Peter wouldn't have helped, but she would have felt safer. Even with dear old “Peter-out.” Not that she was totally frightened or vulnerable; she could hold her own with most men. She could fight like hell. Peter used to say that he “pitied” the man who messed with her, and he meant it. He had been a little physically afraid of her. Well, prearranged fighting in karate dojos was one thing. This was the real thing.
Kate slipped silently out of bed. Not a sound. She felt the roughness and coolness of the floorboards under her bare feet. It sent a wake-up call to her brain, and she moved into a fighting stance.
