Page 48 of Alex Cross Must Die

Grey took the thick cloth napkin from the table and slid it onto her lap. She looked across at Poe. He had never looked more eager, or more charming. All his usual moodiness seemed to have dissipated. Now she was more curious than ever.

Poe reached across the table and put his hand on hers. She hadn’t expected it. Her instinct told her to pull back. But she didn’t.

“Relax, Helene,” said Poe, flashing that devastating smile. “Life is short.”

CHAPTER 50

“‘OAK-BARK BISQUEwith saffron-infused acorns’!”

“‘Cottage-grown ferns with sea-salt glaze’!”

Grey and Poe were practically giddy as they recited items from the tasting menu they’d pocketed when leaving the restaurant. Yes, the descriptions were off-the-charts pretentious. But the flavors had been incredible. Dizzying. Mind-bending. Like no food Grey had ever tasted in her life. Fantastic night.

Poe had seemed steady after two glasses of Merlot. But Grey made sure he stayed under the speed limit the whole way back to Brooklyn. She certainly wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel herself. The Chablis had gone to her head, with a textbook loosening of inhibitions. If not for her second glass, she probably would have already been home, securing her Glock in her closet lockbox.

Instead, she was in another place she never expected to be.

Auguste Poe’s bedroom.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I need to use the facilities.”

As Poe closed the bathroom door, Grey began to assess her surroundings. Even buzzed, she felt her detective instincts stirring. Shecould have predicted the shelves of books, on esoteric subjects from medieval armor to the occult. She was not surprised by the fencing foils or the expensive liqueur assortment. After all, she had been mentally profiling Poe since the day they met. Everything fit.

Everything except her.

She recalled Poe’s date from the evening of the launch party. Slender, young, sophisticated. Grey did not place herself in any of those three categories.

Maybe Poe had merely invited her up here to chat about their mutual interest in the subway skeletons. Or to try to wheedle his way back into the Charles kidnapping case.

Grey ran her fingers over a drawer pull, fighting the urge to tug on it, fantasizing about discovering an old passport, a bank statement, a diploma. Anything revealing.

Suddenly, Poe was behind her. She hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open.

“Detective Grey,” he said gently. “Are you investigating me?”

As she turned, she felt his hand behind her neck.

And then … a kiss.

Unexpected. Thrilling. Tender. Poe’s hands slid down to her waist. As Grey angled her head, their noses bumped, like clumsy teenagers. They both pulled back slightly with awkward grins. She touched his face, running her fingers over his dashing moustache.

“I assure you it’s real,” he said.

Grey realized that her heart was pounding. “What’s happening here, Mr. Poe?”

“Whatever youwantto happen,” he replied. He leaned forward and kissed her again. She kissed him back, then gently pulled away.

“Another evasive answer,” she said. She could feel a flush rising across her cheeks and throat.

“What can I say?” he whispered. “I have an elusive soul.”

So now it was her call. Her choice. She pulled Poe down onto thebed and reached for his belt. She felt his hand behind her back, his fingers on the zipper of her dress.

As they both wriggled free of their clothes, Grey had a flash of insecurity. She couldn’t help it. She worried about being compared to a twenty-five-year-old. Poe pulled the clip from her hair and let it tumble around her neck. She closed her eyes. He kissed his way from her cheek down to her collarbone and kept going.

Somewhere along the way, she quit worrying.

Afterward, Grey slept deeper and longer than she had in years. Four straight hours. It was 3:30 a.m. when she found herself blinking in the darkness. The room was quiet except for the ticking of an antique clock on the bookshelf. As steady as a heartbeat.

---