By this time we were both laughing. She was definitely fun to be with. Maybe that was enough for now. I liked being around her, laughing the way we were.

We hugged as soon as we were inside her room. She felt so warm. I let my fingers trail gently down her back and she sighed softly. I moved my thumb in the tiniest circles all over her back. I gently kneaded her skin and could feel her breathing pick up tempo. My heart was racing too.

"Betsey," I whispered, "I can't do this. Not yet I can't."

"I know," she whispered back. "Just hold me, though. Holding is nice. Tell me about her, Alex. You can talk to me."

I thought that she was probably right. I could talk to her, and I even wanted to. "It's like I said, I like ties. I'm big on intimacy, but I feel it has to be earned. I was in love with a woman named Christine Johnson. It seemed so right for both of us. There never was a time I didn't want to be with her."

I broke down. I didn't want to, but the sob came out of nowhere. Then I was crying a lot and I couldn't make myself stop. My body was heaving, but I could feel Betsey holding on to me, holding me tight, refusing to let go.

'I'm so sorry." I finally managed a few words.

"Don't be," she said," You didn't do anything wrong. Not at all. In fact, you did everything right."

I finally pulled back a little and I looked at her face. Her beautiful brown eyes were wet with tears.

"Let's just hug, "she said. "I think we both need hugs. Hugs are good."

Betsey and I hugged for a long time and then I went back to my room alone.

Chapter Seventy-Nine

The Mastermind was feeling so goddamned confident, and excited, that he couldn't stand it. That night, he was there in Hartford. He had no fear anymore. No one scared him. Not the FBI. Not anyone involved with the case.

How to improve on his own victory ? How to reinvent himself? Those were his only concerns. How to get better and better.

He had a plan for tonight a different kind of plan. This maneuver was so clever, so perverse. He'd never heard of anything like it. It was such a lovely and original 'creation."

The most commonplace part was breaking into the small, garden-style apartment on the outskirts of Hartford. He cut out a pane of glass in the door of the loggia, reached in and turned the knob, and voila -he was in.

He listened to the house breathe for a delicious moment. The only sound he could hear was the wind whistling through a stand of trees that overlooked the still, black water of a country pond.

He was a little afraid to be inside the house, but the fear was natural, and intoxicating. The fear made the moment great for him. He slipped on a President Clinton mask the same kind of mask used in the very first bank robbery.

He quietly made his way toward the master bedroom at the back of the apartment. This was getting so good. He almost felt that he belonged here now. Possession was ninety-nine percent of the law. Wasn't that the old saying?

The moment of truth!

He quietly, quietly opened the bedroom door. The room smelled of sandalwood and jasmine. He paused in the doorway until his eyes became accustomed to the low light. He squinted as he stared into the

1QK

room, studied it, got his bearings. He saw her!

Now! Go! Not a second to lose.

He moved very fast. He seemed to fly across the room and on to the queen-size bed. He fell on the sleeping figure with his full weight.

There was an ooff, then a startled cry. He slapped a wad of electrician's tape across her mouth, then handcuffed both slender wrists to the bedpost.

Click-dick. So fast, so efficient.

His hostage tried to scream, tried to twist and turn and break free. She had on a yellow silk teddy He loved the feel of it, so he slipped it off her body. He caressed the silk, ran it over his face. Then back and forth through his teeth.

"It's not going to happen. You can't get away. Stop trying! It's annoying.

"Please try to relax. You're not going to be hurt," he said then. "It's important to me that you not be harmed."

He gave her a few seconds to take in what he said. To understand.

He stooped close until his face was only inches from hers. 'I'm going to explain why I'm here, what I plan to do. I will be very, very clear and precise. I trust that you won't tell a soul about this, but if you ever do, I'll come back as easily as I did tonight. I'll get through any security system you can buy, and I will torture you. I will kill you but first I'll do much worse than that."

The prey nodded. At last understanding. "Torture' was the magic word. Perhaps it ought to be used more in schools.

"I've been watching and studying you for a while. I think you're just perfect for me. I'm certain, and I'm usually right about these things. I'm right over ninety-nine percent of the time."

The hostage was lost again. He could see it in her eyes. The lights were on, but nobody was home.

"Here's the idea, the concept. I'm going to try and gave you a baby tonight. Yes, you heard right. I want you to have the baby," the Mastermind finally explained. "I've studied your fertility rhythms, your contraceptive program. Don't ask how, but I have. Trust me. I'm very serious about this.

"If you don't have the baby, I will come back for you, Justine. If you abort the baby, I will torture you horribly, then kill you. But don't worry, this child will be very special, "said the Mastermind," This child will be a masterpiece. Make love to me, Justine."

Chapter Eighty

At noon the next day, the case seemed to take another terrible, and unexpected twist. I was in an interview at Metro Hartford when Betsey broke in. She asked me to please come out into the hallway. Her face was ashen.

"Oh no, what?" I managed to say.

"Alex, this is so creepy that I'm still shaking. Listen to what just happened. Last night, a twenty-five-year-old woman was raped in her apartment in a suburb outside Hartford. The rapist told her he wanted her to have his baby. After he left, she went to a hospital and the police were called in. In their report, it states that the rapist wore a Clinton mask like the one worn at the first bank robbery, Alex and also, that he called himself a mastermind."

"Is the woman still at the hospital? Are the police with her?” I asked. My mind was racing, already filled with possibilities, rejecting the notion of coincidence out of hand. A mastermind in a Clinton mask, just outside Hartford? It was too close.