She laughed. “Don't have any of those. You passed a CD player on your way from the kitchen. I left a bunch of CDs out. Pick what you like.”

This a test?" he asked.

Billie laughed again. “No, you already passed all your tests. That's why I asked you to supper. Stop worrying about me and you. We won't break. This is going to be fun. Better than you think.”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Fifty-Five

She was right about the night being special. It embarrassed him, but he just about forgot Ellis Cooper for several hours. Sampson was usually quiet unless he knew somebody pretty well. Part of it was shyness, because he'd always been so tall and stood out in every social group. But he was honest enough with himself to know he didn't want to waste time on people who didn't mean anything to him, and never would.

Billie was different and he knew it, from the first time she spoke to him. The surprising thing about her was that he liked hearing her talk about anything. Her daily routine in Mantoloking; her two grown children -Andrew, a freshman at Rutgers, and Kari, a senior at Monmouth; the ocean tides and how they affected surf-casting for blues; a half dozen other things. In addition to the house-sitting, she still worked full-time as a nurse. She was in the Emergency Clinic and specialized in adult trauma. She'd flown in Med-Evac helicopters to the larger trauma units in Newark and

Philadelphia. Once upon a time, she'd even worked as a MASH unit nurse.

They didn't discuss her husband until after dinner. Sampson brought the subject up again. It had gotten cooler and they'd moved back into the living room. Billie started a fire, which was crackling and popping and warming things up inside.

“Do you mind if we talk about Laurence for a few more minutes?” he asked as they sat together on a small couch near the fire. “We don't have to do this now if you don't want to.”

“No, it's okay. It's fine, really. That's why you came here.”

Suddenly, something caught Sampson's eye. He rose up from the couch and walked to a glass case near the fireplace. He reached inside and took out a straw doll.

Now this was definitely very strange. He examined it closely. He was sure it was a replica of the one he'd seen in Ellis Cooper's house. It scared him because it was in Billie's house. What was the doll doing here?

“What is it?” she asked. “What is that creepy doll? I don't remember seeing it before. Is something wrong? You look so serious suddenly.”

“I saw this same doll at Ellis Cooper's house, ”he admitted. “It's from Vietnam. I saw lots of them in villages over there. Something about evil spirits and the dead. These dolls are bad medicine.”

She came over to the glass cabinet and stood beside him. “May I see, please?” She examined the straw doll and shook her head. "It looks like something Laurence might have brought home, I suppose. A souvenir.