Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(14)

“No, I … wait. Yeah, maybe. I think she said she was there only a couple of weeks. Some creep kept hitting on her, so she quit.”

“To go work at a strip bar?” I asked.

Crystal’s voice was colder when she replied. “Kissy felt safe at the Stallion Club. They had bodyguards for the girls. Far as I know, that’s not the case at Hooters.”

“I’m sorry if I sounded snarky there. I’m just trying to understand the situation.”

There was silence before she said, “Okay.”

“Do you remember which Hooters she worked at?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere around DC. How many can there be?”





CHAPTER 16





FOR THE RECORD, THERE ARE seven Hooters restaurants in the DC area, including one on Seventh Street in the northwest part of the District.

Sampson and I went there on a muggy June evening, but when we showed the manager a picture of Kissy, he said he’d never seen her before. We asked if he could search the Hooters chain for her, but he said we’d have to take that up with corporate in Atlanta.

It was nearly seven p.m., which meant it was highly unlikely that the Hooters’ bean counters would still be at their desks, so we decided to go to the franchises in Laurel, Maryland, and Fairfax, Virginia, where we knew for certain two of the victims had worked.

Alice Fox, the manager at the Laurel location, recognized Samantha Bell right away. “Sure,” she said. “Got a young kid. Hard worker, that one. Why?”

Sampson said, “She was murdered in Florida.”

“Murdered?” she said, horrified. “My God. You never know, do you?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “Why’d she leave?”

Fox frowned, said, “I think she had issues.”

“Boyfriend issues?”

“A few weeks before she quit, she started insisting that someone always walk her to her car. She said she thought a guy was stalking her.”

“What guy? A customer?”

She frowned again, thought a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. She would have said something about that, right?”

“You’d think.”

“Sorry I can’t help you more than that,” she said.

“No, this helps,” I said.

On the way to the Fairfax Hooters, we laid odds on the likelihood of a creep or stalker having shown up in Althea Marks’s life. Sampson was calling it at three to two.

But I was thinking five to one when we went through the front doors and saw well-endowed young women in tight shorts and white T-shirts ferrying drinks and food to ogling young men, just like we’d seen at the Hooters in DC and in Laurel.

A creep could definitely be stalking young women here, I thought while Sampson asked to speak to the manager. Peter Mason, the manager, came out and apologized when he was unable to identify Kissy Raider or Althea Marks from photos.

Sampson said, “Ms. Marks worked here. She put it on a job application.”

Mason frowned. “How long ago?”

“Three years and a couple of months?”

He thought about that and then his brows shot up. “I was on paternity leave for ten weeks about then. Let me ask Stella. She’s been here as long as I have.”

Stella, the assistant night manager, didn’t recognize the name Althea Marks, but when she looked at the picture, she said, “Aly. Yeah, she worked here, maybe six weeks. Good waitress.”

“She say why she quit?” Sampson asked.

That seemed to make Stella uncomfortable. “What’s this about? She okay?”

“No,” I said. “She was murdered in Newport Beach, California, two years ago.”

“Murdered?” she said in a bewildered voice. “Oh my God. She was right.”

“Aly was right?” I said.

“I wanted to promote her or at least give her more shifts. But out of the blue, she came in and said she thought she and her son were unsafe here and that she was quitting. She wanted me to send her last paycheck to some PO box in California.”

“Who was making her feel unsafe? A customer?”

She shook her head. “No. Anyway, I don’t think so. We didn’t have any incidents with her and a guy that I could point to. But you know how it is—people’s lives are complicated. Especially for a young mom like that.”

By the time we left, it was pushing ten, and Sampson was in favor of calling it quits for the evening.

“No,” I said. “We’re three for three on the victims thinking they were unsafe or being followed by a creep. We just need to find out where Kissy worked.”

“You want to go to all four other Hooters on the list tonight?”

“One more,” I said. “The one in Chantilly, and then we’ll call it.”

Big John wasn’t thrilled about it, but he said, “Deal.”

We had luck on our side.

Carol Patrick, manager at the Chantilly Hooters, recognized Kissy Raider the second she saw the picture of her.

Her face lost all color and she said, “Is Kissy okay? Please tell me that beautiful soul is okay.”





CHAPTER 17





CAROL PATRICK BROKE DOWN IN a booth at the back of the Hooters where we’d gone to talk.