The Mastermind had already made his next move, though he knew it was only a half-step in the greater scheme of things. He had pulled back. He was six blocks away from Jamilla Hughes’s apartment, standing on a San Francisco hill past the Jackson Playground.  It allowed him to watch her building, the bay windows, the small terrace on one side.
He enjoyed this - the intractable imposition of his will, his ego on the world. It had been this way for more than a dozen years. No one had come close to capturing him, or even suspecting who he really was.
Cross was inside now, and that made everything either very hard or perhaps, easier. There was another decision to be made soon.  Should he risk everything at this point? Change everything? For years, he had been living a complicated double life. He’d done whatever he wanted, wherever, whenever. He had enjoyed his freedom, and how many others had even tasted that forbidden fruit? He had been the cop and the criminal. But maybe it was time for a change? Maybe his life had become too safe, too predictable.  Kyle loved the hunt - and in that way he was like Casanova and the Gentleman Caller, two very talented killers he had known well, one working in North Carolina, the other in southern California.  He found that he agreed with Casanova that men needed to be hunters by nature. And so he hunted - men and women - and found he enjoyed killing both sexes; but he went an important step farther.
He hunted their killers as well. He eliminated his competition. He beat them at their own game.
He had known Casanova years before the meticulous and very nasty killer was caught by himself and Dr Cross. He had played murder games with Casanova and with the Gentleman Caller. Kiss the girls and make them cry. Kyle had even fallen in love with one of the victims - young Kate McTieman. He still had a soft spot for dear, sweet Kate. He had been so many things to so many people, played so ma............