Afraid of a little melanoma?

She carried thick medical volumes against one hip. Looks and brains.

She planned to practice back in West Virginia, where she was born. Didn't seem to care aboutmaking a lot of money.

What for? So she could own ten pairs of black high-topped sneakers?

Kate Mctiernan was wearing her usual university garb: a crisp white med-school jacket, khakishirt, weathered tan trousers, her faithful black sneakers. It worked for her. Kate theCharacter. Slightly off-center. Unexpected. Strangely, powerfully alluring.

On Kate Mctiernan, almost anything would have worked, even the most homespun interpretation ofcheap chic. He particularly loved Kate Mctiernan's irreverence toward university and hospitallife, and especially the holier-than-thou medical school. It showed in the way she dressed;the casual way she carried herself now; everything about her lifestyle. She seldom woremakeup. She seemed very natural, and there was nothing phony or stuck-up about her that he'dnoticed yet.

There was even a little of the unexpected klutz in her. Earlier in the week, he had seen herflush the deepest red after she tripped on a guardrail outside Perkins Library and crashedinto a bench with her hip. That warmed him tremendously. He could be touched, could feel humanwarmth. He wanted Kate to love him ... He wanted to love her back.

That was why he was so special, so different. It was what separated him from all the otherone-dimensional killers and butchers he had ever heard or read about, and he had readeverything on the subject. He could feel everything. He could love. He knew that.

Kate said something amusing to a fortyish-looking professor as she walked past him. Casanovacouldn't hear it from where he was watching.