Robert Walker - Unnatural Instinct

Finally, he said in a near dead whisper, “No one can achieve as much as you have, Jess, and expect to have no enemies. Despite the good you do. Hell, we both have enemies. The higher you climb… all that…”

“ The more success you achieve, yeah, I know. Look, Eriq, like it or not, I know you're between a rock and a… a love: me. I know you would not intentionally do anything to harm me. I know we've been through hell and back together.” She had taken up his hands in hers, unable to recall the last time they had touched. “And despite you and your behavior, I love you anyway, so quit sweating the small stuff.” She gave him a wide smile and a laugh.

He laughed hard at her good nature. “Well, you survived this litmus test that asshole Nicholson and the others put us through.”

“ And you will, too, Eriq. I know you will.”

“ Not so certain of that, Jess, but to add injury to insult, they're combing over my records in quite a determined way these days. Of course, they will find some expedient information and twist it to their ends.”

Jessica had seen it before. There seemed a constant need for top-level administration to grow antsy and develop polyps up their asses and to get a burr under their collective skin whenever someone below them shone too brightly and did too well. It occurred in many a profession, and FBI work was no more an exception to this Rule of Intended Harm than the medical, legal, or even the education field where top-flight teaching became a “menace” to administrators who could not understand how top-flight teaching came about.

“ Maybe you and I are just too damned good for this place, Eriq. Ever consider private practice? We'd make a hell of a team.”

“ Nice of you to say so, Jess, but the bureau is where you belong.”

“ And so it is with you, Eriq: You've got to fight any attempt to replace you. I will do all I can to help you and stand by you; you know that.”

“ You're already under scrutiny, Jess. You'll want to distance yourself from me as much as possible.”

'To hell with that.”

Eriq laughed again.

“ Good to hear you laugh.”

“ You know your every decision for the past five, maybe ten years, Dr. Coran, will be looked into, not to mention your personal life.”

“ Let 'em look.” She also knew that her personal life had somehow become the talk of the higher-ups, and that some in the bureau believed that it had in some bizarre twist of bureaucratic illogic been shown to interfere with her judgment on the DeCampe case.

“ All the gossip, all the innuendo, all things nonsensical, our new fearless leader-Jeffrey Allen Nicholson-believes, or wants to believe. He wants to believe the worst and pursue it as such; he doesn't give a rat's ass about the source or the motive behind the source.”

“ And that source being other so-called professionals, my colleagues, people I thought my friends.”

Eriq's tight-lipped frown and groan were answer enough.

“ I've had my suspicions for some time. Carl Wittinger for one, not to mention complaints from police autopsiests like DeAngelos in Philadelphia and elsewhere.”

“ I blame the boss. The man's got the ears of a goddamn rabbit, and the brain to boot.” He laughed again. “Maybe private practice isn't such a bad idea, you know, for me, I mean.”

She put him at ease by joining in. “The newly appointed head of the FBI wanted to hear all about me. I should be flattered,” she said.

“ I tell you, Jess, betrayal, even on a small scale, it doesn't sit well in my stomach. I can't do this job if I have to betray confidences and friends.”

Jessica realized only now the depth of Eriq's friendship, for the betrayal seemed more painful for Santiva than his physical injury from which he had fully recovered.

'TBI's a hard place to maintain perspective,” he finished.

She hugged him in response and told him to get some rest. “Besides, I've known, Eriq. It isn't as if you aren't completely transparent, getting in my way like you do on case after damned case.”

“ You knew what was going on all along? From the beginning?”

“ I did-since the Phantom case that took us all over the American West, I've known, although I suspect it's been as long as when you and I teamed up on the Night Crawler case in Florida.” But in fact, she lied. She hadn't known for certain until now. She had been far too fixated and obsessed with saving DeCampe from certain death to play the petty politics game, but a white lie now would assuage his feelings.

“ How is J. T. this morning?” he asked.

“ He's out of the coma and doing well. His doctors are pleased with his progress.”

“ Well, I'd best go. Lot of garbage to take out today. Meeting again with new management.”

“ Sounds like gut-wrenching fun.”

“ Just wanted you to know to watch your back, Jess, especially with that old South Dakota case you were pursuing before all the shit hit the fan with Judge DeCampe.”

She nodded and watched Eriq walk away. She wondered if she'd be working with him again, or if the ongoing shuffle would change the dynamics at their Quantico headquarters. She also wondered how the strange case of Claude Lightfoot figured into the mix; she sensed that her limited interest in the case had sparked some questions in the highest circles of the bureau. Was there some potential embarrassment to the FBI if the Lightfoot case were reopened and the truth crawled out from beneath the boulder that someone or some- ones had placed over it? Perhaps… perhaps it wasn't worth pursuing, or it ought to be left to someone else, someone in a better position to drag out the ugly truth. Perhaps it was altogether someone else's problem. So why was it so snakelike and threatening? Why did it threaten like a cobra trying to find escape from the confined space of her brain? More importantly, was it worth the loss she faced? Was it worth losing everything she had built up over the years: her reputation, her career, her relationships, her every comfort zone?

Jessica had had some inkling before now that the higher ups were curious as to why she had involved herself in the South Dakota case. They would want to know the answers to the standard questions: Why are we footing the bills here? Why are we keeping field operatives in South Dakota busy? Was this a pet project of hers? What were the details? The names and numbers of the situation. And why had she asked field operatives in South Dakota to question a whole population in connection with the death of a young Native American named Claude Lightfoot. It had been a case shunted aside in the '80s, but when a local man came forward to tell the story in toto, and he then mysteriously died before anything was recorded. Previous to his death, two others suspected of being involved in the murder of Lightfoot had died under questionable circumstances. Jessica did not know who might be behind the “sudden death syndrome” of the men she believed to have killed Lightfoot so many years ago, but she feared, unless operatives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, pursued the case, that no one would ever know the full extent of the story there.

She took a deep breath, turning to go back inside to be with J. T. when she saw a man at the end of the corridor staring. He looked as if he'd been watching with intensity. The stranger then averted his eyes and lifted a newspaper, a sure sign she was under surveillance. Eriq had not been wrong to feel paranoid, after all.

She heard her father's voice in her ear remind her, “When you have a good reason to be paranoid, it's a healthy response. “

She stepped into J. T.'s room.

Meanwhile, back in Houston, Texas, Lucas Stonecoat did not appreciate the fact that the Houston Police Department's Internal Affairs cops were looking at him for the killings taking place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a place where he had friends and maintained a getaway residence. IAD could not abide the smell of so close a coincidence. Of course, they could not prove it, but Lucas had known cases to be built against an innocent man that had stuck, sending people to prison on flimsy evidence.