Robert Walker - Pure Instinct

“ I'm trying, Captain. I've checked with departments in California, San Francisco and L.A. in particular, New York, Chicago, Miami and Key West, Flordia, as well as Panama City, Florida. I've wired Interpol and Euronet, as well as the FBI's crime computers. You name it, I've asked for information on high rates and/or unusual murder rates among the homosexual population, anything at all resembling our case here.”

“ Any luck along those lines?”

A long, exasperated breath of air was his immediate answer. “A few similar cases reported, one very similar one in Brussels, Belgium, of all places, but nothing of a serial nature until now.”

“ Oh, and what's zat?”

“ A report in from New York. An obvious serial killer there doing gay guys, dismembering them.”

“ Really?”

“ Except whoever this guy is, he's not taking their hearts, just slaughtering them and bagging them and scattering their parts all over the damned city.”

“ How many victims and how recent?”

“ So far, six over a period of two years. I'll get a report to you later today.”

“ Good, meantime, meet with deYampert at the Chantilly Pier.”

“ I know the place. I'm on my way.”

“ Sorry you didn't get away before all this shit hit the fan, kid, but nobody knows these cases like you do.”

“ And I don't know shit.”

“ You're doing fine. Hang in.”

Captain Carl Landry hung up and left Alex alone again with his perspiration, his nerves and his fear. He sensed he had more to fear than his too vivid, too sensual nightmares nowadays. Captain Landry wouldn't have brought up the possibility of FBI involvement unless he knew something, and Alex's nonchalance toward the subject had hidden an even deeper fear than he held of maggots and memories of holes into which he had fallen, his fear of failure.

He drummed nervous fingers across his copy of Gray's Anatomy, forced himself up and rushed to dress, feeling like a reluctant schoolboy, rushing to a destination he loathed. Gray's had only been helpful up to a point. It did make clear to him how, with a little study, anyone might learn to remove a human heart.

“ Now that narrows the suspect list down considerably,” he told the empty room as he hastened into a pullover sweatshirt and jeans. It was no time for formal attire.

Quantico, Virginia

People watched her as Dr. Kim Desinor rushed along the busy corridor, young Benton pushing a note in her face. Heads turned, tongues clicked, eyes assessed her with some trepidation, as if she were a freak. News had already gotten around.

“ There's been a major breakthrough in the Sendak case in Georgia.”

“ Really?” she asked.

“ And it came as a direct result of your intervention. Doctor.”

She stopped in her tracks and stared at the note from Parlen. Back in Decatur, Georgia, Parlen had only had to flash his badge at the right door, and Viola, the long-lost daughter, had crumpled before him, confessing on the way down because the entire enterprise was built on a rickety foundation, a house of emotional cards. Sendak's body had been recovered, and the daughter had fingered the live-in boyfriend, who remained at large, somewhere he felt comfortable and safe, she supposed, like his mamma's place. All Parlen and his men needed to do now was to stake out his known haunts. He'd likely be picked up in twenty-four hours, a few days at the outside.

“ Parlen also sent a dozen roses for you, Doctor,” Tom Benton said with a smile. “I suppose it's his way of apologizing for the doubts.”

“ At least the man knows how to apologize,” she replied, staring up at the elevator lights now. The car was two stories above, someone holding it. “How did Sendak die?”

“ Heat exhaustion and heart attack, they surmise. He was locked in a goddamned storage facility, inside a wooden box built to secure him. You were right on. Doctor.”

She imagined the suffering of both victim and daughter, not to mention the wife. “I'm on my way to Zanek's office again, so we'll have to talk this out later, okay, Tom?”

“ Sure, sure…what's it now? He doesn't like the brand of tape recorders we're using? The film, the budget overruns?”

“ Leave Zanek to me, okay, Tom? You've got enough to worry about with that test you're running. How's it coming? Am I going to see anything on paper soon?”

“ Sure made a mess of it the first go-round. I'm determined to get it right this time, Doctor.”

“ Don't be so hard on yourself. How could you know about the Y-factor variable? I should've been over your shoulder sooner.”

“ What you did, Doctor, with the Sendak case… well, it must give you a great sense of accomplishment.”

“ Some, yes… but it also gives me a great deal of misery. It's not easy looking into the heart of evil, Tom. And not everyone's suited to doing so.” She stared for a moment at her gung-ho assistant, knowing that he wanted to be able to pull off that kind of psychic hocus-pocus, that he admired her a great deal for what she'd done and that he was proud to be a part of her team, but had little idea of the emotional costs involved, despite all her warnings.

“ Look here, Tom. Someday, you're going to do psychic loops around me. Just give it time and throw in a healthy dose of patience, and don't forget self-protective measures, all right?” She secretly feared that one day he'd scar himself so badly that he'd leave psychic detection completely. It happened to a lot of beginners.

The elevator arrived and she boarded, Tom waving her off like a dutiful son. Upstairs, she found Zanek's familiar office and pushed through the outer door, her steady gaze meeting Betty's, the secretary another familiar here.

“ They're waiting for you, Dr. Desinor.”

“ They?” Who the hell were they? she wondered. Yesterday she and Zanek had come to something of a Mexican standoff, a way to sever ties in an amenable fashion. She had proposed that her minor and inconvenient little shop of horrors, as he'd angrily referred to it, could be relocated under the Psychological Profiling Division. She'd be a step removed from him, he'd be on safer ground with the powers that be and they'd both see less and less of one another since she'd be reporting directly to Jack Santiva, the new head of the entire umbrella division. She thought he'd agreed and that all was worked out, and she was happy with the proposed arrangement. So what was up now? Was Santiva in Zanek's office now? Had Zanek arranged things?

“ Chief?” she asked, coming through the door. “You want to see me?”

She assumed the tall man in the tailored suit near the window was Santiva, whom she had never met, but Santiva was supposedly of Spanish origin, and this guy looked anything but Spanish. His hair was red, his face sprinkled with crimson flecks, his skin otherwise a pasty white.

In another corner, like a boxer waiting to be announced, stood a strikingly tall, auburn-haired woman in a beautiful blue serge suit, her gleaming tan marking her as either a model or a princess, her eyes filled with both a keen sense of awareness and a sadness that seemed beyond her years. Neither of them looked like Santiva.

“ What's going on, Paul?” Kim asked.

Zanek, a tall, well-built man some years her senior, was showing silver streaks through his dark hair. He cleared his throat, pointed toward the pasty-skinned stranger and began introducing everyone.

“ Dr. Desinor, this is New Orleans Police Commissioner Richard Stephens, up from Louisiana.”