Robert Walker - Absolute Instinct

“Too late for that. I am born in my father's image. I look like him, even think like him.”

“No, Giles, it isn't you. It's only your mother's inculcations you're acting on, as you always have, and Giles, get this.”

“What, Dr. J?”

“We ran a DNA match and-”

“I know, saved that poor Devil on death row. I heard on CNN. His life was courageously won.”

“You don't understand. We ran a scan on Matisak's DNA and compared it to yours, and guess what, Giles?”

“You're lying.”

“What possible reason would I have to lie about such a thing, Giles?”

“I don't know… going to have to figure that one. Pretty sneaky of you… to throw a curve like that at me. Likely your way to keep me on the line while your partner runs a trace.”

“No, I just wanted to know the truth. How about you? You interested at all in the truth of your lineage?”

“Bullshit. You're bullshitting me.”

“Well, look, if you're not going to get to the point, Giles, and just run up Petersaul's minutes, I'm hanging up.”

“Agent Petersaul? Amanda need not worry about Cingular now.”

“You talk like Amanda's dead.”

“And you want me to believe Amanda's still alive?” He laughed. “Let the games begin.”

“She is quite alive and recuperating. Took all you could dish out and still survived. Oughta build a new reality TV show around this woman.”

“Survived?”

“Yes.”

“The first ever to survive my interest in a spinal cord.”

Jessica replied through gritted teeth. “What do you think? That she's going to die just because you want her to?”

“I think she did die. I had gotten too far on her when I was interrupted by headlights I thought belonged to you.”

“Petersaul survived. Now, Giles, let's talk about how you want to give yourself up so that no one else gets hurt-including you-since every cop and FBI agent in Chicago is gunning for you.”

“No, Dr. Coran, let's talk about you coming to my showing.”

“Really? You want me to come to see your art?”

“It's good… very good.”

“I'm sure it is. You forget, I've seen your sketches.”

“My worst day, my worst piece of art is far better than that prick Orion's junk. My art does not rely on smoke'n mirrors, special effects'n strobe lights'n all that shit. My work has character… backbone, you might say.”

Jessica immediately realized now what he was doing with the stolen racks of bones. “Your art… is… it is built upon the bones of your victims?”

“The centerpiece of each sculpture, yes. A must-see.”

“Then I must see it. When and where?”

“Not so fast. First off, you come alone.”

“That flies in the face of all my training and experience, Giles.”

“You want the son of Matisak, don't you?”

“There's no scientific proof, Giles, that Matthew Matisak was your father.”

“What're you saying?” This had not once occurred to him ever. Getting the showing at Cafe Avanti might not seem like much of a showing, not to an Orion perhaps, but it had given him the courage to open and digest all that Mother had left him by way of his father. “Why would Mother lie about… about a thing like that, Dr. Coran. One good reason. Give me one good reason.”

“Your mother might've had it all wrong, despite what she convinced you and herself of.”

“That's truly insane, Dr. Coran. Are you simply afraid to face the facts?”

“Like you?” she softly taunted. “Tell me where to be and when, Giles, and I promise you, I will come alone.”

“Our little rendezvous… a kind of reunion. Old Dad picked you over Mom, didn't he? Gee-whiz, Pop wanted to go off into eternity with you and leave us to fend for ourselves. I read about his fixation and how he cornered you in New Orleans, how the roof caved in on him, and you got the upper hand, or rather fate in the shape of one big-assed nasty hook took care of Poppa.”

“That's right, and I watched him squirm on that hook.”

“Are we on, Doctor?”

“Will you tell me where you are, Giles?”

“No… No… I gotta think this thing through.”

“Your showing, Giles. Where is it happening? I want to see your work and to finally meet you.”

He hung up.

She cursed. “Bastard.”

“Appropriate word in this case,” replied Sharpe, snapping his own phone shut. “But Jess, we've got his signal location via satellite. Hurry!”

She followed him out to a waiting car. From the car, they radioed Laughlin that they had a fix on Gahran's location.

Twenty cars silently converged on Cafe Avanti, covering front and back. Men p›oured into the cafe, making it crowded, frightening and disturbing the usual customers and others who'd come to enjoy the evening with laptop computers opened, notepads busy, books propped beside large helpings of exotic coffee drinks and pastries. Other people milled about in the rear, ohs and ahs spilling out as they literally walked through the mind of a killer, examining Giles Gahran's artwork, commenting on the realism of even the blood odor along with the sight of the spines.

Police and FBI agents secured every exit. The owner rushed at them, calling them pigs and demanding to know the meaning of this outrage, saying, “You think this is Guatemala or something you can just bust into my place like fucking Nazi storm troopers? You got a warrant?”

Laughlin dealt with her as other agents swarmed upstairs and cleared each room one by one. Jessica, with Richard at her side, took the gruesome tour through Giles Gahran's mind, going from a dark little room down even darker little corridors to another adjacent room and another larger one partitioned off. She recognized the featureless, eyeless creations as those of each victim. The park bench and birds in one, the playful dog in another, the extremely cramped horse with Sarah Towne's form, and dangling above all as if lifting out of the backs of women flew the backbones-so lifelike and amazingly startling and eerie in their levitation above the human forms frozen in time. Because, as Jess determined now by touch, they were real. Made even the more eerie as Jessica confirmed her worst fear, that the sculpted bones were sculpted not by Giles but by God.

Onlookers were being ushered out of the gallery created here to display Giles's twisted idea of art. Laughlin joined them, the owner still on him, bitching at him, when he announced there was no sign of Gahran. “We've hit every nook and cranny from basement to third floor and the roof. He's not here, and the owner isn't cooperating.”

“This is a crime scene now. We don't need her cooperation to process this place,” Jessica replied. Jessica stepped up to Conchita Raold and glared at her with such intensity that Raold averted her eyes.

“Ms. Raold. You could be prosecuted for harboring a murderer, and we could tie you up so many ways legally and illegally that you will lose this cafe and everything else you hold dear. You will cooperate with us. Where is he?”

“I don't know. He came down here during the day and began working in the very back room, and I tried to bring him something to eat and drink, but he wouldn't let me go in there. Then he came out all exhausted. He never got no sleep the whole time we were… I tried to get him to sleep, you know. He'd been up all night. But he came with more bones I… I thought he made them outta his own head, you know. I… I can't believe what they are telling me.”

Jessica took her aside and sat her down. Calmly, Jessica asked, “He worked all day and then what?”

“He wasn't too clearheaded. I tried to get him to go back up to bed, you know. He looked mad when he got off the phone, just five minutes before you all come bustin' into my place. I thought Chicago was part of America, but I guess not.”