Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

So, thanks to lovely, intricate destiny, chance, fortune, circumstance, karma, kismet-all stepping in at once to play Cupids-this time it was Kathy Harmon’s turn to shine instead of Melissa’s or Cherylene’s. Yes, this time it was her time, her fortune, and Patric was the treasure of a lifetime, meant only for her, fated. And what a treasure, looking as if he’d stepped off the cover of a romance novel or magazine cover. And the way he’d picked her out from among her friends, just as if he’d come directly here from some exotic port of call for her and her alone; just as if he had sailed across the Atlantic to find her, and with that dreamy accent-British maybe, or perhaps Australian- maybe she wasn’t far wrong. He obviously had money, and didn’t mind spending it, either. And he hadn’t gotten the least annoyed when she’d been unable to finish her veal parmigiana dinner across the street at the Sheraton, where he had insisted on taking her.

“ We’ve wasted so much time, Kathleen,” he suddenly said. No one ever called her Kathleen. “I have been to many places, I have done many things and I have loved many women, but tonight, it is as if my life has been one long search.”

“ Search?” she squeaked.

“ A search for you, of course… and it has taken so awfully long.”

Sure it sounded like a line, but by now she didn’t care. “A search for me?”

“ I’ve dreamed dreams about you.”

“ That’s just ridiculous. How could you? You don’t- didn’t even know me until tonight.”

“ No, it is true. Dreams are like mirrors held up to the soul, and you are the one in my dreams, and I want now to show you my virtual soul, my other love which allows me the freedom of the seaman’s life.”

“ Virtual reality I’ve heard of, but virtual soul?” she asked, looking out beyond the riggings of the many boats and ships in harbor. “Is that like some new rock band?”

He pointed toward his sailing vessel. “It is where my other self resides, where I am free, unencumbered…”

“ Oh, I’ll bet.” She tried to laugh, but something in his eyes told her not to. “I mean, I bet you can do just about anything you want with that kind of a… a ship. So what kind of weed or pill is this virtual soul? Or are we talking PCPs? I don’t do needles.”

“ No, you misunderstand. It is not a drug. It is my life.”

“ Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound gross or anything.”

“ It is where my Tauto lives.”

“ Your tattoo? Lives?”

“ No, not tattoo, dear. Certainly you’ve heard of the Tau cross?”

“ Tau cross? That sounds like a good name for a boat, but what’s a Tau cross?”

“ The T-cross. It is an essential element of nature. Where two lives cross, such as our lives are crossing tonight, now… below this moon.”

“ Is that like what you mean by virtual soul? Or is that just what you call your boat?”

“ Never mind,” he replied, pointing toward his boat, which was lost amid the forest of others. “Isn’t she beautiful? All I need now is someone like you to share her with.”

“ How did you get… I mean, how can you afford such a boat?”

“ It was an inheritance. One of many.”

She could hardly believe her luck. “What do you do, besides sail, I mean?”

“ I write.”

“ Really? What kind of writing?”

“ You will laugh.”

“ No, no I won’t. I think it’s romantic, that you write.”

“ I write stories, mysteries, romances. I earn some from that, and as I said, I have an inheritance.”

“ You’re independently wealthy?”

“ Well-off, let’s say. Now, will you come aboard? We can take her out, and you can enjoy the river from a whole new and exciting perspective.”

“ Sure… sure, why not? Let me just say good-bye to my friends. You’ll drive me home after we dock?”

“ Oh, of course, absolutely.” There again was that divine English accent. Dreamy, she thought. “Be right back, then.”

“ Meet me at the boat.” It took all of ten seconds to tell her friends not to bother waiting for her, that she had scored big time. They were full of questions, which tumbled forth with their giggling; they were anxious to know more about the handsome, sun- painted god that Kathy had cornered.

“ All I know is he’s European or something with a nice accent, and his name is Patric without a K. Talks with an English accent, I think, like Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, and he’s loaded as well as handsome. So, girls, have a nice night. Ciao…”

It was the last image-her friends smiling and waving- which Kathy Marie Harmon recalled when once again the brutal, sadistic bastard brought her around to consciousness. He wouldn’t let her die so easily, wouldn’t let her find the peace she had moments ago accepted. She was too weak to fight him any longer, and he placed her, naked, into the water alongside the other dead girls. That’s exactly what she was now: a dead girl..

She felt the stranglehold of the noose about her neck and the tearing ropes at her wrists; she heard the powerful jets of the motor as he revved it up, and in a moment her glazed eyes made out the back of the boat, the big letters spelling out the T-cross; then the stalwart, potent rush of the sea- water slammed into her and her entire body was dragged paper-doll fashion, a puppet on a string to bring him perverted-beyond-satanic kicks.

She herself was beyond tears, beyond pain actually. She felt a languishing, uncaring feeling wash over her on the wave created when he powered up the boat for faster speed, dragging her form through the now ugly, dark sea that had until so recently been a beautiful, romantic setting for her and the man she thought he was.

She’d been so wrong.

His every word to her had been a lie.

He had orchestrated a trap.

She had stepped willingly, blindly into his trap, into the trap of the Night Crawler’s tangled and perverted net. Then the boat slowed and the monster who called himself Patric brought it to a stuttering halt, her cold body slamming hard into the bow, pressed in by the other dead girls dangling there with her, and he returned to the bow to look out over the side to taunt her, saying, “Life is death, death is life, and now you go to a greater glory… the glory of Tauto, the god of all things which are indivisible. Now you travel to the virtual soul…”

Seeing that she remained yet alive, he returned to the controls and dragged her farther out to sea.

Two Days Later, Miami-Dade Police Department Crime Lab and Morgue, Evening

Jessica was relieved to learn that Dr. Andrew Coudriet was involved all day in courtroom testimony, giving evidence on a Mafia-linked killing, and had become too fatigued to meet with her until the following day. Meanwhile, he’d left word that his offices were at her disposal, and that she had carte blanche with respect to the physical evidence already logged and remaining. This meant she had full access to the most recent victim’s body as well. She and Santiva had flown back to Miami earlier in the day, having finally finished up in the Keys.

They’d returned with what she trusted was enough evidence to bury the Night Crawler several times over when and if they ever caught the bastard.

She’d learned that there was a positive ID on the bracelet, and although continuing to match the tissue and blood seemed a footnote to the truth, she ordered the tests just the same. She had also put a team of experts to work on the photos from the crime scenes and the photos of missing parts found inside the sharks that had been caught off the coast of Key Largo. They had to work from photos because, save for Allison Norris, all the victims had by now been either buried or cremated, and any exhumations appeared at this point out of the question for several reasons, not the least being the costs, in both financial and emotional terms.