Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ To God?”

“ Not just any god, but the god who talks to me, the god I’ve created who buttresses and shores up the scaffold of my perverse rationale. It becomes an offering, the hand, but it must be as perfect as I can make it.”

“ But it’s perishable, impossible to preserve.”

“ Up to a point, yes… So over the side it goes. It was not released at the same time as the body.”

“ So the shark that swallowed it-”

“ Did not attack Allison’s body to come away with it. It had already been severed.”

“ But the bracelet? He would have removed it, wouldn’t he?”

“ He’s playing at god himself; he’s neither sane nor afraid of us, Doctor. There’s resin-epoxy-residue from Super Glue where he attached the bracelet.”

“ Heartless sonofabitch… But the arm was hacked off by what appeared to be a shark’s bite; you said so yourself.”

“ I wanted to believe the parts matched, and they did. Self-fulfilling prophecy. We go back for another look, a more critical look, we’ll find differently. We do it all the time in our business. Doctor.”

Coudriet remained recalcitrant, unconvinced, shaking his head. “We can’t possibly hold the body any longer. They want the body released yesterday…”

Jessica said nothing.

“ But why? Why would this madman sever the hand and embalm it? What possible purpose could it serve?”

“ We’ve got to stop looking for purpose; this bastard’s purpose is totally a construct of his own making, having no validity outside his brain.”

“ No validity save that which his fevered mind has concocted…”

“ Precisely, no reason in our world, only his; but if you want my opinion, the hand is just the beginning of an escalation.”

“ An escalation of what?”

“ His attempt to preserve flesh, to preserve a victim whole… It’s in keeping with how long he has held them in the water.”

Coudreit didn’t want to believe it, but it shook him nonetheless. “Such madness allowed to move about freely out there.”

“ We’re going to catch this monster.”

“ Sometimes… sometimes it makes me wonder where God is in all this. And what about this madness in here, too… The way this investigation is being run, it’s all insane.”

“ What do you suggest we do about it?” She was touched by his sudden show of concern, the depth of his feeling. “Look, I have a fax machine in my office and direct E-mail on my computer, should you care to avail yourself.” He dropped a stark photocopy likeness of the killer onto the lab table beside her. “But of course if policy prevents you, I’ll understand.”

“ You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“ The hell I don’t. Frankly speaking, Dr. Coran, I never much cared for the politicizing of this office or any murder investigation, and I’m sure, if you are your father’s daughter, you don’t either.” It was a challenge to her, the gauntlet thrown at her feet. She looked from the eyes of the killer in the artist’s composite to the soft, even and determined eyes of Dr. Coudriet. There seemed to be a fresh, new glow about the man today, and he smelled different, like a man who’d discovered some new delight in life. “What do you know of my father?” she asked.

‘ ‘ Are you serious? I learned a great deal from him; read every word he ever wrote on forensic medicine, twice over. I once heard him speak-brilliant man-and once I met him at a gathering in Oregon.”

‘ ‘ We… the family was stationed there for some time in the late fifties,” Jessica offered. She noticed that Coudriet smelled of musk oil. Or was it a natural musk odor? That was it. The good M.E. had just come from having had sex with someone. He was aglow in the wash of it, and could no better hide it than he might his red hair.

“ Tell me how you learned about the disagreement between Eriq and me.”

“ News travels fast around here,” he commented, stepping a little away. “When people learn that this fiend is embalming his victims atop everything else…”

“ That news stays within these walls, between you and me, Doctor.”

With a solemn bow of the head, he nodded his agreement. “Will you then at least do the right thing, Jessica Coran?”

Damn, she thought, he sounds like my father. “And exactly what is that?”

“ I’m in utter and complete agreement with you, Dr. Coran. What little information we have on the killer’s identity and the threat he poses to certain victim types, that all this information be released to our still largely unsuspecting public, many of whom-many of whom-could fall victim to the killer before daybreak tomorrow. My God, he released three bodies to us yesterday. That clearly tells us that he means to replenish his supply.”

Coudriet was right; the killer meant to start over, she thought but did not say. “I’m not in a position to authorize-”

“ Damnit, Jessica, someone’s got to authorize it; we can’t wait for the governor or the mayor or the fucking Boy Scouts!”

“ That’s enough!” Jessica weighed the decision for a long moment. She lifted the computer-enhanced image of the killer before her eyes and stared at the dreaded and hated creature, the Night Crawler, known now also as Patric Allain. He was, as Judy Templar had attested, a handsome and alluring creature of dark, mysterious features. The shock of boyish hair over the forehead, the telltale birthmark peeking from beneath, the thin jaw and even teeth, the somewhat weak upper lip and sensual lower lip. But it was in the eyes that she saw the allure. These eyes of a madman, filled with mystery. “You have E-mail,” she stated. “I do.”

“ I’d like to get in touch with Scotland Yard, an Inspector Moyler there, about the case. Tell him our man speaks with a British accent and uses the name Patric Allain. See if it turns up anything there.”

“ And what about here, closer to home?”

She breathed in a long breath of air, weighing her friendship with Eriq and her loyalty to him as a superior. The whole thing felt like a cracked mirror, a wingless bird, a blind owl, a dolphin without sonar. If she pushed Eriq far enough, he might send her packing; she’d be off the case, possibly up on disciplinary charges. But then, maybe that would give her reason to walk away from Quantico altogether, to rejoin Jim Parry in Hawaii…

“ You get me through to this fellow in London, and I’ll release the damned police sketch. But it goes first to the Herald.”

“ Other law enforcement agencies throughout the state, up and down the coast, first,” he countered.

“ That’s been done already.”

“ No… no, it hasn’t, I’m afraid.”

“ What? Damn…” Jessica now saw with certainty that Eriq Santiva would continue in his conservative approach to catching the killer. “The Herald first.” She stood firm.

Coudriet read her face. He realized that she was stepping out onto a shaky limb. “All right; done.”

“ Let’s get to work then.”

An hour later, all was accomplished-or demolished; it all depended on how one looked at it, Jessica thought. While Eriq was busy appeasing the big boys, she had taken the dangerous step of crossing him and whatever superiors he was presently kowtowing to.

To hell with it, she recklessly told herself, a part of her secretly hoping to get into enough trouble to stir the pot. If she was blackballed, if her reputation was besmirched by a healthy bit of insubordination, then perhaps she could trade in her “celebrity” status in FBI circles for a commonplace job in the agency where she might work in a lab twenty-four hours a day, to never come out to hunt another human monster again. She’d be perfectly happy to do so. Who needed the kind of stress she’d been working under for the past five years? And perhaps a move to Hawaii then would not be out of the question… Now she said aloud, “To hell with it.”