Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ Listen, Quince, do you think your charter captain friend’ll know any of these fish-trophy taxidermists working the area?”

“ There’s quite a few freelancers and little shops all up and down, but Elliot, he’ll know the majors, sure.”

“ Excellent.” She flipped now through the pictures she’d taken with her from Key Largo, pictures of the latest victim. “We’ll see what your friend makes of the marks on the Key Largo Jane Doe’s back.”

Jessica leaned her head out the window, realizing only now how awfully warm and red-faced she’d become while in Uncle Jake’s presence. “That Jake Lovette made me feel like a piece of meat,” she confided in Quincey.

“ Yeah, I got that impression. The man even made me feel like a piece of raw meat. His eyes actually seemed to be asking the question, ‘Ever ‘et raw meat afore?’ “ He laughed at his own summation, and Jessica joined him.

“ I got another impression about Uncle Jake as well- one not so funny,” she added after the last guffaw.

“ I asked the deputy about the arrangement.”

“ What’d he say?”

“ He said they’re building a case against Jake on a drug charge, but that without Marilee’s testimony or some of the other, older children, that child abuse charges aren’t going to stick. But after tonight, Marilee asserting herself a bit, who knows?”

Jessica winced up at the night sky, so filled with thickening clouds and with not a star in sight. “Damn but this world gets ugly and uncaring at times, doesn’t it, Quince?”

He nodded, understanding.

“ Wish we could save all the children and right all the wrongs,” she mused. “I guess there’s really no Catcher in the Rye, save God.”

Quince didn’t understand the allusion to J. D. Salinger’s novel, but he didn’t let on. “Appears we’ve got larger fish to fry than a child abuser, so to speak.”

“ Yeah, and meanwhile the bottom feeders carry on.” Her fatigue and frustration with the case was showing through. She sank deep into her seat, resting her head against the headrest and closing her eyes.

“ That about sums Lovette up.” Quincey was going five miles over the posted limit in search of his friend’s boat. “We find Elliot home, he’ll put us up on the boat tonight and we can both catch some Zs, Doc.”

But Jessica was already asleep.

The Following Dawn

Jessica didn’t recall boarding the boat or how she’d gotten into the berth upon which she had slept, but she woke to the pleasant beat of waves lapping at the sides of the big sportfisherman’s boat, a beautiful forty-five-footer. She sinelled coffee and stretched, located a change of clothes, as she’d slept in her blouse and skirt, and found Quincey and his friend on deck. They were well on their way westward through the channel, heading toward Naples, Florida.

Captain Elliot Anderson took Jessica and Quincey on a west-by-northwesterly trek toward the other coast, where Florida met the Gulf of Mexico. They passed luscious, vivid and untamed areas, as wild as anything in the Amazon, she thought. They passed the Thousand Islands area at Florida’s southernmost tip, an area teeming with wildlife and fowl. Here the waters were strewn with vegetation, dotted and peppered by islands of every size and shape, their deep green and emerald colors meshing with the sea, looking for all the world like a meteor shower of land masses on Captain Anderson’s maps and radar. However, on the horizon, the scattered islands looked more like sentinels, their silent byways witness to long-ago pirates.

Captain Anderson explained that most of the area was a national wildlife preserve, “good for little else except maybe oil drilling, and God help us all if it ever comes to that.”

Only when they neared the eastern coast of Florida did they begin to see some homes deep in the density of the island world, most being houseboats, more squatters. Houseboats gave way to the occasional Texaco sign, and here and there a welcoming wharf, at the end of which would be a watering hole where a person could get a beer and a sandwich. These establishments were soon replaced by the occasional resort, nightclub and full-fledged restaurant fronting the water.

The intense sun beat down, creating a brightness so radiant as to be nearly unbearable as it surrounded Jessica from all sides and reflected up from the water. Feeling strong and a bit daring, she was the first off the boat and onto the dock when Captain Anderson brought them ashore for a quick bite and a rest. She busied herself playing the sailor, snatching at one of two lines which needed securing to the dock and going about this in good fashion while Quince and Elliot exchanged a word about her, whispering so that she couldn’t hear. She smiled across at them and felt the touch of her skin against the thick, black nylon rope the skipper used. It suddenly reminded her of what she’d left behind in Miami and Key Largo and of darker moments in the lab when she’d cut away the exact same brand of nylon rope from the victims of the Night Crawler several weeks before. She composed herself and glanced around from behind her dark glasses. Quincey joined her on the dock.

“ You know Elliot finds you very attractive, Doctor,” Quince said. “Wants you to consider coming down permanently to live on his boat with him.”

Jessica went along with what she imagined a joke between friends. “Can he keep me in all the pina coladas and macadamia nuts I require?’’ “On what he makes?” Quince bellowed aloud for his friend’s ear. “Not hardly.”

Naples, Florida, That Night

Eriq Santiva and Mark Samernow looked across at one another as they sat in Samernow’s squad car, the lights of a Naples street playing over their features.

“ Hell of a gas voucher you’re going to have to put in,” Eriq said to hear himself talk. They’d traversed what the maps referred to as Alligator Alley, the entire strip of sun- bleached concrete slicing through the Everglades, the wild beauty after many miles becoming monotonous and awe- inspiring at once. Now, here in Naples, they had every wharfside, dockside beer joint and restaurant on the Gulf Coast under surveillance. It had taken a massive effort to coordinate, but Santiva had called for assistance and more manpower from surrounding counties, sheriffs’ offices, the Florida Marine Patrol, the Coast Guard, and the local FBI field office.

According to the local authorities, every conceivable hunting ground for the Night Crawler was covered, and now the killer’s description, alias and sketch were all in the hands of law enforcement everywhere. The summer breeze wafting off the Gulf of Mexico felt like a woman’s scarf being pulled lightly across Santiva’s face. It was a night to excite the senses.

“ Whataya think, Samernow? Do we have a chance in hell of catching this turkey in Naples?” Eriq asked, trying to get up a conversation with the stoic Miami detective and wanting a release from his thoughts, which kept returning to Jessica Coran. He wondered how she was doing in the Keys, and why she had not contacted them yet.

Samernow raised his shoulders in response to Eriq’s question and said, “The bastard moves fast when he moves. He could well be up the coast by now, on to Tampa, Cedar Key, points north… the panhandle, who knows?”

“ Ahh, I don’t know,” countered Eriq. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Our luck’s gotta change, right? Who knows, maybe he thinks he can settle in here like he did in Miami.”

“ You mean, maybe he’s a fool?”

The stakeout had been on for twelve hours, having begun at five in the afternoon, happy hour for most upscale restaurants fronting the Gulf of Mexico. The fatigue was beginning to show in Samernow’s features, but the man was a much happier camper than he had been in days past, Eriq thought. Samernow had seen his ex-wife and his daughter, and apparently, the reunion had been quite successful and there was the hint that they might reunite permanently. Santiva had wished him the best when he’d heard.