Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ So far as he knows it, you mean? You sound skeptical, Eriq.”

“ So far as he knows it… so, right… right… and I’m pretty sure… there’s one thing seems certain enough.”

“ What’s that?”

“ This creep wants to take the next highest step in his evolving fantasy, like you said, Jess. His is not a fixed fantasy like most killers, but one that is growing larger and more deadly each day.”

Jessica hesitated a moment before answering, choosing her words with great care. ‘ The Night Crawler most likely had to have used his Patric Allain alias with Buckner, don’t you see? It would’ve been on the recommendation from Buckner’s partner in Key West. His partner may well have Allain’s handwriting on some agreement they made. I’ll contact him, see if anything shakes loose there.”

“ If it’s as Buckner remembers, yes… But he’s a bit strange,” Eriq again cautioned, “and so he may have just picked up the name from another source, like his TV set. He may be a Most Wanted junkie who’s decided to seize upon an opportunity to get his face on the boob tube.”

Again the Most Wanted episode, with details about Allain, had come back to haunt them; and yet without it, Buckner might not have come forward.

“ So, how did everything go in Key Largo and Matecumbe? Gain any new insights? Any new evidence?” he wanted to know as he worked up a smile for her. She read into his unspoken words: Was the trip worth the taxpayers’ money?

“ You prepared to be astonished?” she replied.

“ I would love to be astonished.”

“ Then come with me.” She led him from the cold, institutional interrogation room and down the corridor.

“ Where we going?”

God, he sounds weary, she thought before replying, “The ready room. Someone there I want you to meet.” Along the way, Jessica explained what they’d found in the Keys, what vital new information they had learned about their prey, and why they had come to Naples by boat. She finished up as they relocated the task force room where Captain Anderson’s maps had been pinned to a wall. She found Anderson pacing with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand, a packet of photos of the victims in the other. He flipped through the photos with growing anger.

Eriq, ever alert even if he did look like hell, went directly to the new maps, asking, “What’s this all about?”

Jessica brought Anderson over to meet Eriq and introduced them as they shook hands.

The room was alive with buzzing computers, in stark contrast to the silence of the interrogation room. Men and women moved from desk to desk, checking readouts, swapping information and the occasional joke; the place had the feel of an army being mobilized. A large blackboard and podium at one end gave the impression of a classroom, and a huge corkboard at the other end only added to the effect. Ford had somehow gotten photos of all the victims, and they’d been spread across a discovery time line and displayed at eye level.

“ Chief, these maps represent Captain Anderson’s depiction of the moving crime scene, the-”

“ The Crawler’s boat?” Eriq was instantly curious, studying the maps.

“ Against a map of currents and drifts, showing Patric Allain’s possible movements.”

Eriq was both impressed and incredulous. “Why the hell didn’t our experts create something like this for us from the beginning?”

“ Maybe it took a seaman’s point of view,” suggested Anderson.

“ This is like… like a damned psychic thing. How did you come up with this?” he asked Anderson.

“ Eriq,” began Jessica, “Quincey and I watched Elliot put this together. He did it after we answered his questions, during the boat trip here.”

“ My ship is registered out of the Bahamas,” volunteered Anderson, “and she’s called The Misfit.” Anderson again offered his hand and firmly shook Eriq’s.

“ Yeah, okay, I see, and you’re telling me you arrived here by… by boat?” Eriq’s expression was pinched, as if he weren’t understanding, as if one of his burners remained unlit.

“ Yes, Captain Anderson’s boat.”

Eriq gave her a look of stunned curiosity, but he said nothing more.

Anderson picked up the slack moment, saying, “When the first body drifted away from the killer’s boat, he was south of the discovery site by at least ten and possibly fifty miles, given the northward drift of the current along Florida’s eastern seaboard so far south.”

Eriq looked again at the suntanned, handsome sea captain and said, “Hell, maybe we ought to have you conducting this investigation, Captain… ahh…”

“ Anderson,” Elliot repeated, trying on a nervous laugh, but he wasn’t sure if Eriq was kidding or being sarcastic, and neither was Jessica, who now glared at Eriq. She realized that Eriq had been up all night and was fatigued, but he was being rude now to a man who only wanted to help, and she didn’t understand why.

“ From the sound of things, I’d say there’re already too many chiefs in your army, Chief Santiva,” continued Anderson, taking a new course and tossing his used cup into a nearby container, “so I’ll not add to your problems. I’m out of here, Dr. Coran. See you back at the boat?”

She nodded, knowing she’d have to return there to retrieve her belongings. “Yeah… yeah, later.”

She wheeled on Eriq and through grinding teeth asked, “Do you want to explain to me what that was all about?”

“ What? What? Did I offend the guy? Well, pardon me.”

“ Eriq, you’re beyond fatigue, you’re out of it, and you’re hardly making all the right… connections.”

“ I think I know a connection when I see one, and the way that guy was looking at you, well… two nights on a boat with you. I guess that might get to any guy.”

“ There’s nothing going on between Elliot and me! Quincey was with us the whole time.”

“ Yeah, that’d put a damper on any budding romance.” He tried a laugh, which failed. Then he groggily and foolishly added, “And if Quincey hadn’t been aboard? What then, Jess?” Jessica inwardly admitted a certain attraction for Anderson, who was the quintessential freedom-loving, sun- worshiping sportfisherman. But she hadn’t acted on what little she admired about the man, who in essence remained a stranger to her; nor had she encouraged Anderson to make any moves on her. “This is ridiculous, and worse, what business is it of Eriq Santiva’s in the first bloody place?” He dropped his gaze to the floor and nodded. “Yes, of course, I’m… I’m sorry, Jess. I haven’t the right to… to have… to say…”

“ Listen, you’d better get some sleep before two rolls around, if you expect to be in on the net, Eriq. You look awful, you’re dead on your feet and your mind is in the gutter.”

“ There’re a hundred things to orchestrate.”

“ I’m a fine maestro; let me orchestrate. Go find your bed and set your alarm.”

Eriq ambled away-like a dejected puppy, Jessica thought, feeling somewhat sympathetic about his condition, and still a bit stunned by what he had said. Where the hell was his mind? Quincey and Samernow joined her now, along with Captain Ford, interrupting her musings.

“ Let’s see what the Naples PD has in the way of undercover wear, people,” suggested Ford.

“ And just how would the granddaughter of the famous and infamous Gordon Buckner dress?” asked Jessica with a rakish smile.

“ I think she’s definitely a jeans and plaid shirt girl, so you’re halfway there,” Quincey replied with a chuckle. “Ragged cuticles and open-toed shoes,” added Samernow.

Eriq was suddenly back, and he pulled her to the side and walked her into an empty stairwell, wanting a private word with her. “Whatever happens out there today, Jess, you don’t take any chances.”