Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ How long’ll it take for your friend to get here?” he asked now.

“ An hour, maybe.”

“ Maybe by then some of this stuff’ll blow over. Maybe… if things don’t take a turn for the worse…”

He tuned in the weather report, but the news only made both of them more nervous and fidgety, filled as it was with the latest happenings and the strange disappearance and possible literal “surfacing” of the girl from Naples, followed with reports that her body may have “washed ashore in a state of preservation, as if lost by a mortuary,” in the reporter’s words.

“ Damn, Madeira Beach’s not too far from here,” mused Lansing. Jessica tried to recall if she’d said anything about Madeira Beach which Don Lansing might’ve taken the wrong way. At the same time, a picture flashed on the TV for a few moments, a photo of the dead girl in happier times, telling Jessica that the victim had the same general appearance as all the others before her. Finally, Lansing clicked the TV off.

“ I just brewed some coffee. Would you like some?” he asked her.

“ Sure… that’d be great… might warm my insides a bit.” She was very aware of the small-caliber but quite deadly. 22 he’d holstered in his belt.

There was no clean place in the hut to sit. She remained standing, pacing, looking from time to time out the window as if any moment the strobe lights of a police car might be out there, giving chase to the fleeing suspect in Don Lansing’s florid mystery as it played out in his brain.

When he came to stand beside her at the window, the coffee extended, he, too, peeked out at the fog as if expecting someone.

“ Triple my usual’s going to come to a hell of a lot of money, lady. You do understand that?” He jotted down a figure on a pad and handed it to her. His twenty-four-hour day rate was $575 plus fuel, so the mysterious “Maltese Falcon” lady who’d just stepped into Don’s life was looking at over $1,700 just for starters. That’d buy him and Pete some time on those bloodsucking creditors; Pete would thank him for this later, Don assured himself, tell him that if he hadn’t taken this job, Pete would’ve killed him, and if Pete were here, he’d do exactly what Don was doing right this moment, up the ante.

He went to the phone, asked if it was all right if he called his partner, to let Pete know what was going on and where they’d be taking Pete’s plane.

“ Pete owns the plane?”

“ Yeah, it’s Pete’s plane…”

“ Sure, do what you have to do.” Lansing got only an answering machine, into which he spoke a cryptic message for his partner. “You’re doing the right thing,” she assured him. A long look into her eyes confirmed this for Don, she was sure. The clock on the wall seemed frozen in time at 5:09 a.m. She wished Eriq would get here before Don changed his mind and backed out.

“ Triple my usual,” repeated Lansing, “almost enough to go to hell for.”

She looked up at him. “Paradise, remember,” she replied.

He moved in a little too closely, and she stepped away. She wondered how far the Night Crawler might’ve gotten in the six hours that had elapsed since he’d eluded Stallings and Manley. She wondered how long it might take to catch the killer’s ship, imagining that moment when it would come into view; she imagined going on to Grand Cayman Island and simply waiting for Patric Allain to ease into port there and how simple it would be to apprehend the bastard beast when he stepped off the boat. They could then secure the boat as a crime scene, and she’d nail him six ways to Sunday and beyond for multiple murder. Next stop the Florida electric chair, the same as toasted the likes of Ted Bundy; see how Patric liked sailing that mother.

She imagined that Okinleye would want to hold Allain for questioning in the murders that had occurred in his jurisdiction, but knowing Ja and the problems of the islands, she also believed that the Cayman government would not stand in the way of an expedient order, so that Allain would stand trial in Florida, where he’d face the death penalty. She was only sorry that he could not be electrocuted separately for each victim he’d so tortured.

Eriq finally arrived in an unmarked police car, in the company of Samernow and Quincey, the small crowd making Don Lansing even more nervous about his decision than before, Jessica realizing how like Mafia types the two burly Miami cops and the tall, stolid Santiva appeared. Jessica caught the others outside, out of Don’s earshot, explaining that the only way she could get a flight out was to con this guy into thinking they were running from the law, so she told Quincey and Samernow to get a chopper from the police hangars as soon as the fog lifted and the storm had passed and to take it on a course west along the coast as insurance. She asked Eriq to go along with her, follow her lead, and to pretend that he was a Cuban nationalist trying desperately to get out of the country.

“ You play Bogey?” she asked, the wind now whipping her jacket about her.

His tie flagged across his forehead and eyes. “I’ll do my best, shh-weet-heart.”

“ Do you have Captain Anderson’s notes and map?”

“ I do, but I don’t know how helpful it’s going to be.”

She took hold of the route the killer might take if he were to leave Tampa straight for the Caymans. “Okay, let’s get airborne.”

Lansing was already on the radio to the tower, explaining that there was an emergency need to take off. They weren’t buying it, from the sound of things. Jessica laid Captain Anderson’s projected route before Lansing. Lansing told the tower he’d be back in touch with them, then stared at the proposed flight plan.

“ You said you wanted to go due east. This is south.”

“ Southeast,” she split hairs.

“ That’s a lot of miles in storm conditions.”

“ Don, it’s important we follow this path as closely as possible.”

“ No way we’re going through the Straits of Mexico, not in the given weather pattern. It’d be safer and simpler to go direct for the east coast and south from there, and maybe even a layover in Miami to refuel…”

Lansing desperately attempted to ignore Eriq Santiva, and he did well, save for the out-the-corner-of-his-eye suspicious looks. Jessica took Don aside to reason with him while Eriq continued the silent, stony role he’d fallen into, his inscrutable Cuban features befitting the situation.

“ It’s important we get out over international waters as soon as possible,” she told Don.

He nodded as if he actually understood. “All right… all right. Get your friend out to the airplane, and we’ll be on our way.”

She went to Eriq and when she turned around, Don was already out the door and on the airfield. When they stepped out, they saw that Don was doing a preflight check of the plane, and he shouted over the wind for them to get aboard. Obviously, Don had made up his mind.

The wind pummeled the airfield and the people on it. Eriq was pushed into the plane. Jessica’s coat did a wild flap dance about her body as the wind lashed out at her and the small plane, creating a shiver in the aircraft. The skies were just lightening up but remained a gunmetal gray all the same, painted and smeared with the ominous hues of storm clouds preparing to burst. But at the moment there seemed a fortuitous lull in the precipitation. Looking out over the grass, the taxi strip and the small runway now, Jessica saw how slick everything was. But she was determined to go ahead with her plans, climbing into the cockpit after Eriq, who’d opted for the backseat.

Once inside the plane, Don asked, “What am I going to tell the tower? I take off without talking to them, my butt’s in a sling when I get back here.”