Robert Walker - Extreme Instinct

"Yeah, it's as if he wants to be found and stopped, isn't it?"

"Not an unusual subconscious wish among serial killers, but this time it does appear he consciously wants to see me eye to eye."

"Jess," warned J. T. in a guttural moan, "don't you dare."

"I have no intention of having tea with this bastard."

"Is that a promise?"

"Promise."

"I'll hold you to it."

"Make sure you do."

Interviews with the firefighters, followed by questioning everyone who worked with Muriel Flanders, put together the portrait of a lonely, matronly woman, a woman not without a temper and flaring malice at times, a heavy chain-smoker, but hardly a fraud. Jessica began to realize that the killer knew next to nothing about his victims save their vulnerability.

She and J. T. discussed this aspect of the murderer while en route to the hospital where the remains of Muriel Flanders lay waiting for them. Outside the car windows, the spectacular views of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon winked and smiled at them as the sheriff's car sped along the winding road that hugged the cliffs. All along their route, tourists in cars, vans, and buses crowded in at the overlooks to experience the vistas here.

''I know now that he selects them on the way they carry themselves: troubled, shy, unfocused, confused, weak-looking, vulnerable people. And he labels them whatever his fevered mind imagines them to be by some bizarre scale known only in his fevered brain."

"And he's a poor-assed judge of character," added J. T.

"He just wants them to fit some preset notion-his agenda, if you will, this numbers game of his, this whole number one is number nine thing, calling Chris Lorentian a traitor, this one a fraud, old Martin a violent person when in fact none of them fit his bullshit."

"Agreed," replied J. T. "Hell, one was a runaway barely out of her teens and the other a worn-out waitress who was in a dead-end situation."

"The third a lonely old man."

"Just a lonely soul."

''But this psycho brands the man a violent person. You see just how screwed up this creep is?"

"Projecting."

"What?"

"What shrinks call projecting. The killer may be projecting his own deficient character traits onto his victims, you see?"

"You're getting good at this, J. T.," she replied. "Maybe you have something there."

They rode in silence for a moment, each with his or her own thoughts until Jessica said, ''Back at the El Tovar, he didn't know there'd be no telephone in the room, but by the time he realized this, he was already too far along to start over. And if he did her during a lunchtime break, he didn't have a lot of time."

J. T. swallowed hard, his eyes rolling back in his head. "It's fairly obvious that he's got a time line and a quota to fill."

''Maybe… maybe he does. Kim Desinor called it a twisted religious quest of some sort."

"Maybe the body will tell us more," J. T. hopefully replied.

They were soon at the morgue, and the body was prepared for them. The autopsy was like dйjа vu. Jessica kept wanting to say, "Didn't I just do this yesterday?"

After an exhausting four hours over the charred remains of Muriel Flanders, Jessica and J. T. learned that J. T. was right, that the second victim wasn't Mel Martin but this poor waitress at the El Tovar Hotel in whose room was scrawled-as they pieced it together-this message:

#2 is #8-Malicious Frauds

After the autopsy, J. T., his eyes like slits, asked, "What's our next move, Jess?"

"We fly back to Lake Powell."

"Glen Canyon? Why?"

She went to a map on the wall depicting the western states, including the Grand Canyon and the areas they'd been since leaving Vegas. Using her finger, she mapped out the killer's route thus far. "He took off from Vegas for here, the Grand Canyon, killed number two here, and went from here to Glen Canyon, where he did number three. There are no connections whatsoever among the victims, right?"

"Correct, none that we've found, no-"

"Then the only common thread we have is his route, the direction he is going in. He didn't double back on us to do Muriel-"

"Flanders, right," J. T. said as he followed along.

"He didn't double back; he did her just as the numbers imply, as number two. Now we need to determine where he will strike next… before he does number four."

"How're we going to do that?"

"I'm not sure, but I know we have to get back to Glen Canyon as our starting point."

J. T. considered her logic, staring up at the wall map. "Okay, then, I'm with you." The killer's route so far had taken them farther and farther from Las Vegas. J. T. put his hands together in the prayer position and said, "Let's do it. We've got to stay on his trail."

They taxied out to the airfield, allowing Sheriff Colby to get back to his normal routine, and at the airfield, they argued. Jessica wanted to fly back with the old Pete Morgan, who'd so thrilled them earlier, while J. T. had pointed out a pilot who looked young enough to be his son. Jessica won the argument and they flew back to Lake Powell and Glen Canyon in rip-roaring fashion, the old man giving them a little extra time in the air by flying out to Monument Valley, telling them how he'd once flown over a John Wayne set, ruining a John Ford shot in a film called She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. "I was just a pup kid at the time," he finished with a faraway glint in his eyes.

"God, you've got to be ancient," moaned J. T. from the backseat before he buried himself in the information they had amassed on the killer thus far. He'd rather do this than look out at the beautiful scenery at the speed they were going low over the incredible valley. Instead, he penciled in the missing words on the notepad he'd shown Jessica the day before. With this added to his notes on the killer's messages, his collection now read:

#1 is #9-Traitors

#2 is #8-Malicious Frauds

#3 is #7-Violents

Where is it leading… Where will it end? John Thorpe wondered now as he stared at the killer's sick compilation of words and numbers. And what does it have to do with Jessica Coran? Why is this madman fixated on her?

On returning to the Wahweap Lodge on Lake Powell in Page, Arizona, Jessica learned that a call from Warren Bishop was waiting for her. He'd left her his direct line. She immediately sought her room and telephone, placing a return call to Warren. Sheriff Colby at Yavapai East had mentioned that Bishop had left word there, too, for her to call him, but she'd not wanted to waste any more time there, deciding that a call from her room at the Wahweap would be far more convenient and productive.

Bishop came right on once Jessica announced herself to his secretary. There was a trace of desperation in his voice when he asked, "Jessica? Jessica, how are you?"

''Fine. We just returned from investigating the incident at the El Tovar at the canyon."

"So, you did get my message after all. I've been anxious to hear back from you. I got a cryptic message from Repasi that you and Thorpe went to Yavapai East without him, but otherwise I had no idea of your steps."

"Yes, well, I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner, but you're out of range of my cellular phone, Warren, and as you might imagine, we've been damned busy here. By the way, what else has… did Repasi have to say about me?''

"What do you mean?"

Jessica told him of Repasi's allegations. She waited for a response.

Bishop was either stunned or trying to find words to reply. Finally he said, "That's the most asinine thing I've heard in my entire career with the FBI, and I've heard some pretty bizarre shit."

"So I hear the Phantom telephoned me there in Vegas again?"