Pure Instinct

10

Quantico, Virginia

She was damned if she did, damned if she didn't, and she bloody well knew it. Even getting on the Lear jet provided her by Paul Zanek and the Air Force at Quantico, she knew there was no hope for it.

If Kim had said no to Paul and the New Orleans assignment, she would have handed Chief Zanek the first official stake to drive into her heart-or the heart of her fledgling division. Insubordination still weighed heavily at the unofficial “court-martials” carried out all the time at Quantico. It would take more than a disagreement about assignments to do her completely in, but it would be a start, a first blot on the record to inevitably lead to another and another until the “evidence” indicted her.

And if not New Orleans, he'd find another “bazaar” for her to be banished to. Still, in accepting the dual challenge brought her by Commissioner Richard Stephens and the presence of Jessica Coran, Kim knew that she could do far worse damage in the Big Easy than she might have in refusing an assignment offered her by a superior of Zanek's rank.

Suppose the psychic trail was now too cold to follow. Suppose the killer had moved from the area. Had been arrested on other charges and was serving time far from the city sprawled crescentlike along the winding Mississippi. Suppose she could get nowhere on the case. Suppose this hardly heartless monster went into some den to hibernate. Say, an asylum in Louisiana's up-country area. She could come up pitifully wanting, unable to detect useful clues or any information whatsoever, and such a poor showing, leaving everyone dissatisfied, would only bring unwanted attention and notoriety to her department, and from this all would crumble. The FBI funding would dry up and they could all pack their bags; the powers-that-be were already paranoid over knowledge of the FBI's research into the use of psychic detection falling into the wrong hands. Either way, Paul Zanek might actually have manipulated her into a corner that she didn't deserve to be in. God forbid the newshounds got wind of the story; if so, her work and her place within the safe confines of Quantico would be history, especially if she wound up on 20/20, 48 Hours or, God certainly forbid, Hard Copy.

She tried to get comfortable in her seat, the roar of the engine like a banshee wail, a warning, an unclear yet persistent premonition of tumult yet to be sensed, seen, heard, swallowed and felt internally as well as externally-to be fully realized both physically and psychically.

She settled back as the plane began its desperate race to meet the wind; lifting, it took on the weightlessness that always made her a bit disoriented yet exhilarated, not unlike the first pangs of fear on a descending roller coaster. She rested her eyes and felt foolish to be the only passenger aboard the six-seater, momentarily wondering about the cost in jet fuel and manpower to the taxpaying public she secretly served.

Soon cruising at thirty thousand feet toward home, she wondered what she would find in New Orleans. She'd been away from the Mardi Gras capital of the world for almost eight years now, and nothing changed faster during one's absence than a major American city. “You can't go home again” was a very real and poignant experience for most people, but for her it meant little, for going home was the last thing she wanted to do. She'd been remarkably successful at closing out that part of her life, hiding her Cajijn blood and even her childhood from herself; you only remember what you want to remember. In fact, her childhood was little more than a big, dark screen with an occasional gray image wafting across from a broken-down projector. She supposed that a shrink-someone other than herself-might help her to deal with that inner wasteland of the soul that she'd battled to ignore her entire adult life, but she really didn't want to go home. Her conscious mind had successfully and thoroughly blocked out her subconscious mind on this score, the two in a quiet, even contest, holding one another at bay, grappling in that inner cosmos, each with a headlock on the other and no way to continue the combat. But going back could change all that, and she had reason to fear the outcome, knowing that some awful creature from the dark past lurked there, waiting for her return.

Not wishing to think of the possible consequences, she opted to dig through the case files left her by Richard Stephens, who'd gone back to Louisiana with Jessica Coran the day before to pave her way by preparing an elaborate hoax to keep her attachment with the FBI concealed. She kept coming back again and again to those minutely detailed and thorough police reports by Lieutenant Alex Sincebaugh. She had searched the stack for a file on the Surette case, but there was none, for as Commissioner Stephens had said, this case was not considered a relative of the others, despite frequent references to it which Sincebaugh had made by way of comparison. He seemed the only one who'd kept an open mind to the possibility of a connection.

As she continued going through the files and photos left her by Stephens, she also thought about how she might be a disruption to Sincebaugh and others working the case. She'd faced resistance to psychic detection before many times when she'd had her own psychic detection agency in Florida. A part of her wanted no role in the absurd concealment of her true identity as a psychologist and paranormal investigator with the FBI, but it was politically incorrect these days to spend the taxpayers' money on frivolity, and unfortunately, too many Americans still believed that anything to do with the psychic world was frivolous.

Psychic detection had a long and lurid history, dating back to the time of Solomon, who, many scholars were now convinced, had a psychic power of his own. Some had gone so far as to suggest that Christ and John the Baptist were both gifted psychics, not to mention other world-renowned religious leaders such as Buddha. Psychic surgeons and fortune-tellers from the famous Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus to the infamous Rasputin, along with an array of charlatans, frauds and freaks, all made for a fantastic and colorful history of psychic phenomena, a history which left many people more comfortable with herpes or hemorrhoids.

She was by no means convinced that all psychics throughout the ages were true blue-sense people, that they actually possessed the gift that had been granted her, but she was certain that psychics came in all shapes and sizes, that many were indeed frauds and charlatans, and that while the history of occult phenomena was also a history of criminal activity, scams and hoaxes, there always emerged that rare psychic or seer who could actually perceive with indelible clarity the details of events yet to come, or reconstruct time and events from some netherworld inside the cranium. It was rare to find the true psychic who could reveal details of a murder which had occurred in the past-post-cognition-and rarer still to locate a seer, one who could foretell the future-precognition. But it was that singular individual who gave credence to the fact that there existed, somewhere in the vastness of that inner universe of the human mind, the ability to tap into an undeniable sixth sense.

She found some coffee in a pot at the rear of the plane, poured herself a cup and returned to the case files to study, the steady hum of the plane soothing and tranquil. In her lavish seat in a conference area, with a circular table in front of it, she again began to finger through the files. The more she learned now about the crimes, the victims, their family backgrounds, their circumstances, the more convincing she'd be before a room full of cops who would, more than likely, be hostile toward her entering the investigation months after the first body was discovered. Natural resentment was always difficult to overcome.

“ What do you prefer?” she asked herself in the empty cabin, feeling terribly alone. “Unnatural resentment?” To a suspiciously regarded psychic there really wasn't any difference.

She tried to concentrate instead on the kind of rage the victims of the Queen of Hearts killer had faced in their last moments on earth. Whoever the killer was, the level of sheer hatred for the victims was shockingly extreme and intense; given the sheer number of stab wounds, the evisceration of the heart muscle and the mutilation of the private parts, it was no great leap of faith to ascertain that the killer was exceedingly and agonizingly enjoying his knife work. An extraordinary, killing energy fueled by dementia had left the bodies hacked apart by an enormous blade.

“ Why a blade?”

A large blade; a hefty meat-cutter's blade, something that was made for cutting upward, like a butcher's specially designed, serrated knife for cutting and deboning carcasses. At least that was what the coroner, a man named Wardlaw, was suggesting in his reports. Perhaps more importantly, why was he taking their hearts? She recoiled from the obvious, that he cannibalized the hearts, both because it was repugnant and because it was obvious. Were there secret reasons that only a madman might have to fulfill, a longing no one in his right mind could possibly ever understand, even if the maniac were willing to share such reasons? Furthermore, did it matter what this alien mind did with the hearts, since the end result was always the same, a vicious mutilation murder with lustful, sexual overtones? She thought of a line from a long-forgotten poem which she must look up again, a line that spoke of the heart in relationships between men and women that went something like:

Often with gentle words he'll take it;

Play softly with it, then rudely break it.

Did the killer suffer from a broken heart? Was he trying to rebuild or repair his own, using assembled “parts”? “And what is the significance of the playing card?” she asked aloud to the hum of the Lear. “And what the devil kind of card is it that's made of lacy material?”

Every particular, every item, every article of information she might learn now would help her to convince skeptics-whom she was bound to run headlong into later-that she was a genuine psychic, capable of magical feats of mental agility and supernormal abilities. Dazzle them first; get them off your back, and then you can go to work, she reminded herself.

Going to work, however, wasn't so simple, not for her. Going to work, a phrase that meant boredom on the horizon for most people, a phrase that conjured up a nine-to-five nightmare, was just the opposite for her. Going to work for Dr. Kim Desinor meant both opportunity and anxiety, elation and depression, courage and fear all tenaciously wound together like the strands of a tightly packed baseball below its leather coverlet. It meant she must take that first step beyond, and each time she had to take that step, it was as if it were her first time. She tried to conjure up that first time, but she'd had the sight for so long, since she was so young, that she could not recall ever being without it. Still, she never knew where her second sight might next lead, whether she would find her way or become lost, dead-ended, or if she'd fall over the edge of the labyrinth, or psych herself into a meaningless corner filled with useless images and symbols of no apparent or corporeal value; or if, on the other hand, she might discover revelation. And she never knew going in if she'd return intact and unscathed, for within the netherworld she visited, angry monsters freely roamed, searching for psychic prey of their own. Often psychic scars resulted, invisible to others, but painfully obvious to her, scars which did not heal so easily as fleshly ones. Scars which often must be denied so strongly by the psyche that they were healed over only by forgetfulness, though forgetfulness got in the way during an investigation of this sort. What she'd felt in Paul Zanek's office the previous day, when she had literally become the killer, she wanted more than anything to forget, yet she must court the memory, tease it back, squeeze every detail from it, if she were to crack the case of the Heart-Taker of New Orleans.

Her work often meant facing terrors and unimaginable suffering, yet unlike many a burned-out psychic who'd looked into the mind of a killer or through the eyes of a victim, Kim had always been fortunate to have a strong hold on the here and now, on current time and reality. As a result, she was able to hold at bay the dogs of fear, at least to the degree that, even while in trance, one small part of her mind knew the truth of her situation, that she was in no real or immediate danger, however horrid or graphic her psychic visions might become. She likened it to reading a Geoffrey Caine archaeological horror novel, which was among her favorite pastimes; she could always set the lurid motion picture of the terror tale aside and say to herself that it was foolish to fear the images contained and controlled by a higher force-the author-within the pages of the book; so too with the pages of her mind, where she was author and authority, where she was in control, molding from chaos some semblance of order, however dastardly and grotesque that order might be. Until now, until this time. Holding this killer's rosary beads had shaken her faith in herself to stand on an objective baseline and direct and orchestrate what her trance-self should next do. There was always the chance that she could become lost inside a vision, and in Zanek's office she'd lost all control.

That control had always been the one saving grace that kept her fit for such work as this. Many psychics far more gifted than she were unable to divorce themselves from the physical violence played out on a victim, or to withstand the mental pressure of having to climb around inside the mind of a fiend in order to think like a killer. She could, doing both in her career as first a cop for the Miami-Dade Police Department, when she'd first learned of her special talents, and later as a self-employed psychic and psychoanalyst, and finally now as an agent for the FBI.

Just then Kim's thoughts and her peace were suddenly interrupted when the cockpit door opened outward and Dr. Jessica Coran stood before her in a pleated and pleasant lime-green suit, a pleased half smile on her face as she stared at her surprised colleague.

“ What, you didn't sense I was aboard?” Jessica said, attempting a wan joke. Then she pointed at the display of files scattered across the table. “I see you've leapt right into the workload.”

Kim Desinor tried to regain her composure first by quickly closing her gaping mouth, a signal to Jessica Coran that she had taken Kim by total surprise, a lesson no psychic wanted pointed out to her. Was Jessica intentionally testing her? Kim wondered. Was she here as Zanek's watch dog? If so, Kim reasoned, she'd have to give the bitch enough leash to hang herself. For now, however, Kim was merely trying to hide her complete bewilderment on learning that she and the pilot were not alone on the plane after all.

“ Why, Dr. Coran, I thought you'd already left for New Orleans with Stephens… yesterday.”

“ Learning to pilot one of these things; never know when the skill might be useful, and I've been wondering where to put some of my money. Ed-Lieutenant Sand up front there- let me take a turn at the controls. Sorry if I startled you.”

“ You mean that takeoff was… was your doing?”

“ Sorry. I know it was a little rough.”

“ No, no… I hadn't noticed,” Kim lied, still angry with herself for being so totally taken in.

“ Now you're lying like a rug, Doctor.”

“ No, really…” Jessica closed the door behind her and said, “Don't tell me you didn't sense me nearby?”

Kim could not tell whether Jessica Coran was being facetious or straightforward with her innocent question. Stalling for an answer, Kim caught her breath and, staring up at Jessica from where she sat, replied, “Actually, you were the furthest thing from my mind.”

“ Really?”

“ Yes, really.”

Jessica came closer, seduction oozing from her along with the faint odor of alcohol. That Jessica was consuming a great deal these days took no great psychic knowledge; it was common gossip among the FBI family, along with the feeling “Who can blame her?” Still, if she'd actually been flying the plane while juiced, Kim would make sure to file a complaint with the powers-that-be. She didn't care to have her life placed in danger by Jessica Coran or anyone else whose judgement was impaired by either despair or booze or both.

Kim had done a little digging on Jessica Coran before she left for New Orleans, where they were to ostensibly work in tandem. She wasn't altogether sure she could trust the other woman, at least not in her current state.

Now, rather than entering from the opposite side of the semicircular seat in the alcove here, Jessica nudged Kim to move over, joining her on this side and brushing past the files that Kim had laid there moments before.

“ Really,” Kim said, echoing her last remark, not knowing what else to say to Dr. Coran.

“ Hey, I wanted a chance for us to get to know one another better before we get embroiled in this brouhaha down in New Orleans, you understand? 'Sides, once we're there, we're to look like we aren't on the same team, right? Don't want you getting the idea that I'm some cool, scientific type who has all the answers, but that's the part I'll be playing down there, so…”

Her cool tone and the silky voice placed Kim somewhat at ease, but did not completely convince her of Jessica's sincerity. “Yes, it would tie nice to get our Indians in a row.”

“ I see you've been doing just that.” Jessica fingered the medical examiner's reports and pawed at some of the photos. She'd already studied the same information in duplicate at her apartment.

“ There's another reason you lagged behind to come away from Virginia with me, isn't there?” Kim pointedly said now.

Jessica visibly stiffened, but said nothing.

“ You… I sense some dread in you,” Kim went on. “Nervous energy and a joking demeanor don't always hide the truth, Dr. Coran.”

Jessica dropped her eyes, and her head followed easily into her hands. “I must look like shit. I haven't slept in days.”

“ If you wish to talk about it, please do so.”

“ It's just that… well, you'd think I could get used to it… but it's ruining my life. Every waking moment, knowing this madman is stalking me, knowing he will never rest until either I'm dead or he is…or both of us…”

“ Matisak… the one who's become obsessive about you. Yes, I've heard the story. Escaped the asylum, killed his doctor there and masqueraded as an orderly to gain his freedom?”

“ He's since murdered many more, and from time to time he checks in.”

“ Checks in?”

“ Part of his god damned sick game of hide-and-seek. It's all a freaking head game to him.”

“ A head game?”

“ With the intent to drive me crazy, I suppose. He's doing a pretty good job of it, wouldn't you say?”

She disagreed instantly. “No, not at all. In fact, when I met you the other day in Paul's office, I thought you quite composed and in charge.”

“ Ever hear of Prozac?”

“ I hope you're not popping them like Excedrin.”

Jessica ignored this. “Do you think New Orleans'll be interesting this time of year? Kinda off-season of the Mardi Gras, isn't it?”

“ Well, we're not going for fun and frolic, now, are we?” Kim felt the knifelike edge to her voice and knew she was sounding bitchy, but was unable to help herself. What does she want from me? she wondered. I know she wants something, but what? “Do you think it's really safe for you, going there like this, I mean… now? Isn't Paul Zanek worried in the least about your safety there?”

“ I've convinced the brass over his head that it's the only logical step at this point; probably the only way to lure Matisak out of hiding. I've been under guard and surveillance since his escape, since I stepped off the plane in Oklahoma from Hawaii. Zanek had an army surround me there at the airport. Now it's been near six months of sheer hell; imagine it, all that time without any semblance of peace or sense of privacy. I told 'em all that their bodyguard duties toward me were over. I'm sick of being watched-even by them. You understand that?”

“ Sure, I can understand that, but-”

“ I can take care of myself.”

“ I'm sure you can, Doctor.”

“ Jessica… call me Jessica, or Jess if you like.”

“ Very well, and I'm Kim.”

“ As for Matisak… he's vanished, just as if he'd fallen off the globe. Not a trace.” She breathed deeply, wiping away a tear. “Some tough FBI lady, huh?”

“ Hey, I understand completely. God, I can't imagine having someone stalking me, and knowing the man's a blood-drinking sadist, knowing he's after my blood, that no one else's will ever completely satisfy him. God knows, I don't fault you in the least for showing natural emotions, Doc-Jess.”

Jessica wiped her face with a tissue and cleared her throat and continued. “There's an ulterior motive for my having talked Zanek into teaming us up, Kim.”

Kim thought, Here it comes, the truth. “Oh, really. And what ulterior motive is that? Something Paul put you up to?”

“ I thought at first I should just keep it to myself, but I was raised to believe that two people going into a venture as important as this must completely trust and understand one another.”

“ Here, take some of this coffee,” Kim offered.

Jessica sipped from the foam cup, thanking her for the lukewarm offering.

“ Now go on. Out with it.”

“ I had hoped… after seeing what you're capable of… I'd hoped that perhaps you could… I mean…”

“ I know you don't want anyone watching your back or sitting on your shoulder at this point, so what?”

Jessica sniffed back another tear and laughed. “You are intuitive.”

“ So you traded in your FBI trained bodyguards for me? I suppose I should be flattered. Perhaps it would be flattering, if I gave it much thought.”

“ Look,” Jessica began anew, “yes, I was hoping that with a few private sessions between us, you might help me locate that son of a-satanic-bitch before he locates me, but if it doesn't sit well with you, then… then-“You're not even sure I can help you locate him before he locates you; Jess, it seems to me that you're clutching at straws here… not to mention presumptions not in evidence, and for a woman of science… well…” Kim paused, saying nothing further, searching the sun-drenched clouds out the porthole to her right. The dense white mountain of cloud which stretched outward forever looked like a pillowy glacier onto which she might escape. However, real glaciers were not storybook-smooth on their surfaces, but rather pitted and treacherous. Between Zanek's sending her back to face her childhood home and Jessica Coran's undeniable need, Kim herself might surely need an escape route, or at least a friend. Pour it on, she silently thought.

Still, she managed a pleasant enough smile, turned back to face Jessica, took her hands firmly in her own and said, “I'll do whatever in my power to help keep you safe. I can't actually promise you anything, but if you think a psychometric seance with me will help, I'll certainly arrange one… if you're sure.”

“ A seance… really?” Jessica hadn't expected such a commitment so soon. “I'd… I'd like that.”

“ You wouldn't by chance have brought along anything once belonging to Matthew Matisak, would you?”

“ I've collected a few items, things left in his cell, some of the evidence used to put him away, that sort of thing, but… but…”

And you of course carry the scars he inflicted upon you, thought Kim. “Damnit, all that stuffs packed away and in the cargo hold,” Jessica said. “Well, then, what about your… your well-publicized ankles?”

“ My ankles?”

“ The scars he left on you. Would you trust them to me?”

Jessica kicked one of her heels into the air in response. “Does that answer your question?”

“ You must've been impressed by what Paul had to say about my abilities, or you wouldn't so readily place yourself in my hands,” Kim replied, a look of surprise fading over her brow.

“ I saw some tapes on you. I was impressed.”

“ Best hurry then and do this, yes? Before you change your mind.” Kim's self-deprecating smile was meant to put Jessica at ease, but the FBI's most famous M.E. remained aloof.

“ I've tried everything else. I'm desperate.”

Everybody's desperate when they come to a supposed miracle worker, Kim thought. “Jessica, you needn't apologize to me. I understand.”

“ I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful or as if I… I…”

“ Never mind, forget it. I've long ago become accustomed to dealing with people who doubt me but at the same time want to believe I can help them, Jessica.”

“ I suppose God gets a lot of that too.”

It was said with the venom born of frustration and drink, as spiked a phrase as Kim had heard in a long time, but for some reason, it was also funny, so Kim, unable to respond any other way, burst out laughing. Jessica, surprised by the outburst, suddenly joined in, and together-unable to completely stifle the nervous edge to the laughter-they sputtered like old friends reunited.

Jessica's eyes wandered now, and she felt incapable of saying more; she felt vulnerable, as if she had opened up her soul to this near-stranger. She'd worked for years with Dr. Donna Lemonte, who'd suggested that she seek other help since Donna had begun to feel that their therapy together had come to a standstill, that while Jessica teetered at the precipice of complete discovery and peace, she was too afraid to take the leap. Donna Lemonte had cut Jessica loose-telling her it was for her own goddamned good, telling her that she'd taken Jessica as far as she could go in a psychoanalytical sense, telling Jessica that any further sessions would just be highway robbery on her part, saying she was too much Jessica's friend now to lie to her or string her along. With friends like that, friends who abandoned you, Jessica thought, who needs enemies.

Donna had said that Jessica was as obsessed with Matisak as he was with her, and that until that obsession could be resolved or at least controlled, any further attempts at resolutions and order in her life were futile exercises, draining both patient and therapist of energy in a no-win battle for Jessica's sanity.

Jessica now confided some of this to Kim Desinor. All the ground that she and Donna had fought so painstakingly for, all the strides, all the wins-all effectively demolished by one act on the part of the madman, his escape. Matisak's escape and his insidious notes to her, his ugly poetry, had with one fell swoop unleashed all the shadows and horrors that for years now she had fought to control and put away forever.

“ In all truth, it was Dr. Donna Lemonte who suggested I get together with you, but I didn't think it right, unless I could do something for you in return,” Jessica confessed now, feeling better at having the deception out and in the open.

Doesn't like to feel obligated, Kim thought, to anyone. Is afraid of long-term commitments, and this is killing her, to have to ask for help, so she baiters instead.

Jessica continued speaking. “I urged Zanek to give you this chance; it's your chance to come in with us at the profiling team, a chance to take a giant step ahead for psychic profiling and detection at Quantico.”

Kim's smile was an embrace. “Donna's a great friend and colleague. She mentioned you might be seeking me out professionally someday. I just didn't expect it quite in this… fashion. You know, Jessica, you could've just come to me.”

“ Call me selfish. I wanted to get back to work too. They've had me caged up at Quantico. The bastard's out there free to kill and kill again, and I'm the prisoner now. Well, to hell with that.”

Kim admired her fire, the spirit that inflamed her soul, so visible in Jessica's terrific aura.

Jessica almost shouted, “I'm not going to play the part of some rabbit in a warren, waiting for that son of a bitch to snare me. I won't do that; I can't, at least not anymore.”

Kim said nothing, her face stern and emotionless, but her eyes fastened to Jessica's. Jessica feared how much of herself she'd already given away. “That sounds like a healthy attitude to me,” Kim finally replied. “Look, Jess, if you want to start chasing this monster immediately, why wait until we're in New Orleans with all the complications there. Let me have your ankles.”

Jessica breathed in deeply, and she slowly nodded while kicking off her second heel at the same time. “You really mean it? I mean… here, now… in the air?”

“ I can't think of a more peaceful environment in which a psychic might work, can you? Close as we're likely to come to the stars, the planets, God…”

“ Well… yes… I mean, if you're sure it's all right.”

“ It's actually very freeing, being among the clouds like this. So then, why not get started?”

“ Those scars are pretty well healed,” Jessica said as she placed her stocking ankles across Kim's lap.

And what about those of your heart?

“ All right… whatever you think best…” Jessica kept talking as Kim's eyes closed, her hands going over the nyloned ankles until she abruptly stopped.