Extreme Instinct

SIX

Outside, in the hallway, Jessica leaned against a wall and said to John Thorpe, "God, I never get used to this part of the job."

J. T. nodded. ''Always tough dealing with the family, any family… but this guy seems a bit loopy, and dangerous."

"The man was just apprised of the situation through Lester's office, has had to ID the body of his only child… I feel for him."

"He could be a real danger to us and the investigation, Jess."

She looked into J. T.'s concerned eyes, gave him a pat on the shoulder and a fleeting smile. "I don't think so. God, he looked pathetic."

"He's dangerous, Jess," warned J. T. again.

"Perhaps… perhaps not. Right now, all I see is a poor, shattered man."

"Just remember that I was right about the cabdriver from the airport."

Jessica pulled herself from the wall, took a deep breath, shrugged, and said, "So, we'll remain cautious of Mr. Frank Lorentian."

"You don't want to be blindsided by him."

Jessica gave J. T. a wan smile. "Let's go see the secretary."

"Virginia, yes, for tea and crumpets," he said. "And a list of Chris's friends and associates."

After gaining Sharon Pierson's address, they found a cab and located yet another area of the sprawling metropolis in the desert valley. The older, run-down section sported broken-down cars and battered, discarded, and neglected trash cans, empty beer bottles, wide-eyed children in dirty T-shirts running shoeless across hard-scrabble lawns, as well as half-demolished buildings long since condemned by the city.

It hardly looked the place for a spoiled child to run to.

At the door of a three-story walk-up, Sharon Pierson met them as she was coming out, her purse slung over one shoulder, both hands clutching a single suitcase stuffed wide, bulging like the sides of a rhinoceros. On seeing them at her doorstep, Sharon's eyes blinked a Morse code of dread, which Jessica quickly deciphered despite the red-rimmed eyes that had been given over to a morning's worth of tears.

Jessica flashed her badge, identified herself as an M.E. for the FBI, and announced who J. T. was, while J. T. offered to give the lady a hand with her luggage. They then waltzed her back inside, J. T. placing the bag in the unlit, cavelike foyer, while Sharon Pierson bolted several latches on her well-sealed door. "Guess I know you two are safe. Read about you in the papers, Dr. Coran."

"Really?"

"Guess you're something of a big shot, huh?"

When finally Sharon Pierson turned on a light, Jessica saw that the place was small, seedy, and unkempt, papers and discarded food trays sitting about, awaiting the roaches. The sink was filled with dirty dishes, and atop the counters lay the remains of half-finished dishes, a casserole here, half a sandwich there, pizza boxes stacked to one side.

Sharon Pierson appeared drawn, haggard, her skin like leather. Certainly much older than Chris Lorentian had been, she wore what amounted to a perpetual half snarl, as if readying for attack at any moment, her hair dead and stiff-looking from too many colorings and bleachings since her teens. A cigarette in her hand represented a sixth finger, its smoke helping to punctuate her words.

"I loved that kid like she was my own kid sister. I would've done anything for her," she told them now. "Anything…" Tears flowed freely.

"Like turn her in to her old man?" Jessica'd had enough with the pious act. "For some trade-off, something about a debt you owed?"

The green eyes glared at Jessica, sizing her up now. "Everybody in Vegas owes a debt." Sharon's dark red hair-soggy red noodles, Jessica thought-had fallen across one eye, but rather than wisp the hair back, the woman defiantly let it lay. She'd been drinking, and from the scattered bottles and knocked-over ashtray, she'd been doing so heavily. Jessica instinctively sensed an animal fear in her.

"Tell us what you can about the last moments you saw Chris alive," Jessica said firmly.

Pierson collapsed into a collection of dirty clothes left on her sofa. ''My heart feels like… like a pair of frozen hands have hold of it," she confided, dropping her head into her hands. "If we hadn't fought, she'd've stayed, you know? She'd've just got on that bus this morning." The cigarette was still, lifeless in her hand save for the smoke now, and now she punctuated each line with sobbing. "She'd… she'd've left this hellhole, and she'd be alive now, having a good time, you know?"

"Got on what bus?" asked J. T.

"She was planning a trip." Sharon's head remained buried.

"Part of her getaway?" he asked.

She looked hard up at J. T. and Jessica. "Sure, why not?

Get away from Frank, from Vegas, all the crap. I told her it was a wonderful idea, and it was. Hell, she wanted me to go with her, and for a while, you know, I thought about it, thought about taking her handouts. Not like I ain't done it before, but this… this would've been a lot of money, and it'd mean I'd have to go against Frank's wishes, and…"

She abruptly stopped herself, realizing that she'd strayed into deep waters. Jessica finished her thought for her, saying, "And maybe he'd forgive his little girl someday, but not likely he's going to forgive you, right?"

She bared her teeth at Jessica. "I told Chris I couldn't leave my job and go traipsing off with her. We argued, she left. It's as simple as that."

"Where was she planning on going after she left you?"

"See the sights. She loved nature, you know. She wanted to be by… with nature. Poor young thing… When I think of what that bastard did to her…"

"Her father?" asked J. T.

"No, the fire psycho!" She lifted a newspaper and tossed it toward them. It landed on the floor with the bold headline reading: pyromaniac burns local gambling czar's daughter to death. A subtitle read, fbi on trail of phantom torch killer.

She stared across at them, saying, "It's all my fault she was killed."

"No, Sharon," disagreed Jessica. "It's not your fault. We're dealing with a psychotic sociopath here, someone who is deadly and uncaring."

''Someone who is as predictable as… as an earthquake or a tornado," added J. T.

"I should've made her stay. I could've! I shoulda sat on her."

"And you're afraid that Frank's going to come around to the same conclusion," suggested Jessica.

New tears welled up from the redhead. "If he ain't already, you know, and when he does… I–I-I can't be here. I gotta get outta this town." Her eyes fell on her suitcase.

"Did Chris buy you a ticket out?"

"No, I wouldn't take it. Wish I had now…"

"Listen to me, Sharon," insisted Jessica, lifting Sharon's head and directing her eyes to her own. "No one, not even Frank Lorentian, can sensibly blame you for what's happened to his daughter. Fact of the matter is, he blames me."

"Yeah, sure… and isn't that crazy?"

"Believe me, he's not blaming you," Jessica insisted.

"How do you know what's in Frank's head? Nobody does. Besides, since when has Frank ever been sensible where his little girl's concerned? He likely blames everybody, the whole fucking world.."

"He knows it's the work of a violent killer who… who very likely simply took advantage of an opportunity; in a sense a.. a random act of violence." Jessica knew she was not entirely certain of the killer's motives, his method of abduction, or his mind, but she meant to say anything possible to get the Pierson woman to focus off herself and onto the night of Chris's disappearance.

The frightened woman merely shook her head and said, "If you can put 'Frank Lorentian' and 'sensible' in the same sentence, Doctor, then you don't know Frank Lorentian, and when he reads the papers, he's going to be upset, not just with me, but with you."

This made Jessica look down at the Vegas Morning Star. J. T. lifted it from the rug and examined it more closely. "Damn it, Jess, they've got the whole bloody story here.

"What?" she asked.

''How the bastard contacted you… how you heard the murder in progress over the wire, all of it."

"Damn that Osborne."

"Lester wasn't the only one who heard the story."

"Repasi?"

"And what about the firemen, the photographer? The crime scene was full when you told Repasi. And it was all around the convention floor. Could've come from any number of sources, including Frank Lorentian."

''No way. How could Frank Lorentian have known the details of the death before we told him?"

"From what I hear, Frank Lorentian pays well for information, Jess. What I'm saying is-"

"Anyone at the crime scene might've sold the information to Lorentian?"

"Or used it to pay off a debt."

Sharon Pierson looked on, a glint of pleasure spreading across her face. Jessica guessed it was the feeling of comfort that the younger woman had gained on learning that someone else shared her position on the field-that she was not the sole target of Frank Lorentian's anger and revenge. Jessica refused to give in to the Lorentian phobia, but she felt her own anger welling inside. She wanted to slap herself for having acted so unwisely the night before at the crime scene.

She turned to J. T. and muttered, ''Damn it. I ought to've known better than to shoot off my mouth." Jessica paced in the tight apartment room and reproached herself. "I wanted to tell Santiva the details personally."

"I thought you called him last night."

"I did, but I had to leave a message on his machine. I couldn't go into the detail I wanted."

"Guess he's likely gotten all the details by now."

"Along with all the wire services."

J. T. began talking to himself. ''A flash fire in a five-star hotel, a gambling princess burned alive, all the makings of a Movie of the Week. Press's having a bountiful time of it…"

''Stupid, stupid me. Damn, just what this phantom fire nut likely wants, too."

There came a loud, firm knock at the door.

Sharon Pierson, her print dress smudged with cigarette and drink splotches, went for the door a bit shakily, wary, her mind filled with notions of how the powerful Frank Lorentian might wreak revenge on her for Chris's demise.

"Who… who is it?" she asked.

"LVPD, ma'am, Detective Sternover. Mrs. Pierson?"

"You the cops?" she asked.

"Homicide investigation, ma'am. Like a few words with you about Chris Lorentian, when you last saw her, ma'am; help us with a number of unanswered questions, ma'am."

"Why don't you guys get your act together?" she asked of Jessica and J. T., frowning before she pulled the several latches from her door. She now peeked out and insisted on seeing ID with the new intruders. Finally, she waved two men inside, this time not bothering with the locks. "Guess I ought to feel pretty safe with the cops and the FBI on my doorstep, shouldn't I, Dr. Coran?" she asked. "But I won't bank on it."

Jessica introduced herself and J. T. to the local investigators, the one calling himself Sternover nodding appreciatively, introducing himself and his partner, Ned Gaites. Sternover stood a head taller than Jessica, a giant of a man, while Gaites stood perhaps five-nine. Both men were in their mid- to late thirties, but while Sternover was graying at the temples and dressed neatly and expensively, Gaites looked like a dark-haired college kid with no regard for fashion. In fact, he wore a Hawaiian shirt, white tennis shoes, and khaki pants, completely clueless. Perhaps he was doing some undercover work, Jessica decided. Sternover was a stovepipe, Gaites the stove.

"Been reading about you, Doctor," said Sternover. "Also, Gaites and me, we were looking for Chris Lorentian as a Missing Persons case."

"Really? How long?" Jessica pretended amazement.

"Right, for the past forty-eight-odd hours," sputtered Gaites.

Sternover added, "Didn't know we'd find you here, one jump ahead of us. Guess you're as good as they say."

Gaites's lip curled just enough to tell Jessica that these men had arrived in so timely a fashion thanks only to Frank Lorentian's influence. Obviously, Sternover and Gaites had had the apartment and Sharon Pierson staked out for some time, too.

Sternover was most likely Frank's friend on the force, but Sharon Pierson obviously did not know this. She also didn't know just how right she'd been about Frank Lorentian's interest in her. Perhaps Miss Pierson was in danger. Perhaps she ought really to heed her first instinct to survival. Perhaps the only chance Frank Lorentian had at a full recovery might be through his innate nature, via a kind of global vengeance Jessica and the others could only guess at. Certainly the man's influence was being felt here, now, like some primordial octopus with multiple tentacles. "We'd like to ask you some questions, Miss Pierson," began Sternover, his mustache twitching and feeding into a large creased wrinkle on either side of his mouth. He'd have a hell of a time as a diver, Jessica thought, for with such a smiler's wrinkle positioned as it was, no mask made could stop the leaks. She thought he resembled Glenn Ford in all the old Westerns.

"Are you here in your official capacity then, Detective?" Jessica asked.

"That's a strange question, Doctor. Just what're you implying? What other capacity would we be here in, Dr. Coran?" Sternover's thick mustache twitched.

Gaites interceded, saying, "We're here just like you, for the same reasons."

Sternover verbally shunted Gaites aside, saying, "Just seeking to stomp out the ignorance that plagues us poor working cops; just here to open ourselves to the fire of truth, so to speak."

Gaites laughed at his partner's philosophizing words. "Damn, Ted, listen to yourself sometime. Can you 'magine being next to this guy all day, Doctors? Tellin' you, it's enough to make a good man go bad." Then Gaites turned serious. "We're here because some psycho's out there with a blowtorch, and according to you, Chris Lorentian may not be his first…" His words made Jessica wonder where they were getting their information. Nothing had been said by fire authorities about previous fire murders in the area; nothing had indicated any sort of previous pattern. There'd been none of that in the newspaper accounts either.

"… and it certainly, certainly won't be his last victim," finished Gaites. "So, if you Feds'll stand aside and allow us to do our job…"

"We're not interested in doing your job for you," countered J. T.

"There a problem here?" asked Sternover, pushing his bull weight and size forward.

"Just one," Jessica returned, holding her ground, staring long into Sternover's cold eyes, a pair of purple grapes in the dim light, no seeds at the center to reflect back light.

"And what's that?"

"How much are you in for?"

''In for?'' Sternover pretended ignorance.

"How short are the strings Lorentian's got over your head?"

Gaites stared hard at his partner, either a fine actor or a man amazed. ''Ted, is that true?'' asked Gaites, grabbing his partner by the lapels.

"All right, all right… enough with this machismo crap," said J. T. in an attempt to quell the sudden animosity. He then proceeded to offer up what little they had gotten from Sharon Pierson, finally telling the detectives, "We'd hoped to get more, but Miss Pierson obviously knows very little that might help in the investigation."

"Listen," Jessica told J. T., waving the newspaper story, "I'm going to let you three men coordinate information on this, okay, J. T., and I'm going to get back to the hotel, put in a call to Eriq Santiva before he hears what's going on without my input."

"Sure, sure," agreed J. T. "We can manage here."

With that, Jessica beat a hasty retreat, glad that she had conveyed to Sternover that she knew exactly whose payroll he was on. He didn't dare rough up or harm Pierson, not now.

Jessica flagged a cab, and in the ride back to the Flamingo, she stewed about all that had happened and all that she felt must happen in the next few hours. She needed to coordinate with local law enforcement through proper channels, and this meant she needed Quantico's okay and support as well as their manpower. She also very much needed a psychological profiling team assigned to this fire phantom. Most of all, she needed Quantico's immense storehouse of knowledge, its computers, to search for like killings that might be tied to the Phantom.

And she needed to get to Eriq before the news services did, if she weren't already too late.

Jessica's phone call to Eriq Santiva at Quantico Headquarters netted a good feeling of backup. While Eriq had the physical evidence of the crime in his hands, and he had gotten bits and pieces of what had gone on in Las Vegas, at the time of Jessica's second call, Eriq had not gotten all the details of how the killer had chosen Jessica as his conduit to authorities until now, until she told him. She also told him that the newspapers had jumped on the story there in Las Vegas, calling the killer the Fire Phantom.

Eriq assured her that FBI would put all of its powerful machinery into motion at Jessica's request for assistance, and Eriq meant to personally see to the back-shelving of other important cases in the bargain. "Quantico is at your disposal, Jess. Anything you need. I'll put the red flag on the locals and the field office there. You need it, you got it."

"Thanks, Eriq." She thought, He's now a good and tried friend and associate.

"If you say the word, Jess, I'm on the next flight there."

"That's not necessary."

"Then you're all right?"

"Yeah, I'm dealing-"

"As usual? There's nothing usual about this business, Jess. My concern is not just for your physical safety. I'm also concerned about your emotional state. This kind of thing, the way this guy is toying with your head, Jesus, I mean how?"

"How?" she asked.

"How did this… this fiend behind the pyromurder of Chris Lorentian know where you would be staying?"

"Easy enough. Convention's been in the papers here and it's centered at the Hilton."

"Still, how'd he so effortlessly orchestrate this foul scheme-much less think it up?"

She sensed that Eriq's fear barometer, along with his concern, was also on the rise. And Eriq, as long-winded as he was, managed to ask all these questions in quick, fluid, Latin-accented succession. It made her think of their work together in Miami, where together they tracked the trackless Night Crawler all the way to the Cayman Islands. "You should be getting a request for a nationwide fingerprint search through the Vegas branch office, and my friend Chief Warren Bishop."

"We'll give it first priority to be sure. God"-he stopped to gasp-"I mean, it's truly sick, and the notion that this detestable monster's in a suite not three floors below yours when he contacted you, allowing the smoke and fire of his flaming victim to mask his movements. It's sheer horror."

"It gets worse."

"How so?"

"The fingerprints." She explained to him how they had obtained prints in only one place, and how the killer had written his code using the burned flesh of his victim as ink.

Eriq fell silent at the other end for some moments.

''Did you get all the photos and notes I sent you on the crime scene?" She finally broke the silence, staving off any further fits of hysteria from him.

This got him talking again. "Well, yes, I did."

"So, have you had time to analyze the handwriting?"

Eriq's forte remained handwriting analysis and documents. Being chief of a division now afforded him little time to do actual investigatory work, but he loved the work, and he liked keeping his hand in. "The fact he chooses to write out his message across a mirror rather than a wall may say something about him, but that's just conjecture at this point."

"Oh, I think he likes watching himself at work, that's for sure. Give me something I can use," she protested.

Eriq replied, "We blew up the shots immediately, and I put a team on it. Not much of a message; very few letters to deal with, you know. We didn't know that the words and letters actually consisted of

… the victim's own creosote residue. I'll clue everyone in on that little factor. We're still studying each photo, including the crime scene photos. I have a profiling team at work on a victim and a killer profile. Have these to you, hopefully, by end of business day."

"FedEx 'em as soon as possible," she pleaded. "Going to need all the help I can get on this one. Talk to Dr. Desinor. See if she'd be willing to do the scene photos for us, okay? I have J. T. with me, and don't worry about my safety."

"Oh, sure, J. T.'s a deterrent to any maniac," he said, chuckling.

"He's been a big support; don't pick on him."

"I've taken some time to study the lettering myself," he finally confessed, "and…" Eriq was known for his ability at handwriting analysis. "Yes, well, it's quite revealing."

''Revealing of what, precisely?'' she prompted.

"It's my educated guess that we are dealing with some sort of schizoid fanatic type, almost… well, like a terrorist mentality."

"A split personality, you mean? Like someone listening to voices in his head, telling him what to do? What do you mean, 'like a terrorist mentality'?"

"A fanatic, possibly a religious fanatic. Could be that he hallucinates, yes, or follows the dictates of a second, stronger personality. Or worse yet…"

"What worse yet?"

"Like I said, a religious fanatic, with the zeal of a righteous religious nut, maybe."

"Religion, you mean like burning at the stake in the name of the Inquisition, all that?''

"In the name of the Holy or unholy."

"What makes you think so?"

"The guy's scrawl is large, no center line to speak of, stiff and erect on the lines but erratic. Again, there's too little here to go on, but that's my best estimate."

"I would've liked to have forwarded the original, but it weighed eighty pounds and measured six by four feet, and FedEx isn't good with mirrors."

"Do you want me out there with you, Jess?" he again asked in a tone making it clear that he was prepared to take a jet the moment he got off the phone, if she so much as hinted her wish for him to do so.

"No, Eriq. I know you've got your hands quite full enough as it is with that awful child molester/killer where you are."

"Yes, well, that's true enough. He's causing havoc, all right, in the shadow of the White House. Where do you think our energies and resources and priorities ought to be spent, Jess? All the same, Jess, if you need me or anyone on the team, give a shout."

Jessica, like everyone in the country now, knew of the brutal, sadistic killer calling himself the Capital Punisher. This monster took precedence, for it had a penchant for child victims, and it was wreaking havoc in D.C., the nation's capital, and while Jessica had worked on some of the forensics and the profiling of the killer there, she was not herself a principal player on the case.

Jessica understood the media attention being given the creep in Washington. He was, after all, a pedophile of the worst order. He not only seduced and raped children, but also came out of the experience feeling extreme guilt and hatred of himself and what he'd done, but rather than cut his own throat or another appropriate appendage, the maniac turned his rage outward to the very objects of his perverted desire, the children, and in his uncontrollable rages, he murdered.

"I'm sure you'll catch this guy soon. The profile has him pegged. Meanwhile, don't worry about us out here in the Wild West. We're chugging along, plugging at our man."

"This creep we're after, Jess. He knows every back alley, open courtyard, basement window, and dark corner in D.C., and every schoolyard."

"As our profile says, he's a killer of opportunity, a difficult monster to stop. He wanders the streets by van and on foot, spends long hours simply moving around, a predator of the first order, waiting to pounce if given the slightest opportunity. Makes me wonder…"

"Wonder?"

"If our two killers aren't somehow… connected, related, Eriq."

"How's that?"

"Oh, I don't mean in the sense they know one another or are blood brothers or anything… Just that sometimes you've got to wonder from what cloth these so-called men are cut."

"Yeah, yeah… maybe." Eriq spoke now as if to himself. ''A child of eleven is ignored by his older sister and wanders through a gate, into a courtyard behind a fence, never to be seen again, his body never recovered. A little girl of twelve follows a bouncing ball into a shadow, and he is there. Only the ball is found. Later, her body is discovered stuffed in a drain pipe off Old Plymouth where it bisects Jackson Boulevard."

''Has Dr. Desinor been helpful?'' Jessica asked, knowing that FBI psychic detective Kim Desinor had been called in on the Punisher case.

"She's made some impressive hits, particularly locating the bodies after their disappearances, but so far little headway on the preventative side."

Jessica gave some thought to Dr. Kim Desinor. When last Jessica had spoken with Kim, the psychic detective had confided that the Punisher case had eroded any faith in herself and her power to do anything for the victims and their families.

Jessica finally asked, "So how's Kim really doing with the Punisher case, Eriq?''

"Are you reading minds nowadays, too?"

"Not good, I take it?"

"True."

"You're not thinking of pulling her off the case, are you?''

"If she doesn't pull herself together, 1 don't have much choice, now do I, Jess?"

"It's your call, Eriq, but there's always a choice, and just remember what she did for us in New Orleans."

"Not likely anyone's forgetting that, Jess… but we're talking another day here."

"So, it's business as usual… What've you done for me lately, huh?"

"Hey, I'm crass, but I'd hoped you hadn't seen that side of me," he joked to lighten the moment. "So, you and Parry have a good time overseas?"

Although she'd been back from her overseas vacation with Jim for some time, and although she and Eriq had worked the Punisher case to some degree together since then, it had been at remote points, as was the Phantom case now-she in her lab, he in his office, the two of them across a conference room filled with others on the tactical profile team of the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) at Quantico. With additions such as psychic profiling, the team was no longer the small club it had once been in the days when Otto Boutine had first nurtured the unit into existence.

She knew it best to give concerted attention to how she replied to Eriq about James Parry and her ongoing, long distance love affair with her Hawaii friend. "Rome was splendid, Athens like a dream."

"That good, huh? Why don't you gush a little?" he continued to joke. "So, was Parry splendid, too?"

"When in Rome…"

"I don't see it, but if you say so, Jess, he must have something special."

"He is something special. Do you really want me to expound?"

Obviously not, for Eriq quickly changed the subject with his own question. ''Jess, are you sure you and Thorpe can handle things there alone?"

"We're hardly alone, Eriq. We've got the LVPD and Warren Bishop's local bureau to reach out and touch if we need it. Thanks now to your influence?"

"You don't sound worried about this creep's having reached out and touched you personally, Jess."

Jessica wondered for half a second if Eriq could mean Frank Lorentian, but she hadn't bothered to tell him of the threat Lorentian posed to the investigation. "I'm not worried about my personal safety, Eriq."

"You sure that's being wise? And God, but you do attract the perverts, Jess."

"Thanks, but I don't deserve 'em, as for worry… worry? What's that? Me, worry? Eriq, he's a maniac, a killer, but remember when Matisak was stalking me? This guy's but a faint shadow of Matisak, even fainter of that Night Crawler bastard we caught together last spring in Grand Cayman. I'm on top of it."

"You just give a holler, then."

"I will. So, any more initial impressions of this creep's handwriting?"

"Initial… clever girl, Jess. Well, he's all over the spectrum, clearly demonstrating a madness, but as I said, there's little to go on with, but the one word and the two numbers.''

"Make any sense of that, 'number one is number nine' and 'traitors'?"

"First impression? She pissed him off like a cat, nine times, nine lives maybe, and maybe the ninth time, whammo maybe, although she was his number one squeeze, because she was a traitor, and she didn't live past her ninth life? Who knows?"

"Good question: Who does know?"

"Besides the killer? Well, Billings and Leonard Winstone in documents and literature are having a look-see, so not to worry. Something'll come of it. Those guys are the best."

"We need the best on this, Eriq," she returned. "Any rate, I need you to see to it that previous MOs are checked in the history banks, see if this boy's been bad before, okay?"

"Sure thing, Jess. As we speak, it's being done."

"Then I'll hope to hear from you soon?"

"Very soon."

"Thanks, Eriq, and good night."

"You expect he'll call again?"

She hesitated answering, not wishing to voice her fears. "I've had my phone tapped. Hopefully we'll get a voice-print, if he is that stupid."

"Crime does that to you… makes you stupid. Good thinking on the tap. Then someone'll be listening in with you. You won't be alone with the Devil, as they say, if the creep contacts you again."

"Warren Bishop's seen to it, or so I was told."

"Good man, this Bishop?"

"Tops."

"Oh?"

"Warren's a friend. I knew him when I was going through academy training. He's a great guy. He was one of my training officers."

"Good… good…"

"And good night, Eriq."

"Not so quick, Jess. I mean it. I want you to take all due precautions. Don't get careless with this 'faint shadow of Matisak,' as you call him. There really are no faint murderous maniacs."

"The Phantom's a wimp…"

"What?"

"The press is calling him the Phantom, even though he's only killed one we know of; someone in the fire department put out a statement that he may be linked to other fire deaths around the city and outlying areas. See what if any truth is in that."

''Is he linked to other fire deaths?''

"Nothing even closely resembling this modus operandi in the previous fires alluded to that I can see, certainly no phone calls to me, no. And no fire investigator worth his salt would call these fires connected. This fire investigator guy probably just got carried away with the press attention."

"What's your gut reaction to this guy they're calling the Phantom, Jess? Honestly, now."

She let out a long spray of air in chaotic response. "Guy just may shoot himself in the head or burn himself up before he kills again, for all we know at this point."

"How did he get your number?"

"As I said, he must've somehow found out I'd be staying at the Flamingo, where the convention is being hosted. Likely just assumed as much, called the desk, and confirmed. We got a composite from the desk clerk 'cause the killer signed in using Chris Dunlap's registration. But the damn composite looks like a clown."

''Well, keep us apprised here, and like I said… You need anything, give a call."

"Thanks, Eriq."

They hung up, and she paced the room. It was a bit overstated in its decor, this place, far too much pink and flowers for her taste. She had wanted to attend some of the sessions today at the conference; there were always new methods, procedures, and information to learn at such conferences, and it was part of her duty as a medical examiner to keep abreast of the latest in forensics and science in general. Still, she was torn. There was much to do with regard to the Lorentian girl's death. Her friends, school associates, other relatives ought to be interrogated. Whoever got to her seemed to have known her movements. As it happened, she'd had a previous reservation or two at the Flamingo, quite possibly as a rendezvous place for a lover or lovers. From her pictures, she'd been quite beautiful.

Still, all such information could as well be gathered by the local police, and since they were on the case, Jessica decided to take advantage of the day to make the best of what had become an awful stay.

She dressed comfortably and casually for the day's sessions, went to the ones that piqued her interest and curiosity, and got her mind off the Phantom, his victim, and Frank Lorentian's unveiled threats.