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.
SEVEN
Sin is a sort of bog; the farther you go in, the more swampy it gets.
Jessica was awakened in the middle of the night by an insistent phone at her bedside, where a digital clock read 3:10 A.M. She hadn't answered a telephone ring since hearing from-she wondered if she dared think it him now- the Phantom Killer. Not knowing how many rings had already come, she still hesitated answering the annoying machine, like some clawing Rumpelstiltskin at her bedside. Her hand, as if independent of her mind, halted in the air over the receiver. A fearful dread continued to blot out her resolve.
Possibly… probably Jim… calling from Hawaii. It's late there, too-1:10 a.m.-and he's thinking of her, and he wants to hear her voice. Or perhaps it's Eriq Santiva, or someone else at Quantico with an urgent message, something about the case that simply couldn't wait till daybreak. Perhaps it was Kim Desinor with some psychic words of advice…
She lifted the receiver. Placed it tentatively against her ear. Muttered a soft, "Hello?"
"Dockkkk." The word was chillingly choked off. "Kkk-Coran?"
The voice sounded like Chris Lorentian's; it sounded like a voice from the grave. Jessica immediately wondered if she weren't simply in the midst of a nightmare, one of those horrible replays of a true event the brain safely tucked away but the soul took out to examine more closely, always about this predawn hour. Yes, her weary mind playing tricks on her, but her blood temperature plunged at the chilling tones coming over the spectral wires, while her hands-trembling with the dreamed-up receiver-turned strangely clammy, her mouth as dry as potato dust.
Finally, she heard herself ask, ' 'Who is this?''
A high-pitched voice replied, "Mel… Marrrr-tin."
"I don't know you. Who are you?" The voice sounded far away yet strident, pulled tighter than a guitar string, shaky and twangy. A quaking, older-than-Chris Lorentian female voice, she felt certain now. If it was the nightmare of the other night happening all over again, there seemed to be certain minute changes. Still drowsy, part of Jessica remained just as certain that she'd wake from this all-too-familiar nightmare any moment now to find a silent room, the receiver on its cradle, her nerves intact, her bodily control and functions returned to her. Another part of her mind screamed that this was no ephemeral event.
"He made me… made me call." The disembodied voice filled Jessica's ears; the shaky, cracking voice resounded with terror. Obviously in pain, obviously in tears, the caller conjured up the image of the helpless form Jessica had seen in room 1713 of the hotel, the scorched remains of Chris Lorentian.
"Who is he? Who is the bastard? Give me something, anything, any clue," Jessica pleaded.
"Any Chhh… Christ…"
Any Christ? she asked herself. Was the caller swearing? "A name!"
"Beelzebub!"
"Satan?"
"Doe… douwhn…"
"Dough?"
"Doooon't let him hurt me! Says… says he's doing it for… for you."
"Doing what for me? Who is he? A name! And what does he want from me? Ask him! Ask him! Keep him talking," Jessica pleaded.
Another voice, all male and vicious and throaty, growled into the receiver, "I… I kill for… thee, Kkkkoran…"
"Who are you? What are you?"
"I am Charon!"
"Listen to me, Sharon."
"Char… Char-ron," he corrected. "And there's no time for Hellsmouth like the present. It's over for number three."
She only understood his threat. "No… no," Jessica muttered and then screamed, '' No! '' even as she heard the slosh, slosh, slosh of a wet substance, and she heard the baritone voice of a male shadow, the Phantom, saying something in the background that sounded like a muffled, "Burn… die, bastard thing, burn in the mouth of Satan for all eternity, burn in the well!"
"Mel!" Jessica shouted just as the whoosh of superheated air traveled through the lines, stinging her ear. She could smell the fire and feel its singing, singeing song amid Mel Martin's single, long, contorted wail of pain until there was nothing left but the beating of the fire's wings moments before the phone line went dead.
This is it… I wake up screaming now, right? Jessica thought, all in the same instant that the phone line went dead. I wake up now. But she realized it was no dream, that she was awake, and that the weight and firmness of the receiver in her hand were corporeal, not spectral.
She choked and coughed as if the fire had somehow singed her own lungs, and gasping for water, she slammed down the receiver and grabbed the glass of water she routinely kept at her bedside, knocking it over, spilling the contents over the carpet.
"Damn, damn, damn this mudderfreakingsonofabitchin' bastard of Satan!"
Tears had come of their own volition. Jessica had seldom felt so maligned, so abused, and so helpless. She wanted desperately to reach out and touch this someone, this SOB. Then she recalled the security measures Warren's local bureau had placed on her phone. She prayed they had the fire freak on tape, and that they could place him precisely where he had called from this time without delay. She prayed the fiend had remained close by and that FBI operatives were busting in on the monster at this very moment.
She'd gotten the killer to speak to her; small comfort, but it was something. Warren's vigilant men must have gotten the killer's voice on tape, which meant a voice-print-surefire evidence against him once they apprehended the creep. Too late for poor, defenseless Mel. She was obviously gone now, the way of Chris Lorentian.
"God," she wondered aloud, "could he be in the hotel again?" Could he have remained that cool, to stay that close to her and the scene of his crime, she wondered, knowing that criminals, more often than not, enjoyed revisiting the scene of the crime in an effort to relive the moment of their having been in complete control of the murder victim's life, to feel again that sense of power over another life.
She instantly and instinctively reached for her Browning automatic, a gun that had saved her life on more than one occasion. A million questions positioned themselves all in a row for her consideration, but all of the little soldiers were tripping over one another as in a Laurel and Hardy movie, causing a havoc of confusion and wonder. But uppermost and clear in her mind was one question: What was his reasoning? Did he believe that he would eventually do her in the fashion of his other victims? Did this bastard believe himself born of fire, that he would die by fire, and did he want her in that fire with him? Why had he singled her out for his sick game of flesh-burning murder? Why was he so bent on torturing her through vividly displaying the torment he inflicted on his victims? And again she wondered, how close was he to her at this moment?
She wanted to yank the receiver up again, call the desk to determine the origin of the call, but she couldn't. She was expecting another phone call any moment from Harry Furth, the genius who put the tap on her phone, but she hadn't seen him actually get the job done, and she hadn't gotten back to Warren's Las Vegas FBI branch to find out for certain. She cursed the possibility that once again she might be the only one privy to the killer's chilling audio setup. She hadn't been 100 percent happy with the idea of people listening in on her phone calls, but for the sake of narrowing down the facts about their Phantom Killer, she had little choice in the matter.
The phone rang.
Could it be the monster returned? She hesitated until it rang three times.