"He must not be here yet, else he would have contacted me here through the field office."
"I don't know why he hasn't, Jess, but he's a good man. Who knows, a take-charge guy like him? Maybe he wants to handle it himself. I saw him dress down Karl Repasi for you while he was here, gave him an earful. Thought you'd like to know."
"Thanks. I've got to get over to the Hilton. See what's happening or what has happened in my absence there."
"Go lightly, Jess. Promise me you'll be careful."
"My middle name is careful. Talk to you later, J. T. I'm at this number." She gave him the number and name of the hotel she was staying at. "Now I've got to get a cab and get to the Hilton. Good-bye, J. T."
"Jess!"
"What?"
"I should be there with you."
"J. T., you've pinpointed the exact location of the killer. Something no one else has been able to do. You did great."
"Jess, be careful out there!" But she hung up on J. T.'s cautionary words.
Jessica quickly dressed, snatching on her undergarments, a pair of slacks, a pullover shirt and sneakers, and she tied her hair back with a ribbon. She grabbed up the receiver again and asked the desk to get her a cab. She found her purse, valise, and keys when the phone rang, likely the desk to let her know that a cab waited for her.
But when she lifted the receiver, she heard the faint, choking, gagging sound, followed by more evidence of someone in distress. Then he came on the line, saying, "I've found you, Dr. Coran. And I've found number five."
Jesus, her mind raced, how could he know she was here? How had he gotten her number? As if to answer her thoughts, he said, "You aren't hard to figure, Doctor. I knew you'd follow, and all I had to do was page you at the desk. They wouldn't give me your room number, but they put me through to you."
He must have randomly selected hotels around the city and taken his chances, she surmised. He wasn't supernatural. "Your time is running out, Charon or Nessus or whatever you choose to call yourself today," she informed him, summoning her strongest voice.
"Really? I thought it the other way around. Listen to this!"
"Wait! I've been reading Dante's Inferno."
This silenced the killer for a moment. "So, now you know where you're headed? I know where you belong, Doctor Coran."
"Everyone knows where you are now, Nessus," she threatened. Bishop and the others did know his approximate whereabouts. They knew he was somewhere in the Hilton. They were converging on his room, however, and not the room belonging to the unfortunate number five. Even so, she wondered where precisely Bishop and the others were now in relation to the killer. At any rate, she must keep the monster on the line for as long as possible. "I know where you're at right now," she coldly informed him.
"Impossible," he replied.
"You're here, in Salt Lake."
"Of course, but that comes as no surprise to either of us, does it?" He began a snorting laugh.
"You're in the Hilton here in Salt Lake, and everyone knows it."
This fact coming from her silenced his laughter.
"The FBI have you surrounded," she informed him as casually as the most jaded telephone operator.
"Lies become you, bitch! Listen to this, your answer."
"Wait!"
But he didn't wait any longer. He put his fifth victim to the torch, the superheated whoosh of the flames now as familiar as a backyard barbecue to her, while the screams of the unseen, unknown victim set a sickening snake loose to wiggle down her spine. She dropped the receiver on his maniac's laughter and left it dangling off the hook. She grabbed up her black valise and tore from the room to find a cab to race to the scene of the murder and the Phantom killer.
Jessica fumbled with the cellular phone she kept in her valise, calling 911, announcing her identity and the fact that there was a fire at the Hilton; the operator wanted more detailed information, information she didn't have. "Just get the fire trucks there, now!"
She hung up and dialed Neil Gallagher, the field agent in charge in Salt Lake City. After a series of voices and blips, she was patched through to Gallagher in the field.
"Why didn't you contact me before you zeroed in on the Hilton?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked, confused.
"Haven't you heard from Bishop?"
"Warren Bishop? Vegas? No, we haven't."
"My God. Get over to the Hilton. There's been another fire killing there. I've got fire trucks on the way."
"I've got two men posted at the Hilton, and I'm within spitting distance. I'm there!"
"On my way, too." Jessica hung up and rushed for her destination, hailing a cab and calling out as she boarded, "The Hilton, downtown Salt Lake City location."
On the short ride through the downtown district, the cab weaving to avoid jackhammers and construction blockades, Jessica wondered again why Bishop hadn't contacted her or Gallagher, according to the other man. But why wouldn't Warren be in touch with the local FBI offices, even from the air? Why would he work around Gallagher? How many or how few people in the city knew of the killer's whereabouts while she had sat in the dark? she wondered. Warren had no doubt organized an attack force of some sort to converge on the hotel as soon as he'd arrived in the city. Had he bypassed Gallagher, knowing it was the only way to keep her in the dark about his movements? Did he really think he was sparing Jessica an ordeal? "Bastard," she muttered.
The questions continued, piling upon one another in avalanche fashion. When would Warren's strike force strike? Why hadn't they done so earlier? What had held them back if they knew the man's room number by this time? By this time they must, she reasoned. But then why had they waited until yet another victim was sacrificed to this madman's unholy altar?
FBI operatives from the Salt Lake City field office, which shared jurisdiction with the Flagstaff, Arizona, field office, had encircled the downtown area, awaiting more specific information about the operation, but it was information that did not come.
Instead, three men entered the Hilton, and one among them, Chief Warren Bishop, rushed to the desk to learn what room was booked to a Chris Dunlap, a passenger on one of the bus tours. He flashed his badge and ordered up the information.
"Package like that, we just rent a block of rooms to the tour group company; they make the selections who goes into which room."
"Who do I talk to, then?"
"We can get Guy, Doris, and Maureen down here," said a second clerk. "They're the tour guides currently in town. They'll each have a list."
"Then get 'em down here."
Only Maureen and Doris could be found, Guy having already gone out for the nightlife. Maureen's list revealed no Chris Dunlap. Doris's list, however, did. "What do you know about this guy Dunlap?" Bishop asked the guide.
"Next to nothing. He's a cold fish, a real loner. Keeps to himself, rides the back of the bus. Wouldn't join in at all the first days of the trip, but he's thawed some lately. Getting on and off the bus, he'll help someone, you know with a hand. Everybody on the bus has tried to be civil to him, but no one's gotten to know much about him. Word is he's retired, on disability, sued someone and made a bundle, so now he just takes trips all over, spending his money. Least that's what the ladies on the bus think…"
"Have you seen him tonight?"
"At dinner in the hotel restaurant."
"Is he still there?"
"No, that was over an hour or so ago."
"What's his room number?"
''Five-twenty-two.''
"I saw him leave with a woman from Guy's group," added the one named Maureen. "We sometimes talk about our passengers, especially the weird ones."
"Do you know what room she's in? The woman who left with Dunlap?" Bishop asked her.
"Couldn't tell you. Only Guy would know that. And Guy's not going to be found until daybreak. I don't know how that man does it, but he can even find a poker game in Salt Lake, and he plays to all hours, then-''