Another full day at the lab had netted her nothing, and now Jessica had returned home where her thoughts wandered back to New York City, to Alan Rychman. Alan had calmed down later that night of their last evening together and had allowed her to speculate on the possibilities, had held her and had comforted and counseled her. In light of there being no evidence, he had likely been humoring her when he said he would continue to investigate, to locate the shadowy Casadessus, and to try to link him with Archer, as they were both medical men. Had it just been Alan's way of soothing her, his way of leading her back into bed?
She covered her eyes now with both hands and recalled every sumptuous moment of their lovemaking; they were good together, good for each other, too.
Alan was gentle with her, his touch so light, at odds with his size and the hardness of his body and muscles. But she knew she could not depend on him-or any man, for that matter. In the end, she knew that her full recovery from the fear and suffering the Matisaks of the world had caused her would come only through her own hard-fought, inner battle with the demons residing deep within.
Unable to sleep, she wondered if she ought not to return to the lab, if it hadn't been a mistake to leave Emmons' body in J.T.'s hands; if she shouldn't be there overseeing his every move. In her absence from Quantico, it seemed that J.T. and O'Rourke had found a little too much common ground for her liking.
She sat up and checked the blinking, light-emitting diode signal coming from her alarm clock. The patterns went on and off at 11:07.51, 11:07.52, 11:07.53. Time was in slow motion, she thought.
Unable to stand things as they were a moment longer, she got up, stumbled in the dark and found a pair of jeans in the closet and pulled a sweatshirt on, forgoing a bra. She found her shoulder holster, thinking that since the range was open all night, she might go there instead of the lab. Over the gun she placed a light jacket with the insignia of the Washington Redskins on it. Uncertain of her destination at the moment, she nonetheless rang for a cab. She then grabbed up her cane and her keys and was out the door.
On the street outside the lobby doors to her condo complex, she beat out a rhythm on the sidewalk with her cane, a little angry at herself for slipping backward again, allowing sleeplessness its way with her. At least, she told herself, she wasn't on any pills anymore, and she wasn't drinking heavily as in the early days of her battle with the shadows that came in on all sides, turning even her spacious haven upstairs into a claustrophobic vise.
If shadows were without substance, then how did they crawl up from out of her psyche to do a lurid dance along the walls? How could they take shape and stand and stare back at her? Dr. Lemont said she had to stare her fears down. When Alan was near, the phantoms had let her be, afraid to show themselves to another human being-or maybe just afraid of Alan! Now that he was no longer near, they'd slinked back on stealth feet: all her self-doubt, her remorse over Otto's death, her guilt and shame.
She was relieved to see the taxi's lights when it pulled into view. When she got into the cab she knew where she wanted to be, a well-lit place with others around her.
“ Quantico gates, please,” she told the cabbie, who grunted in response.
After a moment, he said, “Whataya do out there?”
“ I'm a doctor,” she told him.
“ Oh, yeah? That must be in-ner-resting work.”
She said no more, thinking of J.T. instead. She wondered why he hadn't telephoned with something. The old J.T. would have.
As the cab pulled from the curb, the cabbie caught a rear-view glimpse of someone who'd stepped from the shadows.
He said in a smoker's rasp, “You was alone, wasn't you?”
“ What?”
“ A single fare?”
“ You see anyone with me?”
“ No, no… Sorry, Doctor.”?
Twenty-Seven
Simon Archer had arrived in Quantico, Virginia, very early that morning.
Casadessus wouldn't leave Archer alone about Jessica Coran; he would not let Archer sleep. Days had gone by in which he had fought the influential force within him that kept saying over and over that he must have her, must see Jessica Coran's insides turned out, must feed on her. Casadessus' appetite for the more youthful and powerful was not surprising. Casadessus believed that by feeding on the physical energies of others, by feeding on organs such as the heart, that Archer simultaneously fed on the psychic energy of his victims, thereby making him stronger. Of all the hundreds involved on the case of the Claw only she had an inkling of what had actually occurred, and it stood to reason that only she, now with Emmons' body under her full control, might someday show others that she was right: that Simon Archer was the Claw.
He had carefully arranged to leave New York without anyone's knowing, booking his flight under the name of Ernest Casadessus, the name belonging to his grandfather, a man who took delight in beating, torturing and biting his own children, if his mother's rendition of her upbringing could be be-lieved.
His work in Quantico, Virginia, must be swift and sure, he knew, and he must be back in New York on Monday, at the office, as if nothing had happened. So far, he had had no trouble either at the airport or at Quantico, where he had successfully taken the tour of the grounds and had learned the whereabouts of Dr. Coran's office and labs. He followed this with phone calls asking about her whereabouts and how he could get in touch with her, careful never to leave a message, but always making it sound urgent.
He had learned that the Emmons autopsy by the FBI was going on tonight, but he had been stymied when he learned that Dr. Coran wasn't among the doctors doing the final autopsy. She could be the only one capable of interpreting errant fibers or other clues of minutia he may have inadvertently left on the body, so he resumed stalking the FBI woman.
Before the rather superficial tour of Quantico ended, he had located a safe place into which he stepped and disappeared. He had waited for hours, very patiently, for the right moment, when a security guard came toward the door where he stood on the opposite side, inside a stairwell.
He grabbed the man quickly and surely, driving the needle into the man's chest like a spoke in a hurricane. The man's body went instantly limp, his eyes alone moving, searching for some reasoning in Archer's eyes, but only Casadessus' bottomless eyes were looking back.
Casadessus wanted very much to take the man's eyes and feed on them, but Archer argued with him, saying that it would undermine the larger goal. He had such a finely tuned plan in mind for Coran that nothing, not even his own appetites, must get in the way. It would be exquisite, poetic even; even the poet, Leon/Ovid, would appreciate it when he read about it in the papers.
Archer quickly stripped the security guard and replaced his own clothes with those of the guard. He acquired the guard's gun, badge and identification. Carefully he scooped up his other clothes and placed everything, including the guard's brown-bag lunch, in a cloth handbag he had earlier folded and stuffed under his shirt. He dragged the dead man's naked carcass to the concrete cave just below the steps, dumped it there and strolled out of the stairwell.
He was careful to keep to this floor of the building, staring out a full-length window at the security vehicles below. He then took his time, learning as much as he could about the security in the building, the alarm systems and where the keys to the vehicles were kept. After he finished with Dr. Coran, he must get quickly to the airport.
And so he haunted the halls with great care and caution. At the central switchboard was another security man. For a moment they stared at one another, the black security guard asking him what section he was from.
“ Subbing, just temporary assignment,” he muttered as he lifted his bag in one hand, the needle in the other, and jabbed the guard with the paralyzing, killing snake serum. He quickly dragged the body through a stairwell door and deposited it in a utility closet. He returned to the panel and looked everywhere for a list of telephone numbers. Finally he found one with Jessica Coran's name on it.