Выбрать главу

From somewhere far away, Kim heard Paul asking after her well-being in a tone he'd not used since their breakup. She imagined a moment when they were first in love, or at least making love, and he'd been so gentle with her. She enjoyed the feel of his touch again, the sheer strength of it. She felt secure, out of harm's way, if only for this brief, single moment. Relaxing now, her skin tone returning to its normal olive, she opened her eyes on his and found their deep, blue pools filled with a rippling concern.

Jessica sensed the measure of her feelings, the depth of emotion in Kim Desinor, just by carefully watching her, the way she clung to Paul. Jessica could easily empathize with her desire to feel that wonderful sense of being protected, something she herself hadn't felt for a very long time, not since she'd left James in Honolulu.

Jessica thought about her last moments in the airport with Jim, how he'd cleared a room of stewardesses and pilots so they might have a moment of privacy and passion. They had parted vowing to remain in touch, and true to his word, he had called almost daily since she'd left. His phone bill must look like the national debt, she imagined.

Jessica saw that poor Kim was still unable to control her shivering. The fear was tenfold whenever a killer managed to touch the investigator in private places she seldom visited herself, and what was more private than one's own psyche? Jessica had no small measure of experience in that department herself, so she easily slid into sync and empathy with her new acquaintance. Something ugly had leapt into Kim Desinor's psyche, something evil and dominating, and the malignancy had bled her soul and body, not unlike the effect Matisak had had all these years on Jessica herself. Only Dr. Desinor got it all at once, in one fell swoop, like a giant vulture descending over her.

Kim valiantly tried to put into words the images, telling Paul she had to try. “Flashes of metallic light, a long knife dancing over flesh, maniacal thrusts.”

It sounded like Lopaka Kowona, the Trade Winds Killer whom Jessica had helped to corner in Hawaii. Jessica wondered if Kim was not somehow picking up subconscious psychic clues flaring off her, such as the burning, human cross. The image certainly brought to mind how Kowona had died, crucified by his own people. Perhaps Jessica's presence in the room had caused Stephens's little test to go woefully awry, the clutched rosary beads notwithstanding.

Jessica glanced over at the now-clear olive skin along each of Kim's arms, amazed still at the psychic discoloration she'd earlier witnessed now washed into oblivion. If it were some sort of disappearing ink, Jessica's laboratory tests could easily detect as much. She had to know that. And if it were honestly some sort of crime-scene negative played out over her tissues, what then? What did that say for scientific detection? And if it were for real, God, the woman must be nearly as fearful of her own psyche as that of the madman she'd briefly encountered, if she had actually done so. Still, as far as it having all been a staged hoax, in her soul Jessica knew better. She was an expert at detecting lies and the behavior of liars; she could detect fraud in all its various guises, and there was no duplicity in this room save what she sensed in Paul Zanek and P.C. Stephens, the two men both dancing around a bit, for reasons unknown. But in Kim Desinor, Jessica saw no guile, sensed no hidden agenda.

Stephens now rushed back in with a paper cup overflowing with water, quite unaccustomed to the task, slopping it onto Paul's beige carpeting. The spell between Paul and Kim was at once vanquished.

“ You got one hell of a jolt from that rosary,” Stephens said, handing the water to Paul, who immediately helped Kim to drink. “But it was placed in as a control item, not a…”

Zanek, gritting his teeth, waved the other man off.

After drinking her fill, taking in a deep breath of air and allowing Zanek to help her to the couch, Kim said to Stephens,

“ The rosary is hot. I'll want to keep it in my custody for…future…explorations.”

“ Hot?” he asked.

“ Psychic term,” said Jessica, giving herself away a bit, coming closer, taking Kim's hand and asking if she were all right.

“ What's it mean, hot?” asked Stephens.

“ Psychically hot… still warm with psychic emanations,” Kim explained. “I think I saw someone named Vic or Victor under attack. In fact, I was attacking him.”

“ If what you're saying is true, then Victor Surette, who was killed over a year ago, was the first victim in the Heart-Snatcher's series of killings,” replied Stephens, who'd had time to think about it. “Strangely enough, one of our detectives mentioned the same possibility; at least, it was kicked over, according to my people. But Surette never surfaced as a serious contender… never seriously, you know, linked with the others… before now, that is. This… this is… could change a lot of minds, the entire direction of the investigation, in fact, if…”

“ Killer didn't leave the rosary intentionally,” Kim said. “Wore it around the neck. Surette, as you call him, snatched it off in a scuffle. The killer didn't know it was lost until it was too late to retrieve it.”

“ Jesus, you got all that from those beads?” Stephens asked, his eyes popping.

“ I used to be Catholic,” she joked.

“ What about the killer?” Stephens asked. “Anything?”

“ Nothing clear… disjointed feelings… I wasn't actually in a position to see him.”

“ What do you mean, not in a position? Are there positions in this invisible world you go into?” asked a curious Jessica.

“ I was the killer for a moment, and there weren't any mirrors.”

“ You were seeing things through the killer's eyes?” Jessica pressed, flashing on Matisak, wondering at this moment what his eyes were surveying.

“ Precisely.” Kim drank deeply of the water now.

“ Can you tell us anything-anything at all about being him?” Jessica asked.

“ He's embittered, jealous, vengeful and full of rage all the time. Whoever he is, he's self-conscious…”

“ About what?” Jessica pressed.

“ His looks, his skin… some mark on his skin. And so he wears heavy makeup. It's the only time he goes to a mirror. Self-conscious about his weight and height and general ap-pearance, and he's got a mind full of bubbling hatred and emotional turmoil.”

“ Anything else?” asked Zanek.

“ No…nothing else, except for one thing.”

“ Yes?”

“ He intends to kill again.”

“ Why, and for how long?”

“ He doesn't know himself.”

“ Does he have any remorse?”

“ None of consequence, no; the pleasure overtakes him.”

“ The pleasure?” asked Stephens.

“ He derives great emotional release in controlling others.”

“ Controlling others?”

“ The ultimate power trip, complete control,” said Paul Zanek knowingly.

Jessica added, “This creep's like that bastard Matisak. A freaked-out maniac who gets high on controlling life and death. He gets his rocks off when he gets to play God, when he gets to decide.”

“ Gets to decide,” muttered Stephens, trying to follow Jessica's train of thought.

“ On whether or not you get to live or to die, Mr. Stephens.”

“ And the taking of the heart?” asked Stephens.

“ The ultimate warrior's prize, like eating the heart of the buffalo maybe,” Jessica suggested.

“ Could be any number of whys for the heart thefts,” Kim interjected. “Maybe he's a hopeless romantic, and maybe he enshrines the hearts like so many trophies, signs of his conquests.”

“ Agreed,” replied Jessica, “but it's much more likely the bastard's eating his trophies, that he's a cannibal like the Claw in New York a couple of years ago.”

“ You've dealt with more of these monsters than I have, Dr. Coran, so I bow to your judgment,” Kim said. “But isn't it also true that each one, while similar in many regards and while despicable and capable of inhuman and unholy acts, is uniquely twisted? That is, perverted in a fashion that is almost surely private and born of a unique fantasy world whose rules only the individual knows?”