Kim looked up at Jessica, her eyes blinking. Jessica tearfully said hello.
No answer, only an attempt at a crooked smile.
Jessica wanted to break something. “Kim, we've got to talk. You're scaring me with this bullshit. You've gotta help me here. What the hell am I missing? You've got to pull yourself out of this.”
“ Now that you've seen me again,” Kim croaked out each word separately, “please leave, Jessica. I don't feel up to seeing anyone.”
“ Kim, you're too strong for this, to let this happen. This is ridiculous. Fight back… fight back.”
“ Please, Jess… just go.”
Jessica held firmly to Kim's bandaged hand now. “I wanted to come and reassure you, Kim. We are so close to finding and putting an end to Judge DeCampe's abduction. You are going to be all right, Kim. I'm going to make sure you're all right.”
“ I thank you, Jess, for caring so much.” Her eyes fluttered, and she looked as if she might go back into a sleep. Dr. Shoate checked her vital signs.
“ You're wasting time here,” said Alex Sincebaugh now, in Jessica's ear. “Every minute wasted is a minute that Kim can't afford to lose. Now, go, Dr. Coran, and do your job. Plug into those FBI resources at your beck and call.”
Jessica silently cursed and thought how the considerable resources of the FBI had been put to work, but how little had come of it all. She wanted to pound her fist through a wall. “I've become DeCampe, Jessica,” muttered Kim. “Whatever is going on, wherever she is, she's alive, but she's starving to death and she's decaying.”
More than ever now, Jessica hated the news that had come out of Iowa. Had they found DeCampe's body, it would have been at least closure, and then Kim would be out of this horrid danger as well.
Jessica's cellular phone went off, and she rushed from the room, leaving Alex Sincebaugh, Kim, and Dr. Shoate behind. The call was from Richard, who said, “They really do have something useful over here at the Post, Jessica. You really ought to be here.”
Jessica looked up to see Keyes staring at her as an idea formed in her mind. “What about the power of suggestion? If Kim is told we've located DeCampe alive and we have her in protective custody now, will that help her condition?'
“ It's possible,” replied Keyes.
“ Are you saying that the deception is worth a shot?”
“ Yes, it is.”
“ Anything at this point.”
“ It would appear so, Jessica.”
Jessica returned to Kim's bedside and told her, “That call, Kim… we've located her,” Jessica lied. “Iowa authorities have found a grave site on the old man's property and have recovered her body. It's over.”
Kim took in a deep breath of air. “I want to go home then. Sit out on my porch in my rocker… stare at the stars. Thank God… thank God… now maybe I can heal. No one knows how to treat empathic stigmata like occurrences like this, Jess.”
“ I know.”
“ Dr. Shoate has done all he can. Bless him.”
“ I had hoped he could arrest the physical problem while you dealt with the mental issues. I've called in a psychiatrist, too, Kim, a Dr. Shannon Keyes, to help you with the recuperation process. I won't let you be alone with this.”
Kim somehow managed a weak laugh and said, “You mean friends don't let friends drive themselves to decay? We could call that a new high in friendship.”
Shannon Keyes cautiously joined them as Jessica had asked her to do, and Jessica explained the psychosomatic syndrome that her best friend was suffering under. “Fortressing yourself up and being alone,” Keyes said, “is not going to be as helpful as drawing on others like your friend here for help, Dr. Desinor. Let us help.”
“ Do you two think you can help?”
“ Yes, we do,” Keyes firmly replied. “You'll need a lot of support now that this is over.” As Dr. Shoate was changing the bandage, Shannon Keyes now saw the disfigurement to the right cheek. The sight made Keyes swallow hard; she bit her lower lip to keep from gasping.
Kim had similar bruises and discoloration at each wrist, the abdomen area, the right breast, the ankles, and the knees.
“ How did you locate DeCampe? What was her condition? How alive is she?” asked Kim.
“ DeCampe suffered horribly, just as you. She was de-hydrated, starving, and decaying… decaying-”
“ Alive, decaying alive,” said Kim. “As I said all along. Her killer wanted to watch her decay alive. He somehow managed to cause decay in her where he kept her.”
“ Alive… yeah… alive, and she's going to get well, Kim. Early reports confirm this.”
“ Great… great news.”
“ Now you can put your mind to stopping this thing in you.”
She nodded. “My mind just has to put a stop to this. I have always feared this-that my mind would one day become my worst enemy, that it would in the end destroy me.”
Jessica again saw that her friend was weak, terribly weak. “Now maybe you can keep something down?”
“ Some liquids… nothing solid.”
“ Hell,” joked Jessica, “you've got that on IV.” She pointed to the IV glucose drip.
Kim managed a smile at this. “Maybe some chicken soup.”
“ We've got to go now, Kim, but we'll be back, soon.”
Outside, Jessica began to cry, seeing what a skeleton Kim had become in this short time since the parking garage reading. “She looks so emaciated.”
“ But she was boosted by our story. This could be a turning point for her.”
“ Yeah, until she turns on a TV and learns the truth.”
On the ride to the Washington Post offices, Jessica and Shannon were made aware of just how far along Kim Desinor' s “psychic” wounds were, as the smell of decay filled the automobile. It had attached itself to them, to their clothes, and they simultaneously began wiping their noses, when Jessica said, “My God, what if Desinor is right about what's going on with DeCampe? That she is literally being killed via decay?”
“ I can't begin to imagine such a horrid death.”
FOURTEEN
Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.
Twenty minutes down the Beltway, and Jessica turned into the office of the Washington Post. With Keyes, they walked into the Washington Post newsroom, calling out for Tim O'Brien. He shouted back from the rear, now angry with Jessica.
“ Where the hell've you been?”
Jessica told him in no uncertain terms that their delay had been over a life-and-death situation.
“ I'd like to hear about it some time,” he replied.
“ Not from me, you won't.”
They stepped into a private conference room, where Richard Sharpe stood and pulled out a seat for Jessica and then for Shannon.
O'Brien introduced himself and his city editor, a man named AL Cirillo, and he then proceeded to introduce them all to Carolyn Nagby, who might have looked comfortable behind a desk at any library. She was O'Brien's expert handwriting analysis person, a graphologist. Using a magnifying glass, she was scanning the letter still under glass. “No one's been allowed to touch the letter, not since the moment I realized what I had,” O'Brien told them.
On viewing the letter, both the one under glass and its blowup counterpart thrown against a wall by an overhead projector, Jessica learned the author wanted to say a good deal more than how dare they. Keyes wryly said, “Says here, Jessica, that you're a harlot, a jezebel, the daughter of Cain, a coward who wouldn't dare call him a sex pervert to his face.” The letter threatened that Jessica Coran would be his next victim for slandering him, for making him out to be a sexual deviant.
In the letter, the writer revealed a great deal of himself, Nagby told the others. Then the expert in graphology added, “He makes a number of biblical references before getting down to his immediate message: an eye for an eye, and a notation on Romans 7:24-5.”
“ Romans 7:24-5. Somebody get me a Bible, now!” said Jessica.