“ Here's an agreement signed by Brown,” said Richard, waving it overhead, pleased with himself. “I think we can match the handwriting; it looks like the letter sent to the Post”
Jessica studied the agreement. 'Too bad he didn't bother to include a photo ID. The guy ponyied up cash, though. No plastic. Isn't that unusual these days?” asked Jessica.
“ Yes, but we don't look down on the old-fashioned way. Money is money.”
“ What about Shaw?” asked Sharpe, who now sipped at his coffee.
“ Shaw?”
“ The other lone renter. Did Nancy have any misgivings about him?”
“ No more than the usual.”
“ Let's keep digging for the Shaw property as well. Just in case,” said Jessica, and together, she and Richard went back to work on it.
In a moment, they came across papers on Shaw's rental. The property here, too, was in a remote area.
Jessica asked Carmella, “Show me on the map where these two properties are located.”
After a moment's study of the respective rental papers and a bit of glaring at the county map, she stuck a tack into two exact spots. “The one Brown bought into beside the chemical factory is just here, east of Killamey Farms Road and right at the apex of Cresswell and Cornflower. Two dirt roads maintained by Ravenshire County. Here alongside is the dump site and commercial plants I told you about. Shaw, on the other hand, is here. Off County Line Road just outside Sweetwater, Maryland.”
“ Brown is closer to Nokesville, Virginia,” Richard pointed out. “We'll need this map and the contracts. We'll want to compare the signatures to handwriting we have from a man who abducted a D.C. judge two days ago. We think Nancy's disappearance may have some connection to the abduction of this earlier victim.”
“ Oh, my God…” The woman turned a shade of pale that threatened them with a fainting. Jessica helped her to an office chair. “You all right?” she asked the woman.
“ Until now, it just didn't really register with me that Nancy might… that she could really be missing, you know, or hurt, maybe dying somewhere.”
Jessica and Richard made their way back to FBI head-quarters, and Jessica sat silent for most of the ride. Richard finally broke the silence, saying, “We go rushing in there and-”
“ Alarms, bells, and whistles are sure to tip him off long enough that he could kill her outright-if she's alive. Even if we're as quiet as we can be, he might have the land around booby-trapped. We have to go in cautiously but fast, extremely fast.”
“ Yes, I agree… if he's alerted to our coming, he's likely to kill her.”
“ It's a moonless night. That'll cover us,” Jessica said. “We go in black commando gear. We take control of the compound and the factory beside the farm. We have to take charge before Purdy knows what's happening.”
“ We've got probable cause, and we'll have a search warrant this time. We'll use the factory next door as a staging area. Arrange it with the owners.” Richard drove on, but he looked across at Jessica, seeing the concern creasing her features. “You're as worried about Kim as you are DeCampe, I know.”
“ You read minds, too?”
“ I figure it had to do with your making a call back there.”
Jessica had taken a moment to wonder how Kim Desinor was doing about now. An earlier phone call to her doctors revealed that she was sitting up, taking liquids by mouth, and that while her lesions hadn't gotten any worse, neither had they begun to heal. Jessica imagined that some part of her brain did not fully accept the placebo lie, that she must first see hard evidence. Dr. Shoate continued his treatment of ice and antibiotic gels, still treating it as a strange outbreak of an Ebola-like disease, for which he could only make the patient as comfortable as possible.
Jessica then contacted the famous psychic Edward Lighttoller, who lived in the D.C. area. Peter Hurkos had been Lighttoller's mentor. Lighttoller was said to have remarkable gifts as a psychic, and Jessica knew that Kim had great admiration and respect for the man. Jessica started out by flattering the man and telling him about Kim Desinor's curious case, and in doing so, she made him curious about the DeCampe case as well.
“ How can I help you, Dr. Coran?” he finally asked.
“ If you would just see Dr. Desinor. I have no expectations, but if you could just see her, see what condition she is in, speak with her, offer her what you can.”
“ I'm not sure what I can offer her.” She asked, “Is there any way to reach out to Kim to convince her that she can and should disengage from the thing that holds her enthralled, the thing that is slowly killing her?”
“ And this thing… is it not also slowly killing DeCampe?” he asked.
Jessica felt a sense of the man's power even over the phone. “Yes… yes, we are working under that assumption, sir.”
“ How do you do this for a living, Dr. Coran?”
“ Do this?”
“ Dance with the lunatic and the satanic?”
“ I do it. I just do it. I don't slow down to ask why or how; if I did, I'd likely go mad myself.”
“ Careful that you don't find yourself, in the end, dancing with the devil.”
“ Will you help Dr. Desinor?”
“ I will go see her, speak to her, offer what I can, yes. I have always held her in the greatest esteem.”
“ Thank you.”
“ No, Dr. Coran, thank you.”
SEVENTEEN
… he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission.
Maureen DeCampe whimpered and pulled away from the old man's touch. She'd been returned to the awful prison of being bound to the dead man. The old man now roughly slapped her in the back of the head and shouted for her to be still as he worked.
“ Jimmy tells me he's real proud how you still got spirit, Maureen… but he also wants now to hear you a-moaning and a-pleading, so he wants me to leave the gag outta your mouth.”
He then returned to his three-legged stool, watching the slow progression of her death, the unmistakable look of fatigue and glee intermingling on his otherwise dour countenance. “No one can save you, Miss Maureen. No one in the whole world even exists for you now, nor nobody in all of Hell itself 'cept you and me-and Jimmy Lee, of course.” He then lifted the RE/MAX woman's cell phone over his head and said, “It's deader'n a doornail, this thing. I know that bitch lying yonder didn't reach nobody else.” He then hurled the cell phone into a black comer, the result a metallic rattle.
He began humming and then singing a hymn, “I looked over Jordan…” to the sound of crickets and scurrying mice… “and what'd I see? But a band-a-angels, coming for me…”
He somehow looked comfortable enough on the three- legged stool to easily remain there for eternity, and after a few bars of “Jordan,” he closed his eyes and appeared the picture of peace. He muttered under his breath, “I do right by you, Jimmy Lee. I do right by you.”
Maureen DeCampe wondered if she could withstand a moment longer of this horror, this torture. She felt her mind slipping from reality. She'd experienced one, two, three blackouts, possibly more. The blackouts began with thoughts of loved ones, of seeing them again, of one day being reunited both with those who'd gone before her and those remaining behind. It was all she thought about now. She did not think about Isaiah Purdy perched like a gargoyle nearby; she did not think of Jimmy Lee's decaying body below her. She did not think about why the old man placed her on top so that the torture might last longer. She did not question why he had held her here in a dark, cooler area rather than in a sun-baked field or on some sun-baked rooftop, so as to hasten the decay. She no longer wished to ask such questions, questions that all seemed answered in one fell swoop: “It's Jimmy Lee's wish…” And she no longer cared to know the answers to such inquiries. It was useless, a waste of precious time. She chose rather to visit with her grandmother, her mother, her father, her grandfather, and other loved ones who'd passed over so many years before.