“ Electricity?”
“ Yeah, I think so… but as you know, it could be symbolic.”
“ Or it could be literal? If he used some sort of electric tensor gun on her, that would explain her being so taken by surprise. He calls out to her, and she stops before unlocking her car, turns, sees she knows him, relaxes her grip on the gun she has already revealed when zap-she's surprised a second time by a shock of some sort.”
“ That's a pretty good line of suppositions,” replied Kim.
“ They'll have to serve us for now. So, what about when you were under? Before the shock? Were you getting anything else unusual?” Jessica persisted. “Did you see anything that might help guide us? Anything at all?”
“ Nothing else, save that strange odor… like the odor of death and decay mixed with earthy odors left by vermin, mildewy stuff, like the smell of a bad mushroom, which when I get… well, it usually ends in finding the victim dead, Jess,” Kim reiterated. “My God,” Jessica moaned, her eyes closed as she pictured die grieving family.
“ I'm sorry… but I don't hold much hope for DeCampe.”
“ Are you saying that you have absolutely no hope? That you believe she is dead already?”
“ No, no! Never any absolutes in this… I don't get that sensation, but I do get the sensation that this will end in her death, and that she will die a most unpleasant death.”
Jessica frowned and held Kim's hands in hers. “Thanks, Kim. And if you have any of those flashback moments coming to you, I'm sure you'll keep me apprised.”
“ Absolutely.”
“ In the meantime, rest up. We may need you again and again on this one. Obviously, the clock is ticking fast here.” Jessica started to leave the rear of the van where Kim now sat upright, gathering back her scattered energies. But something stopped Jessica in her tracks.
Kim realized that Jessica stood staring at her with an intensity she hadn't felt before. “What is it?”
Jessica stepped back toward Kim. She stared at a strange speck of discoloration on her friend and colleague's cheek. It looked like a beauty spot on her right cheek, but Kim had never had a beauty spot there before. “Just noticed for the first time this pinpoint of a freckle you have,” she explained.
“ I haven't a single freckle on my entire face,” replied Kim. “What're you talking about?”
Jessica then reached out to touch it and wipe away the mark. “It's likely something you picked up when you fell.” Jessica smiled even as she realized the mark didn't wipe away.
Kim smiled in return, thinking the gesture a kindness toward her, a show of sincere concern. The words about a blemish just an excuse for Jessica Coran to show a bit of genuine affection. They said their good-byes, and Jessica marched back toward the garage, stopping short of the structure.
Jessica then snatched out her cellular phone and called Lew Clemmens back at Quantico. For some time now, Lew had been Jessica's favorite contact in the computer support division of the FBI. No magician on the planet could do what Lew did. He was literally the best computer geek a girl could have-a consummate information gobbler. She'd barked out what she needed to Lew without so much as a how're you doing or how's the wife, but Clemmens, like everyone in law enforcement, knew what was going on. In fact, Santiva had already reached him with the credit card numbers he was to track.
“ I've already got it going, Jess. I put out an all points on anyone using the judge's credit cards. The family readily gave up both Visas and the MasterCard.”
Jessica gave a fleeting thought to the family-how their privacy became public the moment a crime was committed against them. The family had to give up all pretense to privacy for a safe and hopefully speedy return of a loved one gone missing. Lew continued his nonstop tirade about the judge. “Didn't waste a moment. Someone's got her cards, and we need to catch this guy before… well… ASAP, before it's too damned-”
“ Shut up for a minute, will you, Lew?” She pictured Lew at his computer, his stomach spilling over his keyboard, a broad smile generally streaking across his face.
“ What? Oh, sure.”
“ We need to look closely at the cases she was working on at the time of her disappearance. I seem to recall some racketeering case, involving the D.C. Mafia. Then there's that nasty business with the Wainwright case, where the guy may or may not have murdered his sister's husband, after the husband was found innocent of murdering the sister. We need to work back from her most recent cases-things she's involved in now, yesterday's verdicts, last week's, last month's, since she's been in D.C. You got that?”
“ Just since she's been in D.C. Got it. Nothing before that?”
“ No… she was abducted here. Not likely some pissed- off Texan is going to cross the continent to settle a score.”
“ Unless he happens to be in town, or unless it's a guy with a Texas-sized vendetta,” countered Lew.
“ Points taken, but-”
“ But we can't waste time down a blind alley, so let's begin with her D.C. cases,” Lew finished for her.
“ Agreed, and thanks again, Lew.”
“ Gotcha… will do.”
Jessica hung up, and the click resounded in her ear like the closing of a tomb. Something about what Lew had said, about the judge's cases before she had moved to Washington, D.C… about someone stalking her clear from Texas… something about the finality of not finding the right information in time. It all made Jessica ill, to think what might be happening to Judge DeCampe at this moment.
Jessica had returned to the crypt like area of the parking garage where court authorities this morning had begun to show up in search of their usual parking spaces. Disgruntled judges and clerks of court and attorneys gave varying degrees of cold stares, some demanding to know the reason why. All of them had been rerouted to another area set aside for them until the FBI-and Jessica in particular-chose to release the crime scene.
Every time a crime scene like this, out in the open, subject to the elements and the traipsing of man and dog was released, it seemed to Jessica an inevitable loss to forensic investigators. No matter how long a crime scene like this was held cordoned off, there was always a need to have kept it whole and intact longer than authorities generally allowed. End result, something was missed. But pressure to resume things as normal always won out, and so losing the crime scene to time demands normally meant tying investigative hands.
However, as it stood and in all outward appearance, she expected that very little else of any use might come of this place. Still, she combed the area for fibers, hairs, anything that might, under a microscope, lead to a clue or even a DNA match with the abductor once they located him.
Even as her hands worked to gather the minuscule evidence that might or might not have been left by the attacker, Jessica's mind flashed over a deep-seated fear that she had been pushing off since Richard's arrival in the states. Dare not drag it into the light was a phrase that kept repeating in her head over this. She only dared to now look at it in a waking dream, a kind of half-life existence that took her back to London, England, where she had met Richard Sharpe. So much time had gone by while she had awaited Richard's arrival at Dulles International for their reunion, and finally the day had come, and finally they were together- truly together. Only apart since then for the time it took to shower and dress and do all the routine things of life. She sensed a horrid dread come over her whenever she thought of separating from him for any length of time, as if to do so meant to lose him. Even now, here, with him nearby, as she did her work, she felt an irrational fear of losing him somehow to her other world, her work. And so she found herself pacing about the corridors of her subconscious, second-guessing every word, every action she'd taken with Richard. How long would he stand for this, for her work being more important than him? What man did she know on the planet who willingly stood second place to a woman's work? A woman's other passion? Pacing the corridor of memory… pacing the corridor of old regret, past the foyer and into recent remorse. Pacing even in her soul, her heart turning slowly into a garrison, like a sad and empty room made of mortar and stone. Lonely echoes against walls filled with chinks born there out of past pains. God, the fear of losing Richard now that she had found him might paralyze her.