Jessica had begun to believe she’d blundered badly, that Eriq and his superiors had been right in wanting to withhold information on the killer until some future date. But upon her voicing this concern to Eriq, he shook his head and told her that what had upset local politicos most was that they had made certain promises to America’s Most Wanted: that the poster would be shown there first and that other vital clues in the case would be revealed only on the show. He ended with an apology that he hadn’t confided all this nonsense to her earlier, but said that he’d been unable to.
Still, Jessica wondered if Patric Allain had not fled as a direct result of her actions. She believed now that Allain, or whoever he was, had simply decided to vanish, and that to do so he had been forced to control his killing urge. To control such primitive, overwhelming compulsions, she felt, he had to demonstrate a willpower few men, good or bad, possessed, and she wasn’t buying it; and neither would the monster for long, she figured. She recalled with chilling detail the case of the Claw in New York, who could not control his need to cannibalize. It was a need which had compelled the monster to follow her for several hundred miles in an attempt to make a meal of her.
Knowing what she did of the criminal mind, including its need for a familiar landscape upon which to operate, Jessica had contacted Moyler in England to warn him that the killer could be returning there. On the other hand, she noted this particular killer seemed at home on the oceans and seas of the world. He might be anywhere on the globe.
In the meantime, Moyler had found additional information on the female named Madeleine Tauman whose alias had been Patricia Allain. She had grown up amidst what Moyler termed “difficult situations in a difficult area of London,” and she’d become a prostitute at a young age. Soon she had gone from prostitution to the small-time stage, using the same alias, Allain, as her stage name. Late in life, she had married a well-to-do landowner named William Anthony Kirlian who owned an estate in Grimsby on what the ancients called the Nordsee-the North Sea-far to the north of London. Not surprisingly, the old baron died a year after the marriage, but a coroner’s inquest turned up nothing beyond a massive heart attack. The kicker came when Lady Kirlian, the former Patricia Allain, herself died soon after in what was ruled a fatal accident involving a cliff near the estate. Lady Kirlian’s tumble from a precipice near the estate, Moyler told Jessica, was witnessed only by her devoted son, Warren Tauman.
Moyler had located some people who had worked for Kirlian and Lady Kirlian before their deaths, and as to the young man, Warren, they had little to say except that he was sullen, brooding and always staring out over the horizon to the North Sea, commiserating with nature on the very precipice where his mother had slipped and fallen to her death on the jagged rocks below.
Moyler now believed that Patric Allain might possibly be an alias for Warren Tauman, who’d disappeared after dissolving the estate and keeping what monies he could, along with a sailboat valued in the hundreds of thousands, which he diligently learned to work.
It seemed that while the trail in England had finally heated up, the trail in America had dried up, and when another week slipped by and still nothing remarkable occurred, FBI operations in Florida seemed at an end.
Santiva was talking about packing up and returning to Quantico, where more pressing matters awaited. In the meantime, Jessica had kept in touch with Judy Templar, whose therapy had done wonders for her, according to Donna LeMonte.
Meanwhile, Quincey and Samernow had finally persuaded Monroe and Lovette family members to give up the location of the other supposed eyewitness by making certain they saw the America’s Most Wanted segment which requested information on Aeriel Marilee Lovette Monroe, who was wanted for questioning in relation to the killings. Something in the notoriety of being mentioned on national TV, or of being close to someone named on national TV, got a lot of people to talk to authorities.
Samernow and Quince had first found Marilee’s trail when they were pointed toward relatives in Georgia, where the girl had gone to recuperate, heal and forget after her alleged attack by the Night Crawler. But in the interim, she had returned to Florida, moving in with other relatives in Lower Matecumbe Key, where friends and relatives had urged her to get in contact with authorities, which she had done through the 800 number flashed across America. She was now reportedly working as a maid in a motel called Nomad’s Pillow in Lower Matecumbe Key.
Eriq had only come by to inform Jessica that he was returning to FBI Headquarters in Quantico and shutting down the operation here in Florida, and that he expected her to follow in a day or so. They once again were in Coudriet’s lab when she informed him that they had nailed the whereabouts of Marilee, the other witness. “But Jess, what can we possibly learn from this woman that we don’t already know?” asked Eriq, frustrated as they all were by the dead ends.
Still Jessica argued, “I think we need to follow up on this one, Eriq.”
But Santiva was not listening. “Besides, I’ve already told Coudriet and the MPD thanks for the use of the space, and that we’re moving out.”
“ I think we owe it to Allison Norris, Tammy Sheppard, Kathy Harmon and all the others to at least-”
‘ ‘ Jess-Jess-Jess!’’
“- meet with the Monroe girl, learn what we can from her,” Jessica said over Eriq’s objections while Santiva paced the very laboratory he had moments before suggested they begin to vacate, so as to turn back over to the Miami authorities and Coudriet that which was theirs, with the heartfelt thanks of the FBI.
Santiva replied, “Some cases don’t get solved, Jessica.”
“ Not my cases,” she countered.
“ Although, by God, it’s never happened to me before, it’s… well, it’s time we accepted the facts of the matter.”
She relented a moment, going to him, forcing him to stop pacing, positioning him eye to eye with her. She knew that, in his mind, he had already closed the file on the case. “Give me one more week here, Eriq. Just one more week.”
“ Too much time and money’s already gone down the tubes here, Jess.”
“ Then I’ll move out of the Fontainebleau, damnit.”
“ Too much time has elapsed since the last killings and communication from the killer.” Jessica stood in his face, daring his next move. He blinked first. “All right, you want to drive or fly down to the Keys again, talk to this girl, be my guest. You do that. I’m on the next flight north. You can follow after you learn no more than we already know. It’s finished here, Jess, over…” She breathed in a long, shaky breath of air and pushed her hair from her eyes. “I take full responsibility for what’s happened here, Eriq. I think you’re going to need a fall guy when you get back to D.C., so here I am.”
“ Oh, no you don’t. You don’t get out of this so easy; no martyr or dumb-shit stuff, okay, my medical friend?”
From the tenor of his voice, she realized that he had already taken the full brunt of the heat over the matter, and that he hadn’t sold her out or short.
“ I’ve got a plane waiting, and as much as I hate to fly, adios, amiga. And for what it’s worth, good luck with the Monroe girl, although-”
“ Don’t say it, Eriq. Let’s part friends, shall we?”
“ Now that’s something I’ll agree to.”
They exchanged a warm smile and a hug. He said in her ear, “That Parry guy is one lucky SOB, you know it?”
“ I think so.”
Eriq was on his way down the corridor and eventually to the airport when she saw from the lab window that he had been stopped in his tracks by Samernow, who was displaying more emotion than she’d ever seen from the man before. No doubt he wanted Eriq to stay long enough to talk with Aeriel M. L. Monroe. After all, he had put in a lot of investigative hours pursuing her at Eriq’s specific request, and now Eriq was walking out on the investigation. She saw Eriq mouth the words It’s over several times. But then suddenly Eriq glanced up from a slip of paper Samernow had pusheid into his hands and his eyes fixed on Jessica’s. Jessica could see from the intensity of his stare that he was going to miss that plane.
Quincey had joined the group, and all three men came barreling toward the lab and Jessica like a small squad, each intent on her.
Jessica stripped away her gloves and lab coat and met them in the office which had been provided for her adjacent to Coudriet’s. Lately, Coudriet had been absent from the place. He had fallen in love, she was given to understand. More power to him, she thought with a pang of remorse about the absence of love in her life, despite
