“ Exactly what you count on.”
“ Perhaps.”
“ Both as a shrink and as a snoop.”
“ Touche. If we could leave it at that. But the dark little holes into which you tumble and lose your way and all control, these need to be explored, not run from.”
Christ, he thought, she's been talking to Ben deYampert, but then he realized that not even Ben had knowledge of the exact nature or details of his recurring nightmares of recent months. He'd had nightmares for years as a child, and now again, awakened in him by the first Hearts victim, Surette. And here was this all-seeing, all-knowing being staring through him, revealing him to himself here over table scraps.
“ Waiter! Clear these dishes away, will you?” he called out, his thoughts tumbling on. It was as if Kim Desinor had climbed inside his head and had watched a film there, a film about his agony, as if it were being played over and over for her private screening. The feeling was one of invasion which sent a shiver through him, making him add one more item to his fears-fear of her.
The waiter rushed their dishes away, asking about dessert, which both of them declined, Alex calling for the bill. Then he turned to her and said, “How… how the hell could you-”
“ You're surrounded by parasites, Alex, on all sides. You even see me as a parasitic creature, someone or some thing that's come to chew away at you and your precious case, someone who will eat you alive if you're not careful. Then, of course, you've got Ben, Frank Wardlaw, Landry and IAD, Meade, every one trying to siphon off a piece of you in order to feed themselves.''
“ This is all nonsense. You don't know what the hell you're talking-”
“ But I do. Men like you, men who have so much strength bottled within, so powerful… people gravitate to your power, your confidence, wanting to touch it, Alex. They want to touch me too, all the time. People like you and me… we're appealing on many, many levels. Think of the old saying, Alex, how two separate people with differing worldviews look at a glass of water.” She placed a forefinger on the glass before him, which was half full.
“ People like you and me?” she said. “We see it as half full. Others who see it differently are also emptied by their unfulfilled relationships, and when they see people like you and me who are absolutely comfortable in who we are, they come to us for a drink, and they work to fill their empty souls with us. Because they never see our unfulfilled needs, the emptiness within us, because we guard that place like hell.”
“ Taking from us?”
“ All they can get, sure… why not? They must feed; it's their nature to feed, as it is in all living things, Alex. I see people every day siphoning off energy and emotion from me, but I gain from the encounter while most of them do not. It's because I gain in giving.”
“ You know, you could be quite scary if I didn't know better.”
“ Last thing I want is to scare you, Alex.”
“ Really?”
“ Really.” She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. “Sit quietly for a moment and take from me.”
Alex felt the warmth of her touch and the throbbing life within, heard the heartbeat as it moved along the corridors of her being and into his. The warmth became a radiant heat flowing between them, growing in intensity like the heat from a sun lamp.
“ I'm not a psychological vampiress, Alex. I'm not here to take anything from you. If anything, I'm here to give, not take. I'm no leech, no insect, no worm you need to fear.”
He involuntarily shook with the thought of the worms in his nightmare. “I'll… I'd like to take you home.”
“ Wish you could, but I've got that early morning appointment.”
“ Whoa, I didn't mean my home.”
“ Oh, sorry…misunderstood, I guess.”
“ Well, I mean, I wouldn't mind…” He stopped short and looked curiously at her, his eyes narrowing. “What early morning appointment?”
“ You know, the-”
“ Oh, yeah, the famous or soon-to-be-famous exhumation. Do you really think they'll be going ahead with it, even after what you went through tonight? Isn't there a limit to what you can… reasonably expect to… to give?”
She liked his choice of words and the level of concern in his voice. “I'm okay, really.” She touched a sensitive spot below the bandage to her temple.
“ I just hope it doesn't turn into a circus.”
“ I don't like the idea of exhumation any more than you do, but…”
“ But you have to establish patterns from out of chaos here, right?”
“ Like you, Alex, it's not what I do, it's what I am, and if what I am can indicate a direction, locate a clue, then how can you continue to stand in the way of that? Why won't you let me help you? Is it because I'm a psychic or a woman? Or both?''
“ Me? Stand in your way? How am I standing in your way? You and the others are working right around me, for cryyyy-sake! Everybody saw what happened at the crime scene tonight. No… wouldn't want to be in the way, would we.”
His sarcasm had returned full force, and she gripped the thin edge of the table to remain calm. “Nice try, Alex, but you're hiding again.”
“ Who's hiding? I'm right here, going nowhere.”
“ I have come to believe to a great extent that it is our fears and anxieties that make us who and what we are, or will become, Alex.”
“ Is that supposed to be reassuring, Doctor? Because it isn't.”
In a flashing vision, she saw fat, hungry maggots around him, but ignoring the ugly image, she forced her way through the jungle of his tangled emotions. “We defend the weaker portions of our personalities with an array of defenses, either positive or negative, bright or dreary, such as diplomacy, humor-often macabre humor-patience, self-deceit, temper, clowning and stubbornness.”
“ Ben'll love to hear it. He's the bull-slinging yahoo and I'm the bullheaded mule, right? Nice butter you spread. Doctor.''
“ I think the butter is all yours, Alex, and you're spreading it on thick to cover your true-”
“ That's enough with the psychobabble, Kim. I've heard quite enough, and coming from you, it's doubly rewarding.”
She wasn't sure what he meant by this. “I didn't say I was without fear and anxiety. Quite the contrary.”
“ I'm not going to swap my personality for one you'd like me to try on, Doctor.” He stared across at her, stood and said, “Now, it'll be my pleasure to see you home.”
He threw out a wad of bills onto the table like an angry man who's too upset to count and said, “Are you coming, or do I call a cab?”
“ I'll pay for my own meal, and I'll call my own damned cab, Lieutenant!” she fired back, drawing stares and bawdy laughter from others in the restaurant. Alex's jaw tightened, his face turning red. “All right, fine… suits me.” He then stormed out ahead of her, mumbling something under his breath about women in general. She stared after him disbelieving, yet fully understanding. She'd touched a raw nerve that had been successfully protected for a long time.
She found the pay phone and called for a cab. “To hell with him,” Kim told the lady at the cash register.
“ You just go right on stickin' up for yourself, dearie,” suggested the elderly woman behind the counter.
Alex Sincebaugh was angry with himself. He had never in his life walked out on a woman, leaving her stranded in a public place, and it didn't sit well with him now. He'd gone back to the restaurant to apologize, try to start over with Kim Desinor, but she'd already left. He had thought about locating her at her hotel, but then decided that such a move would only widen the rift between them. He didn't know what to say to her anyway, how to build a bridge between them, how he could comfortably work with her feeling as he did, and the thought of an unnecessary exhumation as a media event continued to gnaw at his gut.
He was a practical man who had come up via a tough life with little love or compassion either received or given, and yet he saw the empathy and heart-wrenching love that the families of victims demonstrated every day,
