“ Nor am I, Jess.” She turned and faced Jessica. “I keep sensing that she is somehow being tortured with her own flesh.”
“ My God,” Jessica gasped once more at seeing the discoloration on Kim's cheek, and now at her wrists.
“ That's all I know about DeCampe. Now you've got the information you came for, so please go.”
“ I appreciate your insights on the case, Kim, but I came here out of concern for you. No one's seen you.”
“ I know that you came out of concern, but now that you have seen me, please, go!” Kim fell into a chair.
“ You know I can't just walk away from you and leave you here in this condition.”
“ Leave, please.”
“ I love you, and I want what's best for you. Have you seen a doctor for… what kind of medication you can use?” Jessica had gone to her knees before her friend, reaching out, caressing her forearms, careful to avoid any malignant spots.
“ Medications don't work on mind-altered states, Jessica. You know that as well as I. All I can do is keep away from Maureen DeCampe, wherever she is.”
Jessica sighed heavily. “I'm so sorry, Kim. I had no idea.”
“ No one does, and please, I would like to keep it that way.”
Jessica reached out and embraced her. Kim tried to hold back the tears, but in a moment, she erupted, her body quaking against Jessica's, until she pulled away and rushed from Jessica, shouting, “Go-get away from me. For all we know, this psychic leprosy could be contagious.”
Kim now firmly took hold of Jessica's arm and ushered her to the door, and there put her out, closing the door between them.
Jessica called out. “Let me know if there is anything- anything-you need, Kim. If you need someone, let me know.”
Silence. No answer.
It felt like the silence of a cavern behind the thick white door, the silence of suffering. Jessica felt angry with herself at having involuntarily recoiled at first sight of Kim's cankerous facial sores. She could not take that back, but the surprise and shock were understandable. It had only been a day since she had last seen a healthy Kim Desinor, and now this.
Agitated, pacing at the doorstep, not wanting to abandon Kim, Jessica saw that Richard was staring at her, that he must wonder what was going on. Her eyes returned to the blank door, which stared back, and she heard the soft crying of the woman inside. The sound made Jessica weak and angry with herself that she'd allowed Kim to manhandle her out the door. She now wondered what she ought to do. She then shouted through the door, “You know me, Kim. I'm going to meddle. I'm going to call Dr. Roy Shoate-best physician in the city. He'll make a house call on my say- so. There's got to be something we can do.”
Again silence.
Jessica felt a twinge of fear; she didn't want to leave Kim alone, but she also knew how fiercely proud the woman was, and she must respect her wishes. She stepped away from the door, feeling as if she were letting Kim down, that she and the FBI family had already let her down. She feared Kim might do something to harm herself.
Halfway back to the waiting car and Richard, she dialed Dr. Shoate on her cellular phone.
SIX
Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Jessica had learned never to discount Kim Desinor's visions or suspicions, and never to read one of her visions literally. If she said Judge DeCampe was in some place of decay, this could have many interpretations, that there were many rivers to the ocean. Decay had many connotations and images attached to it, and the place where DeCampe was being held might simply be a “place of decay” such as a cemetery or burial plot or even a cold storage meat packing company. The fact that her abductor had “confined” her could point to a decay of movement as in wither, ebb, crumble, dwindle, fade, fall off. In the most hideous sense, however, it meant spoil, corrupt, perish, degenerate, decompose, deteriorate, disintegrate, putrefaction, and adulteration. Then again, adultery came out of adulteration, so the association could go on endlessly, and therein lay both the strength and the weakness of the psychic and psychic imagery. The psychic vision might not in and of itself be useful, but in the psychic's interpretation, a use might often come of psychic information. Kim had proven herself time after time as an able and capable interpreter of her own visions. If she said that Maureen DeCampe was “in a state of decay,” there was some truth to this, but it could well mean that she was in a state within the contiguous United States that was in a state of decay, such as a farm state in a nation that no longer valued the private farm and its family of caregivers. Or it might be taken literally, that DeCampe might well be buried alive in a coffin this moment. Decay meant decline, decadence, failure-all adjectives perhaps better applied to DeCampe's abductor. Decay stood for collapse, for waste, breakdown, and breakup, dissolution, corruption, and mold, blight, and rot-perhaps the condition of a man gone mad. All these horrid images Kim had internalized, and the result was disease overtaking Kim's own body-a strange psychic malady somehow connected to DeCampe's circumstances. Psychosomatic illness taken to the tenth power, Jessica imagined.
Dr. Roy Shoate had contacted Jessica to tell her that he had never seen a healthier person exhibiting signs of Ebola virus. That's what it looked like to him. He had run no tests, but he said she was literally being eaten up, and it was ongoing unless they could find some way to arrest it.
“ She submitted to your examination without a fight?” Jessica had asked.
“ She has little strength left. She is dying, Jessica.”
Tears welled up in Jessica. “Do all you can to arrest it. Dr. Shoate.” Jessica did not confide in the doctor that Kim's condition was psychically induced. She knew that no doctor could completely stop it until Jessica brought an end to the DeCampe case, the case Kim had been so diligently working on when the strange malady overtook her.
“ This appears a public health issue to me, Dr. Coran. Will you be notifying Atlanta?” Jessica had no intention of alerting the CDC or anyone else about Kim's condition. “I'll take every step necessary, Doctor, and thank you,” she lied.
“ Meantime, we have her sedated and isolated. We will proceed under the assumption it is the Ebola but will administer no meds until we have isolated the virus itself, to be certain. That's the best we can do for now-hospital policy-now that we live in such a litigious society.”
“ How long will further tests take?”
'Twenty-four hours for initial tests, forty-eight to be certain.”
“ Thanks for all you've done, Dr. Shoate.”
“ Absolutely. I know you have your hands full. I've been reading the papers.”
Jessica hung up, her friend's life very much on her mind. She paced the office and stared out the window, weighing the news from Dr. Shoate. The ante had been significantly raised now, with Kim's life in the bargain.
J. T. stepped in, shouting, “The parking attendant has been found dead in Detroit, Michigan, as far as he got.”
“ How?”
“ Killed in a flophouse.”
“ Christ help us. We'll never know the extent of his in-volvement.”
“ What's up with Kim Desinor, Jess? I couldn't help but overhear. Is she ill?”
“ She's somehow contracted some sort of bad case of… not sure what it is, but she believes it came directly from her psychic journey into Judge DeCampe's mind. She's… she's not good.” Jessica began to cry. “But J. T., keep
