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  And the big, strong Alan Rychman, although very different in appearance, so reminded her of Otto. In his mannerisms, in the fact he was trying so hard to hide the little boy curled up deep within him.

  “I'd still like to take you to your hotel.”

  “Hotel, yes, hotel room, no.”

  It had been nice having Alan Rychman escort her to the hotel, and he had no idea how much she had honestly wanted him to stay. She dreaded nights alone, especially away from her Virginia home in Quantico, the only place she felt completely and wholly safe. But even home had been invaded by her night visions and the shadows.

  Jessica got into bed and sat up reading a recent report put together by one of the best psychological profiling teams at the FBI. The report served a double purpose: to induce a sound sleep, along with the pills given her by her shrink, and to bring her up-to-date on the most recent advice in dealing with killer couples. She knew that reading had lately become a way to avoid thinking about her continuing insomnia and what amounted to fear.

  She concentrated on the cold, explicit, factual report in her lap, desperately trying to stay on her train of thought. It was well known in violent crime cases that there was often a dominant-subservient partnership involved, in which two killers formed a symbiotic bond of need and lust that led to mutual gratification through torture and murder. Killer couples weren't always a man/man team; quite often it was two women, and much more often, a man and a woman. Often one was so infatuated with the other that he felt a “spell” had been cast over him.

  It wasn't a new notion; in fact, there were many such case histories available at the FBI Academy. She had read many of them while researching killer couples for a paper that had won her high marks. There were instances throughout history in which one person was so dominated by another that he or she would act out any unlawful or immoral act put to him or her.

  The brutal Jack the Ripper murders in London in the fall of 1888 might have been the work of more than one man. In the early part of the twentieth century there were Leopold and Loeb, and since then there had been multiple examples of killer couples, making them almost commonplace. There were Bywaters and Thompson, Snyder and Gray, Brady and Hindley, Bonnie and Clyde, Fernandez and Beck. Killer couples, as in the Aileen Wournos lesbian killer case, were not as common as the lone-wolf serial-killer type, however they were on the rise along with cult murders.

  If her time in the FBI had taught her anything, it was that a man and a woman, teamed for the murder of a third person, were one of the deadliest combinations known. Between them they had a powerful arsenal to bring to bear against their intended prey: cunning, deceit, sex appeal, physical strength, boldness, resolve and amorality. Few victims of such teams survived such an unholy assault.

  Usually, such teams were only caught as the result of a sure erosion of trust between the two murderers, the erosion beginning after the first murder, because each partner was by then the sole witness to the other's crime. The relationship steadily crumbled under the weight of such responsibility. They would begin to suspect each other, begin to doubt and question every move, and would soon be unable to live from moment to moment without fearing one another.

  “You're afraid of your own shadow by now, aren't you? Aren't you?” she asked the empty room, trying to imagine the state of mind of the killer or killers at this time. Even if the Claw was an individual, she reasoned, he would eventually begin to fear himself as he might an accomplice, the way that Gerald Ray Sims feared his shadow self, Stainlype.

  She had come to believe, since the death of Otto Boutine, with whom she'd shared so many intimacies, that everyone, herself included, had dark second selves within, doubles or dopplegangers, as the Germans called them. The trauma she had gone through had revealed to her the dangerous double held in check at all times by her more dominant personality. The dark double was a frightful being, a creature that truly disturbed its owner to her core, one that rattled sabers that turned into snakes that fed on the good and wishing-to-be-good self.

  Jessica believed meeting the shadow within—not just glimpsing it from a distance—could cause a person either to become whole by facing down the murderous impulses that raged below the still volcano, or to become fragmented, as in the case of Gerald Ray Sims, and quite possibly Matthew Matisak. She had long been accustomed to the power of the dark side in killers, but had always denied it in herself, until she had been maimed by Matisak, until she had wanted vengeance against the maniac. She knew about her undesirable other self now, her less than pretty side, the shadow within. At times she now experienced something that felt like her two selves crossing, and it frightened her. The dark brute was, in its way, so much more powerful, as if negative energy drained off positive impulses at every turn.

  It was what the shrinks called an intrapsychic “problem” that could evolve into a “conflict” if she didn't get control of it. It was one of the scars left her by Matisak, part of a legacy of fear and self-doubt created in her by the vampiristic madman. It was worse than any nightmare or replay of the events that brought her near death at his hands, because this creature was like Matisak, and yet it was her.

  Her lady shrink, Dr. Lemonte, had told her it was dangerous, at this point, to ignore her “shadow” shelf.

  “Or to fear one's own shadow?” she had replied. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Face it... recognize it for what it is.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Another and legitimate aspect of your self. The self that as a child you allowed vent to, that escaped when you picked up an object and hurled it across a room.”

  She thought of Rychman hurling objects about his office and wondered if he ever had any shadow fears. Perhaps her psychiatrist was right.

  “How do I let it out safely?” she had asked.

  “Play with it.”

  “Play with it? I don't want to play with it. I'm afraid of it.”

  “Play out harmless aspects of your rejected self—”

  She was shaking. “Suppose it, this rejected self, takes hold. Hell, it already has begun to!”

  “You're intelligent, levelheaded, and from what I've read of your record, Jessica, you're a very brave woman. All you need do is face this as you would one of your cases. Investigate intelligently.”

  “But this isn't a case; this is me... me.”

  Donna Lemonte had then leaned forward, uncharacteristically took Jessica's hands into her own and stared hard into her eyes. “You can beat this thing; you can shake it, Jess, but in order to heal the split between what you've come to know and accept as your true persona and your shadow persona, you must face the shadow, recognize it for what it is and put it back in its place.”

  Ten

  After Alan Rychman had dropped Jessica at her hotel, he checked in at headquarters long enough to see that the order he had reluctantly given to arrest Shaw had been carried out. The interrogations had already begun and it looked like Conrad Shaw was going to be so cooperative that he'd confess to anything put to him. He stayed long enough to be certain that proper procedures were being followed. Since his detectives had the situation well in hand, he made the long drive to New Jersey, where his brother Sam lived.

  He'd called ahead to his brother, a computer consultant for Pioneer, who owned a roomy home. The phone number was a secret to all but Lou Pierce. Surrounded by gates, bars, and a fail-safe, state-of-the-art security system, “Samhaven”—as Alan jokingly called the place—afforded him the ultimate hideout whenever pressures became unbearable in the big city. Sam didn't mind, because it was the only time he ever saw big brother Alan anymore.

  Now Alan was propped up in bed in his perennial guest room. It was near midnight, and Sam and his family of four were fast asleep while he second-guessed the bogus direction the Claw case was taking with the indictment of Conrad Shaw, ideal as he was as a press scapegoat. Rychman's only comfort in the nasty affair was that Jessica Coran had felt as he had about Shaw's then impending
arrest. Sharp lady, he told himself, with great instincts of her own, instincts that put her squarely on the plane of the killer. Not to mention her good instincts about men.

  He'd hoped she might change her mind when they'd arrived at her hotel, invite him up to her room for a drink and talk. They'd been getting along well before he had clumsily pushed himself on her. He cursed himself as the vivid memory returned.

  He pictured her again at the shooting range with him. She had been extremely good with her weapon. She held it as if it were an extension of herself, part of her flesh, and God save the man who tried to take it from her. Tough, dangerous, yes, she was... but there was also something else, something he sensed when his lips had touched hers for that fleeting moment, a certain vulnerability born of pain perhaps? He could not be sure. Something deep within her beautiful eyes told of a well of sadness; yet, she was so alive.

  He thought for a moment of the cane, her limp, the doing of that bastard Matisak.

  He tried to imagine what she had gone through, the pain and suffering, the loss of her superior and friend, the well-respected Boutine. He could imagine the loss of a partner in the line of duty. He'd had this happen to himself more times than he cared to recall, but he couldn't imagine being at the mercy of a vicious killer like the blood-taker, Matisak.

  The case had become required reading at the FBI Academy, not only for the do's but for the don'ts. Dr. Coran had messed up royally, by what he'd heard. She'd gone after this guy Matisak on her own. She was lucky to be alive. Some army personnel guy that'd gone along with her hadn't been so fortunate.

  Rychman wondered which was worse, Matisak, the blood-drinking vampire killer, or the Claw, who took delight in rending the flesh and feeding off parts of the body. He knew which man's victims suffered longer.

  It was late and he was tired when he turned out the light and rolled over, his mind swimming with the next day's agenda, all the hundreds of administrative jobs that needed to be done to pull his task force properly together. One thing was lacking for certain, he told himself, and that was a sense of teamwork and camaraderie, something he must instill in all of the divergent cops from across the city who were working on the case. But how? They seemed at such odds with each other, little wonder it was taking them so long to pull together.

  Ovid's house was beginning to smell like a hospital ward, what with all the disinfectant and formaldehyde. Ovid had put up whole organs in jars all around the house. He sometimes wondered what his mother would have made of his and the Claw's collection.

  She most certainly would not approve; she'd be disgusted by the sight—and odor—of his things, and the idea he would consume them. She would order him to stop what he was doing, and she would fight the Claw and likely be killed by the Claw, if it came to that.

  Sometimes Ovid awoke in the night to find the Claw standing over him, staring, as if considering the possibility of opening Ovid up, turning him into just another of his victims. Ovid was terrified of the Claw at times. He did what the Claw told him to do out of fear as much as any sense of loyalty or purpose, although he had tried desperately to understand the purpose of the Claw.

  The Claw came and went from Ovid's place in the night. He often wanted one of the treasures they'd taken from their victims. Ovid had eyes put up like pickles, a pair of kidneys, a human heart, and the Claw wanted to add to their collection.

  The Claw was like a spirit, the way he moved in and out of the shadows, disappearing into the night mist. It was almost as if he came with his own thick fog, the kind you heard about in England, as thick as soup, floating about him. His features were always cloaked and indistinct. Sometimes he just came for one of the jars, taking it off with him. Other times, like tonight, he ordered Ovid up and dressed. While Ovid was dressing, he disappeared, only to reappear again, telling Ovid he had a prize for him. Ovid went downstairs to the living room and found a rolled carpet in the center of the floor with a bloodied body inside.

  “What the hell's this? You can't bring one of your kills into my house. This is crazy!”

  “You're going to help me get rid of it, Ovid, now. But first, I want you to take a good look at the face.”

  With that the Claw tore open the carpet, revealing the bloody, eyeless corpse. The body was that of an elderly, white-haired woman, and the Claw turned up the face so Ovid could see it clearly in the dim light.

  “Hold on, ohhh, no, ohhh no! You've gone too far this time, dammit, too far,” cried Ovid. “It's Mrs. Phillips. You killed Mrs. Phillips!”

  “A present for you, Ovid.”

  “What? A present?”

  “It's clear enough, Ovid. Or do I have to spell it out? You can't be so thick. I can kill anyone, including you, with this!” He held up his powerful claw and it glinted in the moonlight filtering in from outside.

  Ovid got the message loud and clear: the Claw had killed all on his own, without Ovid's help. It was a demonstration of the fact the Claw did not need him, and that the Claw could easily implicate him to the authorities by destroying his neighbors! Mrs. Phillips was one of his goddamned neighbors!

  He had angered the Claw the night before when he had shown him the poem he had written in the Claw's honor. Ovid had pleaded that he be allowed to send it to the Times. The Claw had said nothing, but in the depth of his silence, Ovid felt his hopes decrease while his fears increased. Then in a rage, the Claw had cried out that he wanted every scrap of the poem destroyed, calling Ovid a moron and an idiot, and his poem stupid. “Destroy it all!” he had shouted as he ripped apart the papers in his hands. “I want every draft, every copy burned, do you understand? And do not go out of this house until I return.”

  Now he had returned but he was not alone. He had Mrs. Phillips with him. It was a clear indication that he could just as easily destroy Ovid as anyone, and that the Claw could carry on his work alone if need be.

  The familiar leathery old face of Mrs. Phillips, who had been his mother's companion, and lately his own, made Ovid's stomach turn. She was eviscerated like the others, except there was more. Her skull was cracked open like a melon and her brain had been removed. Undoubtedly it had been consumed by the Claw's insatiable cannibalistic urges. Mrs. Phillips' grimacing face indicated her tortured death had been prolonged. The Claw had not been kind to her. She had lived a block over. They used to sit together on the same park bench feeding the pigeons and talking about his mother. Mrs. Phillips remembered her fondly.

  The memory made Ovid shudder, a quaking panic rippling through him until suddenly the Claw grabbed him and shook him, tearing the flesh of his arm as he did so.

  “Put what's left of her in the car.”

  He did as he was told, taking Mrs. Phillips' remains out to the little sedan that Leon Helfer used to get to work. Leon, not feeling as strong as Ovid, lifted both rug and old woman into his arms and stumbled out the back way, presumably the way that the Claw had entered with the body in tow. In the darkened garage, he popped the trunk, part of his mind questioning why it was that the Claw always insisted on using Leon's car, Leon's house and now one of Leon's neighbors as a victim! It was like waving a flag to tell everyone that he, Leon Helfer, was Ovid, the accomplice to the awful and deadly Claw. He wondered privately if he dared cut a deal with the authorities to save himself before it was too late, but he instantly feared the thought, because he believed that the Claw, if not distracted, could read his mind.

  He stuffed the rug and body deep into the trunk, knowing it would be the devil to get it all out again. Suddenly the Claw said in his ear, “Now, go get some of those Hefty bags, Ovid, and let's go.”

  Ovid saw that the Claw had already carried out two of the jars with organs of earlier victims swimming in the soup of the preservatives. “Where're we going?”

  “I have a little surprise for you.”

  “Another one?”

  “Even better. Hurry, do as I say... hurry.”

  Leon Helfer was no longer there; it was just Ovid and the Claw. Ovid returned to Leon's
house, found the bags and returned, sliding into the car alongside the dark shadow of the Claw.

  “Where're we going?”

  “Hunting.”

  “But we've... I mean, you've already got the old woman tonight.”

  “And now I want a young one! Just drive! Will you?”

  “Which way?”

  “We're going to Scarsdale.”

  “Scarsdale?”

  “A lovely name when you think of it... scars... dale, Scarsdale. Where better to scar someone?” The Claw's laughter filled the dark car, and Mrs. Phillips' body thumped behind them with each bump in the alleyway as they ventured forth for Scarsdale.

  “What're we going to do with the old woman's body?”

  “We'll find a suitable use for it, dear Ovid.”

  And they did, later.

  Ovid, home again, thought of the awful chance he had taken, the terrible fear welling up inside him, threatening to crush him. If the Claw should find out—and he would, he must. He found out everything. So why did Ovid do such a foolish thing?

  They had driven to Scarsdale as the Claw had ordered. The Claw seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go. They pulled into a secreted backyard, where the Claw ordered Ovid to take Mrs. Phillips' body from the trunk, rug and all, and to follow him around to the front and up the steps to the door. The Claw rang the bell as if on a normal visit. A young, dark-haired woman answered, and while she was no great beauty, she excited Ovid's interest. She was the picture of surprise on seeing the Claw. The Claw, whom she seemed to know, grabbed the rug Mrs. Phillips was wrapped in and said, “Here is that Oriental rug I promised you, Catherine.”

  “But I wasn't expecting you—”

  “You do want the rug!” he shouted, grunting as he pushed the rug through the door and into her, its contents falling out, sending blood rivulets over the woman. She quickly tried to make her way out the back of the house, but the Claw was far too fast for her. His deadly three-pronged weapon ripped down across her skull and sent her toppling over, moaning, still very much alive. Ovid had never seen the Claw act so quickly and surely on his own. He certainly didn't need Ovid any longer. Now Ovid feared for himself.