Cat In A Leopard Spot

“Stalking me is all I can figure out.”

“Oh, I doubt you’re that intriguing. There’s got to be another reason.”

She was right, but Matt wasn’t ready to tell her that. Kinsella’s past was his to keep, and Temple would feel betrayed if Matt gave it away to Molina, even if it put some of Max’s actions in a better light.

“I’m afraid her prime objective is just me and my soul.”

“You can’t extort a soul from someone.”

“I didn’t think so either, but I underestimated her. It’s really simple, Carmen. What has been my core belief for most of my life?”

“The Church.”

“How have I honored it?”

“By being a priest, until lately.”

She still was oddly obtuse. He had never confessed a true sin that made him feel as slimy and ashamed as Kathleen O’Connor’s method of extracting, extorting his soul. He was glad they were both in the dark, locked in a ritual room from their common past.

“Yes?” Molina demanded.

“I suppose it’s a simple thing to most people. No big deal. But she knew how to find the one thing…What’s the hallmark of a Roman Catholic priest, laicized, as I have been, or not?”

“Religion. The collar, bingo night?…” Her joke found no response and he could hear her squirming on her side of the linen curtain. Funny, confessees usually squirmed, not confessors.

“Oh. That,” she said at last, absolving him of putting it into words.

A long silence.

“It is fiendish,” she whispered, almost thinking aloud. “Isolating. Abusive. Like something out of a melodrama, only with a role reversal. This woman is mad.”

“I asked Kinsella for help. He checked out my place for bugs. There was nothing. Yet. But she left a package there while I was out of town.”

“Right. It could have been a bomb.”

“I don’t think she wants to hurt me. At least not physically. Not anymore. She’s made her mark. It’s just others. I didn’t tell him what her price was. I was afraid he’d tell me to pay it.”

“You can’t.” Molina’s voice was crisp. Certain. “You know what I’d do if someone was putting Mariah in that position?”

“I’m not a child. I’m not helpless.”

“Yes, you are, which is why you wouldn’t let the Mystifying Max in on your ugly secret. We’re all helpless, Matt, if someone wants to destroy us badly enough. This is fiendish. You can hardly dare go to anyone for help, you can’t associate with friends…. Has she targeted Temple Barr?”

“I don’t know. She said something about watching her, but it was more to prove that she was watching me. I think she knows who my friends are, but she doesn’t know—”

“Who you really care about. That’s good. Keep it that way. She seems to be aiming at the women around you, like the jealous bitch she probably is.”

“Carmen!”

“Sorry. I forgot where we were. Where I am. You know how hard it is to stop a stalker. Legally.”

“I know. And she’s too smart to attack me physically again, although if I hurt her back, a man against a woman, who’d support me?”

“Fiendish.”

“I wonder,” he began, then stopped.

“What?”

“Oh, speaking of role reversal. I hunted Cliff Effinger down. Probably drew the wrong people’s attention to him and got him killed. I wonder if this isn’t a case of just deserts.”

“Forget it! Effinger brought on his own death by associating with a crooked crowd. Besides, this woman…what does she look like anyway?”

“Great. Beautiful. A late-twenties Elizabeth Taylor. And don’t say—”

“‘Just relax and enjoy it?’ No, I won’t. Heard that about too many rape victims to think any age or gender welcomes abuse. Looks have nothing to do with the crime, but they might have something to do with the criminal. With looks like that, she could get almost any man she wanted. Why fixate on the one man who doesn’t want her, won’t succumb. It’s a power thing, as usual. All about me, me, me, even as they fixate on you, you, you. Can you get me an image of her?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“I had Janice do one.”

“Oh, Janice. You’ve been busy. Do I sense a wee hesitation there?”

“I was trying to see Janice lately.”

“Trying? Guess this woman fixed that.”

“And I have the note and envelope the ring came in. Kinsella suggested you might want prints.”

“‘Kinsella suggested.’ Who is he? Mr. Police Expert now? I’ll take it. And what ring is this?”

“What she sent me. She demanded I wear it.”

“I begin to get her MO. What kind of ring?”

“A gold image of a serpent eating its own tail.”

“Seen something like that.”

“It’s called the worm Ouroboros. Ancient infinity symbol going back to the Greeks.”

“So. You wearing it?”

“Just what she called to ask. I told her yes.”

“Must stick in your craw.”

“No. On my keychain.”

Matt had seldom heard laughter from the confessor’s side, but he did now.

“That’s right. Fight her with the letter of her own law. She can’t think of everything, Matt. She’s not supernatural. She’s just ahead of the average person because she’s spending all her time and energy on tormenting you. You know what you have to do?”

“Concentrate on finding and stopping her just as hard. I’m a stalker again.”