A Deadly Compulsion Read Online Free PDF Page B

in, and that was cut-and-dried.
    It was past midnight when he finally hit the sack.  He had been out for an Italian meal at Luigi’s on the Staines road with an ex-client who was now fronting a popular TV quiz show, and had become a household name.  He had also become one of Jim’s best friends.
    At two a.m., Jim was still awake.  And it wasn’t the muggy heat that held sleep at bay.  It was the fucking faxes that Laura had sent, calling out to him, chiselling at his mind, demanding him to be aware of their horrific content and of the patterns and motives that would be woven into the fabric of the details.  A part of him wanted, craved the challenge.  The old electrical charge that used to surge through his veins was back with a vengeance.
    It was three a.m. when his resolve broke and deserted him like rats from a sinking ship.  He had no clear recollection of getting out of bed, or of walking through to the lounge to take the stack of paper across to the table at which he was now sitting.  He began reading, and after just two pages was suddenly pushing the chair back, rising, running to the bathroom to throw-up in the toilet bowl.  He was shaking, felt faint, and his heart was spiked by a sharp, freezing icicle of unbridled fear.  It was a reaction to facing a situation that his subconscious rebelled against.  It reminded him of exactly how he had felt on boarding a plane at Dulles airport, west of Washington D.C., back in the winter of two thousand and three.  Eight weeks prior to that flight, he had been involved in a crash landing that resulted in over half of the passengers being cremated in the fire that ensued.  The chartered DC-10 had fallen the final few feet like a shot goose, crumpling the landing gear, tilting and spinning out of control as one wing struck the ground before merging with the unforgiving runway and exploding.  Amid the choking black smoke and the screaming of injured and frightened passengers, he had somehow helped an attendant to open a door, and assisted dozens of survivors to escape down the billowing yellow slide to safety.  Only when a blinding ball of flame streaked through the fuselage, did he throw himself down the chute, in no doubt that he would be the last living person to reach the tarmac.
    Facing the beginning of Laura’s reports had caused the same reaction as when he had flown again for the first time after that incident.  It was not an irrational fear.  Planes did crash.  There was no guarantee that you would survive a flight.  The odds were heavily on the side of safe arrival at your destination, but after one close call the statistics and percentages had lost a lot of their power to boost Jim’s confidence.
    It was fifteen minutes later, after rinsing his face with cold water and having poured himself a large measure of Jack Daniel’s that Jim tentatively returned to the table.  The printed words drew him with the power of a siren luring a seafarer onto an accursed, rocky shore with enchanting song that could not be ignored or resisted.
    He started reading, opening and entering a door in his mind that he had kept firmly locked for years.
     
    Laura had been reluctant to contact Jim.  She knew how much he had been affected by his years with the bureau, and of the events that had ended his career.  She didn’t want to hurt him; still cared for him, and was scared that approaching him with this would ruin their friendship.  But as per usual she had suppressed personal concerns by reminding herself that the body count was rising, and that a sick individual was on the loose, out of control: a killer who would not stop until he was hunted down and captured.  Jim Elliott was – or had been – the most successful profiler on the planet.  That was a fact.  He had a unique gift; one that could not be matched.  If she was able to prise even a few pointers from him, then she would, and to hell with the consequences.  That he had refused to even discuss the