The Dark Gate

"Three assaults in five days, more than a dozen bystanders and no one remembers a thing. How in the hell is he doing it?"
Metropolitan Police Detective Jack Hallihan paced the aft deck of the small cabin cruiser docked on the Potomac River in downtown Washington, D.C., his steps echoing his frustration. A jet roared overhead, making its final approach into Reagan National, while the summer sun beat down on the back of his neck, sending sweat rolling between his shoulder blades. He was running out of time.
"He's gotta be knocking -em out, Jack." Duke Robinson, a fellow detective and the wiry dark-skinned owner of the boat, tipped his baseball cap to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun even as his head turned, his gaze following the progress of a pair of young women strolling down the dock in bikini tops and short-shorts. "What's up, ladies?"
The voices in Jack's head surged suddenly, unintelligible voices that filled his head night and day, and had for as long as he could remember. He clenched his teeth and dug his fingers into his dark hair, pressing his fingers to his scalp, trying to quiet the ceaseless chatter, if only a little.
"You okay, man?, Henry Jefferson, Jack's partner of ten years, eyed him with concern from the second deck chair as he rolled a cold Budweiser across a forehead several shades darker than Duke's. Henry was as tall as Jack, but no longer lean. Too many years of his wife, Mei's, fried egg rolls had softened him around the middle. There was nothing soft about the gaze he leveled on Jack. "You need to see someone about those headaches of yours."
Jack snatched his hand from his head. Hell. The last thing he needed was to bring attention to his worsening condition. No one knew he suffered from the same madness that destroyed his father. If he had his way, no one ever would.
"It's just the heat," he told his friend. If only. he'd be happy if they were just headaches. Sometimes he felt as though he lived in the middle of a raucous party that never ended, a party where everyone spoke Bulgarian, or Mongolian, or some other language he would never understand. Usually he could tamp down the noise so it didn't overwhelm his mind, like moving the party into the next room. But the past couple of weeks the voices had been all but shouting in his ears. It was starting to scare the shit out of him.
He pulled the discussion back to the problem at hand, a mysterious rapist terrorizing the Dupont Circle neighborhood of D.C. "In each of the three cases, multiple victims were knocked unconscious by some unknown means to awaken simultaneously a short while later--estimated at anywhere from Stone of Ezrie?" he boiled under his skin. He didn't have time for talk he'd managed to push the voices back, but for how Jack swallowed. "Who's that?, "Larsen Vale. Bleeding-heart lawyer and Ice Bitch extraordinaire. Forget about her. She don't give it up for no man." Duke's words were too loud for the small distance between the boats, but he didn't seem to care.
The woman glanced up. The laughter drained from her features as though someone had pulled a plug. All emotion fled. Her gaze slid over the men, one after the other, as if they were nothing more than inanimate objects unworthy of her notice--until her gaze slammed into Jack's. His heart bucked in his chest, a physical jolt like he'd been sucker punched. She held his gaze, then dropped it, shattering it as she turned away.
She clicked her cell phone closed and started across the boat's narrow deck with quick, confident strides, a briefcase swinging at her side. Without another glance his way, she hopped lightly onto the dock and strode away.