Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 23

"If it's any consolation," I offered, "you called me just in time to keep me from doing something really incredibly stupid."

"Like what you were doin' now isn't really incredibly stupid?" he shot back.

"No," I agreed. "It's stupid all right. But what I was about to do was even more stupid."

"Great," he muttered.

I scrambled my way to the top of the hill and sat down on the b.u.mper of my truck for a moment in order to rest. I flicked off the flashlight and set it aside, then reached into my pocket and withdrew a cigarette.

"So," I asked after lighting the b.u.t.t and taking a deep drag. "Why were you calling me in the first place?"

"Just wanted to let you know we looked into a connection between Lawson and Schaeffer."

"And?"

"Nothing there, Row," he told me. "No connection, no common friends, activities, or anything. Nada."

"Are you certain?""Certain as we can be with what we've got. The whole Lawson thing is a dead end white-man. She's got nothing to do with Debbie Schaeffer."

"So I guess you're closing the books on her then?" I asked, dejection filling my voice.

"Well, yes and no."

"What do you mean, 'yes, and no'? Which is it?"

I could literally feel his hesitation over the phone. "Man... I shouldn't even tell you..."

"Come on, Ben. You can't leave me hanging like that."

"s.h.i.t," he muttered the expletive. "Okay, but you gotta promise me you'll stay outta this and let us handle it."

"Fine. I promise."

"Yeah, right," he returned, not believing me for a minute, then he huffed out a breath before continuing anyway. "Okay, listen, it looks like you might've been right about Lawson's death not being an accident. Well, not entirely an accident, anyway."

"Go on." I was intrigued, even a little elated. Vindication appeared to be on the horizon, and it was something I sorely needed.

"Remember I mentioned she had a welt on her neck?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "Well, the M.E. says it's consistent with the type of mark that could be left by a high-powered stun gun."

"I thought those things weren't supposed to leave marks?"

"Depends," he explained. "Not always, but there are a lot of factors; trust me, they can definitely leave a serious welt. I speak from experience."

My hand lifted automatically to my neck and I focused on the memory of the burning sensation I'd felt. The jangle and buzz that had taken over every nerve in my body; the disorientation and paralysis that had driven me to fall helpless on the ground while at that crime scene. A piece of the puzzle locked securely in with another. I could only imagine the picture that was going to be formed, but at least now I had a start.

"So it's a murder case now?"

"Kinda," he acknowledged without enthusiasm. "We figure what prob'ly happened was that some a.s.shole waited in the bushes and a.s.saulted her on her way in the door. Most likely a doper or somethin' lookin' to score some quick cash.

Jammed 'er with the stun gun, she fell and cracked her head on the table; s.h.i.thead sees the blood, panics and runs without even lifting anything."

"You think that's it?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"But it could be more, right?" I asked."No." In my mind's eye I could see him shaking his head. "I really don't think so.

There's nothing else there."

I thought about it silently for a moment. Logically, Ben was correct, but I wasn't subscribing to logical theories these days. There was something else there, and I wasn't going to give up until I found it. With what he'd told me, I had a start; now I just needed to build on it. I could tell from my friend's tone that he was already regretting that he'd told me anything, so I was just going to have to chase this lead on my own.

"So what about the whole smoking thing," I asked, changing the subject as much to hide my intentions as to let him off the hook.

"Yeah, yeah, I looked into it. Far as we can tell they were both clean. Neither of 'em smoked."

"Guess it's someone else then," I submitted.

"There is no one else, Rowan," he answered. "Listen, you still out there in the woods?"

"No. I'm at my truck."

"Good," he returned flatly. "Then go home."

He ended the call with that abrupt command, an almost angry click following the last words. I wasn't exactly making people happy.

I'd scarcely managed to climb into the cab of my truck and get myself belted in before the cell phone pealed for attention a second time. I gave the face a quick look before answering and the caller ID display registered my home number. I can't say that it was unexpected, but I can say that I was dreading it.

It was dead on six PM when I pulled into the driveway, fully chastised via phone.

Felicity was waiting for me when I walked through the front door and she was armed and ready for round two.

If looks could kill...

It took the better part of the next day for me to finally redeem myself with my wife. I hadn't tried to hide anything from her, and while that helped my case to a small extent, she was still far from pleased.

I had a tendency to forget that even though Felicity wasn't p.r.o.ne to the same type or frequency of bizarre visions as myself, she was a Witch nonetheless, and very in tune with her surroundings. At this particular stage of the game, I had to accept that she was actually far more in tune than me, whether I liked it or not.

While she was unsure of the details-until she forced me to fill her in, that is-she had been perfectly aware that I was up to something. She had even experienced some sensations of my own fear because of the deep bond between us. Once she became privy to the particulars behind that fear, however, her initial concern foldedquickly into anger.

Fortunately, since she had been a direct witness to what had happened at the morgue the evening prior, she was willing to believe that I wasn't necessarily the one in control of the situation. While that tempered the anger, it served to return her concern to the forefront.

Still, when everything was said and done, it was noon before she decided that she was speaking to me again.

CHAPTER 15.

"h.e.l.lo?" I had managed to s.n.a.t.c.h up the telephone receiver just as the fourth ring was dying away, and only a split second ahead of the answering machine.

My greeting was met with nothing more than dead air, although there was a distinct hollowness to it, which lead me to believe that there was almost certainly someone on the other end. After a moment, I repeated the salutation.

"h.e.l.lo? Anyone there?"

My query was answered by what I thought might possibly have been a shallow breath, though I couldn't be sure. The sound was promptly followed by a soft click in the earpiece as the calling party hung up.

I dropped the handset back into the cradle and scanned the caller ID box next to it. The LCD display read, UNAVAILABLE. Whoever it was either lived in an area without the CLID service, or more likely, they'd keyed in the code to disable it.

"Who was on the phone?" Felicity asked, as she zipped quickly through the living room and hooked past me on her way upstairs with an empty box that had earlier contained the holiday decorations that now tastefully adorned strategic locations throughout the house.

We'd both managed to grab a fairly substantial amount of sleep, and her brogue had melted back into a slightly perceptible Celtic lilt, minus the clipped affectations that had permeated her speech before. Of course, the extra time we'd spent resting was directly responsible for us now rushing about in a frenzy to get everything done before our guests arrived.

"Don't know," I called after her. "They hung up and the caller ID says unavailable."

"That's weird," she said as she came back down the stairs, quickly sidestepping to avoid a cat on its way up. "There were three hang-ups on the answering machine when I checked it yesterday, and another two this morning."

"There were a couple on there the other morning when you dropped me off heretoo. Did you check the ID box?"

"Uh-hmm," she acknowledged with a nod, as she shot past me in the opposite direction this time. "All unavailable except one, and it was a data error. What about the other ones?"

"Same. Unavailable."

"Hmmm," she remarked. "Wonder what that's all about."

"Well, the hang-ups on there yesterday might have been the media from the night before," I speculated as I followed her into the kitchen.

"Here." She pushed a cutting board holding a large k.n.o.b of ginger across the island toward me. "Peel and slice. Goes in this bowl here."

"For the marinade?"

"Yeah. After you're through with that, mince three or four green onions and throw them in there too."

"How do you think ostrich is going to go over with this crew?"

"They probably won't even know it isn't beef unless we tell them."

"Well, I get to tell Ben."

"As long as I get to watch."

"You can run the camera," I offered jokingly.

"So, don't you think reporters would have left messages?" she asked after a moment.

"What? You mean the hang-ups? I don't know." I shrugged as I absently sc.r.a.ped the skin from the pungent ginger root. "Maybe. Maybe not. They probably didn't figure I'd return the calls, so they might have been trying to get lucky and catch me."

"It's probably nothing. Just some telemarketing outfit," she offered. "They always mask the caller ID."

"Maybe, but we hardly ever get any of those calls anymore. Not since we got on that no-call list."

"True, but even that doesn't eliminate all of them."

"Yeah, you're right," I agreed. "Just seems funny that we're getting so many all of a sudden."

"Well, it's the holiday season; whoever it is might not even be looking to sell us anything. They might be a charity begging donations."

"Yeah. That makes sense." I nodded. "Especially since September and all."

As if it had been listening to us all the while, the object of our discussion pealed once again.

"Don't commit to anything over twenty-five bucks," I half-joked as Felicity quickly wiped her hands with a dishtowel and stepped over to the wall phone."h.e.l.lo?" she said, tucking the handset between her ear and shoulder.

I waited quietly for a moment, looking over at her and halfway expecting the call to be another hang-up.

"Oh, hi," she declared, instantly riddling that suspicion with holes. "Uh-huh...

Yes... Uh-hmmm... Okay, that's fine. So, which paper are you using? Okay, that's good. Well, can't you adjust for it?"

This side of the conversation sounded extremely photographic so I turned my attention to the ginger and began thinly slicing the golden-yellow rhizome.

"Sure, that would be fine," my wife continued behind me. "Just dial in a bit of cyan for me if you would. Sure. That would be great. No, I don't need to see it; I trust your judgment. And, you've got the original print for comparison. No, really, I trust you. No problem. Thanks for calling. Yes. Sure. Uh-huh. Happy holidays to you too. Sure. I will, you too. Bye-bye." She hung up the phone and immediately exclaimed, "Sheesh!"

"Problems?" I asked, still focusing on the culinary task I'd been a.s.signed.

"Oh, that was Harold over at Arch Labs," she told me as she stepped back over to the counter and rolled her eyes. "They're using a different lot of paper and the color was slightly off on that batch job I gave him a couple of days ago."

"So, isn't that something they can just correct for?"

"Exactly." She nodded vigorously as she began the task of cleaning the platter of fresh ostrich tenderloins and placing them into the bowl of marinade. "That's exactly what they are supposed to do. That's why I gave them an original print to compare to. There's no need to call me on something like that."

"I don't want to sound harsh, but is this Harold guy incompetent or something?"

"No, that's not it. He's very good at what he does, and he knew exactly what he needed to do," she answered with a sigh and a slight pause. "Actually, I'm afraid I might know why he called."

"That would be?" I tossed a handful of the ginger slices into the marinade and continued chopping.

"I hate to sound like I'm full of myself, but I think he's got a crush on me."

"Hmmm..." I nodded. "That's not terribly surprising. I mean, look in a mirror, sweetheart. You're very easy to have a crush on."

"Still trying to score points are you?"

"If I can," I said. "I suspect I can use all of them I can get."

"Uh-hmmm," she returned. "Thought so."