Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 31

"Well," I shrugged as I spoke, "depending on what I see, it could get a little spooky."

"Yeah, that's what I figured," he nodded. "Better let me fill McLaughlin in before you go all Twilight Zone."

"So you're going to let me try it my way?"

"I dunno yet," he said. "Lemme think about it."

CHAPTER 20.

Detective Charlee McLaughlin came within inches of colliding with us as we entered through the squad room door on our way back to the interview room. There was an almost wild look contorting her face, and the level of energy she was exuding was physically palpable.

"Whoa!" Ben jumped back, juggling a pair of hot coffees. "Where's the fire?"

"Forget about Hodges," Charlee announced the matter-of-fact statement. "She's gone."

"Do what?" Ben exclaimed. "Whaddaya mean gone?"

"She left," she continued, obviously worked up about something. "You guys weren't gone for two minutes, and she bolted. Said she was sorry, but all she wanted to do is tell me she remembered something about a dress."

"It wasn't because of me was it?" I asked.

"I doubt it," she spoke in a rapid fire staccato, her voice building into a near frenzy. "She was still way too spooked when she showed up. I'm surprised she stayed as long as she did to be honest. But, anyway, that's not important."

"Not important? But..." Ben started to object.

"No, listen to me." Charlee shook her head vigorously and gestured. "I just now got off the phone with University Hospital. They've got a thirty-two year old blonde rape victim sitting in Emergency right now."

Ben stopped cold and looked at her. "You pretty sure it's our guy?"

"Can't be positive, but according to the Doc, her neck is bruised up and she can't remember where she's been since Sat.u.r.day night."

Ben quickly looked around for a place to dispose of the drinks he was carrying.

Finding none, he shoved the cups of coffee into the hands of a uniformed officer who was walking past, giving no explanation other than a muttered, "Here. Merry Christmas."

His attention remained focused on Charlee and I could almost feel the surge of adrenalin that kicked into him as he ramped up to her level. We were already hurrying through the s.e.x Crimes squad room as he spoke, "Get the CSU on the horn now.

Tell them you need an evidence team at this woman's residence immediately if not sooner. We need to hit this before anyone can screw with the scene."

"Already done," she answered as we jogged.

"Did they tell ya' who's runnin it?"

"No."

"Call 'em back and tell 'em you want Murv. I don't care if they have to drag his a.s.s outta the shower or what. We want the best on this and I'd almost swear that guy could lift a print off a f.u.c.kin' puddle of water if he had to.""Got it."

"I'll go check in upstairs and let 'em know what's up, then we'll meet you out back. I'll drive."

"See you in ten," she told us as she peeled off toward her desk.

"Make it five," Ben called after her.

I had to break into a near run to keep up with my friend as he hooked around the desks and shouldered open the door leading to the stairs.

"Why are we in such a rush," I asked, following him through into the stairwell and lagging far behind as he took the stairs two at a time.

"Because I wanna get you together with the victim while everything's still fresh,"

he said.

"This is kind of an about face. I thought you were still a bit leery about all that."

"Oh, I am," he called down. "I'm just taking my turn."

"What?"

"My turn," he repeated, his voice starting to fade in the distances as it echoed from the concrete walls. "You said it was my turn to trust you for a change. Well, I'm gonna trust you to figure out who the sick a.s.shole is that's doin' this."

He had already disappeared from view, and I could hear the creak of the door slowly closing behind him. Finally topping the first flight of stairs, I rounded the landing and started up the next set, only to halt dead in my tracks.

Seated on the top stair was a blonde in her early twenties, clad in a cheerleader's uniform. Her arms were crossed and she was leaning forward with them resting on her knees. The toes of her unnaturally white sneakers pointed slightly in toward one another, and she was staring at me quizzically.

After a brief interval of motionlessness, her mouth began to move. A short measure later, completely out of sync with her lips, words began glancing from the walls with a phase-shifted quality that I'd come to expect from the earthly manifestations of spirits.

I'm dead, She's dead.

D-E-A-D, dead.

She's dead, I'm dead.

D-E-A-D, dead.

Her head bobbed back and forth in time with the ditty as she spoke, making the lack of synchronization between the movement of her mouth and the words just that much more disconcerting. Her eyes remained locked with mine, unblinking, and I could do nothing more than return the stare.The past two days of quiet had lulled me into a sense of complacency where such ethereal visits were concerned, and her sudden appearance here took me by surprise.

I simply stood there, unsure of what to say.

She continued the piece of morose poetry, picking up the disharmonious pace as she went.

Rowan, Rowan, he's our man!

If he can't do it, n.o.body can!

She's dead, I'm dead, what to do?

Find the killer, we're counting on you!

Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe, Catch the killer, don't let him go.

Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe, Make him suffer, don't you know.

If he screams, well we don't care, If he cries, then we'll be there.

We want him to hurt, and to be afraid.

We want him to die in this bed he's made.

Now go catch the killer, We'll make him pay.

And pay, and pay, And pay, and pay, And pay, and pay, and pay, and pay, and pay...

The vengeance laced words continued to echo inside my head as they faded in concert with the rapidly dissolving image of Debbie Schaeffer. I felt a hard knot in my stomach and nausea gripped me. This wasn't good at all.

Debbie had literally taken over my body once before, and even though I was in better shape now than I had been that night, if I wasn't careful she could do it again.

The last thing I needed was for her to use me to commit murder-even if the victim was a killer himself. There's no way in the world I'd ever be able to convince a jury that my physical body had been possessed by the spirit of a dead cheerleader with a taste for revenge. No, this was worse than not good. This was just plain bad.

I'm not sure how much time I spent standing there contemplating this threat, but it couldn't have been long. I started with a violent jerk as the door at the top of the landing b.u.mped open with a heavy thud and Ben stuck his head through the opening.

"Hey, Rowan," my friend called down to me, "you comin' or what?"

The doors leading from the ambulance bay slid open before us to revealsomething resembling an all-day-long progressive holiday celebration in halting swing. The on-again, off-again nature of the work here was managing to consistently interfere and prevent the festivities from ever making it to the status of a full-blown party.

As we entered, for the second time this week the antiseptic atmosphere of an emergency room a.s.saulted me full force; but at least this time I wasn't a patient. The sweet smells of cookies and candies mingled with the savory aromas of cheese and cold-cut trays on the cool air. They were in turn undercut with the sharp fumes of isopropyl alcohol and other medicinal preparations. The entire melange was bound together by the peculiar plastic odor of adhesive bandages.

Fortunately, it didn't appear to be too terribly busy at the moment-yet another calm before the storm considering that statistically, holidays bring out the worst in some. Still, even with the lull, the staff wasn't exactly twiddling their thumbs either.

The nurse behind the desk was involved in paperwork, presumably from a recent admission. Others could be seen, here and there seeing to tasks or simply s.n.a.t.c.hing a cookie from one of the many plates.

The young woman tending the desk had made an effort to offset the plainness of her scrubs, having adorned herself with a holiday bow in her hair and an electronic reindeer pin above her name badge. As we approached, The LED in the plastic novelty's nose was flashing wildly and the circuitry embedded within was belting out a medley of holiday tunes comprised entirely of a series of off-key electronic tones.

"Can I help you?" she asked cheerfully as she looked up, obviously noticing that no one in our trio appeared to require immediate medical attention.

"City Police," Charlee told her as she flashed her badge. "I'm Detective McLaughlin; this is Detective Storm and Mister Gant. I received a call from a Doctor Kennedy a little while ago."

"Yes," the nurse nodded, her smile fading. "The rape. He said to expect you.

Treatment room four." She stood and leaned slightly across the counter, then motioned with one hand. "Down this corridor, left at the end, through the double doors and it will be about halfway down on the left."

"Thanks," McLaughlin told her.

We rounded the corner of the admitting desk, and headed down the corridor with Charlee in the lead. Ben reigned in his extra long stride and put a hand on my arm to hold me back as well, allowing us to fall a few paces behind her.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to Chuck about the hocus pocus stuff," he half whispered to me. "Not to mention that this victim is coming right off the incident and she hasn't had time to come to terms with it."

"I understand," I replied.

"Really, Row," he admonished, "don't go in there slingin' fairy dust or whatever right outta the box. We gotta feel out the situation first."

"Okay, Ben," I reiterated, "I've got it. I'm sorry about what I did back at thestation and I won't do it here. Promise."

"Okay, I just gotta be sure," he told me as he rummaged in his pockets again.

"What? Do I need another breath mint?" I queried, noticing his preoccupation with the task.

"Probably," he huffed flatly. "You hot-boxed four cigarettes before we got here and it only took us ten minutes."

"Yeah, well, blame it on Miranda Hodges. Besides, I seem to recall seeing a Fuente Chateau clenched between your teeth, my friend."

"Yeah, but I was just chewin' on it. Actually, I wanted to give you somethin' else."

He finally withdrew his fist from his pocket and held it out to me. "Here."

I extended my palm and he dropped a wad of small paper packets into it. "What's this?" I asked.

"Salt," he answered matter-of-factly. "I stole 'em outta the break room before we left."

"What do you want me to do with them?"

"Hey, you're the Witch, you tell me. Felicity seemed to think it was pretty important to have salt the other night. I'm just tryin' ta' help."

"She was doing something a bit different than what I'm about to do."

"It's all the same in my book," he returned. "Besides, I haven't seen Felicity go off the deep end yet, so maybe you oughta try it her way."

I was going to object again, but we were almost to the door of the treatment room and I really didn't have time to explain the difference between Magickal workings and psychic abilities to him.

Of course, the real truth was that in my case they were probably closer to one another than I wanted to believe. On top of that, he was most likely correct in his a.s.sessment. Given my current state, a little caution might very well go a long way.

Especially since I now had an ethereal vigilante cheerleader threatening to use me as a weapon to exact her vengeance.