Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 39

"Maybe you two should get together then."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Well why stop there," he submitted. "Shove that d.a.m.n thing into the bird youserved the other night and you can have yourself one big Ost.u.r.duckenrich."

The Trans Siberian Orchestra was filling the cab of my truck with their particular brand of no holds barred holiday music when I merged onto Highway Forty. I had the volume set mid level so as not to drown out my cell phone if it was to ring. My headache was still with me, but thankfully it had settled to an almost ignorable dull thud somewhere in the vicinity of the right rear portion of my skull. Even so, had it not been for the two-fold reason of A) I liked the song and B) I liked the song enough that it was helping keep my mind off of things I'd rather not think about, I would have turned the radio off completely.

Unfortunately, there was still one thing that my mind insisted that it be allowed to dwell upon-I still couldn't shake the sensation of being watched. In fact, the feeling had just grown worse as the day wore on. I'd been able to keep it at bay for the most part since I was intensely occupied with the cross-referencing tasks. However, now that I was alone and somewhat relaxed, even the frantic rhythms of the music weren't enough to drive away that annoying itch at the base of my neck. I physically shivered, trying to shake off the feeling, and took another long glance in the rearview mirror.

There wasn't much to see. Just a wide span of blackness, marred here and there by a pair of headlights-nothing on my tail. No one was purposely following me that I could tell-not that I was any kind of expert on the subject. But the feeling was still there.

I punched the lighter in on the dash and fished a cigarette out of my breast pocket. This would be the third one since I'd walked out of Police Headquarters. I spit out a hollow cough and noticed tightness in my chest, then stuck the b.u.t.t between my lips. I really needed to do something about this. Maybe now that I had connected the recurrence of the habit with one of the victims it would be easier for me to break it.

The lighter popped and I s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of its receptacle, touching the glowing end to the cigarette and taking a deep drag. After replacing the device I took another puff and tucked the smoldering roll of paper and tobacco between my fingers.

"You know that's really gross don't you?" a painfully familiar voice bled through the music.

I tried to ignore the presence. I'd seen enough for one day, and I simply wasn't sure I could take any more. I continued to stare straight out the windshield.

"I said, you know that's really gross don't you?!" the voice insisted.

I still pretended not to hear.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, Rowan!" Debbie Schaejfer demanded my attention again.

Without a word, I reached over to the controls on the radio and moved thevolume up a few notches. Almost instantly the speakers went dead.

"I said I'm talking to you, Rowan!" she a.s.serted.

"Well, I'm not talking to you," I muttered under my breath.

It didn't really matter. I didn't even have to speak for her to hear me. The simple fact that I acknowledged her with my thoughts was enough to set her in motion.

"And why not?"

"Hmmmm, let me see," I offered sarcastically, still speaking aloud. "Could it be maybe that I'm not terribly impressed with that little stunt you pulled this afternoon?"

As I finished the sentence, I glanced over at the pa.s.senger side. As I suspected, there she was, fully decked out in her cheerleading uniform, hair up in a ponytail, and her arms crossed over her chest.

"I helped you find out what you were after didn't I?" she stated more than asked. "You just needed a little push in the right direction, that's all."

All of the progress I'd made so far seemed to simply fly out the window. If anyone were to pull alongside it would probably look like I was talking to myself. I felt utterly insane sitting here having an argument with a ghost while traveling down the highway on Christmas Eve. Of course, what better night could one pick to be visited by a ghost?

"I think I liked it better when you just did the automatic writing," I told her. "You were a h.e.l.l of a lot less annoying that way."

" You weren't paying enough attention," she spat. "Besides, this is more fun."

"Fun? Give me a break, will you. I'm doing the best that I can. I've got my own problems you know."

"What? Like I don't have problems? "

"In case YOU weren't paying attention, Debbie, the guy who tried to kill me last February is running around loose."

"Yeah, so? I'm already dead. "

"So you've told me."

"Don't be so selfish, Rowan. You're supposed to be helping me. Paige is counting on you too. "

"What?" I exclaimed aloud. "Me being selfish? What about you?"

Yes, it was official. I had to be insane. There was no other explanation.

"Yes, you being selfish. Here you are all worried about your problems when I'm dead. Dead I am, dead I am... "

"...I do not like that dead I am, yeah Debbie, I get it," I expressed. "Can we move on to something else?"

"That's up to you, Rowan. If you'll just start paying attention.""What's that supposed to mean?"

She didn't answer. I glanced over at the pa.s.senger seat and found an empty void.

She was gone. Great, I thought to myself. Now she's going to give me riddles. I've never understood why spirits can't just say what they mean.

Although, I had to admit that this was a first. Most of the ethereal visits I'd experienced tended to take place during a heavily tranced state or even sleep. Clues were often complex strings of symbolic messages that required serious deciphering.

Debbie seemed to be phasing back and forth between the planes at will, and was even carrying on conversations-cryptic yes, but conversations nonetheless. This was definitely one I needed to record in my Book of Shadows.

I jerked with a start as the music suddenly returned, blaring through the cab of the truck. I reached over and turned the volume down, then took a drag from my cigarette and propped my hand up on the steering wheel.

The center dividing line flashed by in my headlights, flickering in on-again/off-again reflective stripes. I continued to stare out the windshield, over the top of the steering wheel, and through the rippling column of smoke that was rising from my burning cigarette. Eventually, reflex drove me to bring my hand toward my face for yet another puff, and my vision was suddenly replaced by a Technicolor flash of memory.

A lit cigarette smokes in his free hand as the other pumps faster between his legs. I concentrate on the glowing coal, not wanting to witness his self-stimulation.

I watch him raise the cigarette to take a puff and notice that it is positioned between his middle fingers.

Curious.

I've never seen anyone hold a cigarette like that before.

As the bloom of color faded, I jerked the wheel quickly to the left to avoid running off the road at the Hampton exit. When I'd settled the vehicle back into the lane, and swallowed my heart back down into my chest, I stole another glance at my hand. There, between my middle fingers rested the smoldering cigarette.

No wonder I was so screwed up. I'd been channeling the rapist all along.

I started to reach for my cell phone in order to call Ben, but stopped mid stretch.

There was nothing he could do with the information at this point in time, so why bother him. Besides, I'd be home soon. I'd pick up Felicity and we'd head over to his house for dinner, so I could tell him in person.

I glanced at the clock on the dash and saw that it was now a quarter after six. It had taken longer to get myself together and get out of Police Headquarters than I'd expected. The last stop for the 'Santa Brigade' was merely a drop-off at a food bank less than a mile from our house, so Felicity was most likely already home.My biggest concern at this point was going to be figuring out how to pack an overnight bag for the two of us without her asking why.

This was going to be a tough one.

It was six twenty-five when I turned my truck into the driveway of our Briarwood home. I urged the vehicle toward the garage at the back of the house, and discovered the gate that would normally bar the path was propped open. The motion from making the turn around the deck triggered the outdoor sentry and floodlights snapped on to light the landscape. Felicity's Jeep was already parked in the garage.

My suspicions about timing had been dead on, and I still had no idea how I was going to get the overnight bag past her. The only resolution I had come upon was to forget the bag altogether. One of us was going to have to come back to the house tomorrow anyway, that much was a foregone conclusion. For one thing, there was a house full of animals that needed to be taken care of.

I sat there thinking about it for a moment. We could easily set up extra food and water for the cats. The truth was, they would probably enjoy having the run of the place for a while. However, the dogs were going to require quite a bit more attention.

Either they would have to go with us, or we would need to board them somewhere.

Depending on how long this all took, that could get expensive.

This lead to yet another thought-there was the fact that we both worked out of the house. My office was here and so was Felicity's darkroom. Over the holidays it would be slow, so we'd be able to manage, but that lull was going to be over soon enough.

What if they weren't able to find Porter right away? What if he went on another killing spree in the process of coming after me? What if he targeted my friends in order to get to me?

I could feel myself shaking my head almost unconsciously. I had no idea how we were going to make this work, and I was starting to obsess about it.

I shifted the truck into park and switched off the engine, then took a deep breath.

Just take things one step at a time, that's what I needed to do-just one step at a time.

I climbed out of the truck and made my way up the stairs and across the deck to the atrium door. The temperate day had folded itself into a chilly night, and I could see my breath in a frosty cloud. I shuffled through my keys then raised my free hand to the door handle, but I never got the key into the lock. The latch clicked and the door swung inward.

Under any other circ.u.mstances I wouldn't have thought anything of it. Felicity was home, and even though she tended to keep the doors locked, she sometimes forgot.

This time it was different.Every hair on the back of my neck immediately rose to attention. The dull thud in the back of my head expanded to encompa.s.s my entire body. My ears began to ring, and every ethereal alarm I had was going off in sequence.

I pushed the door further inward and stepped through. A cold gust of wind followed behind me and rustled a stack of newspaper that was sitting in a nearby chair. The door into the house was hanging ajar, and the interior of the house was dark.

I carefully shut the outer door, beating back the desire to panic, then took the few steps across the atrium to the kitchen door and pushed it slowly open.

"Felicity?" I called out.

I waited in the darkness, but received no answer. I listened intently and could hear m.u.f.fled whimpering and barking coming from the interior of the house. Acid began churning in the pit of my stomach as the panic began to break free and crawl up my spine like a thousand spiders.

"Felicity?" I called again, louder, as I hurried through the door and in my haste glanced against the corner of the island.

I let out a yelp and grabbed my side, then aimed myself for the dining room.

"Felicity? Are you here? Answer me!"

The only sound to meet my ears was the fading echo of my own voice and the excited yelps of the dogs from somewhere deeper in the house.

The light was on in the living room and it cast an eerie glow into the dining room where I stood. Looking around, I could see my wife's purse on the side table, and her long coat draped across the back of the chair.

My racing heart slowed and I took a deep breath. She was here somewhere.

Maybe she'd gone downstairs into her darkroom for something. Or maybe she was in the bedroom and couldn't hear me over the dogs, a.s.suming that's where they were.

I crossed the room and flipped the light switch. Even with the wave of relief sweeping over me, the supernatural alarms were still raising a raucous clamor.

Adrenalin was dripping into my bloodstream on full flow, and I was beginning to shake.

The fleeting moment of calm dissolved. Something was still very wrong. With the dogs raising that much ruckus, Felicity should have shut them down by now, or at least come to see what was going on.

I bolted through the house, stumbling over my own feet with the clumsiness brought on by unchecked anxiety. I was screaming my wife's name like a madman, flinging doors open as I went. The dogs immediately charged out of the bedroom and followed me on the rabid quest.

In less than two minutes I had covered the entire house-upstairs, downstairs, her darkroom, everywhere. I was panting hard, struggling to catch my breath when Ireturned to the dining room.

I stood staring at the scene that had escaped my attention in the darkness. Now that I was turned to face it, and the lights were on, my heart plummeted into the depths of abject despair.

The dining room table was canted askew as if it had been pushed or knocked out of place. A chair was overturned and laying on its side. Scattered across the disrupted tableau and onto the floor was the day's mail.

I began to shake even harder when my disbelieving stare came to rest on the center of the table. There, as if placed with the utmost reverence rested a book. Gold letters were embossed along the spine and across the cover, spelling out the ominous words: Holy Bible.

I dropped the phone four times before my unsteady hands managed to dial nine one-one.

CHAPTER 26.

I was sitting on the floor staring straight ahead; the handset of the phone still clasped tight in my hand when the first uniformed police officers arrived on the scene. I was in so much pain I couldn't move. Emotional distress had transcended the boundaries of the physical and I literally ached with despair. I could feel a hole deepening in my chest and spreading outward in a bid to consume me.

I let it.

I didn't fight, didn't struggle. I just sat and let the cold darkness eat away at my soul. Right now, this pain was all I had to cling to. It was the only feeling I had left.

I had no idea what I'd told the emergency operator. All I knew is that I could hear his voice issuing faintly from the earpiece. He was asking me something it seemed, although it was just so much gibberish in my mind. Whatever I'd said to him, it had to have been barely coherent but ultimately grievous, as the two officers entered with extreme caution and weapons drawn.

I continued to sit, unmoving, watching as they came toward me. They were speaking but their words made no more sense than the nine one-one operator. It was obvious to me that until they'd fully a.s.sessed the situation, I was considered a possible threat.

I didn't care.

At this moment-this horrifically drawn out and extended instant in all of time and s.p.a.ce-my life meant absolutely nothing to me. If Felicity was gone then I had no desire to continue.A brief spark of a thought glowed in the forefront of my brain. All I had to do was move. Make a threatening gesture. Act as though I was about to train a weapon on the officers and it could all be done. They could end this hollow pain for me.

Fortunately for me, I couldn't make myself do it.

I just continued to sit and embrace the pain, letting it pool deeper and deeper until finally, I was immersed in it.

Sinking.