Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 20

"Okay, I give. How about a hint?"

"What happens when you place a piece of black paper behind a pane of gla.s.s, Rowan?" she asked.

"You end up with a somewhat crude mirror," I answered with a shrug.

"Perhaps the darkness you see is doing just that for you, but instead, you are looking too hard for something else beyond that veil."

"So, you think I should just accept what I see?"

"I think you should take advantage of the opportunity to peer into your own reflection."

"Now, that really scares me," I returned. "I'm afraid that is where the REAL darkness is."

"We all have darkness within us, Rowan," she replied. "And when you encounter it, sometimes you just have to light your own way."

"I'm not so sure I've got enough of a candle to do that," I sighed.

"Of course you do. You must simply find it first."

"I think I'm running out of places to look, Helen."

"Don't worry," she grinned. "I guarantee that it will be in the last place you look."

I couldn't help but return a grin of my own in response to the cliche adage.

Apparently, I'd seen enough and when she spoke again, we continued smoothly into a seemingly new subject.

"Something Benjamin didn't tell me was that you'd started smoking again."

I looked down at the freshly burning cigarette in my hand, and noticed that it was tucked between my two middle fingers. I didn't even remember lighting it. It felt completely natural but looked foreign positioned in the middle of my hand as it was, so I moved it up beneath my index finger.

Now that it looked normal to me, it felt extremely out of place.I elected to ignore the sensation and took a puff.

"Yeah. Last night," I acknowledged. "I've been fighting the craving for a while, but falling off the wagon was kind of sudden."

"Stress can do that," she offered. "We subconsciously return to places or habits that once gave us comfort. I certainly hope my smoking in front of you yesterday had nothing to do with it."

"No, it didn't," I rea.s.sured her. "Nothing for you to worry about there."

"Do you remember when you first started smoking?"

"You mean before last night?"

"Yes."

"Oh," I did a quick mental calculation, "sixteen, seventeen years ago."

"And when did you quit?"

"Almost two years ago, except for a cigar now and then."

"Do you remember why you originally started?"

"I don't know." I shrugged. "Something to do, I guess."

"That is fairly thin reasoning, Rowan," she said.

"Yes, it is." I nodded.

"Had something particularly stressful happened to you around the time you started?"

"I don't think so." I shrugged again. "I don't really recall."

We both stood in silence for a long moment, alternately inhaling and exhaling clouds of smoke that dissipated on the cool breeze. The sky was an expanse of slate grey that stretched from horizon to horizon, even and unblemished. The temperature was hovering in the upper forties after having threatened to push fully into the low fifties earlier in the day. It actually looked far colder than it really was, even with the breeze factored in.

"Rowan," she finally began after flicking the ashes from her own smoke and gazing thoughtfully out at the skyline. "I realize we've only recently met but you truly do not strike me as the kind of person who is deliberately contrary. Am I correct in this a.s.sumption?"

I mulled over the comment, reading between the lines and deciphering the base meaning of her words.

"I'd like to think that I'm not a jacka.s.s, if that's what you mean," I answered.

"Touche," she replied. "So much for tact."

"Please," I told her, "feel free to be tactful. It makes me feel appreciated. Anyway, you were saying?"

"My point was simply this: Why don't you tell me why it is you think you startedsmoking again," she instructed. "Because, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you don't believe it is because of stress."

"Am I that transparent?"

"Not really." She shook her head and smiled. "I just have better sight than most."

I gave the query some thought. Ben had already told her about some of the things he'd witnessed me do, and I'd spoken at length with her about it myself during our first session. I had nothing to lose by being honest.

"I think that I am physically manifesting the habit of a dead person."

"Whom?" She asked the question without even blinking.

"A young woman named Debbie Schaeffer, or maybe another named Paige Lawson," I told her. "Maybe even both. I don't know."

"Are you certain either of them were smokers?"

"I'm not actually sure. Ben is checking on it though."

"Debbie Schaeffer is the murdered cheerleader whose case Benjamin is a.s.signed to, correct?"

"That's the one."

"And Paige Lawson is?"

"Another case Ben is... Was... Is working," I explained. "I'm not sure if it is still an open investigation or if they finally wrote it off as an accidental death. Something tells me it wasn't an accident though."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know." I shook my head. "Something just doesn't feel right about it. I a.s.sumed Ben had told you about that particular incident."

"By incident do you mean something involving you?"

"Exactly."

"Ahhh, just a moment," she nodded, "would this be the case where you recently showed up uninvited at the crime scene extremely disoriented and then pa.s.sed out?"

"That would be the one."

"Mmhmm, mmhmm." She nodded again. "I do remember Benjamin telling me about that. I believe it is what triggered him calling me about you."

"Yeah, I think you're right. Although I've recently been informed that he and Felicity had been discussing my mental state for some time now."

"I believe you are correct," she agreed. "So what about this incident with Ms.

Lawson. It seems to be weighing on you somewhat."

"Well, the big problem for me is that I have no memory of going there... To the crime scene... Not until I snapped out of whatever trance I was in, anyway. And, by then I just found myself handcuffed and sitting in the back of a squad car.""PTSD can manifest in various ways, Rowan. Selective amnesia isn't beyond the realm of possibility for someone who has been subjected to emotional and physical trauma of the severity you faced."

"But, I had s.e.x with my wife last night..."

I simply blurted out the comment, appending it to the conversation whether it appeared to fit or not. The resulting silence lasted for enough heartbeats to tell me that I'd even managed to stun Helen with the seemingly misplaced announcement.

I don't know that I consciously realized what I was saying until the words were out there for us both to hear, and by then it was too late. I could still make no real sense of it all, but pieces were falling into place to form a fuzzy image. The very subject that had been my impetus for this unscheduled visit was now revealed. In the process a subdued feeling was re-awakened, and the unnamed fear that had earlier made itself comfortable within me stood up and engaged in a formal introduction.

"Okay," Helen finally answered, scrutinizing my face with her eyes. "Has there been a problem with intimacy between the two of you?"

It took a moment to dawn on me that I'd only spoken aloud the first half of the thought that kept replaying in my head. "No, I'm sorry, you don't understand..." I sputtered. "What I mean is I had s.e.x with my wife last night but I don't remember it."

"At all?"

"No. Not at all."

"Are you certain that this happened?"

"Oh yeah." I nodded. "No doubt in my mind. I got the message loud and clear from Felicity when we got up."

"I see," she posed thoughtfully. "Did you tell her you had no recollection of it?"

"No." I shook my head. "Not yet. I'm already walking a thin line with her as it is.

If I tell her something like that, she'll have me committed."

"I seriously doubt that," she said with a shake of her head. "You know, this is very likely all part of the same post trauma stress."

"I don't know, Helen. Do you remember me telling you about the sleepwalking I've been doing over the past few months?" I asked, the viscid fear now running rampant through my veins and forcing the words out of my mouth as a confession.

"Of course."

"And how I don't remember any of it?"

"Here again, that is not unusual in cases of somnambulism, Rowan," she offered.

"And these nocturnal episodes are most likely due to the stress."

"But, I'm afraid that maybe all of it is tied together somehow. The sleepwalking, the blackouts, even Paige Lawson..."

"I agree with you," she nodded. "Like I said, these things could be manifestationsof PTSD."

"I wish it were that simple," I told her. "But, I'm terribly afraid that there's a different connection."

"And that would be?"

"I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm the one who killed Paige Lawson."

CHAPTER 13.

"You don't truly believe that now do you, Rowan?" Helen asked me after yet another considerably long and uncomfortable pause.

"To be honest, I don't know what to believe anymore," I answered her. "And that is starting to really scare me."

I was amazed at how calmly I spoke considering the rampant terror that was now racing around inside me. The sudden revelation that I, myself, could be the person responsible for Paige Lawson's death was almost more than I could bear to imagine.

But, it was a fact I felt I had to face head on. The simple truths were that Debbie Schaeffer's spirit was very intent on my contact with the corpse; I had arrived at the crime scene in a demented state; And, I couldn't remember anything at all about going there.

Who was to say that I hadn't already been there a few short hours before?

"I honestly believe that you are leading yourself down the wrong path," Doctor Storm said with a look of deep concentration creasing her forehead. "You should look carefully at the facts which are before you, and refrain from wild conjecture."

"I am," I answered.

"No, Rowan," she replied sternly. "You are not."

"What am I missing then?"

"Evidence, for one; motive, for another. Think about it. Did you even know this Paige Lawson?"

"No." I shook my head and inhaled deeply from the cigarette in my hand. "Never heard of her before that night."