Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 30

Gentlemen, this is Miranda Hodges."

The woman seated at the table in the small conference room fit the victim profile perfectly-early twenties, very pet.i.te, very blonde, and very pretty.

She was also very nervous.

There was a noticeable tremble in her hand as she brought a cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply. A half empty pack of the indulgences was on the table in front of her along with a disposable lighter, and the ashtray was filled with better than a half-dozen b.u.t.ts. I stole a glance at my watch. They hadn't been in here for very long.

"Hi," she said in a meek voice, then stubbed out the remaining inch of the burning tobacco, only to immediately light another.

My own craving for nicotine re-awakened, and I wanted desperately to sit down and join her in the chain smoking frenzy, but decided that I'd better not. Ben shot me a glance and I nodded perceptibly. I'd been telling him all along that my return to smoking had to be due to the outside influence of a victim. I had simply thought that I was channeling the vice of a dead victim, not a living one. But, here was Miranda Hodges; cigarette in hand, and there was no denying the possible correlation. Maybe I was wrong, but doubted it. The timeline and the intensity fit.

I smiled inwardly for a moment. Score another one for me. If things kept falling into place this quickly, I just might get the gift of my sanity for Christmas.

"Good morning, Ms. Hodges," Ben greeted the young woman as we ventured into the room."Detective McLaughlin told me that you work with Homicide," Miranda ventured.

"That's right," he answered.

She looked past Ben and locked her eyes on mine. "Are you with Homicide too, Detective Gant?"

"Mister Gant is a consultant," Ben told her, answering before I could open my mouth and stressing the Mister. "He's helping us with another case and I thought his input might be valuable here. But if you're uncomfortable..." he allowed the comment to hang, unfinished.

"No," she shook her head. "No, it's fine. What kind of consultant?"

"Umm..."

"Latent memory a.n.a.lysis and dream interpretation," I interjected, plucking something impressive sounding out of the air since Ben seemed at a momentary loss.

I knew full well that I was stepping outside the boundaries that he'd set, but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

I'd been allowing everyone else to guide me for far too long. It was my turn to drive.

"Like a psychiatrist," she said.

"Not exactly," I told her with a shrug, and then nodded as I moved closer to the table. "But something similar I suppose."

"I'm not crazy," she immediately announced.

"No one thinks you're crazy, Ms. Hodges," Charlee told her.

I could feel Ben's stare burning a large hole in my back. I was going to be in deep trouble with him when this was all over, but I knew he wouldn't make a scene. Not in here, and not as long as things remained on an even keel anyway. Still, the only way I was going to redeem myself in the least was if I could make some progress, so I continued.

"Not at all," I echoed. "I'm just here to help you with your memory, but if you'd rather I leave, I'll certainly understand."

She sat quietly for a long stretch before finally answering, "I'm not so sure I want to remember."

"That's perfectly normal," I offered calmly, pressing my voice into a soothing monotone. "But eventually we always do. Perhaps not everything, but enough to fill in at least some of the blanks."

Her eyes were fixed with mine, and she gave me a shy smile before looking down at the table. She was outwardly displaying a tenuous amount of confidence in my presence here, and I accepted it for what it was worth. I fought back my own desire to rush headlong into a series of questions, and ushered it into the background. I couldn't afford to betray her trust, nor did I want to.

"I have plenty of those." She gave a nervous laugh. "Blanks I mean.""Rophynol does that," Charlee told her. "That's one of the reasons it's called the Date Rape drug."

I continued to watch the young woman, not placing any demands on the situation, but keeping my attention focused directly on her. Engaging in a simple exercise, I allowed my breathing to grow more and more shallow as I drew air slowly in through my nose and let it escape from my mouth in a quiet stream.

"While it may seem painful at first, Miranda," I offered, keeping the measure of my voice even, "filling in those blanks can offer closure."

She turned her gaze back to me and brought her eyes to rest directly on mine once again. I continued to stare, unblinking as I spoke, "And with that closure can come peace of mind."

She was beginning to relax as I soothed her with my voice. I could feel a connection beginning to flow between us, and I prepared to press forward. Ben, however, immediately figured out what I was about to do. He had seen me enter into such a hypnotic state before, and he wasn't going to allow it this time around.

My friend cleared his throat with almost over-animated gusto and purposely gave me a nudge. The thin connection was immediately broken and Miranda Hodges, wearing a mildly bewildered expression as if she'd just awoke, shook her head and blinked.

"I want you to know I appreciate you talking to us," Ben offered, stepping forward and insinuating himself even more prominently into the scene.

"So, why are you interested in this, Detective Storm?" Miranda turned her attention to Ben as she took a hit from her cigarette. "Did... Did the sonofab.i.t.c.h that raped me kill someone too?"

"We don't know for sure," he told her. "But I'll be honest, yes, that is a possibility. That's why I wanted to talk to you."

Her reaction was instantaneous and not all that unexpected.

"Oh my G.o.d," she whimpered as she brought her hand up to her mouth. She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and blinked hard before squeezing them tightly shut.

She let out a low, nasal whine as she began trembling. Large tears proceeded to roll down her cheeks, and we all stood in awkward silence.

I personally erected a shabby wall of ethereal defense against the woman's burgeoning emotions as I felt a lump begin to rise in my throat. Empathy can be a very good thing, but it can also get in the way if you are too sensitive. That seemed to be a large part of my problem.

I managed to stave it off, thankful that the distress wasn't aimed directly at me, because I still wasn't all that well grounded. Right now, I needed to take things one at a time.

Charlee found a box of tissues and offered it to the young woman. She took them and sniffed loudly as she dabbed at the tears, and then looked up at us and weaklyuttered, "I'm sorry."

"S'okay," Ben told her. "Can we get you anything? Maybe somethin' to drink?

Coffee? Soda? Water?"

"A soda," she nodded. "A soda would be good."

"Particular kind?"

"Anything diet."

"How about you, Chuck?"

"Coffee's good. Two creams, four sugars."

"Okay, one diet soda and one coffee, two by four," Ben repeated. "Come on, Rowan, why don't you come with and give me a hand. We'll be right back."

"Just what the f.u.c.k was that?" Ben snarled at me as we entered the corridor and rounded the corner toward the vending machines.

I didn't answer and just kept walking.

"You were tryin' to do one of those hocus-pocus things weren't you?" he continued angrily.

I felt his large hand come down in a firm grip on my shoulder and with a quick jerk he twisted me around. "G.o.ddammit, Rowan! Don't walk away from me when I'm talkin' to you!"

"Back off, Ben," I spat.

"Me back off?" he asked incredulously. "I talked to you about this before we went in there. You promised me you wouldn't do any of that s.h.i.+t."

"I didn't promise you anything," I shot back. "I said I'd try. That's it."

"You didn't try very f.u.c.kin' hard!"

The few people that were in the hallway were giving us wide berth as each of them selected the nearest escape route. Ben was seething, and the very sight of him like this tended to strike fear directly into the heart. He hadn't been willing to make a scene in front of Miranda Hodges, but apparently once the door to the interview room had closed we were center stage.

"Guess again! I've been trying 'very f.u.c.king hard' for a week now. Maybe it's your turn!"

My comment took him completely by surprise. He just stared at me dumbfounded with his jaw hanging open. Whatever biting comment he'd been prepared to hurl at me had instantly evaporated into nothingness. After a moment he spoke, this time with a little less fire in his voice. "What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

I sighed and consciously forced some of my own anger to drain away. "It meansthat it's time you started trusting me again."

"When haven't I trusted you?"

"For the past week, at least," I told him. "Ever since I walked in here with that notepad it has been like pulling teeth to get you to listen to me."

"Yeah, well, I thought I had reason for that."

"Fine. I'm willing to accept that. But start adding it up, Ben. How much more do I have to do to prove to you that I'm right? Do you really still have reason to keep shutting me out on this?"

"You mean besides the fact that you aren't a copper?"

"That's never stopped you before."

"I promised Felicity."

"And we saw how that ended up, didn't we?"

"Yeah, well that wasn't entirely my fault."

"I didn't say it was." I shook my head. "It was n.o.body's fault. But it's a moot point anyway. All the promises in the world aren't going to keep these nightmares out of my head."

"But if I keep you out of it, I can keep you safe."

"Not from the visions you can't." I shook my head.

"That's Felicity's part of the deal." He held up his hands in surrender. "I just handle what I can see."

"That's just it. It's not what you see that is doing the harm. It's what I see," I appealed. "And even she can't protect me from these things, Ben. You've both seen that."

"Jeezus, Rowan." He shook his head and rested one hand on his hip while sending the other up to smooth back his hair and begin ma.s.saging his neck. "Man, if I had a freakin' time machine..."

"You'd do what? Go back in time and never get me involved in the Ariel Tanner case?"

"Somethin' like that."

"We'd still end up right where we are now, Ben." My voice softened as I spoke.

"She was a friend of mine and I would have gotten involved anyway. You know that.

If you hadn't shown up that night to ask me about the Pentacle at the crime scene, maybe someone else would have. Or I would have heard about it somewhere. Even I don't believe in preordained destiny, but I know I was meant to do this. Otherwise, I wouldn't have these visions."

"You need to get over this guilt of yours. The real truth is that neither of us is responsible for this. I know you don't necessarily believe it, but there's something bigger at work here and it's what keeps dragging me into these things; not you-oreven me for that matter. And like it or not, that's my problem, not yours."

"Yeah, tell that to my conscience."

"THAT is your problem, not mine," I told him with a grin.

He huffed out a heavy sigh. "s.h.i.+t, white man, every time you get involved in an investigation we end up arguin' about somethin'."

"Been a bit worse this time around," I acknowledged. "Good thing we're friends."

"Yeah," he grunted, "so why the h.e.l.l do we do this?"

"Probably because we're both strong-willed individuals who although we are seeking the same result, have diametrically opposed ways of going about achieving it."

"You HAVE been hangin' around my sister too much." He returned his own grin.

"So, have we cleared the air?" I asked after a moment.

"I'm still not exactly happy with you blindsiding me like that," he returned.

"Would it help if I apologized?" I asked.

"Right now? Not much. Later, probably."

"I can live with that," I allowed. "So, can we get back to the business at hand?"

He gave me a long, hard look, then rubbed his chin with the back of his hand before pointing a finger at me. "Can you do this without Felicity here?"

"Yeah, I should be okay."

"Don't try to snow me."

"I'm not," I answered with genuine sincerity. "We're not talking about channeling a spirit here, just a bit of interactive hypnosis. There shouldn't be a big problem."

"What if the stuff she remembers is graphic?"

"It probably will be," I conceded. "But she's alive and she obviously wasn't tortured or anything, so it should be okay."

"Nothing funky?"