Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 6

"You mean you think it might not have been just an accident?" I latched on to the glint of hope in his words.

"No," he shook his head vigorously and turned the glimmer to worthless pyrite.

"I'm worried about YOU. I think what happened out on that bridge earlier this year has still got you f.u.c.ked up."

"That's not it, Ben, and you know it."

"Felicity?" Ben appealed as he looked over at her.

"I have to agree with him, Row," she stated evenly. "You haven't been yourself lately at all."

"You've got to be kidding," I muttered incredulously. "You're on Ben's side with this? Come on, Felicity, last time I checked you were just as open minded about this kind of thing as me. You've seen the things that have happened. You've even experienced them first hand."

"Yes, I have," she agreed. "But I was never in as deep as you have been. This is different somehow. Ever since you got involved in that investigation last February, you've seemed disconnected. Ungrounded. You even admitted it then."

"Yes I did, but that was months ago. I'm well over that."

"No, you're not," she replied. "In some ways you're even worse than you were then. You've seemed almost out of control at times."

"Out of control how?"

"Like tonight," she a.s.serted. "Disoriented. Not knowing who or where you are."

"But this was an isolated incident." I spoke the lie and didn't look back. I figured I'd be caught in it eventually, but I thought I'd at least have some time to prove I was on to something important. I definitely wasn't expecting my capture to be soimmediate.

"Rowan, you've been sleepwalking for almost two months now," my wife offered the truth back to me without judgment or anger-just a recitation of cold fact. "And the night terrors came like clockwork before that. I know you thought you'd kept them hidden from me, but you didn't."

We were fortunate, for the sake of my ego anyway, that the homicide division was less than fully staffed at the moment. There was no one close by enough to overhear the embarra.s.sing revelations that were put forth. I looked over at my friend's somber face as he nodded and stared at me from behind his desk.

"I've known for a while too, white man. Felicity called me. Why do you think she was so mad at me earlier when she thought I might have brought you in on this? I gotta admit though, I was pretty surprised to have you turn up at an active crime scene like that."

I sat mute. I wanted to be angry with them both, and in a sense, I was. I wanted to lash out at them for engaging in these clandestine discussions behind my back. I wanted to admonish them for their conspiring to betray me. But I was still rational enough to realize that I was dealing with my wife and my best friend, and that they were obviously worried about me. The growing conflagration that was my ire was quickly reduced to a smolder when I asked myself simply, what if the two of them were correct? What if I was in fact out of control? What if I was so completely disconnected and ungrounded that I was starting to channel anything and everything without discrimination. The prospect brought a completely new, and totally real fear into the fold.

"Listen, Row," Ben now had a business card in his hand and was fiddling with it aimlessly, "remember I told you my sister had moved into town?"

"Yeah," I answered absently as I contemplated what my situation might possibly have now become.

"Well, here's the deal," he continued. "She's a shrink-a good one. h.e.l.l, I've called her a couple of times for advice myself. She's even helped me with some of the s.h.i.+t I deal with on the job, and you know how I feel about shrinks." Ben paused and brought a hand up to ma.s.sage his neck, then held the card out to me. "Anyway, Felicity and I have discussed it and we both think it might be a good idea for you to talk to her."

"So now I'm crazy," I said.

"No, Rowan, that's not what we're saying at all," Felicity implored.

"It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Row," my friend offered. "Not that I'm qualified to diagnose it, but if anyone's a prime candidate bubba, it's you."

He had a point. It was even a valid one. Still, a painful depression was starting to set in. I'd fought harder than I'd ever thought I could just to get Ben to accept the things I was telling him at times when I had no tangible proof of their validity. I'd managed to convince him, and others, and he had for a time accepted my word onan almost blind faith.

Now, I was right back where I started-maybe even a step or two to the negative-and it was very possible that this time I wasn't the one controlling the dice.

"Just what do you think she's going to do when I tell her I'm a Witch?" I tried to play the only card I had left.

"Not much, Kemosabe," my friend replied. "She's quite a bit more open than most folks. Besides, she already knows. I've told her about the two of you."

Felicity had taken the business card from Ben as I sat there in silence, mulling over exactly how much I despised being backed into a corner. I felt a small spark of defiance deep inside, but I was going down fast. I still desperately needed something to cling to-some kind of life preserver that would keep me afloat long enough to give me a fighting chance.

I allowed my stare to fall on the surface of the desk before me and the answer became instantly clear. Deliberately, I reached across and picked up the notepad, which had been the center of our earlier discussion. Slowly, I peeled off a pair of the pages and tossed them back on the blotter in front of Ben.

"Now, here's my deal," I submitted carefully. "I go talk to your sister, and you have the crime lab compare the handwriting on those papers with Paige Lawson's."

"Row..." He began shaking his head as a furrow formed across his brow.

"I'm not asking much, Ben." I held fast. "Just find out if it's her handwriting and let me know one way or the other. That's it."

"Okay." He finally nodded, but still kept a frown plastered to his face. "Okay, but I don't know what it's gonna get ya'."

"A place to start," was all I said.

"So, are you mad at me?" Felicity asked somberly as she guided her Jeep down an exit ramp and off the highway.

Our trip from police headquarters thus far had been made in almost total silence-not so much because either of us were angry, but because there was simply too much to think about. The extent of our conversation to this point had been my asking whether we should swing by to pick up my truck. In truth, I actually had no idea where I'd left it, plus all I really wanted to do right now was sleep. I wasn't disappointed in the least when she told me it had already been taken care of.

It was approaching mid-day and the sky was still heavily overcast with a flat-bottomed stratum of grey clouds. A misty rain had begun to fall at some point while I was still being held captive by the hospital, and it hadn't subsided yet.

Winter's chill was sharp in the air, even with the official start of the season still a few days away. The temperature was staying a few steps ahead of the magical point where precipitation solidifies, effectively making the difference between thelandscape being a 'winter wonderland' and 'wintry blah'. Depending on your tastes, it was the kind of day that either made you feel great to be alive, or depressed you into a mood that begged to be slept off like a bad drunk. With my lack of sleep acting as catalyst, I was being pushed in the direction of the depression with little resistance.

"Not really," I replied. "Although, I wish you'd said something about all this earlier. Then maybe I wouldn't have wasted so much energy trying to keep you from finding out."

"Why didn't you want me to know anyway?"

"It wasn't something you needed to worry about," I answered. "You have enough to do without taking on my problems."

"Row," she admonished, "we've had this talk before."

"Yeah," I admitted, "but you get a little overprotective at times."

"Aye, and just what is it you'd call what you're doing then?" A slight hint of her normally veiled Irish brogue seeped into the question, audibly announcing her fatigue.

"Being overprotective too," I returned. "But that's nothing new."

"And it's something new from me then?"

"No, I didn't say that."

We were only a few blocks from home when she gave a quick downs.h.i.+ft and turned the Jeep into a parking lot of what appeared to have been a multi-tenant strip mall, but was now occupied by a single business. Hooking past a light standard she serpentined through the lot then pulled into a s.p.a.ce before the entrance of Arch Color Labs. She s.h.i.+fted into neutral then set the parking brake before switching off the engine.

"What then?" she asked as she peered at me, her green eyes searching for a hidden answer. "Are you saying it's okay for you but not for me?"

"Like you said," I sighed. "We've had this talk before, and obviously we've never resolved it or we wouldn't be having it again now. We're both just too stubborn, I suppose."

"Aye," she agreed softly, "I suppose we are."

We regarded each other quietly for a moment, neither of us certain where to take the conversation next. I finally motioned at the storefront and broke the lull.

"This doesn't look much like our house."

"Sorry, I forgot to tell you." She shook her head. "I need to drop off a batch job for a client."

"You don't need to apologize." I shook my head as the realization overtook me. I hadn't really thought about how my escapades might have affected her, and this detour drove the point home. "You'd probably already have this done if it weren't for me throwing you off schedule.""It's no problem," she returned.

"Maybe not," I echoed, "but I still feel bad about it."

"You do? Good, then my mission is accomplished," she told me with a sly grin.

"I just walked right into a waiting guilt trip didn't I?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded as she rummaged behind my seat and withdrew a heavy-gauge envelope. "You can wait here if you want. I'll only be a few minutes."

"You sure?" I asked. "I know how long your 'few minutes' can be sometimes."

"I'm sure. I just need to drop this off."

"Okay."

True to her word, Felicity was in and out in less than five minutes, but then spent another ten beneath the awning in front of the lobby chatting with a wiry young man.

I couldn't blame her for the delay though, because he had followed her out the door, talking nonstop except for quick lulls to light a cigarette. He'd been through two already and was heading quickly toward finis.h.i.+ng off a third.

It was almost amusing to watch my wife as she maintained a constant distance between herself and the rambling chain smoker. What wasn't amusing was the fact that every time he took a puff I had to stop myself from getting out of the vehicle and b.u.mming one from him. It did, however, serve as a reminder as to just how much she despised smoking, and that helped steel my resolve to fight the craving.

She finally managed to get away and flashed him a smile and a quick wave as she climbed into the Jeep.

"Friend of yours?" I asked as she buckled herself in.

"Oh, that's just Harold. Nice enough guy but G.o.ds! He smokes like a fiend."

"I noticed." I nodded, trying not to let on that I was within inches of joining him in the act.

"So how about you?" I asked, changing the subject swiftly in order to avoid thinking about cigarettes.

"How about me, what?" She furrowed her eyebrows as she shook her head in confusion. "I don't smoke."

"No, not that," I explained. "What we were talking about earlier. Are you mad at me?"

"Oh, that." She nodded as she cast a glance back over her shoulder then backed the Jeep out of the parking s.p.a.ce. "I was," she answered, chewing at her lower lip, "but I'm getting over it."

"How long before you think you'll be completely over it?" I asked.

"Aye, that's going to depend on you."My truck was parked nose first beyond the gated fence that hemmed in our back yard. Felicity pulled her vehicle up to the chain-link barrier and popped the stick into neutral.

We sat in silence for a long moment, simply listening to the world continuing about its business around us. The stereo sound of tires against wet pavement grew in the distance, achieved its peak as they made their way past us, and then faded into oblivion on the opposite side. The Jeep's engine idled softly in the background. The mechanical whirr of the winds.h.i.+eld wipers kept time in a widely s.p.a.ced rhythm, announcing the languid tempo just when you'd finally given up waiting for the next beat. In a half bare tree next to us a raven punctuated it all with an ellipsis of forlorn caws, leaving the moment to hang in the moist air, and then fell silent once again.

Even with the heater running, the damp chill was working its way into my bones.

On top of that, I was still dying for a cigarette and didn't have any of the nicotine gum with me that had thus far been my only barrier between abstinence and re-kindling the habit.

"So you think maybe we should go inside?" I asked.

"I'd love to, but I have a shoot to do and I've already rescheduled it once," my wife told me. "I'd rather not lose the account."

"Supermodels?" I asked jokingly.

"Sure," she replied, her own tenor lightened somewhat. "Super new models of anodized cookware for a catalog. Want to come along?"

"I think I'll pa.s.s." I gave her a weak grin.

"I thought you might."

"Actually, I could really use some sleep."

"Aye, that makes the two of us," she returned. "But I'll have to wait."

"Sorry," I apologized for something I could do nothing about. "Since I don't have my keys, any chance you could unlock the house for me before you go?"

"Oh," she replied, "Ben said he'd have them put your keys in the mailbox."

"Good enough." I leaned over and gave her a kiss then unlatched my door.

"Row," Felicity called after me as I climbed out.

I turned back to see there was still a hint of concern in her eyes. Her hand was extended toward me and in it was the business card Ben had given her.

"Promise me you'll call for an appointment." She made the statement more as a gentle command than a request.

I'd almost escaped, for another few hours at least. I should have known better, though, as this was something she perceived as far too important to wait. I sighed heavily and nodded as I reached back in and took the card from her. I'd made a deal with Ben as well as her, and my own principles wouldn't allow me to back out.

"Promise," she softly demanded again."I promise," I told her.

I stood in the driveway and watched her back out, then followed with my eyes as she headed off down the street in the direction of Highway Forty. When she was no longer in sight I made my way along the flagstone walkway and then climbed the stairs to our front porch.

My keys had been exactly where Ben had said they would be. After retrieving them I had unlocked the door and tripped my way across the room as our English Setter and Australian Cattle Dog expressed their great relief that someone had finally come home after being gone, in their doggish perception of time, forever. I punched in my alarm code and followed with a second series of key presses. A canned female voice issued from the panel announcing that it had switched from the away mode to the stay at home setting. Basically, switching off the motion sensors but resetting and rearming the doors and windows.

I'd never really thought all that much about the household alarm system. It was something we had really only used whenever we were out of the house, and then only to protect 'stuff. It had always been there for the express purpose of guarding our possessions. These days, however, it had served yet another purpose.

Protecting us.

In the month following the incident on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, I'd had the system upgraded. Every window in the house had been equipped with sensors and cell technology had been added to avoid the alarm being disabled by simply cutting the phone lines. There were additional motion detectors and even secondary panels added to main rooms to allow for quick access to panic b.u.t.tons. It all seemed so terribly paranoid to me at times, and Felicity had thought it to be overkill, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I knew that Eldon Andrew Porter was still out there no matter what anyone else believed.

My first order of business was to go in search of a piece of nicotine gum. I hadn't even tried to hide my withdrawal like symptoms from Felicity-not that I'd succeeded in hiding anything else anyway-so I didn't have to get it from any secret stash. However, I did have to remember where I'd last put it. Once I found the box and quelled the immediate crisis level desire for a cigarette, I set about finding anything I possibly could do in order to waste time.