Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 44

"I will be here," she returned.

"If it was up to me, you wouldn't even be seein' this s.h.i.+t," Ben said as he ma.s.saged his neck. "But, Helen seems to think it will offer some closure. I dunno. I think it's just friggin' crazy myself."

We were standing in a conference room at City Police Headquarters, staring at a table full of tagged evidence that was still being sorted. Some of it had alreadyappeared on the evening news when the story broke, though my friend had done his best to play down my connection.

Worn boxes of everything from five by seven, to sixteen by twenty photographic paper sat in ordered stacks. An entire rack of women's clothing-evening gowns to business suits to lingerie-occupied one corner of the room; of immediate prominence to me was the wedding gown Felicity had been wearing. Even though it was crammed together with the other apparel, it stood out to me like a beacon in the darkness.

Rectangular boxes were stacked next to the rack in a mound with several pairs of stiletto-heeled shoes on display. At the far end of the long table sat three head-shaped Styrofoam stands, all supporting long, spiral-curled, red wigs; each of which was carefully pinned into a different stylish coif. The man had a small fortune invested in his lurid obsession.

I rested my hand against a pile of black and white photographs and slowly shuffled through them. Each contained a woman who on first glance looked somewhat like my wife, but upon closer inspection obviously was not. The poses and modes of dress ranged from sophisticated fas.h.i.+on to tasteful nude, from cheesecake to downright p.o.r.nographic.

Two things they all shared in common were the vacant stares and highly contrasted makeup jobs. In grey tones they looked ghostly. In color they looked plastic and even clown-like.

"He shot enough close ups of all of 'em to be able to positively identify each of the women, even with the hair and makeup," Ben was telling me. "Including Debbie Schaeffer."

"What happened there, do you think?" I spoke the question softly as I continued to peruse the visual diary of infatuated insanity.

"Nut job says she just quit breathin'," my friend harrumphed in a disgusted tone.

"Doc over at the morgue says that could be consistent with a Rophynol OD, so that's what we're figurin'."

"So he admitted that he took her?"

"h.e.l.l, he admitted to all of them," Ben returned.

"Did he say why he dumped her out on Three Sixty-Seven?"

"Yeah, actually," he spat. "Get this-it was convenient for him because he was heading in that direction."

"What about Paige Lawson?"

"Just like we figured. When he saw the blood he just left. a.s.shole actually had the gall to look me in the eye and say that it was unfortunate, because both of them were 'almost perfect'."

"What did you expect?" I shrugged.

"I dunno. Maybe a little remorse.""So, even without the confession you have enough evidence to charge him with murder, right?"

"Jeezus, Row, we've got enough evidence to charge the SOB with everything.

Murder, rape, stalking... He'll even come up on Federal charges for kidnapping." He sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, he'll never see prison. He'll end up in a mental inst.i.tution."

"Something inside me still wants him dead," I stated coldly.

"That stays between you, me and the f.u.c.kin' wall, okay?" he told me sternly. "I lied my a.s.s off about what really happened that night and I don't need you screwin' it up with an uncensored attack of emotional honesty."

"Sorry. I just can't help feeling that way."

"I know, but he's a whack job, Row. Shrinks say he's delusional. He actually believes that he and Felicity are a couple. h.e.l.l, he's been accusing you of taking her from him."

My fingers brushed against another pile of photographs and I slid them into view.

Images of my wife leapt out at me. There were pictures of her in front of our house working in the yard, getting into her Jeep, getting out of my truck, different times of day, different clothing, even different seasons of the year. He'd been watching her for a long time. Too long.

"By the way," Ben added. "You were right. I forgot to tell ya', but when we talked to Heather Burke I found out she does have Dyslexia. Very mild case, but she does have trouble with it if she's tired."

"Thought so," I answered.

"So, you answer one for me."

"What's that?"

"You and the Red Squaw are so tight that you can feel each others pain, right? I mean... I've seen you do it."

"Yeah," I acknowledged, "it's been known to happen."

"Well, with all that hocus pocus Twilight Zone s.h.i.+t you do, why didn't you feel it when she got zapped by this creep?"

"I was otherwise occupied by an angry cheerleader at the time. Then, after that, a combination of the Rophynol shutting her down and my own mental state kept me from feeling her presence at all. Wrong place, wrong time, and a lot of supernatural interference."

"So, Schaeffer really f.u.c.ked with you didn't she?"

"Yeah," I nodded without looking back at him, "she is a very determined spirit."

"She gone?"

"I'm not entirely sure," I returned. "I haven't felt her around since that night, so I hope so.""Too freakin' weird for me."

"Me too, Ben," I agreed as I looked back at him. "I'm a Witch, not a Ouija board.

I'm starting to wonder if the spirits on the other side understand that."

Silence filled the hollowness behind my words and we continued to stand there, Ben ma.s.saging his neck in deep thought. I turned back to the table and stared at a picture of Felicity as she was seen through the eyes of a lunatic. As I looked at the photograph, I had to admit to myself that the composition and tone held a message.

In this particular instance at least, he seemed to view her with almost as much reverence as I did.

That fact did little for my current state of mind.

After a moment my friend cleared his throat and spoke quietly, "You done here?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm done," I finally answered. "For now."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," he said as he pulled open the door. "There's one other thing I need to tell ya'."

"What's that?"

"You owe me for a radiator, one tire, and a c.r.a.pload of body work."

EPILOGUE.

"You don't have to do this, then," the woman insisted, her words were thick with an Irish brogue that would always seem to beset her when she was emotionally distraught.

"Yes, I do," the man answered her with a calm note in his voice.

Her long, spiral curls of auburn hair were piled atop her head in a loose Gibson girl, and her green eyes flashed wetly with deep concern. She'd tried anger already and it hadn't worked. She'd even been willing to try guilt, but he still hadn't budged.

He knew her too well.

Now, she was back to making demands.

"What did Ben say?" the woman contended, as if the answer to her question would somehow make a difference.

"The same thing you just said," the man replied.

She watched as he ran his hand across the lower half of his face, thoughtfully brus.h.i.+ng his bearded chin. She noticed that he winced for a moment as his fingers caught the still healing wound on his upper lip.

She took on a pleading tone. "Then why are you doing it?""Because we can't keep living like this," he answered. "Because I want us to have our lives back."

"How can we have our lives back if you get yourself killed?"

"I'm not going to get myself killed."

She was crying now. "d.a.m.n your eyes, Rowan Linden Gant, you'd better not, then. Aye, you'd better not."