Rowan Gant - Perfect Trust Part 42

Unconsciously, I had switched the handheld computer into a notepad mode, and even traded it off to my right hand. My left was now rapidly scratching the stylus against the surface of the screen.

A quick glance at the LCD showed a digitized string of handwriting that repeatedly scrawled, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM...

"Dammit!" I exclaimed as I immediately forced my hand to stop moving. "Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!"

"Whoa," Ben raised his voice to compete with mine. "What the h.e.l.l?"

"Schaeffer!" I exclaimed, dropping the PDA and stylus onto the table, then shaking my hands as if trying to rid them of something disgusting. "She won't leave me alone!"

"What? Like she's here now?"

"Yes, dammit!" I was angry, and I spun in place looking for any indication of the girl's spirit around me. "Go away, Debbie! I can't help you right now!"

In my head I could hear her chanting at an ever-quickening pace, "DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM,DEADIAM, DEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAM...".

I seized on the welling anger within me and thrust it outward in a violent rush, attempting to sweep away anything ethereal in my path. The energy exploded outward, only to reach unantic.i.p.ated limits, and return in force. A Shockwave of pain backlashed through my head as the energy ricocheted around the room. I saw Helen turn her head then squint, which told me that she had felt it as well, a fact that for some reason, I didn't find all that surprising. Fortunately for her, she was only a spectator; I was the target.

A pinpoint of agony drilled into my skull directly between my eyes and sent me physically staggering backward. I felt my heel thump against something and I started to fall, then a tight grip latched on to my arm as someone guided me into a chair.

"Rowan? Rowan?" Ben's voice flowed thickly into my ears. "Are you okay?

What's goin' on? Answer me."

I leaned forward in the seat, dropping my face into my hands and heaved hard against the pain. I'm sure that to him it looked like I was having a seizure.

"ROWAN?!" he demanded again.

I held up a hand as a signal to him as I grimaced through the onslaught of agony.

I'd brought this upon myself. My own anger was bouncing around inside the ethereal barriers Felicity and I had placed around the house, and it now came back to me threefold. I was simply paying for my own lack of control.

While my presence within had acted as a doorway for Debbie Schaeffer to enter, it hadn't been terribly effective as an exit for the burst of energy. On top of that, I hadn't been the least bit grounded when it returned.

I mutely cursed myself for the stupidity of the action as the pain slowly began to subside. After a moment, misery faded into something resembling a severe sinus headache, and I sighed heavily.

I remained motionless as I opened my eyes and allowed them to focus on the object I'd tripped over.

There on the floor was a sealed cardboard box, roughly eight by ten, by maybe twelve inches tall. I stared at it as the image clarified, then slowly allowed my eyes to come to rest on the label. It was upside down from my point of view, but I could still read it without difficulty.

It was addressed to On The Edge Photography, attention Felicity O'Brien. What really caught my attention, however, was the return address: Arch Color Labs, thirty-seven fifty-four Ash Bend Avenue.

CHAPTER 28.

There is an old adage that everyone has heard about snakes, nearness to them, and getting bit by same because of said proximity. The fangs of this particular serpent were to say the least, firmly embedded in my carotid artery and the venom was now reaching my brain.

Bits and pieces of information, snippets of conversations, and channeled vices began coalescing in my frontal lobes to form a mental picture that should have been crystal clear all along. How I'd managed to avoid putting this all together, I had no idea, but there was no stopping it now. Whatever mental block had been s.h.i.+elding the overtly obvious from my sight had now been obliterated, and it was all making sense.

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered just loud enough to be heard.

"Do what?" Ben asked. "Rowan, what's going on? What the h.e.l.l was that all about?"

"Harold," I said a bit louder. "It's Harold."

"Harold who?"

"Harold the sonofab.i.t.c.h that owns Arch Color Labs," I announced, ignoring the throb in my skull and looking up at my friend. "That's who."

"You're gonna have to elaborate, Row."

"This box," I explained as I pointed to the offending container. "It wasn't here when I left this morning."

"Yeah, so maybe it got delivered while you were with me and Chuck. You haven't been home all day ya'know."

"No. Wouldn't happen. Arch is less than a mile from here. He never s.h.i.+ps orders to Felicity. She picks them up."

"Okay, so just playin' devil's advocate here-Are you sure she didn't?" he asked.

"She didn't have time. Not today. And before you ask, they're closed on weekends so it wasn't riding around in her Jeep for the past few days."

"Okay, good, we're maybe on to somethin' here. So what makes you think it's this Harold guy, and not an employee?"

"Because it's a one man operation. Besides, he smokes like a fiend and that's why he's been dressing them up."

"Whoa, back up," my friend said. "What are we talking about here?"

"All of it, Ben," I said in exasperation. "All of it. He's the one who killed Debbie Schaeffer and Paige Lawson. He's the one who's been raping all these women, and he's the one who took Felicity. Now can we go?"

"Whoa, slow down white man," he instructed. "I think maybe you're gettin' some stuff crossed up here."

"No, no I'm not." I shook my head; incredulous that he couldn't understand asclearly as I, then realized that he had no reason to. I'd told him next to nothing in the way of the facts as I saw them. I forced myself to stay in my seat and tried to explain how I'd reached my conclusion. "Okay, here it is. Did you by any chance notice the resemblance between Felicity and Heather Burke?"

"Heather Burke is a blue-eyed blonde, Row."

"I know," I reb.u.t.ted. "I'm talking about her other physical attributes. Size, shape of face, skin tone. That's why he uses the wig and the tinted contacts. Try to imagine her with red hair."

"Okay." He nodded slightly after a thoughtful pause. "I guess maybe I can see that."

"Now, what about Miranda Hodges and Paige Lawson?" I urged.

"Yeah, they all kinda resemble one another, but don't you think you're pus.h.i.+n' it a bit?"

"No, I don't." I shook my head hard. I wanted to get moving but I knew it was never going to happen unless I could convince him I was correct. "He has been dressing them up to look like Felicity, and then taking pictures of them. He's been living out his fantasy about my wife through them."

"I dunno, Rowan."

"Fine," I snarled, "fine, just forget all that. The important thing is that he's the one that's got Felicity, and we need to stop him before he hurts her."

"I'm not doubting you," Ben held up a hand before I could object, "but we don't need to go off half-c.o.c.ked and chasing our tails right now. Can you at least give me a motive?"

I heaved out an exasperated sigh. "Felicity just told me the other day that she thinks he has a crush on her."

"Just a crush, or something more serious?" he asked. "Like, has he been stalking her?"

"I don't know," I couldn't keep the urgency out of my voice, "but he has called here for no good reason, and I don't doubt what Felicity said."

"Okay, then let's check him out. You got a last name so we can get a home address?"

"He won't be at home," I told him confidently as I glanced down at the label on the box. I suddenly realized that in my haste I'd neglected to give him a piece of information that would have made my theory a bit easier to swallow.

"He'll have her at the lab where he can take pictures of her."

"Okay, we can start there. What's the address?"

"Thirty-seven fifty-four Ash Bend Avenue." He was scribbling in his notebook as I recited the address. His pencil slowed and he looked up at me silently. "It wasn't a name. It was an address." "But..."

"Dyslexia," I said before he could finish. "I'll bet you anything that Heather Burke suffers from Dyslexia."

Ben killed the headlights on the van and eased it slowly into the parking lot of Arch Color Labs, allowing the high idle of the engine to propel us forward as he surveyed the building. It had taken us less than five minutes to make the trip, and my earlier overabundance of nervous energy was returning in full force. I reached for the door and popped the latch while the vehicle inched along at a pace that would make a tortoise ashamed.

"Dammit, Rowan!" Ben hissed as he quickly twisted a control on the dash to extinguish the dome light. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing? Close that door!"

"Well what are you doing?" I shot back between clenched teeth. "Felicity is in there and you're just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around out here!"

"Listen, I understand where you're at, believe me, but we can't just rush in there like the cavalry or somethin'."

"Dammit, Ben, he's got Felicity!"

"We don't know that for sure yet."

"I do!"

"Fine," he spat, "but we're doin' this MY way."

It was all I could do to contain myself. The earlier thud that had occupied my head was still there, and seemed to be acting as a pump for the visceral rage I was experiencing. With each thrum of pain, I could feel the anger course through me. It was rising fast, and it wasn't going to be long before it consumed me.

The van idled its way around a low retaining wall to reveal the opposite end of the 'L' shaped parking lot. There, in the shadows of the far back corner sat a car. The tall lamps positioned around the building poured their sodium vapor glow into the night and cut a small swath across the front quarter of the vehicle.

A vague memory of the night Ben had hurried me out of my house in advance of the descending media flitted through my mind. It was the Thunderbird that had been parked on the side street across from my driveway. I recognized the blotches of primer.

Ben brought the van to a halt next to the concrete retaining wall and switched off the engine. The silence that followed rang hollow in my ears, piercing directly into my soul.

Through the windows, the interior of the building appeared dark. The only sound inside the van was that of me, Ben, and Helen breathing. The coldness of the night began to seep in.

"What now?" I finally asked, my words riding out on a cloud of visible breath."Are you waiting for an invitation?"

"Rowan, you wanna can it?" my friend ordered more than asked. "If you were anyone else I woulda kicked your a.s.s by now."

"Well, what are we doing?" I demanded, though with a bit less harshness in my voice.

"WE aren't doing anything," he instructed as he unlatched his door. "You and Helen are going to sit right here while I check around back."

My friend carefully unfolded himself from his seat and climbed out of the van.

Before I had any chance to retort, he had quietly pressed the door shut and stalked off into the darkness. I watched on as he disappeared into the shadows.

"Benjamin is correct, Rowan," Helen told me in a quiet voice. "He knows what he is doing. Let him handle it."

"I know that, Helen," I answered, "but I'm having some trouble with the concept at the moment."

Her soothing voice and no-nonsense advice was a welcome salve on my wounded psyche, but I was desperately afraid that the prescription was too little, too late. Something that felt completely beyond my control had already been set in motion. What was most frightening to me was that I wasn't entirely sure I even wanted to try stopping it.

"That would be an understatement, Rowan, but as I have told you, it is a normal reaction to the situation," she returned. "Do you remember what I told you earlier today?"

I twisted in my seat so that I could see her. "You mean about not letting my strength become my vulnerability?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, Helen, but it still sounds like some kind of cryptic eastern philosophy type of advice to me. I'm just not getting it."

"Your innate strength, Rowan, is your need to protect."

"Okay."

"By allowing this rage to consume you, you are walking a very thin line between protecting someone you love and exacting vengeance. To do the latter would, in turn, make you vulnerable to a host of unspeakable things-including your own fears."

I pondered her words for a moment before I spoke. "Helen, did you know this was going to happen?"

"Not exactly." She shook her head. "I sensed that something was going to happen, but nothing specific."

"There's quite a bit more to you than you let on isn't there?"

She simply smiled.I turned back to face forward, then reached out and unlatched the glove compartment. I thrust my hand into the darkness and rummaged about carefully. I was banking on a recent memory, and when my fingers landed against the cold metal I knew the account was still open.

Ben always carried a backup weapon-an actual pearl handled, stainless, Smith & Wesson Model 649 'Bodyguard' thirty-eight special to be exact. The only reason I knew the specifics in such detail was that he'd sung the praises of the short-barreled revolver and its shrouded hammer to me more than once.

When I withdrew my hand from the compartment, Helen couldn't help but see the belt clip holster and handgun that now filled it. To her credit she didn't even gasp.

"I was under the impression that we'd just discussed this, Rowan," was all she said.

"We did, Helen," I sighed, as I withdrew the gun from the worn leather and checked to make certain it was loaded. Then I looked back over my shoulder at her.

"And I appreciate everything you said. I really do. And, to be honest, you are probably correct. But, right now I need you to get out of the van."