Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (10 page)

“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 gave her
head a quick shake. “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 finishing 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 bumming 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
Gods! 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, then
cryptically changed the subject by asking, “So how about you?”

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

“What? Oh, no, not that,” I replied. “Sorry,
I meant 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
space. “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
Doppler-affected 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 on-again, off-again mechanical
whirr of the windshield wipers kept time in a widely spaced rhythm,
setting a languid tempo that kept you waiting expectantly for the
next beat. In a half bare tree next to us, a raven punctuated all
of it with a trio of forlorn caws, leaving the moment to hang in
the moist air before falling 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 pass.” I gave her a weak
grin.

“I thought you might.”

“Actually, I could really use some
sleep.”

“That makes the two of us,” she returned.
“But I’ll have to wait for mine.”

“Sorry,” I apologized for something I could
do nothing about.

“Maybe yours should too, then…” she added,
voice trailing off at the end.

“Why? Jealous?”

“No.” She shook her head to punctuate the
reply. “I just don’t want you wandering again. And since I won’t be
here…”

“I see.” I nodded. “I’ll try to stay in one
place until you get back. Deal?”

“Aye.”

“Okay. 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. “Speaking of deals…”

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. She was correct,
I’d made a deal with both of them, 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 40. 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 prerecorded 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 buttons. It all seemed so terribly
paranoid to me at times, and Felicity had definitely thought it to
be overkill, which she had told me in no uncertain terms. But I did
it anyway. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I knew that Eldon
Andrew Porter was still out there no matter what anyone else
believed, and I had no doubt that he would eventually be coming for
me.

Now that I was inside and secure, 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
since I had at one time been a smoker. Of course, I’d recently
discovered that I hadn’t succeeded in hiding anything else anyway,
so it wouldn’t have mattered. At any rate, I didn’t have to get the
gum from a secreted 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.

After a round of behind the ear scratches for
the boisterous canines I disabled the back door sensor long enough
to let them out—then back in once they’d discovered that the
weather was not what they’d expected. Our three felines, Emily,
Dickens, and Salinger, were nowhere to be seen, so I simply filled
their food bowls and moved on to something else.

There were a few dishes in the sink, left
over from the night before, so I took my time washing, drying, and
putting them away. I could have simply loaded them into the
dishwasher, but that wouldn’t have taken near as long.

I thumbed through the mail that had occupied
the box along with my keys, discarding several pieces of poorly
targeted direct market advertising in the process. After extracting
those items pertinent to my consulting business, I tossed the
remainder into the basket next to the front door.

Before starting up the stairs to my office, I
took a moment to listen to the messages on our personal answering
machine. Two hang-ups and one quick hello from a friend who was
inquiring about what to bring to the Yule ritual we’d planned for a
few days hence. I started to jot a note down as a reminder to call
him but found that the notepad, which normally lived by the phone,
had apparently gone AWOL. A quick search through my pockets for a
scrap to write on rewarded me with two things—the pad containing
the repetitious morbid rhyme and the business card of Doctor Helen
Storm.

I rubbed my bearded chin absently with the
back of my free hand while I stared at the simple calling card. I’d
very consciously been putting this moment off, but I’d made a
promise, and there definitely wasn’t anything pressing at the
moment that should keep me from making the call. Nothing I hadn’t
purposely produced for that very reason at least.

With a resigned sigh I snatched up the
handset and punched in the phone number from the upper right corner
of the card. Even in my tired fog, my mind began calculating, and I
latched on to the idea that it was probably going to be at least a
week or two before she’d be able to get me in. That might very well
give me enough time to prove I was correct about Paige Lawson,
although even I wasn’t entirely sure what I was being correct
about.

After six rings the phone was answered by a
pre-recorded message announcing that I had reached Metro Counseling
and that the offices were currently closed for lunch. I felt a wave
of relief as the voice continued on, telling me that if this were
an emergency I should call the doctor’s exchange, otherwise I
should leave a message and someone would get back to me as soon as
possible.

Following the high-pitched tone at the end of
the message I began to speak, “My name is Rowan Gant and I need to
see about making an appointment with Doctor Storm. My number
is…”

I was cut off by a burst of squelchy
feedback, combined with the fumbling knocks of someone rushing to
pick up the phone. A female voice barely overrode the squeal,
telling me to hold on for a second. Various warbles and clicks
followed then fell quiet as the person at the other end managed to
stifle the recorder.

“I am very sorry about that, Mister Gant,”
the woman’s soothing voice apologized. “This is Helen Storm.
Benjamin told me I should be expecting your call.”

My earlier relief turned to instant surrender
when she told me that she wanted to see me late tomorrow
morning.

D-E-A-D-I-A-M!

D-E-A-D-I-A-M!

What’s that spell?

Dead I am!

Louder!

Dead I am!

One more time!

DEAD I AM!

I awoke in darkness.

I really wasn’t all that surprised.
Nightmares and darkness tend to go hand in hand. I’d grown
relatively used to the cycle by now.

The bizarre Seussian chant was still echoing
inside my head with a frighteningly excited edge to its morose
verbiage. I laid completely still, letting the imagined sound fade
to crisp silence, only to have the quiet replaced by a low,
repetitious rumble. I slowly turned my head and found myself face
to face with one of our resident felines. The paws outstretched to
touch me and incessant purring, as my shoulder was being kneaded,
led me to believe it was most likely Dickens, since this was the
norm for him.

The familiarity of my surroundings was a
relief. For once, I wasn’t at a loss for the how’s, where’s or
why’s of my situation; and, I also wasn’t forced to deal with the
nauseating sense of violation I had come to know so well. I knew
exactly where I was—safely tucked in my bed, more or less under a
blanket, with one arm hugging a pillow against the side of my head.
My other arm, however, had gone thoroughly numb from the
uncomfortable angle it was crooked into beneath my body. I shifted
the appendage, and circulation instantly took hold full force. I
winced as an astronomical number of pinpricks began traversing up
and down its length.