Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (18 page)

Chin tilted up.

No, stay that way.

Yes.

Legs crossed.

The silky feel of her stockings

against the back of my hand.

Another rush of arousal.

Yes! Perfect!

POP!

Bright Light!

POP!

Bright Light!

POP!

I can’t feel anything.

I can’t even feel my heart anymore.

I don’t care…

“Talk to me, white man.” My friend verbally
insinuates himself into the vision once again, only to become a
weak fourth voice in the turmoil.

If only it was really her…

Really her…

Really her…

Darkness.

Fear gives way to warmth.

Warmth gives way to cold.

Cold gives way to nothingness.

I don’t care...

“Oh, man, what are you taking

your pants off for, you idiot?

You gonna jerk off some more?

Oh, no way.

You aren’t going to are you?

Can’t you see I’m already gone?

You fucking killed me already…

You’re gonna be screwing a dead body, you
moron!

God, you’re just sick.

Man, put ‘em back

on, that’s just disgusting.

You sick bastard.”

So beautiful…

So close…

For now…

She’ll do for now…

Look at me, Rowan, don’t turn away.

Look at me, Rowan, I’m dead today.

So what are you gonna do about it?

“If I’d been told it was anyone else, I never
would have believed it.”

The feminine voice issued from the doorway
and was accompanied by the low whooshing sound of the door being
forced quickly open. Sheathed in an authoritative tone with an
underlying note of incredulity, the words glanced sharply from the
tile walls, striking their targets from all sides. Those targets
were, without a doubt, Ben, Felicity, and me.

The comment didn’t exactly seem angry, but it
wasn’t altogether friendly either. It was more along the line of a
mixture between disturbed chastising and a cold statement of fact.
In any event, no matter what emotion could finally be pinned to the
verbiage, the sentence cut through the atmosphere in the room on a
determined course. The intent behind its mission was fulfilled as
all three of us came instantly to attention, swinging our startled
gazes toward the issuer of the remark.

Doctor Christine Sanders, Chief Medical
Examiner for the City of Saint Louis, didn’t look at all pleased.
Truth was, she looked like she would much rather be asleep.
Considering both the hour and her rumpled appearance, she’d
obviously been roused from bed. Her close crop of brunette hair,
flocked with grey static, was tousled, and her eyes were heavily
lidded with a weary haze. She was hastily adorned in a pair of
jeans, a baggy sweatshirt, and sneakers. Her parka-like coat hung
across her slight frame, unzipped, with the hood carelessly thrown
back.

“Hey, Doc,” Ben offered sheepishly.

Under his breath, my friend muttered a quick
trailer to his statement, “Damn, she got here quick.” The barely
audible addendum was spoken as if he wasn’t at all surprised by her
arrival.

“Just what the hell have you got against me,
Storm?” she asked as she allowed the door to swing shut and
ventured purposefully into the cold room. “Did I do something awful
to you that I’m not aware of?”

“I dunno why ya’ got called,” Ben shook his
head as he stepped toward her. “There was no reason ta’ bother ya’
over this.”

It was obvious, to me at least, that he was
playing dumb. The observation didn’t escape the M.E.’s attention
either.

“Excuse me?” she returned. “I should have
been called before you ever came in here. It’s called procedure, or
have you forgotten?”

“I didn’t wanna bother you.”

“You didn’t want to bother me.” She offered
the statement back to him, a much heavier note of incredulity
lingering in her voice this time. “What’s wrong with you? You
didn’t think someone on my staff would call me anyway? You know
better than that.”

“What for?” he shrugged.

“Well, let’s see.” She rolled her gaze upward
and gestured toward us. “For starters, three people show up in the
middle of the night to view a body from an active homicide
investigation.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I just told you. Procedure. You know full
well that this is outside the norm. If we didn’t know her identity
it would be one thing, but we know exactly who she is. I’m also
betting that none of you are next of kin.”

My friend continued to press his luck. “Yeah,
so? Since when did viewin’ remains become outside normal
procedure?”

“Dammit, Storm! Will you quit it with the
innocent act! You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s almost
one in the morning for God’s sake! This is a morgue, not a quick
shop!”

Felicity and I remained silent during the
exchange. My wife still hadn’t released her grip on my hand, and in
fact, she was squeezing so tight that my fingers were beginning to
go numb. I gave her a quick nudge and glanced down at the entwined
extremities. She followed my gaze, immediately picked up the queue,
and let go.

Itchy pinpricks assaulted my digits as blood
flowed once again unfettered into my hand. Far worse, however, was
the sudden feeling of isolation and detachment that washed over me
as we separated. I had known that I was having trouble staying
grounded—even if I hesitated to admit it—but the depth of this
sensation drove firmly home the severity of my problem. It had been
so long since I’d felt so truly centered and at ease that the
feeling had been almost like a drug. I wanted it back, I wanted
more, and I wanted it now.

Being suddenly and instantly without the warm
comfort it brought had ushered in its own brand of fear to fill the
void. I had to consciously tell myself not to reach for Felicity’s
hand like a frightened child.

“Okay, so we aren’t exactly keepin’ banker’s
hours,” Ben rebutted. “But we’re just havin’ a look. No big
deal.”

“If that is the case, Storm,” Doctor Sanders
contended, “then why did you send the diener out of the room?”

Ben shook his head at the mention of the
morgue attendant. “I figured he had better things ta’ do than stand
around and watch us look at a dead body. Besides, he’s a little
creepy, ya’know?”

“Spare me. And, it’s his job to stay in here
with non-staff and you know it. Are you sure it wasn’t so he
wouldn’t see what you were doing with that dead body?” she shot
back.

“We weren’t doin’ anything with it.” He went
immediately on the defensive. “Just what are you implyin’?”

“I’m not implying anything, Storm,” she
declared. “Johnathan told me he heard some kind of chanting back
here after he left you three. Do you have an explanation for
that?”

“That would have been me,” Felicity chimed
in.

“Stay out of this,” Ben ordered over his
shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor directed her gaze
toward my wife, “I know we’ve met, but I don’t recall your
name.”

“O’Brien. Felicity O’Brien.”

“Right. Well, Miz O’Brien, since Detective
Storm seems to be stuck talking in circles right now, would you
like to explain what is going on here?”

“Listen, Doc…” Ben took another step forward
and insinuated himself physically between the M.E. and us. “Let’s
leave them outta this. If ya’ got a problem with all this, take it
up with me.”

“I tried that already and it didn’t get me
very far, now did it?”

The tension was rapidly building between the
two of them, and my friend’s heretofore uncooperativeness was at
its root. He was now making a fresh bid for control over the
situation, but I wasn’t entirely sure he was going to win out. As
was his nature, he was using his physical stature as an
intimidation tactic; or trying to at least. Doctor Sanders appeared
totally unfazed.

“So what are you gonna do about it, Rowan?”
Debbie Schaeffer whispers softly into my ear.

The sudden return of the disembodied voice
took me by surprise. I had been fully under the impression that any
link with the other side had been completely severed the moment the
medical examiner had interrupted us. Obviously, I was wrong.

“Look,” Ben told the M.E., “I’m sorry. Let’s
just work this out, okay?”

She met his challenge with one of her own.
“If you want to work this out, you can start by telling me what is
really going on here.”

Ben’s hand shot up to smooth back his hair
and came to rest on his neck as his fingers began to work at a knot
of tension. “It’s not as bad as it looks, okay?” he appealed.

“Just tell me what’s going on, and I’ll
decide that for myself.”

“Just let them have their little tiff,”
Debbie Schaeffer whispers into my ear again. “I’ve got something to
show you.”

I feel the touch of icy fingers against my
palm, followed by them intertwining with my own. The frigid grasp
of death encircles my hand, and I feel its frost creep upward along
my arm.

I looked down at my hand the moment the
sensation took hold. There was nothing to see, but the chilled
feeling was definitely there.

“Look, Doc, you’ve seen the stuff that Rowan
does, right?” My friend was starting into his explanation.

“I’ve been witness to one or two of Mister
Gant’s episodes, yes,” Doctor Sanders answered. “Is that what this
is all about?”

“Come on, Rowan. You need to look at this.”
Debbie Schaeffer is pulling me by the hand.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Ben affirmed.

“Is there a particular reason it needed to be
done in the middle of the night?”

I glanced over to Felicity and saw that her
attention was focused fully upon the exchange between Ben and
Doctor Sanders. Consciously, I wanted to tell her what was
happening. The recent revelation I’d reached regarding my own
ability to ground and center once again brought forth the acid tang
of fear on the back of my tongue. I knew that no matter how much I
verbally denied it, my current state left me open and vulnerable.
It wouldn’t take very much at all to get me into deep
trouble—potentially fatal deep trouble. My mouth opened as I
started to voice the concern, but before any sound escaped I felt
my hand squeezed and heard a rush echo inside my skull.

“Shhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone. Just come with
me and look. You need to see this.”

I closed my mouth and looked over the tableau
again. My friend had his back to us and his large frame was
positioned such that he was almost completely blocking the slight
medical examiner from my view. I could only assume that I was just
as obscured from her sight.

I could feel something tugging at my hand,
and when I looked, my arm was actually moving. I tried to stop its
progress, but the spirit of Debbie Schaeffer was fully in charge,
and her strength came from sources beyond this plane of existence.
I was no match for her. I closed my eyes and desperately fought to
achieve a solid ground. It was the only way I could think of to
regain control over my own body.

“Come on, Rowan. They
aren’t watching. You
really, really
need to see this. Trust me.”

“It was a judgment call,” Ben told the M.E.
“Maybe it wasn’t the best one I’ve made, but those are the
breaks.”

“You’re pretty good for that, aren’t
you?”

“Come on, Doc. There ain’t a need ta’ make
this personal.”

“Then what about the chanting Johnathan
heard?” she fired off another question. “What was that all about? I
don’t recall chanting being a part of Mister Gant’s episodes.”

“I think maybe he didn’t really understand
what he heard.”

“What did he hear then?”

“Felicity here said a prayer, that’s
all.”

“COME ON, ROWAN! Don’t you trust me?”

I started to appeal to my wife for help, only
to find the words caught painfully in my throat. Instinctively I
reached for her with my free hand, but grasped nothing more than a
handful of cold air. I opened my eyes and became suddenly aware
that I was no longer standing next to her. Without any realization
whatsoever, I had moved several steps away and now found myself
positioned in front of the wall bearing the cold storage drawers.
Directly before me on a rectangle of stainless steel was a
temporary label annotated with a case number and the name. The
number meant nothing to me, but the name was all too
familiar—Lawson, Paige.

The disembodied voice of
Debbie Schaeffer echoes with the insistence of an excited
five-year-old. “Go on, open it. You
really, really, really
need to see
this, Rowan!”

I stood there completely dumbfounded for a
moment. The pit of my stomach was churning in a way vastly
different from what had been brought on by the stench of decay. The
acrid boil that was happening down there now was one of pure,
unadulterated fear. I had felt such things before, and with even
greater intensity, but what was most disturbing about this instance
was that this fear was my own—no one else’s.

I watched on helplessly as my hand moved of
another’s volition, guided by an invisible though firm and icy
grip. As my fingers drew closer to the handle of the drawer, I
fought to cry out for help. Still, my voice caught in my throat,
and I managed nothing more than a weak, raspy gurgle that went
unheard.

“I said SHHHHHHHH!” Debbie Schaeffer
admonishes me. “You have to trust me.”

“A prayer,” Doctor Sanders stated flatly, her
tone betraying her lack of belief in what she’d just been told.