Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (22 page)

“No, nothing so self-deprecating.”

“Okay, I give. How about a hint?”

“What happens when you place a piece of black
paper behind a pane of glass, Rowan?” she asked.

“Well, if I remember my grade school physical
science class correctly, you end up with a somewhat crude mirror,”
I answered with a shrug.

“Exactly. Perhaps the darkness you see is
doing just that for you, but instead, you are looking too hard for
something else beyond that veil.”

“So you think I should just accept what I
see?”

“I think you should take advantage of the
opportunity to peer into your own reflection.”

“Now that really scares me,” I
returned. “I’m afraid that’s where the
real
darkness is.”

“We all have darkness within us, Rowan,” she
replied. “And when you encounter it, sometimes you have no choice
but to light your own way.”

“I’m not so sure I’ve got enough of a candle
to do that,” I sighed.

“Of course you do. You must simply find it
first.”

“I think I’m running out of places to look,
Helen.”

“Do not worry,” she grinned. “I guarantee
that it will be in the last place you look.”

I couldn’t help but return a grin of my own
in response to the cliché adage. Apparently I’d seen enough, and
when she spoke again, we continued smoothly into a seemingly new
subject.

“Something Benjamin neglected to tell me was
that you had started smoking again.”

I looked down at the freshly burning
cigarette in my hand and noticed that it was tucked between my two
middle fingers. I didn’t even remember lighting it. It felt
completely natural but looked foreign positioned in the middle of
my hand as it was now, so I moved it up beneath my index
finger.

Now that it looked normal to me, it felt
extremely out of place.

I elected to ignore the sensation and took a
puff.

“Yeah. Last night,” I acknowledged. “I’ve
been fighting the craving for a while, but falling off the wagon
was kind of sudden.”

“Stress can do that,” she offered. “We
subconsciously return to places or habits that once gave us
comfort. I certainly hope my smoking in front of you yesterday had
nothing to do with it.”

“No, it didn’t,” I reassured her. “Nothing
for you to worry about there.”

“Do you remember when you first started
smoking?”

“You mean before last night?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I did a quick mental calculation,
“sixteen, seventeen years ago.”

“And when did you quit?”

“Almost two years ago, except for a cigar now
and then.”

“Do you remember why you originally
started?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Something to do,
I guess.”

“That is fairly thin reasoning, Rowan,” she
said.

“Yes, it is.” I nodded.

“Had something particularly stressful
happened to you around the time you started?”

“I don’t think so.” I shrugged again. “I
don’t really recall.”

We both stood in silence for a long moment,
alternately inhaling and exhaling clouds of smoke that dissipated
on the cool breeze. The sky was an expanse of slate grey that
stretched from jagged horizon to jagged horizon, even and
unblemished. The temperature was hovering in the upper 40’s after
having threatened to push fully into the low 50’s earlier in the
day. It actually looked far colder than it really was, even with
the breeze factored in.

“Rowan,” she finally began after flicking the
ashes from her own smoke and gazing thoughtfully out at the
skyline. “I realize we have only recently met but you truly do not
strike me as the kind of person who is deliberately contrary. Am I
correct in this assumption?”

I mulled over the comment, reading between
the lines and deciphering the base meaning of her words.

“I’d like to think that I’m not a jackass, if
that’s what you mean,” I answered.

“Touché
,” she
replied. “So much for tact.”

“Please,” I told her, “feel free to be
tactful. It makes me feel appreciated. Anyway, you were
saying?”

“My point was simply this: Why will you not
tell me the reason you think you started smoking again,” she
instructed. “Because I am going to go out on a limb here and say
that you do not believe it is because of stress.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“Not really.” She shook her head and smiled.
“I just have better sight than most.”

I gave the query some thought. Ben had
already told her about some of the things he’d witnessed me do, and
I’d spoken at length with her about it myself during our first
session. I had nothing to lose by being honest.

“I think that I am physically manifesting the
habit of a dead person.”

“Whom?” She asked the question without even
blinking.

“A young woman named Debbie Schaeffer, or
maybe another named Paige Lawson,” I told her. “Maybe even both. I
don’t know.”

“Are you certain either of them were
smokers?”

“I’m not actually sure. Ben is checking on it
though.”

“Debbie Schaeffer is the murdered cheerleader
to whose case Benjamin is assigned, correct?”

“That’s the one.”

“And Paige Lawson is?”

“Another case Ben is…was…is working,” I
explained. “I’m not sure if it is still an open investigation or if
they finally wrote it off as an accidental death. Something tells
me it wasn’t an accident though.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Something
just doesn’t feel right about it. I assumed Ben had told you about
that particular incident.”

“By
incident
do you mean something involving
you?”

“Exactly.”

“Ahhh, just a moment,” she nodded, “would
this be the case where you recently showed up uninvited at the
crime scene extremely disoriented and then passed out?”

“That would be the one.”

“Mmhmm, mmhmm.” She nodded again. “I do
remember Benjamin telling me about that. I believe it is what
actually triggered him calling me about you.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Although I’ve
recently been informed that he and Felicity had been discussing my
mental state for some time now.”

“I believe you are correct,” she agreed. “So
what about this incident with Miz Lawson. It seems to be weighing
on you somewhat.”

“Well, the big problem for me is that I have
no memory of going there…to the crime scene… Not until I snapped
out of whatever trance I was in anyway. And by then I just found
myself handcuffed and sitting in the back of a squad car.”

“PTSD can manifest in various ways, Rowan.
Selective amnesia is not beyond the realm of possibility for
someone who has been subjected to the severity of emotional and
physical trauma you have faced.”

“But I had sex with my wife last night…”

I simply blurted out the comment, appending
it to the conversation whether it appeared to fit or not. The
resulting silence lasted for enough heartbeats to tell me that I’d
even managed to stun Helen with the seemingly misplaced
announcement.

I don’t know that I consciously realized what
I was saying until the words were out there for us both to hear,
and by then it was too late. I could still make no real sense of it
all, but pieces were falling into place to form a fuzzy image. The
very subject that had been my impetus for this unscheduled visit
was now revealed. In the process a subdued feeling was re-awakened,
and the unnamed fear that had earlier made itself comfortable
within me stood up and engaged in a formal introduction.

“Okay,” Helen finally answered, scrutinizing
my face with her eyes. “Has there been a problem with intimacy
between the two of you?”

It took a moment to dawn on me that I’d only
spoken aloud the first half of the thought that kept replaying in
my head. “No, I’m sorry, you don’t understand…” I sputtered. “What
I mean is I had sex with my wife last night but I don’t remember
it.”

“At all?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Then how do you know that this
happened?”

“I got the message loud and clear from
Felicity when we got up this morning.”

“You are certain then?”

“Oh yeah,” I nodded as I spoke. “No doubt in
my mind.”

“I see,” she posed thoughtfully. “Did you
tell her you had no recollection of it?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not yet. I may be
disturbed but I’m not insane. At least, I don’t think I am… I’m
already walking a thin line with Felicity as it is. If I tell her
something like that, she’ll have me committed.”

“I seriously doubt that,” she said with a
shake of her head. “You know, this is very likely all part of the
same post trauma stress.”

“I don’t know, Helen. Do you remember me
telling you about the sleepwalking I’ve been doing over the past
few months?” I asked, the viscid fear now running rampant through
my veins and forcing the words out of my mouth as a confession.

“Of course.”

“And how I don’t remember any of it?”

“Here again, that is not unusual in cases of
somnambulism, Rowan,” she offered. “And these nocturnal episodes
are most likely due to the stress.”

“But I’m afraid that maybe all of it is tied
together somehow. The sleepwalking, the blackouts, even Paige
Lawson…”

“I agree with you,” she nodded. “Like I said,
these things could be manifestations of PTSD.”

“I wish it were that simple,” I told her.
“But I’m terribly afraid that there’s a different connection.”

“And that would be?”

“I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m the one
who killed Paige Lawson.”

“You do not truly believe that now, do you,
Rowan?” Helen asked me slowly and deliberately, but only after yet
another long and uncomfortable pause.

“To be honest, I don’t know what to believe
anymore,” I answered her. “And that’s starting to really scare
me.”

I was amazed at how calmly I spoke
considering the rampant terror that was now racing around inside
me. The sudden revelation that I myself could be the person
responsible for Paige Lawson’s death was almost more than I could
bear to imagine. But it was a fact I felt I had to face head on.
The simple truths were that Debbie Schaeffer’s spirit was very
intent on my contact with the corpse; I had arrived at the crime
scene in a demented state; and I couldn’t remember anything at all
about going there.

Who was to say that I hadn’t already been
there a few short hours before?

“I honestly believe that you are leading
yourself down the wrong path,” Doctor Storm said with a look of
deep concentration creasing her forehead. “You should look
carefully at the facts which are before you and refrain from wild
conjecture.”

“I am,” I answered.

“No, Rowan,” she replied sternly. “You are
not.”

“What am I missing then?”

“Evidence, for one; motive, for another.
Think about it. Did you even know this Paige Lawson?”

“No.” I shook my head and inhaled deeply from
the cigarette in my hand. “Never heard of her before that
night.”

“Then what motive could you have possibly had
for killing her?”

“Insane people don’t always have easily
discernible motives,” I replied.

“True. But you are not insane.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Maybe I was
wrong earlier.”

“I, however, am. You are not insane.”

“Well, at least that’s one of us.”

“And since I am the one with the degree in
psychology, let us assume that I am also the one who is correct on
this point. All right?” She cocked her head to the side and flashed
a quick smile when she spoke.

“Okay,” I couldn’t help but return the smile.
Simply listening to her speak was quickly dulling the edge on the
blade of fear that had been ripping through my gut.

“From what you have said, the crime scene was
apparently devoid of any evidence of foul play—least of all,
evidence of your participation in such an act.”

“Maybe I was careful,” I objected. “I’ve been
involved in enough murder investigations to know what to
avoid.”

“While sleepwalking? I sincerely doubt
it, Rowan.” She shook her head. “For the sake of argument, let us
forget for a moment that this is an incredibly rare occurrence.
There
are
actually a few
cases—a very few, mind you—involving acts of violence committed by
sleepwalkers, but this one simply does not fit the
pattern.”

“How’s that?”

“The tragedies like this that have occurred
during episodes of nocturnal automatism have been driven by
emotion. Responses to stimuli the sleepwalker experienced during
waking hours. Stress and emotional upset. And while there may be a
triggering incident, in most cases the stimulus has been in place
over a long period.”

“Well,” I said, “stress is apparently what
brought me here to begin with, right?”

“Yes, but let me finish,” she urged. “The
crimes committed by sleepwalkers are commonly very brutal and born
out of passion. For instance, there was a man who repeatedly
stabbed his mother-in-law with a hunting knife; another bludgeoned
his mother-in-law to death with a tire iron. Still another
repeatedly stabbed and then drowned his wife.

“There is a definite pattern established here
with this type of crime. The attacker knows his or her victim
intimately, and the evidence left behind is abundant. There is no
conscious, calculated attempt to cover it up, so to speak.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” I
continued my protest, though more as a devil’s advocate than
anything else because I desperately wanted to believe her. “Maybe
I’m an isolated case.”

She shrugged. “I suppose that is always a
possibility, but I do not believe it for a minute. Neither should
you.”