Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (24 page)

I gave up on weighing the options when I
realized the elevator doors had slid shut once again.

I absently punched the recessed door-open
button on the panel and exited the confines of the lift, then
quickly crossed the tiled lobby, hooked past a too-symmetrically
decorated Christmas tree, and pushed onward out through the glass
doors.

A cool breeze caressed my face and forced me
to calm a bit more. I stopped for a moment on the sidewalk and
turned away from the wind as I lit a cigarette then inhaled the
smoke deep into my lungs. As I exhaled, I was certain that I heard
a familiar voice in the distance but not the dark one as before.
This one had plagued me for several days now, beginning as
unfamiliar scratchings on a page before finally coming into its
own. As usual, it was filled with a peculiar mix of desperation and
mockery at the same time.

Gimme a D!

Gimme an E!

Gimme an A!

Gimme another D!

What’s that spell?

DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!

DEAD, Rowan.

I’m dead for God’s sake; so quit feeling
sorry for yourself.

Do something about it.

My decision was made for me. My gut told me
that there was something more than just my addled psyche at work
here and I was going to have to figure it out on my own. As
frightened by the prospect as I now was, I had no choice but to
follow its lead.

When I exited the parking lot of the medical
building, my head was telling me to turn left toward home. After
all, Felicity would be expecting me, and there were still a million
things that needed to get done before the gathering tomorrow
evening.

My gut, on the other hand, asserted its newly
assigned leadership and pre-empted the turn with a pair of rights
before finally making that left, and I was soon motoring north on
the Innerbelt. Thirty minutes later I awoke from an absent-minded
daze as I found myself pulling off onto the shoulder of an isolated
section of Highway 367, not far from the Clark Bridge and Alton,
Illinois.

I sat for several minutes, engine running,
while I pondered the autopilot that had brought me here. I had
traveled this road more times than I could remember and had even
pulled off along the side to watch the eagles that would winter in
the area. However, it wasn’t yet the season for eagle watching, not
to mention it was a bit late in the day for the activity. Besides,
the prime spot for it was much farther down the stretch of asphalt
anyway. This particular spot on the roadside had attracted me for a
far more sinister reason, and though I’d never stopped here before,
I had arrived at this exact location with only my subconscious as a
guide.

I sat staring through the passenger side
window, peering past my own reflection in the glass and allowing my
eyes to adjust to the cold shadows. In what little was left of the
fading light, I could just barely make out a twisted ribbon of
yellow and black crime scene tape stretched between spindly tree
trunks in the distance.

I finally switched off the headlights and
cast a quick glance at the radio before twisting the key to kill
the engine. The digital clock on its face showed it to be almost 5
p.m. With tomorrow being winter solstice, the shortest day of the
year, official sunset was rapidly approaching. In fact, it was less
than an hour away. However, considering the thick blanket of grey
clouds that was acting as a barrier to the sun’s rays, dusk had
been abbreviated, and for all intents and purposes nightfall was
already upon us. The miniscule amount of illumination still
available would be completely gone in a matter of heartbeats.

I felt more than a little queasy about being
here. I wanted to believe that I was simply following my instincts
by coming to the spot where Debbie Schaeffer’s remains had been
found. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was actually being
guided by a tortured soul who had recently discovered she held a
healthy measure of control over me, even in this world.
Realistically, she was probably pulling the strings and was the one
directly responsible for bringing me to this place. What was left
for me to come to terms with was whether or not I was capable of
handling what she wanted to show me without first asking for
outside help.

The events of the previous night screamed,
“No.”

My clouded judgment shouted back a
resounding, “I don’t know.”

Debbie Schaeffer’s haunting voice just
kept echoing in the back of my skull,
“I’m
dead, Rowan. Do something about it.”

I continued to sit there, staring out the
window while the grey shadows faded to inky black as if condensed
into a single minute of time-lapse video. Taking a deep breath, I
weighed my options and considered what was being presented. I was
in no way naïve enough to believe that I was going to stumble
across some enlightening bit of physical evidence that would break
the case wide open. That was the sort of thing that always happened
in dime store mystery novels—but almost never in real life. Trained
crime scene investigators had already been over this area with eyes
sharper than mine, so the odds of my finding anything more than a
pile of dead leaves were beyond astronomical.

Unless, perhaps, that mythical piece of
evidence was simply invisible to the unaware—a latent clue, hidden
from the view of those not able to see beyond this plane of
existence. Still, it would need to be tangible for it to be
worthwhile, and such a thing was far from likely.

Besides, something about that idea just
didn’t feel right either. No, evidence was not why I was here. Not
by a long shot. I was here for the connection—for the proximity to
ground zero. I was here for the express purpose of reliving someone
else’s nightmare—as if I didn’t have enough of my own already. Deep
down, I was beginning to resent the fact that these visions were
being imposed on me against my will. I’d already had more than
enough of them to last me a lifetime, but there seemed no end to
the horrifying pictures that begged my attention. It was no wonder
I felt like I was going mad.

I engaged in a few more moments of restless
indecision before finally surrendering to the idea that I was
already here so I might as well get out and take a look. I’d
already wasted enough time so as to deprive myself of any natural
lighting, so I rummaged about beneath the seat and eventually
extracted a flashlight before climbing out of the cab and starting
down the shallow embankment.

I wasn’t entirely sure if it was just the
darkness, or the place, or even if the temperature had actually
dropped, but it felt far colder than it had just an hour or so
before. I stopped for a moment to zip my jacket, shrugging it
closer and turning up the collar to fend off the slight breeze.
Standing there on the side of the small hill, I looked to my left
and in the distance saw the muted glow of the lights from the Clark
Bridge just peeking over the barren treetops. Exhaling a frosty
breath, I watched the foggy luminescence disappear from view as I
ventured the last few steps down the grade and into the stand of
trees.

My feet crunched noisily through the dry
layer of leaves, and with each step I kicked up the damper stratum
beneath, filling the air with the sharp, “composty” odor of decay.
The flashlight wasn’t the most powerful in the world, but I’d
expected better performance than I was getting. The batteries were
apparently just this side of dead, so the faint yellow beam quickly
dissipated less than two yards ahead, making my progress slow and
unsteady.

To my back, commuters were making their way
home from jobs on this side of the river, and an occasional car
would rush by, the beams of its headlights cutting a swath through
the trees well above my head. Totally useless for illuminating my
path, however, they did create oblique shadows that would quickly
arc through a semicircular pattern as the vehicle approached then
flitter to obscurity when it passed. I’m sure it was nothing more
than my anxiety-fueled imagination, but some of those visual
artifacts seemed to possess lives of their own—and they didn’t look
friendly.

I carefully picked my way through the scrub,
tripping twice on the same fallen log and only narrowly regaining
my balance before almost being pitched to the ground. Leaning
against a tree for support, I decided to stop once again in order
to get my bearings. The crime scene tape had looked to be some
thirty or so yards from the roadside. In my estimation, I had
probably managed to cover half that distance so far.

With each step, the world had seemed to close
off behind me, creating an isolating darkness. Even the swish of
randomly passing vehicles had faded so far into the background that
the only sound left for me to hear was my labored breathing and
pounding heart. As I stood in place, wheezing in the cold air, my
body screamed for a dose of nicotine. I reached my hand inside my
jacket at the impulse but then thought better of the idea before
fully withdrawing the pack of cigarettes. Shoving it back into my
breast pocket, I panned the dying flashlight across the landscape
in search of a trail or break in the undergrowth.

A flicker of bright yellow lashed quickly
through the weak beam as the wind swelled and then fell off in a
rolling wave. I had apparently made it farther than I’d suspected.
I cocked my head to the side and listened carefully as a
static-laden hum began inside my head. Eventually my ears filled
with a faint whisper.

Dead I am. Dead I am. I do not like that dead
I am.

“I know you are.” I found myself answering
the voice aloud. “Trust me, I know.”

Aiming myself in the direction of the yellow
flicker, I stiff armed my way through a close huddle of saplings
and pushed closer. As I inched forward, hollowness began to invade
the pit of my stomach, mixing with the other ingredients of the
night to spin itself into a thin thread of fear. I continued
listening intently to the breeze, waiting for the voice that only I
could hear.

“Talk to me, Debbie,” I muttered under my
breath. “Tell me your story.”

The thread of foreboding began to embroider
itself up my spine, bringing a chill that made me physically shiver
and hug my coat tighter. I rubbed my palm against the day’s growth
of scratchy whiskers on my cheeks then tugged thoughtfully at my
beard as I let out a nervous laugh. If I wanted proof that I was
insane, then this was it. I was out here in the dark with a dying
flashlight, completely and totally ungrounded and unprotected.
What’s more, I was actively inviting the spirit of a murdered woman
to pop into my head when I knew for a fact that doing so was no
less than inviting disaster. Yeah, I thought, I’m definitely
pushing the envelope with this one.

Silence still permeated the night, leaving me
with the rattle of my breathing and thump of my adrenalin-affected
heart as the only audible companions. The burst of rational thought
should have driven me to immediately turn and flee, but rationality
wasn’t my strong suit right now. I pressed forward and the droning
hum began again.

“Dead, Rowan. Dead. That’s what I am. Do
something about it.”

The voice whispered past me again, working
its way around my head as it bounced between mono and stereo
separation.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,
Debbie,” I answered her aloud yet again. “Give the poetry a rest.
Just talk to me. Tell me what you saw.”

I could feel an energetic presence swirling
unseen before me and I halted. Icy tendrils of death slapped
outward from it, and I felt them slice effortlessly through my
body, making me gasp with each strike. I knew then that I’d gone
that one step further than I should and needed to turn tail and
run. Unfortunately, the command to do so was being diverted upon
leaving my brain, and it never made it to my legs. I stood frozen
in place, unable to move.

“You’ve done this before, Rowan,” I told
myself in a not quite calm voice. “This is nothing new. You can
handle it.”

My subconscious immediately objected, telling
me in no uncertain terms that while I’d done this before, I had
done it when I was capable of grounding and centering.

I didn’t have time to argue with myself. I
took in a deep breath through my nose and slowly exhaled through my
mouth, trying desperately to relax and achieve a focal point. I
could feel the hair on my arms rise as a field of static touched
me. I became instantly aware that there was no time for the Wicca
101 exercises in which I was about to engage; I needed to be
grounded now, and that simply wasn’t happening.

I steeled myself against an invasion that I
feared could very well bring about an end to what small scrap of
lucidity I still retained.

Dead I am! Dead I am! I do not like that dead
I am!

Dead I am! Dead I am! I do not like that dead
I am!

Debbie’s disembodied voice began shifting in
phases about me. Pitches rose and lowered as the chant doubled and
echoed, increasing in speed with each revolution as if winding
itself up to deliver a blow directly into my soul.

Dead I am! Dead I Am!

DeadIAm! DeadIAm!

DEADIAM! DEADIAM! DEADIAM! DEADIAM! DEADIAM!
DEADIAM!DEADIAM!DEADIAM!DEADIAM!DEADIAM!

The mantra blended quickly as the words
joined, becoming multi-syllabic noises that made my head vibrate
with its bass staccato. The cadence continued to increase toward a
roar of white noise, and I felt as if my head was positioned
between the jaws of an ever-tightening vise.

A shrill scream pierced the darkness without
warning, and my own voice joined it in absolute disharmony. I
started quickly, physically tensing while my heart climbed into my
throat in search of refuge. When I jumped, I involuntarily released
my grip on the near useless flashlight, and it spiraled to the
ground in slow motion, landing with a muted thud.