Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (37 page)

I wondered if Heather Burke was now occupying
the body sitting across from me, looking at herself and wondering
what was happening. Or were both our psyches crammed tightly into
her body, and mine was now nothing more than an empty shell?

Neither of those options was particularly
comforting at the moment.

“So what happens now?” Detective McLaughlin
queried Ben in a low voice.

I could tell she was whispering, but to me,
her words rang out clear and strong through the void. I called out
to the two of them to help me, but my plea fell on deaf ears.

If I could hear them so clearly, why couldn’t
they hear me?

I tried calling again, louder this time, but
realized quickly that even I could not hear my own voice. I had no
choice but to simply listen.

“Guess it all depends.” I could sense the
shrug in my friend’s voice when he answered her.

“On what?”

“On what he sees.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno. I’ve watched ‘im do this maybe half
a dozen times. Either he sits there starin’ for a minute then just
snaps out of it, or he starts floppin’ around and screamin’ like a
banshee.”

“Why would he do that?”

“‘
Cause of what he sees, I
guess.”

“I don’t understand,” she sounded puzzled, “I
thought he was going to hypnotize her.”

“He did,” Ben grunted. “Look at ‘er.”

“But shouldn’t they be talking or
something?”

“That’s not ‘zactly how he does it.”

“How exactly does he do it then?”

“I dunno. Hocus-pocus
Twilight Zone
shit, ya’know. He’s
the Witch, not me.”

“So what’s he see that would make him start
screaming?”

“Fuck, I dunno. I don’t really wanna either.
Do you?”

I didn’t hear Charlee’s answer, but I knew my
own, and right now it was “No.”

* * * * *

I’m drifting in a semi-conscious haze.

I remember flashing lights.

Bright. Blinding.

Over and over.

Darkness.

Flash!

Darkness.

Flash!

And the sound of shuffling.

I remember being moved.

At least I think I do.

I’m no longer cold, but I’m terribly
uncomfortable.

I feel as though I’m still seated, but my hip
is aching, and I can feel my own knuckles pressing hard against my
cheek. My arm tingles as if it has gone to sleep.

My back is starting to hurt.

My hair still feels incredibly bizarre.

I start to move but then I remember.

I’m afraid to open my eyes.

I know he is close… I can hear him.

I can smell him.

I gag on the stench

I open one eye and find that the blur is no
longer as bad as it had been earlier. Still, I can feel something
in my eyes and they are sore. Itching.

I’m in different clothing now.

It looks like it might be a party dress. All
I know is that it is shiny and red and frilly, and there is a lot
of it gathered around me. My right leg is draped over the arm of
the chair. My left leg feels like it is being stretched and pulled
out of its socket in the opposite direction. From the way that my
feet feel, I guess that they are crammed into a pair of high heels
that are about a half-size too small.

My side begins to cramp up and I whimper.

He doesn’t hear me.

He is making far too much noise.

I can hear him panting.

I feel him close.

A shadow moves in front of me, and in the dim
light I can see that he is nude from the waist down.

His hand is pistoning back and forth at his
crotch, and I can hear him mutter, “So close… Almost perfect…”

A lit cigarette smokes in his free hand as
the other pumps faster between his legs. I concentrate on the
glowing coal, not wanting to witness his self-stimulation. I watch
him raise the cigarette to take a puff and notice that it is
positioned between his middle fingers.

Curious.

I’ve never seen anyone hold a cigarette like
that before.

I try to follow his hand, but my head feels
heavy, and I cannot move.

He moves closer, standing between my
legs.

I want to scream.

He starts grunting as something warm and wet
splatters on me. I’m afraid I know what it is, and I feel sick.

The scream escapes as a gurgle.

My brain overloads on the fear and
disgust.

I close my eyes and pray.

He keeps panting and muttering, “Oh sweet
Jesus, she’s so close… She’s almost HER.”

* * * * *

“Did you see that?” Charlee McLaughlin’s
voice echoes past me in a distorted roar.

“See what?” Ben’s voice rumbles behind.

“They flinched.”

“Yeah, so?”

“No, I mean like both at the same time.”

“Yeah?”

“Well does that mean something?”

“You’re askin’ the wrong guy, Chuck.”

“It’s been almost five solid minutes.” Her
voice continued to echo out of phase. “Should we try to wake them
up or something?”

In my mind I was screaming,
“
YES!”

Of course, they couldn’t hear me. Hell, I
couldn’t even hear me.

“First time I ever saw ‘im do this,” Ben
explained, “he said, whatever ya’ do don’t touch me, or you’ll
break the trance. Or somethin’ like that, anyway. Just let it go.
As long as he’s not screamin’ and they’re both still breathin’,
he’s prob’ly fine.”

“No I’m not!”
I screamed at them again, but to no avail. Not that I
expected them to hear. But I did hope.

One thought kept going through my mind
where my friend’s explanation was concerned:
“Dammit, Ben! As I remember, you didn’t listen to me then—so
why are you suddenly deciding to do as I asked now?”

* * * * *

The sense of absolute violation transcends
even the pain.

I know he’s been inside me, I can feel
it.

I’m still so weak, so tired that I cannot
move.

I just lay there in the cold and cry.

Hot tears stream from the corners of my eyes,
rolling across my face and finally dripping into my ears.

I’m on my back.

It’s dark and there’s something covering
me.

I can feel cold vinyl against my skin.

The stench of stale cigarette smoke fills my
nostrils.

I’m still with him.

How long has it been?

I’ve lost all track of time.

I feel motion.

We are moving.

I can hear the roughness of the mistuned car
engine.

The vibration rattles me.

My arm slides across my chest, making tiny
jumps in time with the vibrations, until finally it falls, glances
from the edge of the seat, and lands in the floorboard—or more
accurately, into the trash covering the floorboard.

I can hear him in the front seat.

He’s humming.

He’s humming a happy, satisfied tune. He’s
humming “Merry Christmas, Baby.”

The sorry son-of-a-bitch…

I feel the vehicle turn—left I think.

I wonder if I can remember the turns. Isn’t
that what they do in spy movies? Count the seconds traveling
straight, then the turns? Make a map in their heads?

Who am I trying to fool here? I can’t even
think straight.

I wonder where he is taking me?

My stomach wrenches itself into a knot as
fear grips me.

He’s probably taking me somewhere, so he can
kill me and dispose of my body!

I feel the car turn again, begin to
accelerate, then the forlorn squeal of thin brakes reaches my
ears.

The car lurches to a sudden halt, rocking
hard on worn shocks. I bounce against the seatback like a rag doll
then roll forward. My body slides from the edge of the seat and
crumples into the floorboard, face down.

I groan.

“Don’t worry,” I hear him say. “You’re almost
home.”

Fear slices through me again. I wonder what
he means by home? The bottom of a ditch? The river? A shallow grave
somewhere?

My mind races, but it isn’t winning.

I struggle to open my eyes and find my face
buried in a pile of trash. As we pass beneath a streetlight, I see
that my pillow consists of fast food bags, empty cigarette cartons,
and things best left unidentified.

We travel in darkness then pass beneath
another streetlamp. My roaming eye catches a glimpse of an
envelope.

Darkness falls.

Again, for a fleeting instant, the glow of a
streetlamp.

Mister something.

Darkness.

I count out the thrum of the tires in my
head, keeping my eye focused on the spot where the envelope
lay.

Three, two, one.

The light floods the interior for a split
second.

An address… 75…

Darkness, three, two, one…

34…

Darkness, three, two, one…

Or was that the stamp?

Darkness, three, two, one…

75 again…

Darkness, three, two, one…

34 again. Was it the stamp again? I don’t
know…

Two, one…

Mister something again.

Concentrate!

Darkness, three, two, one…

75…34 something…

I can feel the car slowing…

Darkness, three, two, one…

The car quickly arcs into a turn and then
bounces over a curb just as the streetlamp’s glow fills the
cabin.

The envelope shifts.

I shift.

I catch a final glimpse as a fast food bag
falls in front of it.

Mister and Ash something…

Mister Ash?

Mister Ash what?

The darkness remains and I can feel that the
car is moving very slowly now.

We stop.

His voice reaches my ears again. “It’s okay,
honey. You’re home now.”

A sudden sense of calmness enveloped me,
followed immediately by a screaming pain akin to that of a midnight
leg cramp—only this leg cramp encompassed my entire body. I could
feel myself double forward, then without warning I was propelled
backward with explosive force.

And then the cramp-like pain melted away,
leaving behind the sickening, dull ache that usually accompanies a
bad hangover. In the span of a heartbeat, I felt myself slowly
sinking into a murky darkness that was deepening with each passing
second.

For some unknown reason, I had been summarily
expelled from Heather Burke’s nightmare. Or it had reached its end.
Or maybe I had been extracted with careful, calculated precision
that just happened to be violently painful as well?

I wasn’t sure which was the real answer, but
whichever was the case, I was grateful for the relief.

The psychic hangover was dissipating, and as
I continued to sink, I began to feel warm and comfortable. Had it
not been for the sharp noise that suddenly stabbed its way through
my eardrums, I think I could have simply gone to sleep.

Instead, I was once again swimming in an inky
void, the atmosphere thick around me like water. I wanted to do
nothing more than relax and allow the calmness of the dark to
overtake me, but the echo in my ears was more than enough to
indicate that such comfort wasn’t to be.

Stark awareness seeped in to replace the
drowsy feeling and poked at my grey matter with an annoying finger.
It started by reminding me that I was once again Rowan Linden Gant
and that I really needed to wake up.

The sharp noise shot into my left ear once
again and rattled around inside my skull without remorse. It
sounded for all the world like someone with a speech impediment
saying “yo-yo.” It took a moment for me to realize that the words
were actually “Yo, Row.”

A dim light in the distance seemed to beckon
me, and I aimed myself toward it. Again, darkness began bleeding
away, leaving in its wake first indigo, then blue, then charcoal
grey. In a psychedelic explosion, color bloomed before me and
settled slowly into the proper hues of reality. As if I didn’t have
enough to deal with, the ethereal hangover returned and followed me
into this plane of existence. Something told me that aspirin wasn’t
going to help either.

Heather Burke was seated across from me,
quietly sobbing, her face buried deeply into her hands. Her
shoulders heaved, and she sucked in a breath before advancing the
level of her grief another octave up the scale.

I knew exactly how she felt.

Utter violation permeated my being. I felt
disgusted, sickened, and even in a way, filthy. I felt as though
something had been taken from me. And worst of all, I still felt
fear.

“You okay, Row?” Ben’s voice came from behind
as he rested a large hand on my shoulder.

I jumped involuntarily when he touched me.
Logically I knew he was my friend and that I was not the victim.
But the sudden encroachment upon my space only served to increase
the feeling of violation.

“Yeah,” I choked past a rising lump in my
throat as I fought to shrug off feelings that didn’t belong to me.
“I’m okay, but I think we’d better get someone for Miz Burke here
to talk to. We’ve… She’s got a lot to deal with.”

* * * * *

“I’m not one hundred percent positive,” I
told Ben and Charlee, “but I think we might be looking for someone
with the last name Ash, or Ash-something. It’s also possible that
his street number is seventy-five thirty-four.”

We were all back in my friend’s van, me
riding shotgun this time. We were on our way to police headquarters
after having finally reached someone to look after Heather Burke. I
felt terrible just leaving her after dredging up the chemically
repressed memories, but we had no choice. I’d obtained information
that we needed to go over and decipher. I don’t know why, but
something told me that time was a commodity that we simply did not
have in abundance.