Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (41 page)

Under any other circumstances I wouldn’t have
thought anything of it. Felicity was home, and even though she
tended to keep the doors locked, she sometimes forgot.

This time it was different.

Every hair on the back of my neck immediately
rose to attention. The dull thud in the back of my head expanded to
encompass my entire body. My ears began to ring, and every ethereal
alarm I had was going off in sequence.

I pushed the door farther inward and stepped
through. A cold gust of wind followed behind me and rustled a stack
of newspaper that was sitting in a nearby chair. The interior door
that led into the house was actually hanging ajar, and beyond it
the room was dark.

I carefully shut the outer door, beating back
the desire to panic, then took the few steps across the atrium to
the kitchen door and pushed it open slowly and carefully.

“Felicity?” I called out, stepping into the
room.

I paused, waiting in the darkness, but
received no answer. I listened intently and could hear muffled
whimpering and barking coming from deeper in the interior. Acid
began churning in the pit of my stomach as the panic began to break
free and crawl up my spine like a thousand spiders.

“Felicity?” I called again, louder this time,
as I hurried through the kitchen and in my haste glanced against
the corner of the island.

I let out a yelp and grabbed my side, then
aimed myself for the dining room. “Felicity? Are you here? Answer
me!”

The only sound to meet my ears was the
sharpness of my own voice and the excited yelps of the dogs from
somewhere inside the house.

The light was on in the living room, and it
cast an eerie glow through the archway and into the dining room
where I stood. Looking around, I could see my wife’s purse on the
side table and her long coat draped across the back of a chair.

My racing heart slowed and I took a deep
breath. She was here somewhere. Maybe she’d gone downstairs into
her darkroom for something. Or maybe she was in the bedroom and
couldn’t hear me over the dogs, assuming that’s where they were
presently holed up.

I crossed the room and flipped the light
switch. Even with the artificial wave of relief sweeping over me,
the supernatural alarms were still raising a raucous clamor inside
my skull. Adrenalin was dripping into my bloodstream on full flow,
and I was beginning to physically shake.

The fleeting moment of calm dissolved as
quickly as it had come. Something was still very wrong. With the
dogs raising that much ruckus, by now I should have heard Felicity
telling them to quiet down or at least come to see what was going
on to have them so riled up.

I immediately bolted through the house,
stumbling over my own feet with a clumsiness brought on by the
unchecked anxiety. I began screaming my wife’s name like a madman.
When I reached the bedroom, the dogs charged out the door the
moment I opened it and proceeded to follow me on the rabid quest as
I continued on to other floors and rooms.

In less than two minutes I had covered the
entire house—upstairs, downstairs, her darkroom, everywhere. I was
panting hard, struggling to catch my breath when I returned to the
dining room.

I stopped and glanced wildly around.
Eventually, my eyes fell on the table, and I stood staring at a
scene that had escaped my attention in the earlier darkness. Now
that I was turned to face it and the lights were on, my heart
plummeted into the depths of abject despair.

A chair was overturned. The dining room table
itself was canted askew as if it had been pushed or knocked out of
place. And scattered across the disrupted tableau and onto the
floor was the day’s mail.

I began to shake even harder when my
disbelieving stare came to rest on the center of the table. There,
as if placed with the utmost reverence, rested a book. Gold letters
were embossed along the spine and across the cover, spelling out
what, for me, were ominous words: Holy Bible.

I dropped the phone four times before my
unsteady hands managed to dial 9-1-1.

I was sitting on the floor staring straight
ahead with the handset of the phone still clasped tight in my hand
when the first uniformed police officers arrived on the scene. I
was in so much pain I couldn’t move. Emotional distress had
transcended the boundaries of the physical, and I literally ached
with despair. I could feel a hole deepening in my chest and
spreading outward in a bid to consume me.

I was more than happy to let it.

I didn’t fight, didn’t struggle. I just sat
and let the cold darkness eat away at my soul. Right now, this pain
was all I had to cling to. It was the only feeling I had left.

I had no idea what I’d told the emergency
operator. All I knew is that I could hear his voice issuing faintly
from the earpiece. He was asking me something it seemed, although
it was just so much gibberish in my mind. Whatever I’d said to him,
it had to have been barely coherent but ultimately grievous, as the
two officers entered through the back door with extreme caution and
weapons drawn.

I continued to sit motionless, watching as
they came toward me. They were speaking but their words made no
more sense than the tinny ramblings of the 9-1-1 operator. It was
obvious to me that until they’d fully assessed the situation, I was
considered a possible threat.

I didn’t care.

At this moment—this horrifically drawn out
and extended instant in all of time and space—my life meant
absolutely nothing to me. If Felicity was gone then I had no desire
to continue.

A brief spark of a thought glowed in the
forefront of my brain. All I had to do was move. Make a threatening
gesture. Act as though I was about to train a weapon on the
officers and it could all be done. They could end this hollow pain
for me.

Fortunately for me, I simply couldn’t make
myself do it.

I just continued to sit and embrace the pain,
letting it pool deeper and deeper, until finally, I was fully
immersed in it.

Sinking.

Drowning.

Then the unexpected took place. The pain
actually began to fade. Warming slowly from cold agony to hot
anger. From the moment I laid eyes on that Bible, my life had taken
on a completely surreal property. Everything I’d ever seen,
everything I’d ever accomplished, everything I’d ever set out to
do, no longer mattered to me in the least. The standard by which I
had lived my life seemed like a cruel joke.

I had raced immediately into the blind desire
to end my life, and while that was a prospect I’d not yet ruled
out, it would have to wait. I was now climbing out of the hole. A
desire for vengeance was upon me, and I was becoming driven.

I was going to find Eldon Porter, and now the
Rede was no longer an option. Harm none, my ass; I was going to
send him to meet his God in person.

* * * * *

This wasn’t the first time my home had been a
crime scene. I could only hope that it was going to be the last.
CSU technicians assigned to the Major Case Squad were going over
every inch of the house, including the garage and Felicity’s
Jeep.

I could have stayed inside, but I simply
couldn’t bear to watch them at work. Not when I recognized so many
of them from working the Porter case earlier this year, and
especially not when I considered that everyone knew what Porter had
done to his victims.

No, not when I could look into their eyes and
know exactly what they all were thinking.

I wandered out of the house and found myself
standing outside the perimeter, smoking yet another cigarette in
what had become one unending chain. Yellow and black crime scene
tape cordoned off my yard, and I’d ducked under it to get to the
sidewalk. I didn’t need the reminder, so I turned my back to
it.

I’d already given a statement, but I knew the
drill. They’d want to talk to me again. There was even a chance
that those who didn’t know me might consider me a suspect.

I thought about that for a moment. I guess
I’d better be prepared for it. It could very well present itself as
an obstacle to my finding Porter and bringing about his end.
Someone would set them straight, though, of that I was certain. I
was, after all, up to my neck in the previous investigation, and it
had been no secret that Porter had tried to kill me. It stood to
reason that he would be trying to finish the job, and Felicity
would make the perfect pawn.

I gave brief notice to the fact that I was
standing outside on Christmas Eve, coldly calculating and planning
to kill someone. I knew this should disturb me greatly, but it
didn’t. It was a curious feeling, yes, but right now it was keeping
me warm.

A quick glance around told me that there were
still a few of my neighbors ogling the scene. I didn’t even waste
time being angry about it. It wasn’t worth my time.

I heard a loud screech in the distance and
turned toward the sound. Thirty yards up the street, Ben Storm’s
van screamed around the corner and accelerated through the puddles
of luminance cast by the streetlamps. The magnetic bubble of an
emergency light flickered wildly on the corner of his roof and he
locked up the brakes, sliding to a diagonal halt in front of the
house. He was out of the Chevy and running toward me before the
engine stopped knocking.

“Rowan, are ya’ okay?” He fired the question
at me with genuine concern.

I stared back at him and didn’t utter a word.
I took another drag on my cigarette and tried to find a reason not
to hit him as hard as I could. Not that I believed I could inflict
any damage, but I definitely felt like I wanted to try.

Deep down inside I suppose I knew that this
wasn’t his fault, but right now I needed someone to blame. He had
known Porter was alive and on the loose, but he’d kept it from
me.

While I’d doubted right from the beginning
Porter’s demise, that night on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, my
friend hadn’t believed me. No matter what I’d said, he hadn’t been
willing to give in to trust. And then, when I was finally proven
correct, he’d hidden the fact from me. Whatever he claimed was his
motivation for the secretiveness, at this moment it didn’t wash. It
was unacceptable.

I continued to stare into his eyes, feeling
my own expressionless face harden to a blank mask.

“Rowan? Talk ta’ me.” His voice held a
pleading tone.

I quietly lit another cigarette from the one
I’d just finished and then flicked the spent butt out into the
street. I took a deep breath and shook my head.

“Where were they, Ben? Where the fuck were
all those concerned people that were supposed to be watching after
us when the sonofabitch came and took my wife?”

“Rowan…”

“Save it.” My voice was cold and sharp. I
could tell that each word was cutting him deeply and I didn’t care.
“You had a chance to stop this and you didn’t.”

“Row…”

“Go to hell, Ben,” I cut him off again. “Just
fucking go to hell.”

I turned and walked away.

* * * * *

“Benjamin is terribly concerned about you,
Rowan.” Helen Storm spoke to me in a soothing voice.

She was direct and wasted no words; still,
her tone had the ability to lull one into the fold of her
confidence. I was glad that she was here, even if I didn’t show
it.

I had been spiraling through the various
emotional states one can experience at a time such as this.
Disbelief, anger, fear, guilt… All of them rolled into a tense ball
that I couldn’t escape. At the moment I was experiencing some form
of defiant hostility that had arrived directly on the heels of an
uncontrolled fit of sobbing.

“What about you, Helen?” I asked, my dull
words forming a weak challenge. “Are you concerned about me
too?”

We were seated on my deck, both of us
holding lit cigarettes and staring into the darkness. Well,
I
was staring into the darkness; she
could have been staring at me for all I knew. I didn’t bother to
check. It was nearing 10 p.m.. Crime scene technicians were still
finishing up around the interior of the house but had finally
vacated the garage, so this one spot had become my safe haven for
the time being. Out of sight, out of mind—if only that really
worked.

A biting wind rose and fell in a serpentine
arc around the corner of the house and dragged its icy claws across
my face. I ignored it. I could hear Helen shift, and I glanced over
as she pulled her heavy shawl tighter, but that was her only
acknowledgement of the chill.

“Of course I am, Rowan,” she said.

“Humph,” I grunted. “There seems to be a lot
of that going around lately.”

“You do understand,” she began and then
paused for a brief second. I could tell from her silence that she
was gingerly picking the words she was about to use. “There is
every indication that your wife has not been harmed.”

“I don’t feel her, Helen,” I stated plainly.
“If she was okay, I’d be able to feel her.”

“I am not so certain of that. You have been
dealing with a severe emotional trauma, Rowan,” she offered. “I
would be greatly surprised if you could feel anything at all in the
sense to which you refer.”

Helen was correct. I couldn’t even
feel
her
, and she was sitting
right next to me. How could I expect to sense Felicity, wherever
she was? The only thing I really felt was bitter hatred for Eldon
Andrew Porter.

“So did Ben bring you over here to make sure
I didn’t wig out?” I changed the subject.

“Benjamin asked me to come here with him
because, as I said, he is very concerned about you.”

“He thinks I blame him for this, doesn’t
he?”