Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (42 page)

“Yes, he does,” she answered. “You all but
told him that yourself when we arrived.”

“I guess I do, in a way,” I sighed. “But not
completely. Not irrevocably.”

“That is understandable, considering the
circumstances. But be aware, Rowan, that he blames himself much
more than you blame him. The judgment that my brother is exacting
upon himself is a far higher price than you would ever dream of
asking.”

“Are you asking me to feel sorry for
him?”

“Not at all,” she confessed matter-of-factly.
“I am simply showing you both sides of the coin.”

“How clinical of you,” I remarked with an
underlying harshness in my voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be
coddling me and telling me everything will be okay?”

“If I was dealing with someone else in this
situation, perhaps. But not you… And not now. It would serve no
purpose.”

“What? I don’t deserve a little coddling? My
wife has been kidnapped and is probably dead,” I spat the comment
almost angrily.

“What you deserve, and what you want are two
vastly different things, Rowan. You know that,” she answered.
“Besides, I have a feeling that your particular talents will be
necessary to find her, so the time for coddling will have to come
later.”

“You seem convinced that she’s still
alive.”

“You should be too.”

“I want to be.” I closed my eyes and took in
a deep breath. “Gods, I want to be. But then at the same time, for
her sake, I have to hope that she isn’t. I saw what he did to his
other victims, Helen.”

“I understand that.”

“Do you?” I asked. “Because when I say
that I saw what he did, I mean I
saw
what he did. I saw it… I felt it… I
experienced it. To believe that he is doing those things to
Felicity, now… That’s more than I can take.”

“Yes, Rowan, I understand that far better
than you know.”

“Then you know why it’s hard for me to
believe that Felicity is still alive.”

A healthy supply of anxious energy was
crackling along every nerve in my body, and I found myself
fidgeting almost constantly. I was unable to maintain a grip on
myself for more than a few minutes at a time. This latest period of
calm reached the end of its somewhat protracted cycle, and I
angrily leapt from the chair.

“What the hell are they doing in there?” I
exclaimed as I began to pace. “Shouldn’t they be out there looking
for the sonofabitch?!”

“They are, Rowan,” Helen told me calmly. “You
know that.”

“A few minutes,” I muttered. “If I’d only
been here a few minutes sooner.”

“What would you have done had you been here?”
she asked with a shake of her head.

“What would I have done?” I echoed the
question back to her harshly. “I would have blown the sick bastard
into next week.”

“Would you have?” she asked simply.

“I have a gun and I know how to use it,” I
retorted. The words sounded sophomoric even as they tumbled out of
my mouth.

“I do not doubt that, Rowan.” She tactfully
ignored the childish bravado of my comment. “But neither the
implement nor the skill to use it are what I am questioning. What I
am curious about is your innate ability to take a life.”

“I shot him once,” I offered.

“Yes, you did,” she agreed. “But you shot him
to wound, not to kill. Furthermore, you did so when your own life
was literally hanging in the balance.”

“I assume you have a point here?” I
contended.

She didn’t allow my adversarial posture to
faze her. “My point is that when presented with the opportunity to
kill this man, you did not. Furthermore, when you believed that
there was some possibility that you may have been responsible for
his death—however unintentional—emotionally, it brought you very
close to the edge.”

“I never really believed he was dead. I made
no secret of that,” I told her. “Besides, this is different.”

“Now it is,” she nodded in agreement. “But
what if you had been here? Would he not have set his sights on you
instead of Felicity? At least, initially?”

“I think that’s a given,” I responded with a
shrug.

“Then you would simply have been repeating
history,” she commented.

“So maybe I realized I made a mistake out
there on that bridge,” I offered.

“Perhaps,” she returned. “But I do not
believe that, and I am inclined to think that you do not either.
You are a man of firm conviction, Rowan. The rede by which you have
lived your life is more a part of you than you wish to admit.”

“Maybe it’s time for me to wake up,” I told
her sadly. “Idealistic beliefs are for fools.”

“That would be a terrible loss, Rowan,” she
offered. “Your ideals are a very large part of who you are. And I
know that you do not truly believe that idealists are fools.”

Before I had a chance to formulate a retort,
our conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone purposely
clearing his throat. I looked over toward the door and saw Ben
standing on the top step. The light cast at a downward angle across
his face and his chiseled features were craggy with lines and
shadows. He looked tired, and he looked very old. Helen was
correct. He wasn’t taking this any better than I was.

“Ben.” I acknowledged his presence with a
curt nod. I no longer wanted to hit him, but he wasn’t at the top
of my list for chatting with either.

“Listen, Row, I know ya’ don’t wanna talk ta’
me right now, but this is important,” he began, smoothing his hair
back and bringing his hand to rest on his neck. He was thinking
hard.

“I will leave you two alone,” Helen offered,
making a move to stand.

“No, stay,” I told her.

I needed her to be here. As much as I didn’t
want to admit it, everyone was correct. I was very close to the
edge, and I had no compunction about jumping. Right now she was the
only one standing between me and the sudden stop at the end.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to keep the
bark out of my voice.

“It doesn’t look like Porter has anything ta’
do with this.” He blurted out the words as if he could no longer
contain them. “There’s some shit that just doesn’t add up.”

“Excuse me?” I stared back at him like he’d
grown an extra head. “What are you talking about? Of course he did
this!”

“Hear me out, Rowan.” He rushed the request
out as quickly as he could and moved down the steps toward me. “The
only thing that really pointed ta’ Porter to begin with was the
Bible, and he ain’t the one who left it…”

“How do you know that?” I demanded before he
could continue.

“I made some calls,” he explained. “Everyone
in Felicity’s charity group got one of those Bibles. They were
gifts to ‘em from the kids at the children’s home they visited this
afternoon.”

“W-W-What?” I stammered.

“Yeah,” he nodded as he spoke. “Everyone I
talked to said Felicity didn’t have the heart not ta’ take it,
‘cause the kids were so excited about givin’ them somethin’. She’s
the one who left it on the table, Row. Not Porter.”

“Okay, so then where the hell is she?!” I
snarled the demand.

“I dunno yet, white man,” he returned. “But
I’m gonna find ‘er.”

Hope was ignited from a miniscule spark that
set flame to a tiny candle somewhere deep inside me. Its glow was
so incredibly faint so as to be almost beyond notice, but it was
there—flickering defiantly into the face of the shadowy fear that
threatened to extinguish it.

“It could still be Porter,” I announced.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ben replied.

“Well I really doubt she just went for a
walk,” I snapped. “Something obviously happened here.”

“Yeah, and we’re gonna find out what,” Ben
told me. “Accordin’ to your monitoring service, the alarm was
disabled usin’ Felicity’s code via the keypad in the kitchen at
six-oh-seven p.m.”

“Then it had to have happened after she was
already in,” I offered. “We have a duress code she would have used
otherwise.”

My friend nodded agreement. “Figured as much.
There wasn’t a trigger from the panic buttons either.”

“Then whoever took her must have been
following her.”

“Maybe, but I’m workin’ a different angle.
We’ve done a door to door. Nobody saw anything, but considerin’
what day it is, no big surprise there.”

“What about the people who were actually
supposed to be watching the house?”

“That’s a cluster.” He shook his head. “Left
hand didn’t know what the right hand was doin’. Locals thought the
Feebs were on tonight, Feebs thought the locals were on, and…and
well…there’s just no way ta’ sugar coat it, Row. Somebody fucked
up, and there hasn’t been anyone watchin’ the house since about
three this afternoon.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. I wanted
to explode, but logically I knew that doing so wouldn’t help.
Still, just how much longer I was going to stay on the side of
rationality remained to be seen.

“That doesn’t sound at all like Constance,” I
said. “She’s meticulous.”

“That’s ‘zactly why it’s a cluster. Mandalay
had ta’ go back down ta’ the scene in Cape, so she wasn’t even in
Saint Louis.” Ben’s disdain for the FBI was almost legendary.
Constance Mandalay was the only agent he trusted, and the events of
this evening added just that much more evidence to his personal
case file against the agency. “But let’s not go there, ‘cause it
ain’t gonna get us anywhere with this. Now, movin’ on,” he
continued. “The front door was unlocked. Did you do that?”

“No,” I shook my head vigorously. “They’ve
already asked me that.”

“I’m just double checkin’,” he told me.
“Since you two normally come in the back, that’d mean Felicity had
ta’ have opened it since there was no sign of a forced entry.”

“The mail,” I offered.

“What?”

“The mail was on the dining room table,” I
explained. “She probably got the mail.”

“Yeah, makes sense, but she left the door
unlocked. Okay, what about the back? Was it open when ya’ got
here?”

“Closed but unlocked. Although, the inner
door was ajar.”

“What about the lights? Were any on?”

“I’ve been over this twice now!” I threw my
hands up in exasperation. “What does it matter?”

“Calm down,” Ben appealed. “I’m just tryin’
ta’ get a handle on this.”

“Get a handle on what, Ben?! My wife is
missing!”

“Listen ta’ me for a minute,” he ordered.
“We’re talkin’ about Felicity here, she…”

“No shit!” I spat. “Did they give you your
badge as a reward for recognizing the obvious?!”

His voice raised a notch. “Shut the fuck up
and listen ta’ me goddammit!”

“Benjamin!” Helen admonished, breaking her
self-imposed silence.

“Stay out of it, Helen!” he barked.

“Why don’t you quit screwing around and tell
me something I don’t already know!” I almost screamed at him.

Without warning he lashed out. I flinched,
fully expecting his fist to connect with my jaw. In retrospect, I
certainly would have deserved it if it had. Instead, I felt his
large hand twist into the collar of my shirt at the back of my
neck, and I instantly felt myself being propelled forward. Less
than a minute later I had been forced up the stairs, through the
atrium, then the kitchen, and finally into the dining room.

The crime scene technicians had all but
vacated the premises and were finishing up in front of the house.
Helen had followed after Ben, and the three of us now stood before
the spectacle that had so thoroughly thrust me into despair.

“Look at the scene, Rowan!” he demanded.
“Stop actin’ like an asshole for just one goddamned second and take
a good look at it!”

The bright incandescence of the artificial
lighting cast a stark picture before me as my eyes fought to
adjust. Just as it had been earlier, the dining room table was
canted at an angle, pushed a few degrees from its original position
in the room. The chairs were in minor disarray from the movement,
and as before, one was on its side. The mail we’d just discussed
was spread out toward one end, with a trio of #10 envelopes and a
medium-sized box resting haphazardly on the floor below.

The Bible still stared back from dead center
as if mocking me.

The only thing that had really changed was
that a patina of graphite and lycopodium powders now enhanced the
latent fingerprints throughout.

“Whaddaya see?” my friend asked, his voice
stern but slightly calmer.

“I don’t know,” I shot back. “My dining room?
A mess? What am I supposed to see?”

He let go of my collar and I immediately
wheeled about to face him.

He thrust a finger at me. “Like I said,
we’re talkin’ about Felicity here. This is a woman who once tackled
a mugger an’ sat on ‘im ‘till a squad car arrived. Now take another
look. Does this room
really
look like she put up a fight?”

I didn’t need to look again. He was correct.
In reality, the disruption was minor in comparison to what it could
have been. My wife was not one who would go quietly into the night
without first extracting her own pound of flesh. She would have
fought. She would have kicked. She would have screamed like a real
Irish banshee. No matter how big or how strong her attacker, she
would have wrecked the entire house trying to get away.

Ben could see the light dawning in my face,
and he knew that I was beginning to understand where he was headed,
so he pressed forward. “In your statement ya’ said the dogs were
shut up in the bedroom, right?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “They were.”

“How would that’ve happened?”

“Felicity would have had to put them there,”
I murmured.

“Why?” he kept going, forcing me to see what
he had already surmised.