Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation (45 page)

In the center of it all was a chair, and in
that chair sat my wife, clad in an ornate wedding gown and staring
vacantly into space. A garish mask of makeup was painted onto her
face, lending an almost plastic quality to her features.

“NO!” a distinct and vile male voice screamed
from the shadows. “She’s MINE!”

I’d heard the voice before. I’d even felt the
ragged insanity of it inside my own head. I twisted toward the
words, and my eyes came to rest on Harold. He was standing twenty
feet away from Felicity and twenty yards away from me, a camera in
one hand and a cigarette protruding between the middle two fingers
of the other. He stepped closer to the chair as if to protect a
prized possession.

“Stay away from her!” I screamed at him,
tracking his movement with the pistol in my outstretched hand.

I wanted him dead. I wanted him dead right
now. But I had a huge problem and I knew it. He was far too close
to her and I was a lousy shot.

“She’s MINE and you can’t have her!” he
screamed back at me with crazed defiance in his eyes. “She doesn’t
want you! She wants ME!”

If I was in a movie, I knew I would have a
suitably dramatic line to deliver. Somehow, reality just isn’t
quite like the movies. All I could muster was a hoarse scream of,
“Get away from her, you bastard!”

I heard heavy breathing and the shuffle of
feet behind me but didn’t turn. I knew full well who it was.

“POLICE! Step away from her now!” my friend’s
stern voice ordered.

“SHE’S MINE! CAN’T YOU SEE THAT?! SHE’S
MINE!” Harold screamed once again.

Ben was moving slowly forward. On the
periphery of my vision I saw the muzzle of his nine-millimeter move
into view. The tip of the sidearm was followed by his arms, which
were locked into a rock steady firing position. Finally, the rest
of his body filled the corner of my eye as he came alongside
me.

As I directed my attention forward, I could
see my hand shaking—the polished surface of the revolver flickering
in the dim light.

“I’m ordering you to step away
now
, sir!” Ben returned, keeping his
attention fully focused on Harold. In a quieter but no less
demanding tone he issued a command to me. “Put the gun down before
you get yourself killed, Rowan!”

“GO AWAY!” Harold demanded wildly. “GO AWAY,
SHE’S MINE! SHE’S PERFECT AND SHE’S MINE!”

“Put the fucking gun
down
, Rowan,” Ben snarled at me
again.

I knew he was right. I needed to heed the
order and be done with this. In my mind, I knew it was over for me.
Ben had control of the situation and he was the professional. The
emotions that were driving me had no choice but to give wide berth
to the reality of the situation. It was a given that I couldn’t
pull the trigger and risk hitting Felicity. As much as I wanted
this man dead, there was literally nothing I could do, so I started
to lower the gun.

Or at least that is what I tried to do. My
arm wouldn’t move.

“Rowan, Rowan, you’re the guy! You found our
killer, now don’t be shy! We wanna make him suffer, don’t you know.
We wanna make him die, don’t let him go!”

The angry ditty rang inside my skull, audible
only to me and the cheering section that was chanting it. My hand
continued to shake but never wavered from its target.

“Dammit, Rowan, we’ve got a problem here,”
Ben hissed. “I can’t take this guy down if I’ve gotta worry about
you shootin’ me in the back!”

I could feel my finger tightening on the
trigger, and as I watched, the cylinder of the revolver started to
perceptibly rotate.

“STEP AWAY FROM HER!” Ben ordered Harold
again and then said to me, “Help me out here, white man. I don’t
think this asshole is real stable.”

“I…can’t…” I managed to stammer before
gritting my teeth.

It was taking every ounce of will I had to
keep my finger from squeezing the trigger any tighter. The colors
in the room were blooming in a kaleidoscope of contrasts, and my
head felt like an echo chamber. An urgent voice bounced from every
corner, riddling my brain.

“Come on, Rowan! Do it! Make him die!”

My entire body was shaking now. Harold was
staring at me as if he was completely unaware of the guns that were
trained on him. I looked past him at my wife’s slackened face and
in the dim light saw a dark line running down her cheek. Even at
this distance I knew it was a tear.

“This would be so much easier if you were
using your left hand like a normal person!” Debbie barked in my
ears.

“Jeezus, Rowan, put the fuckin’
gun
down
!” Ben ordered
again.

I felt the control over my index finger slip
and watched in horror as the cylinder began turning again. It was
less than a second away from rolling over and being struck by the
hammer when I made my decision. If Debbie Schaeffer needed to exert
that much force on my finger and arm because I was using my right
hand, maybe her control over the rest of my body was severely
weakened.

In a final bid I gave up fighting against her
and thrust every ounce of energy I had left into changing the
target instead. With a scream I twisted hard at the waist. My
finger squeezed tight on the trigger, but I was already swinging to
the side and brought the weapon to bear on a blank wall just as the
hammer released. There was a loud roar and fire flashed from the
muzzle in a bright burst. Dust flew as the projectile punched a
hole in the sheetrock well away from any human targets. The gunshot
echoed in my eardrums as the explosive sound bounced from the
walls. My ears instantly felt clogged, and they began to ring with
a painful stab deep inside. The recoil jerked my arm upward and its
force allowed me to loosen my grip on the weapon. As my hand
opened, it went flying and clattered across the concrete floor.

As I continued to spin I detected motion from
the corner of my eye, and I saw Ben rushing toward Harold, then
slamming into him full force, and knocking him to the floor.

It was all over in the proverbial blink of an
eye. Harold was screaming, “SHE’S MINE, SHE’S MINE… FELICITY,
HONEY, TELL THEM!” as Ben snapped a pair of handcuffs onto his
wrists and patted him down. I scrambled across the floor, putting
as much distance as possible between the discarded revolver and me
before finally climbing to my feet and bolting for my wife.

I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms around
her, not saying a word. I was simply listening to the soft sounds
of her breath and feeling the rhythmic thump of her heartbeat.
Tears were streaming down my face as I hugged her close and felt
her warmth against me—alive and unharmed.

We were starting to hear sirens and squealing
tires in the near distance as squad cars from the Briarwood Police
Department arrived outside. Whether summoned by a silent alarm or
by Ben, I didn’t know. I was glad to hear them nonetheless.

Ben slipped his Beretta into its holster
beneath his arm then folded himself to the floor next to me with a
tired sigh. Harold was on his stomach, several feet away, hands
securely cuffed behind his back. His head was turned to face us,
and he wore a pained mask of loss. Through choked sobs he continued
to call out, “Felicity…tell them…you’re mine…”

My friend pulled out his badge and held it up
in preparation for the impending invasion of local police officers
that would be descending upon us at any second. Somewhere inside
the building, a clock finished chiming out the hour with the final
bong in a series of twelve consecutive notes.

Still holding his shield and ID aloft, Ben
looked over at me and said, “Merry Christmas, Kemosabe. Merry
fuckin’ Christmas.”

“I am actually very proud of you, Rowan,”
Helen Storm told me as we stood at the railing of the outdoor
smoking lounge in her office building.

She was working on a cigarette, but for
a change I was not. I hadn’t had a craving for one since Christmas,
go figure. I did, however, have a Maduro
Cruz Real #2
hooked under my index finger, and
it was slowly growing a grey-white ash at its tip.

I took a puff, consciously placing the cigar
in the left corner of my mouth to avoid the pair of stitches that
were holding my lip together on the right. The bruises had worked
their way into the reddish-purple and yellow haloed stages, so I
still looked pretty frightening. My injuries had come from crashing
the van into the building for the most part. Mainly just the
bruises and split lip, although the jolt had fractured my left
wrist, and it was securely taped. My shoulder was sore, and my
entire body had ached for several days, but even that was now
subsiding.

“What for?” I asked. “Waiting until you were
out of the van before running it into the building?”

This was the first chance I’d had to talk
with Helen since Christmas Eve; not that it had been all that long
ago. New Year’s Eve was tomorrow, so less than one week had passed.
Still, it seemed like forever.

“For not killing Harold McCree,” she
answered. “You retained your strength. That is very important.”

“I think it was more along the lines of
luck,” I offered as I stared out across the dull sky. “Because I
can guarantee you that it wasn’t for a lack of desire.”

“The fact still remains that you did not kill
him.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know… Given another
chance, with different circumstances, the outcome could be
different.”

She ignored my comment, and we stood in
silence for a moment. I had grown accustomed to her periods of
quiet thoughtfulness interspersed throughout our conversations and
realized they were as much a signal as an action. They were, in
part, her way of triggering my own introspection.

“How is Felicity doing?” she finally
asked.

“Good,” I nodded. “As well as one can expect.
The Rohypnol was a bit of a blessing in a sense because she doesn’t
really remember much of what occurred after Harold dropped by to
deliver those photos.

“She’s having a little trouble coming to
terms with the fact that nine women were raped and two are dead,
all because he was playing out a fantasy that revolved around
her.”

“She should come visit me,” Helen offered.
“She needs to understand that what transpired is in no way her
fault.”

“She knows that, I think. But emotionally…” I
allowed my voice to trail off.

“Yes?” she looked at me with a smile.

“Okay, so I forgot who I was talking to for a
minute.” I smiled back. “Like I’ve said before, you don’t come off
as your average shrink.”

She laughed musically. “How are you both
handling the change of scenery?”

We were now living in an apartment in a
secure building for the time being. It had been a clandestine move,
made in the middle of the night the day after Christmas. It had
happened without fanfare, and very little warning, even to us. All
in all, it was comfortable enough, but it definitely wasn’t home.
Until Eldon Porter was in custody, however, it was something we
were getting used to dealing with—for a while, anyway.

“It’s okay,” I shrugged. “Not the same. And
we miss having the animals around.”

“Are you boarding them?”

“We thought about it but couldn’t do it to
them.” I shook my head. “Some friends took them in. That way
they’ll get some attention from people they’re familiar with.”

“Well,” she announced with a sigh after
glancing at her watch. “Unfortunately, I am afraid our time is up
for today, and I do have another appointment this time.”

“It flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t
it?” I grinned.

“Funny,” she replied. “Of course, you are the
only patient I see who is willing to stand out here and watch me
smoke. So in a way it is a big plus for me.”

“Therapists need love too,” I joked.

She smiled at me. “I see that your sense of
humor is returning. That is a very good sign, Rowan.”

I gave an abbreviated chuckle as I knocked
the ash from the end of my cigar then carefully sealed it into a
spring-loaded tube designed to tamp out the coal and keep the
remainder somewhat fresh. “Maybe,” I half agreed with a shrug. “But
I get the feeling I’m not out of the woods yet.”

“But the terrain is different, Rowan. You can
now see the trail, and that is important. As long as you can keep
it in sight, you will not lose your way.”

“Next week?” I asked.

“I will be here,” she returned.

* * * * *

“If it was up ta’ me, you wouldn’t even be
seein’ this shit,” Ben said as he massaged his neck. “But Helen
seems ta’ think it’ll offer some closure. I dunno. I think it’s
just friggin’ monkeyshit crazy myself.”

We were standing in a conference room at City
police headquarters, staring at a table full of tagged evidence
that was still being sorted and cataloged. Some of it had already
appeared on the evening news when the story broke, though my friend
had done his best to play down my connection.

Worn boxes of everything from five-by-seven
to sixteen-by-twenty photographic paper sat in ordered stacks. An
entire rack of women’s clothing—evening gowns to business suits to
lingerie—occupied one corner of the room; of immediate prominence
to me was the wedding gown Felicity had been wearing. Even though
it was crammed together with the other apparel, it stood out to me
like a beacon in total darkness.

Rectangular boxes were stacked next to the
rack in a mound with several pairs of stiletto-heeled shoes on
display. At the far end of the long table sat three head-shaped
Styrofoam stands, all supporting long, spiral-curled, red wigs;
each of which was carefully pinned into a different stylish coif.
The man had a small fortune invested in his lurid obsession.