Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (19 page)

More pain tore through my upper back and
shoulders as I waited for what I assumed to be the inevitable but
was taking forever to come. Then, instead of feeling my face
against the surface of the parking lot, I noted the sensation of
backward motion as I was jerked up by my armpits.

My head lolled to the side of its own accord,
and through the banshee wails filling my ears, I almost swore I
could hear a familiar voice echoing in the background as it called
my name. I tried to seize on the voice, searching it out through
the warbling din, but it was gone. It crossed my tortured mind that
I may simply have imagined it, and I was about to give up when it
came again, sharper, clearer, and even more forceful than
before.

“Rowan?!… Rowan?!… Talk to me!” Mandalay
urged.

“Jeezus, white man!” Ben’s exclamation
followed a half beat behind.

I felt myself being brought fully upright and
then leaned back against something. The queasiness that earlier
welled in my stomach was creeping up my throat, and I felt my mouth
begin to water as nausea fought to overtake me. Out of nowhere an
arc of pain shot through my jaw, and the desire to vomit was joined
by the unlikely taste of apples and blood.

“ROWAN!” Ben’s voice pierced my ears again,
this time followed by a hard sting against my cheek.

Why it worked, I still cannot say. If the
sudden pain through my knee hadn’t snapped me out of the downward
spiral, why the sharpness of my friend striking my cheek did so is
beyond me. Still, mystery or no, it had the desired effect.

I sputtered as I involuntarily jerked forward
and sucked in a cool breath. My question about breathing was
instantly answered. I hadn’t been.

The screaming in my ears rapidly faded, and
though it didn’t completely disappear, it lowered enough to become
an almost manageable ring far in the background.

Slowly pitching farther forward, I placed my
hands on my knees and let out a groan as I huffed in another
lungful of fresh air.

“Rowan? Are you okay?” Mandalay’s voice
seemed loud as my hearing struggled to adjust to the violent
changes it had just undergone.

“Yeah,” I sputtered. “Yeah… Thanks.”

“Didn’t hit ya’ too hard, did I?” Ben asked.
He didn’t sound particularly apologetic.

I hesitated for a moment as I brought my
breathing under control and then carefully stood upright to look at
him and said, “Between you and Felicity abusing me, I’m not sure
I’m going to survive this.”

“You’re gonna hafta take that up with
Firehair,” he returned, his voice still humorless.

“What?” came Mandalay’s puzzled query. “What
are you talking about?”

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know,” Ben
spat.

“More like you don’t want her to know,” I
returned.

“Cut me some slack,” he said.

Agent Drew, who had been dutifully silent up
until this point, suddenly blurted. “What was that just now?”

I turned my head in the direction of his
voice and saw that he was still hanging on to my right arm. Based
on their positions around me, apparently he and Constance had been
the ones responsible for catching me before I splattered completely
onto the pavement.

Looking around I noticed that in addition to
the three of them, we’d gathered a small crowd of uniformed
officers and crime scene technicians. I was used to having a
jaundiced eye cast my way whenever I arrived at a crime scene, but
what I was seeing in their faces was far from the normal
bitterness. In fact, they actually looked angry.

“Twilight
Zone
,” Ben announced before I could say anything. “Row
just blew past the fuckin’ sign post, right, Kemosabe?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod, breaking my
attention away from the stolid frowns of the onlookers. “Something
like that, Tonto.”

“The what?”

“The signpost,” Ben returned, voice still
edgy. “You know, there’s a signpost up ahead blah blah blah…”

I was beginning to wonder if my friend had
gotten any sleep yet or if perhaps his father’s death was truly
weighing on him even though he was unwilling to admit to it. The
gruff attitude he had been putting forth ever since the initial
phone call was a good indication that something was definitely
bothering him. Unfortunately, trying to rationalize his behavior
just made my head hurt even worse.

“I still don’t follow you,” Agent Drew
replied.

Ben gave him a wide-eyed shake of his head as
if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard then finally said,
“Jeezus! How fuckin’ young are you anyway? It was a goddamn TV
show… The monologue went…” He sputtered as he stopped himself from
continuing the explanation, then snarled “Awww, fuck me, I don’t
have time for this. Just forget it…”

“This is what Rowan does, Drew,” Mandalay
interjected, trying to help.

He verbally balked. “You mean to tell me that
was the psychic bullshit I’ve heard about?”

“Agent Drew!” she snapped.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her, waving my
hand in a dismissive gesture. “It doesn’t matter what he
believes.”

Ben cocked his head to the side then gave me
a short nod as he rerouted the conversation. “Guess it’s been
awhile, hasn’t it?”

“That’s an understatement,” I replied.

“Well, I gotta ask,” he said, shooting me a
questioning gaze. “You see anything while you were off in la-la
land?”

“No,” I replied, giving my own head a shake
and regretting it immediately as the pounding inside my skull
continued to rage. “I didn’t see anything. But…”

A sharp stab of intense pain lanced through
my throat, and I let the rest of the sentence go unspoken. I
swallowed hard then forced myself to bolster my earthly ground. I
closed my eyes and tried to visualize the connection as I struggled
to dissipate the negatively charged energy that was flowing
relentlessly through my body.

“You okay, Row?” my friend asked.

“Not really,” I managed to reply, dropping my
forehead into my hand.

“Should we get you away from here, Rowan?”
Constance asked.

“No,” I told her without looking up. “It’ll
be fine. I just have to settle down.”

“Give me a break,” Agent Drew spouted.
“You’ve got to be kidding. This is just…”

“Can it, Skippy,” Ben barked in his
direction.

As usual, my towering friend was intimidating
enough to get his way, and the younger man snorted quietly but kept
his mouth shut.

“You sure, white man?” Ben asked, focusing
back on me.

“Yeah. It’s all good.”

“Okay, so what were you about ta’ say?” he
queried.

I sighed and looked up at him slowly as I
stated, “I take it you want me to see something in that room over
there.”

“Well yeah, what was your first clue?”

“I think the yellow tape had something to do
with it,” I replied with a return volley of sarcasm. “Anyhow… Would
there happen to be anything in there that would explain why I have
the taste of apples and blood in my mouth?”

My friend looked back at me and frowned then
reached up to smoothed back his hair before shaking his head and
muttering, “Jeezus H Christ, white man… Look out folks, he’s
baaaacccckkkk…”

* * * * *

The first thing to strike me before we even
entered room seven was just that very fact—it was room seven.
Different motel, different side of town, but the same room number
as the one where Wentworth’s body had been found. Something told me
that it was far from a coincidence.

The second thing was the overwhelming odor of
watermelon wafting from the doorway. I wasn’t sure what it meant,
but given the fact that it was the very same odor that had clouded
the Wentworth crime scene, it became hash mark number two on the
imaginary tote board of interconnections between the crimes.

My headache had settled somewhat, dropping a
notch or so below a blinding migraine. The queasiness was still
there as well, but it was manageable. Of course, the sickly-sweet
pungency that was already enveloping us wasn’t helping in that
arena. I tried to keep my breathing shallow and ignore the smell as
best I could, consciously beating down the tickle that would
occasionally rise in the back of my throat. Thus far, my coffee was
staying put, and that was a good thing.

It had been so long since I’d dealt with such
a direct assault from the realm of the dead that I had forgotten
just how physically trying it could be. Still, for the moment I was
managing to keep myself grounded, and that was the most important
thing I could do. As long as I could accomplish that, I felt I
could keep the symptoms at bay, and that would at least allow me to
function.

I hoped.

“What’s that stench?” Mandalay asked as we
stood outside the room, signing in on the crime scene log.

“Fuck me gel,” Ben replied in a
matter-of-fact tone. “Watermelon flavor accordin’ to the
label.”

“There was…” Agent Drew started.

“Yeah,” Ben cut him off. “There was a tube
just like it at the Wentworth scene.”

“So that’s why you told Rowan to bring us
along?” Mandalay asked, grabbing at the dangled carrot.

“That and a few other things, yeah,” he
replied.

“You think the homicides are connected?” Drew
asked.

“Let’s just say I’m not rulin’ it out.”

I finished scrawling my name on the log and
looked up at my friend. “Watermelons and apples are a far cry from
one another, Ben.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he replied as he offered
us each a pair of latex gloves. “There’s an apple in there too. Ya’
can’t fuckin’ miss it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I returned as I
fought to force my hand into one of the rubber sheaths. My palms
were sweating and clammy, making it a struggle. I stood there
fumbling like a nervous rookie, and I could feel the eyes of the
other cops drilling into me. I was beginning to feel like this was
all a completely new experience for me—the ethereal connection, the
crime scene… Everything. Of course, given the unceremonious return
of what some call my “gift,” I suppose in a way it actually
was.

I finally managed to get the glove onto my
hand and began a similar altercation with the other as I continued
my questions, “So, what about the victim? High profile?”

“Not really,” he told me. “Actually, he was a
copper.”

I stopped and looked up at my friend’s face.
The sharpness of his attitude and the reserved anger in the faces
of the officers working the scene suddenly made perfect sense. What
I had originally thought to be annoyance directed at me was in fact
fury at the loss of one of their own. This wasn’t just another
homicide; it was a cop killing.

“Do you know if he had a connection with
Wentworth?” Mandalay asked.

“It’s bein’ checked out,” he replied. “But
nothin’ obvious says he did.”

“What about the homicide itself?” Agent Drew
asked. “Same execution style murder?”

“Jeez, I almost wish it was,” Ben huffed.
“Then maybe it’d make more sense.”

“What do you mean?” Mandalay asked.

“Well, it’s…” he stammered then shook his
head and replied simply, “You’ll see when ya’ go in. You good,
Row?”

I suddenly realized that everyone was still
waiting on me to finish struggling into the surgical gloves. I
redoubled my effort and managed to get the covering to slip over my
hand, albeit not without uncomfortably pinching my skin in several
places. “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “I’m ready.”

I followed my friend up the pair of steps
then across the threshold with Mandalay and Drew close behind. As I
cleared the doorframe, I automatically looked up and toward the
center of the room.

What I saw lying on the bed immediately
nullified my previous statement about “being ready.”

The room was fairly large considering that
this was just a small motel, however, that was probably because it
was a corner unit. Still, while touting inexpensive lodging, this
place was definitely far more upscale than the place where
Wentworth had seen his end.

We were barely through the doorway when an
explosion of light burst forth from a camera flash unit,
illuminating the space like a fleeting bolt of lightning. The
brilliance fell in a wide swath across the king-size bed, which was
positioned against the far back wall.

In that one hot second, the tableau before us
adopted an unearthly contrast. Color blanched for an instant, and
the harsh shadows demanded my full attention. In the end I was left
with a stark image fading slowly from my retinas. Still, even as
the color bled back into the artificially washed out picture, the
horrific outline remained indelibly imprinted on my brain, and I
knew for a fact that it would inhabit my nightmares for a long time
to come.

“Awww, Jeez…” Ben exclaimed. “I thought I
asked ya’ ta’ cover ‘im up.”

“We aren’t finished with the pictures yet,”
the photographer replied without bothering to look away from the
viewfinder.

“Well… Shit… Can ya’… Well just…” my friend
stuttered.

The photographer finally pulled the camera
away from his eye and regarded Ben with a flat expression. I’d seen
him around other crime scenes and knew he was with the CSU, so
apparently the need for freelancers had passed. I took a personal
comfort in that assumption, especially considering Felicity’s
current imbalance between the worlds.

It immediately occurred to me that it was
pure luck that she wasn’t here. While in the past she had always
been constant, staying unshakably grounded and centered at all
times, that had obviously not been the case as of late. In fact,
ever since the incident with her friend, she had suffered the same
problem that continually plagued me since my first foray to the
other side. That being the ability to fully maintain an earthly
connection.