Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (33 page)

“Ooohh, Detective,” she purred. “So
forceful. I am sorry, but I’m a
top
, not a
switch
. I can, however, introduce you to some
submissive women if you’d like. Or would you prefer a male
slave?”

“Jeezus!” he spat, quickly releasing her arm
as if he thought he was touching something repugnant.

“Lady Vee,” I appealed, trying to defuse the
situation. “I understand your reluctance, but all we want to do is
go inside and get my wife.”

I was usually the one being reined in by Ben,
so this was a bit of a change for me. Given the way I was feeling
at the moment, I was surprising myself with my own calm.

“I really don’t need a domestic disturbance
in my club,” she replied.

“There won’t be.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she remarked
flatly. “If she is inside and you have had to come looking for her,
obviously there is an issue.”

“There is,” I agreed. “She’s not answering
her cell phone.”

“And perhaps she has a good reason.”

“She does, but not one you would
understand.”

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” she announced. “But,
I don’t want you in my club. If you think you need to make calls,
Detective, feel free. I’ll make one myself, to my attorney.”

She turned and started toward the door once
again, and Ben immediately reached beneath the folds of his coat. A
second later I heard the clink of his handcuffs as he extracted
them from his belt.

“Hold on,” I said, laying my hand on his arm
then I directed myself toward the club owner. “Lady Vee, wait…”

She stopped and turned back toward me as she
impatiently snipped, “What is it?”

“If the issue is that you don’t want an
incident in your club, how about if you send her out here?”

“And what reason should I give her for
sending her out?” she asked.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never kicked anyone out
before,” Ben said. “I’m sure you can think of somethin’.”

She stood there with her hand on the door
handle, staring back at us. After a brief moment, she released the
door and stepped back over to us. “All right. Do you have a
picture, so I know who I am looking for?”

I quickly dug in my pocket and extracted my
wallet, peeling open the Velcro tab and flipping through the
pictures. Landing on the most recent photo of my wife, I turned the
billfold around and handed it to her.

She glanced at the image of Felicity for a
second then handed the wallet back to me.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t send her
out.”

“Why not?” I couldn’t keep the pleading tone
out of my voice.

“Because she isn’t here.”

“Bullshit,” Ben snapped as he jerked his
thumb over his shoulder. “Her fuckin’ Jeep is parked right over
there.”

“Be that as it may,” she replied. “She is not
inside my club. She left about thirty or forty minutes ago.”

“Left?”

“Yes, left,” she said, waving her hand out in
a sweeping gesture. “As in went away, said goodbye, took her
leave…”

“Was anyone with her?” I asked.

“Yes. Mat.”

“Matt who?” Ben asked, reaching for his
notebook.

“Not Matt who,” she replied with a shake of
her head. “Door Mat. He’s a regular here.”

“Door Mat? Jeezus… So, what’s his real
name?”

“I have no idea.”

“You don’t know his real name?”

“No, Detective, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You gotta be kiddin’ me? He’s a regular and
you don’t know his real name?”

“I’ve already told you no twice. This makes
three.”

“What about someone else inside? One of your
staff? One of the other ‘nameless regulars’ then?”

“I wouldn’t know. We respect our clientele
here.”

“Oh yeah? Ya’ coulda fooled me.”

“Privacy, Detective. Their privacy.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

Ben spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to
convince the owner of The Whine Cellar that it would not only be in
her best interest, but Door Mat’s as well, if she would allow us to
ask those present a few questions. The more information we could
gather, the better, but if we at least knew his real name and got a
basic description of him, it would be a start. She kept insisting
that they wouldn’t have what we were looking for other than the
description she had already given us, but eventually she assented
to his appeals.

It was obvious that she wasn’t happy about
the situation when she ushered us through the door; what we hadn’t
expected was that she wasn’t going to give in without some type of
retaliation. Upon entering the club, she instantly launched into a
swell of histrionics, essentially making a show of stopping the
evening’s performance mid-stream.

Since the entertainment was apparently the
semi-public flogging of various submissive members of the
clientele, the interruption didn’t go over very well with the
crowd. Still, with her barking orders, it didn’t take long to clear
the centrally located, circular stage. It did, however, take a
minute or two for her to quell the catcalls, the loudest of which
seemed to be coming from the victims of the whippings. But, I got
the impression that she wasn’t really trying that hard.

And still, even after she had everyone’s
unfettered attention, she wasn’t finished with her melodramatic
display. With a wholly unnecessary flourish, she introduced both of
us, immediately tagging Ben as a cop and me as the “submissive
husband” of the redhead who had been with Door Mat.

Several voices in the group instantly called
out the name “Mistress Miranda”, intermixed with commentaries
ranging from “lucky S.O.B.” to “you poor bastard”. Even so, none of
them stepped up to take credit for the tidbit of knowledge. Lady
Vee had then followed up by asking that anyone with any information
on the individual known as Door Mat please come forward.

Just as she had said would happen, the only
data coming our way was in the form of blank stares.

Ben and I both went so far as to appeal to
the crowd ourselves, reviving the multiple personality disorder and
skipped meds story he had concocted earlier. However, even after
telling them that Mistress Miranda may very well seriously hurt
their friend because of her current psychosis, not a single person
was willing to help.

Whether it was because they weren’t about to
talk to a cop because Lady Vee had some sort of control over them,
or simply that they truly didn’t know anything, I couldn’t say for
sure. Still, it seemed odd, even to me, that not one individual in
the entire club knew his real name, especially if he had been a
regular.

After a smug and very public “I told you so”
from Lady Vee, we were summarily escorted to the door and asked to
leave post haste, though not in such polite terms. Since there
wasn’t really anything we could do to force the information out of
them, we complied. Well, partially anyway. Felicity’s Jeep was
still here, and Ben wanted to search it. Fortunately for us, I had
had the presence of mind to bring my set of keys for the Wrangler
along with me. I didn’t normally carry them, but for some reason,
this time I had stuffed them into my pocket.

We had only been at the task a little more
than five minutes when my growing impatience with the situation got
the better of me.

“Shouldn’t we be out looking for Felicity?” I
asked with an almost angry edge to my voice.

“Where?” Ben called across to me without
looking up and continued rifling through the front half of the
vehicle.

He was kneeling on the driver’s side with his
head cocked over as he carefully played the beam of a flashlight
beneath the seat. I was on the passenger side, doing much the same
but without the aid of additional light and with much less fervor.
I seriously doubted that we would find anything that would point us
to where my wife had gone, and I had already said as much several
times. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think my friend was
expecting to either. His focus at the moment actually seemed
directed more toward recovering Agent Mandalay’s sidearm.

“I don’t know, wherever,” I spat.

“‘
Zactly.”

“Exactly what?”

“Exactly you don’t have any friggin’ idea
where to start, and neither do I.”

“Maybe so, but we aren’t getting anywhere by
staying here.”

“Uh-huh, just keep lookin’,” he grunted
absently then spoke up. “So, I hate ta’ even ask this, but, how
long?”

“How long what?” I replied as I gave up
trying to see anything and simply slid my arm beneath the passenger
seat. After feeling about, I wrapped my hand around something hard
and withdrew it, only to find myself holding a collapsible
umbrella. Waving it in the air, I added, “Nothing here.”

“Be careful!” he barked, having noticed how
blindly I had groped about. “Why don’t you just back off and let me
do this.”

“Fine,” I returned, standing and taking a
half-step back then holding my hands up in plain sight. “Suit
yourself. I don’t know why finding the damn gun is so important
right this minute anyway.”

He glanced up at me without a word. There was
more than enough overhead light for me to see the look on his face,
and it told me I had just said something incredibly stupid. At
least, that was obviously his take on my comment.

“I’ve already been through the console,” he
said, not bothering to explain his motivation. “Why don’t you check
to see if I missed anything that’ll help us know where ta’ start
lookin’.”

“Yeah, okay. Fine.”

I puffed my cheeks as I blew a frustrated
breath out in a frosty stream then leaned inside the vehicle and
began going through the clutter in the center console.

“Look, I’m sorry. I just don’t want anyone
gettin’ shot. Me, you, her, or another copper. If she ditched the
gun, then I know we’re probably safe, from that at least.”

“Okay, I get it,” I replied without
conviction.

“Good.”

“So, how long what?” I asked after searching
in silence for another minute or two.

He continued his quest without interruption
but spoke again in an almost apologetic tone. “So anyway, what I
was askin’ is how long do ya’ think we have before she kills this
guy?”

The query struck me in the chest with no less
emotional intensity than if he had simply doubled up his fist and
physically thrown the punch. I stopped moving and simply allowed my
head to hang.

I couldn’t blame him for asking. It was a
valid question, and I would be lying if I said it hadn’t already
crossed my mind more than once. I had just been making it a point
to try not to think about it.

When I didn’t answer him right away, he
called my name, “Row?”

The beam from the flashlight flickered in
front of me, and I slowly raised my head. I’m certain the harsh
light didn’t help what was most likely a horribly pained expression
on my face.

“Shit… Sorry, white man…” my friend mumbled.
“Didn’t think… I’m just kinda in cop mode right now. And, I’m not
used ta’ one of my friends bein’…”

“It’s okay,” I replied then swallowed hard as
his question continued to bounce around inside my skull. I finally
said, “I honestly don’t know. It was pretty obvious at the other
crime scenes that the killer apparently likes to torture the
victims for a while. Given the nature of the abuse, I suspect it
probably starts out as a consensual fetish game. How quickly it
escalates from there, I have no idea.”

“What about the Voodoo stuff? Think she’ll do
that?”

“Maybe.”

“So that could buy some time.”

I shook my head uncertainly. “Again, maybe. I
don’t know enough to be able to say how long the ritual would
take.”

“Okay. So, any chance Felicity could… I
dunno… Win?”

“Win?”

“You know, like… I dunno… Stop herself.”

“You mean her spirit?”

“Yeah, whatever… I mean like could she be
fighting against this thing right now. Groundin’ or whatever
hocus-pocus it is you two are always doin’. You know, maybe tryin’
ta’ make herself snap out of it before it’s too late?”

“Right now, I suspect Felicity isn’t
even aware that she needs to snap out of it, so she’s probably not
able to do anything at all. Her body has become what the
Lwa
refer to as a ‘horse’. It’s
literally being used to take the departed spirit from one place to
another and allow it to do things in the physical
world.”

“I thought you just said you didn’t know that
much about this shit?”

“I don’t, really. Just a handful of
relatively useless facts,” I said with a shrug. “While you were
making some calls back at the house, I skimmed through a couple of
books we had on the shelf, but I didn’t get much more than I
already knew.” I stopped and harrumphed thoughtfully. “I guess
that’s probably because I got what I knew from those books to begin
with. Either way, basically, this is pretty unfamiliar ground for
me. I know enough to know that I don’t really have a clue.”

“That doesn’t inspire confidence, Row.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, I don’t suppose there was a chapter in
one of those books on how to make the spirit go away, was
there?”

“No. Apparently, it’s actually an honor
to be a horse for a
Lwa,
so a
follower really wouldn’t want the spirit to go away.”

“Prob’ly cause they haven’t hung out with
this one.”

“I can agree with that because there’s
something more to this spirit, Ben. The descriptions of possessions
in the books seemed adamant about
Lwa
not inflicting intentional harm.”

“Maybe they need ta’ write a new book.”

“All I can say is that this
Lwa
, if that’s what it really is,
isn’t normal.”