Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (34 page)

“Normal ain’t a word I’d use for any of this,
Row,” he huffed.

“Yeah, I know. Believe me, based on what I
read, the spirituality here seems rooted in traditional Voodoo
practices, but that’s where the similarity ends. It’s like it’s
being misinterpreted to fit a sick agenda.”

“Yeah, well we’ve seen that kinda shit happen
before, haven’t we?”

I knew the rhetorical question was a
reference to the first case I’d ever worked with him. WitchCraft
had been the focus that time, but like now, it had been twisted
into something it wasn’t to fulfill the killer’s psychopathic
fantasy.

“Don’t remind me.”

“So, even knowin’ all that, you still
think…”

“That Felicity is acting under a spirit
possession?” I replied, finishing the thought for him. “Absolutely.
I refuse to believe she’s a killer, Ben. I just can’t. Can
you?”

“As a friend, I sure as hell don’t want to.
As a cop…”

I interrupted him again. “Just don’t…”

“I’m just tryin’ ta’ say…”

“No, Ben. Don’t say anything else. At least
let me pretend you’re on my side.”

“I am, Row. Believe it or not.”

“There’s something else I read,” I told him,
not exactly changing the subject but shunting it into a different
direction. “Possessions are known to spontaneously end.”

“So this could just all of a sudden
stop?”

“Yes. In fact, more than likely it will do
exactly that.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So if it’s gonna do
that, then you’re sayin’ maybe we just wait it out?”

“I doubt it. The problem is that it usually
happens after the spirit has accomplished what it set out to do
when it took over the body to begin with.”

“Fuckin’ wunnerful,” he grumbled then stood
up. “Okay. Nothin’ over here either. Let’s check the back.”

I backed out and closed the passenger door
then stepped around the Jeep, meeting my friend behind it. I
reached in and unlatched the spare tire frame, swung it to the
side, then unlocked the back window on the hard shell top. Ben
pointed the flashlight through the tinted glass, moving it back and
forth for a moment, and then carefully lifted the hatch open.

I followed the beam of the
Mag-lite
to where it pooled in the
back of the vehicle. There, partially draped across Felicity’s gym
bag was the pinstripe business suit she’d been wearing earlier in
the day. At first I thought it might simply have been the blazer,
but upon closer inspection I saw what appeared to be the waistband
of the slacks, as well as the strap of her bra.

“That looks like what she was wearin’ this
afternoon,” Ben said aloud.

“It is.”

“Well, unless she left outta here naked, she
musta changed clothes or somethin’.”

The ensemble was haphazardly strewn across
the rear cargo space, and positioned on top of it was one of her
smaller, hard-sided camera cases with the hinged lid propped open.
A pair of empty holes gaped back at us from the foam insert.

“It looks like there’s a camera and a flash
unit missing,” I announced.

“Jeezus fuckin’ Christ,” Ben muttered. “Don’t
tell me she’s gonna take pictures.”

He continued to play the beam of the
flashlight around the interior of the back of the Jeep, pausing
here and there as something would catch his eye. After a moment he
reached in and carefully moved the camera case then started lifting
the pile of clothing to check beneath.

That was when my heart somersaulted in my
chest.

“Whoa! Wait!” I insisted, reaching for his
arm, but he had already stopped because he had seen the same thing
that caught my eye.

Felicity’s white blouse, which had been
sandwiched between the blazer and slacks, was now revealed.
However, it was no longer stark white, as across the left breast a
bright crimson spatter stained the otherwise pristine silk.

“Gods!” I exclaimed.

“Calm down, Row,” Ben urged. “That probably
came from Constance when she hit ‘er. She was bleedin’ pretty
good.”

“What if it’s not?!” I appealed.

“Whether it is or not, panicking ain’t gonna
help,” he returned.

My panic ramped upward suddenly, but for a
completely different reason as a voice hissed from behind us,
“Hey.”

At the same moment the word struck my ears,
out of the corner of my eye I saw shadowy movement, followed by a
hand reaching between us toward my friend’s arm. I immediately
jumped, startled by the intrusion, and succeeded in banging my head
against the hatch strut.

Ben’s reflexes, however, kicked into high
gear, and he clamped his own hand onto the person’s wrist then
whipped around in a blur of motion. Before I knew it, he had the
owner of the voice pressed face first against the side of the Jeep.
In retrospect I suppose the action was overkill, but at that
particular moment, our level of tension was already approaching the
red zone. The truth is, he had probably showed great restraint by
simply subduing the individual.

I rubbed the side of my head where it had
impacted the support then stepped around to see what was happening.
The voice, and hand, apparently were the property of a buzz cut
young man we had seen in the club. He was decked out in leather
bondage gear, including a wide dog collar complete with a silver ID
tag that glinted in the dim shower of luminance from the overhead
lights.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?”
Ben almost screamed as he held him in place against the vehicle,
keeping one arm twisted up behind his back.

“I just wanted to talk to you!” the young man
said frantically.

“You don’t sneak up on a cop unless you wanna
get hurt, you goddammed moron!”

“Whoa! Hold on! I wasn’t sneaking up on you.
I’m trying to help!”

“Help what?” Ben barked.

The young man did his best to look in my
direction, and I stared back at him wordlessly.

“Did
she
do that to you?” he asked.

“Did who do what to me?” I asked with a mix
of confusion and annoyance in my voice.

“Your cheek. Did Mistress Miranda do that to
you?”

“That’s not her name,” I spat.

“Look, that’s all I know her as.”

“Okay, fine,” I replied. I wasn’t about to
tell him her real name. “Yes, she did this to me.”

“Man, she’s a vicious bitch.”

“Is that all you came out here for?” Ben
asked, pressing him harder against the Jeep.

“No, Mistress Gwen sent me out.”

“What the hell for?” my friend demanded.

The young man tried to look at me again. “Are
you really her husband?”

“Yeah.” I gave him a short nod. “I’m her
husband, why?”

“Mistress Gwen thinks she’s dangerous.”

“Right now, she is,” I agreed. “We tried to
tell everyone that inside.”

“Mistress Gwen wants to know if you think she
might really hurt Mat.”

“I thought that’s what you freaks were all
about,” Ben interjected with a mix of disdain and sarcasm.

“No, she means really injure him. Like
something serious or permanent.”

“Yeah, she might,” I told him.

Ben pulled the young man away from the Jeep
and shoved him in the direction of the building. The kid stumbled
but caught himself and turned around to face us.

“Look, asshole, if that’s all you wanted,
then go tell your playmate what she wanted to hear and leave us
alone. We’re tryin’ ta’ do police work here.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“How?”

“Mat’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh yeah? Do you know his real name?” Ben
demanded.

“Sure. Name, address, phone number. I can
even tell you what kind of car he drives.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say something
earlier?” I demanded with a swell of anger and stepped toward
him.

He took a step back but didn’t bolt.

Then, for the second time this evening,
someone looked at me like I had just displayed an utter lack of
intelligence by asking the stupidest of all known questions.

He shook his head and replied, “Because my
Mistress didn’t give me permission to speak until just now.”

Ben looked at him then over to me. “I’m gonna
be needin’ my phone back, Row.”

“Yeah, first name Brad, last name Lewis,
L-E-W-I-S,” Ben said into the cell phone as he urged the van along
Highway 40 and back across the Poplar Street Bridge into Missouri.
“Uh-huh… Yeah, according to the witness it’s a white Ford Focus…
No, don’t know the plates, but his address is…”

I tuned out the rest of what he was saying. I
had already heard it all once out of the young man from the club,
and it had etched itself into my memory as he spoke each word. I
doubted I would be forgetting it anytime soon.

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason for
tuning my friend out. I was having a hard time dealing with the
fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, releasing the
hounds on my wife. While I understood that reporting the
information was something he simply had no choice but to do, it
didn’t make me feel any better about pointing the manhunt in
Felicity’s direction.

I suppose there was still one saving grace,
however, and that was the fact that the handful of data Ben was
handing over probably wasn’t going to get anyone else any closer to
finding her than we were.

Not that we were particularly close.

I just knew that I needed to find her first.
Unfortunately, I was beginning to realize that this need was as
much for my peace of mind as for her safety. A nagging doubt had
crept into my thoughts, and it was treating my fear like a buffet
line, feeding on it in a near frenzy. I was trying very hard to
ignore it because the feeling it produced in the pit of my stomach
made me want to vomit.

Still, even if I discounted the growing
incertitude, I knew that I needed to be at the head of the pack no
matter what.
The thing was, right now it wasn’t looking like I was going to make
it. That fact, in and of itself, was bringing its own churn to my
insides.

My emotions had been running hot and cold all
evening as it was—bouncing up and down the scale with each passing
moment. I simply wasn’t used to this roller coaster. Given the
circumstances, I figured I should be completely on edge right now,
but that just wasn’t the case.

Granted, I had started out with anger when
the young man finally admitted to knowing the details about the
individual with whom my wife had left the club. In fact, Ben had
actually ended up needing to step between us as I started after him
in a sudden rage. I don’t think the beating I intended to inflict
would have been the kind he was looking for either.

But, that infuriation was all too brief, and
it had quickly morphed through to quiet frustration. Following that
equally hasty encounter, I slipped into a moment of something close
to elation before finally sweeping right back past anger and
falling directly into the cold arms of depression. In the end, the
entire course of emotions took less than five minutes to
complete.

Now, as we cruised over the PSB, I found that
I was still firmly planted in that state of melancholy. I knew that
part of it came from the conscious knowledge of how futile our
search had become. It seemed that we were falling further behind at
every turn, and I’m sure that went a long way toward setting my
current mood. And, of course, the bizarre tingle in the back of my
head wasn’t helping either. But, I also knew that the relentless
doubt that had so recently set up residence in my thoughts was the
worst of the trio of culprits. Even when things came in threes,
there had to be a leader.

At the moment I was sitting slumped down in
the passenger seat, gazing out the windshield with an unfocused
stare. The darkness beyond the glass had morphed into a surreal
landscape as we drove, and I was simply allowing myself to melt
into it.

I watched wordlessly as the reflection of the
Saint Louis skyline rippled in the dark waters of the Mississippi
River, shortening to an abstract flicker of light as we advanced
across the bridge. Ben merged to the left and continued along the
highway, bypassing downtown as he pressed on toward the county.

I remained mesmerized, as yellowish-white
pinpoints of light continued appearing in the distance, growing
larger, then streaking past us on the left. Dusky red flickers
brightened and dimmed with their out of sync rhythms on the right.
Setting the pace and bisecting it all was the on-again off-again
flutter of the lane markers as they came and went all at once.

On one level I knew exactly what I was
seeing, but on another the familiar sights had taken on a whole new
meaning. My head ached, and my brain simply didn’t seem to be
interested in processing reality any longer. It had become too
harsh, and my subconscious was frantically seeking an escape.
Turning the visual sensory input into a hypnotic kaleidoscope for
its own entertainment was apparently the path of least
resistance.

Given the alternative, I didn’t know that I
really minded a bit. In fact, I was seriously considering allowing
myself to succumb to it in total when my friend decided it would be
a good time to interrupt.

“Hey, Row…” Ben’s voice joined a sharp jab
against my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I said, reluctantly surfacing from
the trancelike stare.

“You gonna answer your phone?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your phone,” he repeated with a mild
urgency. “Answer it.”

I took in a deep breath and forced my grey
matter to wrap around the sentence and mull it over. It seemed like
several minutes passed before the words fully registered, but
apparently, time wasn’t flowing in quite the same fashion for me as
for the rest of the world. When I reached into my pocket and
withdrew my cell phone, it was just starting into another cycle of
its warbling ring tone, and that told me that only a few seconds
could have actually elapsed.