Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (39 page)

He snickered half-heartedly at his own joke,
but his flippancy faded when he noticed that I wasn’t laughing. I
really couldn’t find much of anything funny right now, least of all
a play on words when the word happened to be Miranda. I simply
stayed quiet and mulled over the meat of the commentary.

Finally, I said, “I guess that means he won’t
be pressing assault charges against her then.”

“Yeah, I really doubt if he’ll be filin’ a
complaint… And if he won’t do that, then the prosecuting attorney
most likely won’t file either… Wouldn’t be worth the time. So, I
think you’re prob’ly free ‘n clear on that one,” he agreed.
“Although, ta’ be honest it wouldn’t surprise me if ya’ ended up
filin’ a restrainin’ order against the friggin’ wingnut if he ever
finds out where ya’ live. It sounds a lot like he lell in fuv with
your wife.”

“That wasn’t my wife he fell for.”

“Yeah, I know… But you know what I
meant.”

“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” I
replied. “I’m just glad she didn’t kill him.”

“Uh-huh. For his sake or for hers?”

“Hers.”

“Yeah. I figured as much.”

“Sorry,” I told him in a humorless tone.
“When it comes to anyone besides my wife right now, I’m just not in
a particularly compassionate mood.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Like I said, the sick
fuck got ‘zactly what he wanted, and he’s already beggin’ for
more.”

I fell silent and dropped my eyes back down
to the disposable cup in my hands. I watched with a distant gaze as
my hands continued moving without the benefit of conscious
direction. My left was slowly spinning the Styrofoam vessel while
with my right thumbnail I was making small indentations around the
rim. It was already starting to crumble where I had been over the
same spot repeatedly for who knew how long.

“What time is it?” I finally asked, looking
back up to my friend and not bothering to check my own watch.

“Eight thirty or so, why?”

“Just wondering. Seems like we’ve been here
quite awhile.”

“Yeah. We have. You got someplace to be? You
need me ta’ make a call for ya’ or somethin’?”

“No,” I answered with a shake of my head.

“You sure?”

“No,” I repeated, mainly because I wasn’t
really sure of anything at the moment. For all I knew I was leaving
a client hanging or missing a breakfast meeting. That part of my
life seemed so distant right now that it was as if it belonged to
someone else.

“Well, just let me know if ya’ need me to
call someone.”

“What about you?” I asked, purely out of
reflex.

“What about me?”

“Do you have someplace to be?”

“No.”

Something about the way he spoke the word
sparked a reaction in my brain that made me feel that he was
lying.

“No?” I echoed, my psyche still
hovering in a no-man’s-land somewhere between the conversation and
my prison cell of introspection. “Are
you
sure?”

He sighed heavily and dropped his oversized
frame into a chair next to me. “Well, funeral’s not until tomorrow,
not that I really wanna be there ta’ begin with. I suppose I did
promise Helen I’d help with some stuff today, but that can wait
till later.”

“Funeral?” I asked.

“Yeah,
the
funeral,” he stressed bitterly.

His tone lit a wide swath through the fog of
my obfuscation, and I seized on a vague memory that his father had
recently crossed over. The remembrance made me feel like I wasn’t
being much of a friend to him; but then, like I had told him, I
wasn’t feeling much sympathy for the rest of the world right now
anyway.

It also didn’t help much that the man next to
me had been pointing a gun at my wife only a few hours ago, ready
to pull the trigger if he felt it warranted. I still wasn’t sure
that I had forgiven him for that trespass against our friendship,
and I had already told him as much.

After a weighty pause he said, “You know I
wasn’t aiming for a kill shot, Rowan. Right?”

I knew he couldn’t read my mind, but I got
the distinct impression that everything I had said to him while
standing on that motel parking lot was still weighing on him just
as heavily as it was me. I suppose his sudden return to the subject
was a verbal testament of that fact.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I
replied coldly.

“I was doin’ my job, Row. I wouldn’t have
killed her.”

“Maybe so, but did you really have to treat
her the way you did?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“
Cuffing her on the ground like some
kind of hardened criminal. I mean, come on… She’s over a foot
shorter than you and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, Ben. Not
to mention that there were three of you. She was confused and
scared. She wasn’t dangerous.”

“She took Mandalay’s weapon, Row.”

“You saw what she was wearing. Where was she
going to hide it?”

“That’s not the point.”

“She wasn’t dangerous—she
isn’t
dangerous, Ben.”

“Tell that ta’ Door Mat.”

“That was different. He obviously wanted the
abuse.”

“Uh-huh…Yeah, well then forget him.
Just grab a mirror an’ look at what ‘barely a hundred pounds
soakin’ wet’ did ta’
you
.”

“That was different too.”

“Yeah, right. Well, I wasn’t interested in
wearin’ her claw marks. Neither were Ackman or Drew. It was just
procedure, Row.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“Let’s just drop it, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. But, the point is I wouldn’t
have shot to kill. I just want ya’ ta’ know…” He ended the sentence
in a mumble, allowing his voice to trail off.

A tense silence fell between us, and I
re-inspected my progress on the coffee cup’s disintegrating rim for
a long moment while I listened to him shift uncomfortably in his
seat.

“Look, if you need to go…” I offered, not
looking up.

He replied without hesitation. “Like I said,
it can wait. Unless, you’re just tryin’ ta’ get me ta’ leave.”

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“Well, shouldn’t you call your sister
then?”

“I’m bettin’ she’s already seen the news,
Row. She’ll prob’ly call me.”

A faint noise fell in behind his words.
Instead of ignoring it, however, this time my attention had been
pulled back far enough into the here and now to realize I was
hearing a door open behind us as someone entered the office. I
turned to glance over my shoulder and saw Special Agent Mandalay
coming through the opening.

“Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?” Ben asked
her as he shot a look her way then did a double take and came up
from his seat even as he was turning to fully face her.

“No,” she replied. “I should be right where I
am.”

“You positive ‘bout that?”

“The doctor released me hours ago, Ben,” she
returned. “Lighten up.”

“So, you get stitches?”

“Twelve,” she said as she reached up and
gently touched the gauze bandage taped behind her ear.

“You got a concussion?”

“Mild.”

“‘
Kay then, so shouldn’t ya’ be resting
or somethin’?”

“I need to stay awake, so I might as well be
useful,” she replied. “Besides, I needed to be down here to pull
some strings.”

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded. “So how’s that
goin’?”

“We may have it worked out,” she told him.
“My SAC’s got to file something, there’s no way around that. But, I
think I’ve convinced him to just turn me in for a letter of censure
for temporarily misplacing my sidearm. If we can do that, and make
a few calls to the local authorities regarding the actual assault,
Felicity should walk away from this okay as long as nothing else
changes.”

Ben gave her a nod and the grim look on his
face left me with the impression that they now shared a secret to
which I was not going to be made privy. I assumed it had something
to do with the letter of reprimand she was inviting upon herself.
While my attitude toward the rest of the world still hadn’t changed
much, I felt I should at least apologize to her.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “You shouldn’t be
taking this on yourself.”

“Don’t be,” she answered with a smile. “It’s
okay.”

“But how is this going to affect your
career?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,
Rowan. I’ll be fine. Let’s just worry about you and Felicity right
now.”

I didn’t press the subject. There was someone
else on my mind whose importance outweighed everyone, including me,
and Constance had just uttered her name.

“Have you seen her?” I asked hopefully.

She nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going
to take you to see your wife.”

* * * * *

I don’t know how long we stood there in the
tight embrace. It could have been a minute; it could have been an
hour. It didn’t matter to me if it was forever, as long as I could
hold my wife and feel her heart beating, her warm breath against my
neck, and even her hot tears dampening my shoulder.

At the moment, life was far from perfect, but
it had taken immense strides from where it had been less than a day
before.

We had been left alone in the interview room,
Ben and Constance excusing themselves, ostensibly to get coffee.
However, it was fairly obvious that the ploy was actually to give
us a moment or two of privacy, for which I was appreciative. They
even managed to get the agent who had been conducting the interview
to join them, although I was certain that the door was still being
guarded.

“Oh,
Caorthann
…” Felicity murmured through her quiet
sobs as she lifted her head and gazed into my face. Concern welled
in her wet eyes as she gently brushed her fingertips against the
scabbed over welts along my cheek and whispered, “Gods… What
happened?”

“It’s nothing,” I told her.

“Did
I
do this to you?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “Someone who was keeping you
from me did.”

She dropped her face back against my shoulder
and continued to sniffle as more tears made their way onto my
shirt.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’m here. It’s
going to be fine.”

I knew my words had to sound like trite
dialogue from a B-movie, but there was nothing else for me to
say.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me, then…”
she said, the Celtic brogue thick in her voice.

As much as I adored her on again-off again
accent, I never could have imagined how hearing it at this moment
could make me feel. Even with the heavy emotion threading through
her words, its very sound was a calming melody whispering lightly
in my ears.

“I know,” I soothed. “I know.”

“Aye,” she said. “I killed him, didn’t
I?”

“No,” I told her. “No. He’s alive and he’ll
be fine.”

I felt her shudder against me as she released
a relieved sigh and tightened her grip.

“You’re certain?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“I thought sure I had killed him then…” she
said as she finally loosened her grip on me and pushed back.

She put her hand to her mouth and trembled as
she closed her eyes, tears still rolling down her flushed cheeks.
She looked far more waiflike than she had hours before. Her face
had been scrubbed clean of the makeup, and her pale complexion was
blotchy from her continuous weeping. She was wearing a pair of blue
jeans that were a half size or so larger than her shape required
and over them, a baggy sweatshirt with a faded and peeling college
logo silk-screened above the left breast.

Constance had told me on our way down here
that she had brought Felicity some clothing from her own wardrobe
since what my wife had been wearing when she was taken into custody
was being confiscated. I hadn’t been told why they were taking her
clothes, but I didn’t really care.

It simply didn’t matter what she was wearing.
It was enough for me that she was safe.

Felicity took in a deep breath and let it out
slowly. I could tell she was trying hard to ground herself. I could
also tell she was having very little success. After repeating the
breaths several times, she finally opened her eyes and looked up at
me.

“Aye, what’s happening to me then, Rowan?”
she asked.

“Honey, we can talk about this later,” I
replied.

“I need to know,” she came back with a
pleading tone in her voice.

I looked at her and let out my own heavy
sigh. I didn’t think this was the time or the place, but she
deserved to know. After all, it was her to whom it had
happened.

“I think you underwent a possession by
a
Lwa
,” I stated.

“A
Lwa
? Isn’t that a
Vodou
deity?” she asked, sniffling.

“Yes.”

“But how? Why?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, shaking my head.
“I wish I did. All I know is that some form of Voodoo ritual was
performed at the murder scene where you showed up yesterday.”

“But… But why would it affect me, then?” she
stammered.

“Again, I don’t know,” I said with a note of
apology in my voice. “I wish I did… Do you remember anything?
Anything at all? Maybe that would help us figure it out.”

She shook her head then hugged herself
tightly as she began pacing around the room. “I remember arguing
with a police officer about letting me in somewhere… I’m not really
sure where, it’s all fuzzy… Then I think I called you on my cell
phone… But… But I’m not sure…”

“That would have been the crime scene where
the ritual was done,” I acknowledged. “Is that it?”