Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation (39 page)

“Hey, Storm,” he called as he poked his head
through the doorway. “Better come have a look down here. There’s a
wad of blue denim behind some paint cans, just like Gant said.
Could be the kid’s dress.”

Ben turned to Agent Mandalay, and a smug grin
spread across his face. “Show me one of your PhD’s that can do
that.”

* * * * *

“So, don’t take this the wrong way or
anything,” Ben began. “But there’s somethin’ I’m havin’ trouble
understandin’...”

I was relaxing in my seat, eyes closed.
Without opening them, I prodded him forward, “And that is?”

We were belted into his van and in motion
toward my house, having only just left the scene. The evidence
technicians had arrived soon after the discovery of the little
girl’s discarded dress. They were still photographing, dusting, and
bagging everything in sight when we finally chose to abandon hope
of any immediate clues to her current whereabouts. A palpable sense
of urgency surrounded them, and it was spreading like a rampant
contagion through every member of the Major Case Squad. Even Agent
Mandalay fell victim to its almost ubiquitous virulence. She had
elected to remain behind at the scene with Detective Deckert while
Ben provided my transportation home. Considering the volatility of
one part Mandalay mixed with one part Storm, it was probably a good
idea for them to be separated for a while.

After a full two hours
inside Roger’s house, I had begun to feel as if there were nothing
left of me to give. A verse from an old
Blue Oyster Cult
song kept running
through my head in an endless loop—
You see
me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars. My energy is spent at
last, and my armor is destroyed...
Funny
how things like that seem to drift in from nowhere.

Even at that, none of them was in any bigger
hurry to stop Roger and save this little girl than I was. I would
have gladly stayed longer, no matter how I felt, but the final
decision hadn’t been left to me. Ben ordered me to go home, and
since I had come with him, he was seeing to it personally that I
was returned safely. Deckert had seconded the motion, and Agent
Mandalay took no convincing whatsoever. She was happy to see me go,
though after the incident with the child’s dress, I had caught her
looking curiously at me across the room from time to time. But, of
course, only when she thought I couldn’t see her.

“What I don’t get is this,”
Ben continued. “If you could sense, or feel—or whatever the hell
you do—all that bad
ju-ju
comin’ off just the house and stuff, then why
couldn’t Ariel Tanner and the rest of her group pick it up from
him? I mean he was right there in the flesh and all? Shouldn’t they
have noticed somethin’?”

I wasn’t surprised by the question, and I was
glad that he had waited until we were alone before he asked it.
Knowing him as I did, that shouldn’t have surprised me either.

“Theoretically, yes.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, if I’m right, there are a couple of
reasons why they might not have picked up anything from him,” I
paused.

“Whaddaya want, a signed invitation? Spit it
out.”

“Number one is the Expiation
spell,” I continued, finally opening my eyes and sitting up a
little straighter as he merged us onto the highway. “My guess is
that he feels pretty good about himself once he’s absolved himself
of the guilt. That would make him give off some positive
vibes
, so to speak. The
positive energies would tend to cancel out the negative ones. You
know, yin and yang, the great cosmic balance and all
that.”

“Yeah, okay.” He nodded his head
thoughtfully. “I can see that. Basically, it just tells me he’s a
crazy fuck, and what he did to these women just doesn’t matter to
‘im.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“But why can you pick it up now?”

“He’s escalating,” I offered. “He’s cycling
through the absolution and anger quicker as the time for the
sacrifice draws nearer.”

“Have you figured out why he’s doin’ this
yet?”

“No, unfortunately. I’m not sure that he even
knows.”

We continued in silence while Ben digested my
answers. Finally, he looked over at me and spoke, “So what’s number
two?”

I was already regretting that I had told him
there was more than one reason. The second was the one that I was
still wrestling with myself. Still, I had already opened my mouth,
so there was no turning back. Whether I had come to grips with it
or not, I needed to tell Ben.

“Number two,” I said with a tired sigh, “is
that he was probably able to mask over his energies because he’s a
lot better than I expected him to be.”

“Whaddaya mean ‘better than ya’ expected ‘im
ta’ be’?” he appealed. “Ya mean like better at the hocus-pocus
stuff?”

“Yeah. The ‘hocus-pocus’ stuff.” I didn’t
feel up to arguing over his choice of terminology.

“But not better’n you, right?”

I didn’t answer him.

“Aww, Jeez, white man,” he grumbled, “I hate
when you clam up like that... Tell me he’s not better than
you.”

“I don’t know yet” was all I could say.

C
ally’s van was gone from my driveway, and the lights were out
when Ben dropped me off. I had called Felicity from his cell phone
shortly after the evidence technicians arrived on the scene and let
her know that I was still in one piece. While that fact had been a
relief to her, the news was still clouded by bitter disappointment
at our having arrived too late to rescue the little girl and
apprehend Roger. Before saying goodbye, I reminded her that there
was still time before the full moon and that we weren’t giving up.
When I pressed the glowing END button on the face of the phone, I
lingered, momentarily lost in thought as I wondered to myself if
that small amount of time was going to be enough.

The dogs stirred instantly when I entered the
house, doing exactly what they perceived as their canine duty by
checking to be sure I wasn’t some unfamiliar intruder. As soon as
they had satisfied themselves as to my identity via cold-nosed,
doggish snuffling, they both wandered sleepily back to their beds,
wagging their tails with lazy contentment.

Two of our three feline residents, Dickens
and Salinger, were in the middle of one of their many nocturnal
wrestling matches. My intrusion into what they had declared to be
their ring served as sufficient enough surprise to bring them
instantly apart. Looking for all the world like two furry,
mismatched bookends, they absently licked their paws and peered up
at me as if to say “What? We weren’t doing anything.”

I kicked off my shoes then made my way softly
into the bedroom. My wife was sound asleep, curled in the center of
our bed, tightly hugging my pillow. I thought of crawling in as
well, but she looked too peaceful, and I feared I would wake her.
Besides, even though it was rapidly approaching two in the morning,
I wasn’t actually sleepy. I had far too much on my mind to relax at
the moment, and my earlier headache still plagued me in the form of
a dull throb running down the back of my neck. Gently, I pulled the
sheets up over her shoulders then quietly padded back through the
house.

The wall clock rang out its familiar double
chime in proclamation of the hour as I stretched out on the couch.
If I were ever going to relax, I would have to clear away some of
the annoying debris that had collected in my mind over the past few
days. Of course, after the infusion of adrenalin I had received
earlier this evening, my guess was that such a task would be next
to impossible, at least for the time being.

Dickens jumped stealthily up to the arm of
the couch nearest my head and announced himself with a throaty
feline trill before crawling determinedly around me. After a false
start or two, he stretched across my chest and proceeded to purr
himself to sleep. He remained there undisturbed, even when I slowly
stretched and yawned. My eyes seemed to almost itch, and my eyelids
felt oddly heavy as I let out a long-winded sigh. As they slowly
closed, I reminded myself that I wasn’t sleepy. I wasn’t sleepy at
all.

“
Hey, Mister.” A little strawberry-blonde
girl, wrapped in a white lace dress, was tugging at me. “Hey,
mister, wake up.”

Falling.

Darkness.

Light.

Darkness.

“
Wake up, Mister!” her tiny voice more
urgent now. “It’s almost time. We’re going to miss it.”

“
Miss what?” I try to ask.

I can see my words, but I can’t hear them.
They visibly leave my mouth in a rush and shoot skyward like
helium-filled balloons. I watch them as they disappear into the
darkness. When I turn my gaze back downward, the little girl is
staring up at me urgently.

“
We have to go now!” she exclaims, pulling
on my hand. “Now!”

I’m running.

I can hear my footfalls on thin carpeting.
My heart is pounding behind my ribs. My breaths are deep and
labored, and the cold air stings my throat and lungs. I don’t know
if I’m running from or running to. The little strawberry-blonde
girl is nowhere to be seen.

I’m running.

I’m sitting.

“
I told you,” the little girl says to me.
“We almost missed it.”

I turn to face her. I don’t know where she
came from. I vaguely remember that she was gone, but I don’t know
why. I feel that she has been there all along.

“
I have to go soon,” she says and points
at a spot far above my head. “My turn is next.”

I look up and see a large round disk,
mottled white and grey. The moon. It lacks fullness by only a thin
sliver along the edge. I lower my eyes back to her.

The little girl is no longer little. She is
a full-grown woman. She is Ariel Tanner, dressed in white lace and
surrounded by a dimly glowing aura of milky light. She is kneeling
next to me, holding my hand and smiling.

“
She doesn’t understand,” Ariel tells me.
“You will have to explain it to her.”

“
Explain what?” I ask. My own words meet
my ears as a mirror image of themselves, echoing softly “?tahw
nialpxe.”

She places two fingers across my lips to
hush me and shakes her head. Her soft hair billows weightlessly,
the aura dancing in perfect unison with each individual strand.
“You have to stop him, Rowan. It’s all up to you now. Only you can
save her.”

She lowers her fingers from my lips and
stretches forward then lightly kisses my cheek. As she pulls away,
she smiles shyly at me.

Her eyes widen with surprise, and the shy
smile drains away. Her lips form a mute frown as a glossy patch of
vermilion appears on her bosom, spreading like oil across the white
lace.

“
Why, Rowan, why?” she mouths as she falls
away from me into nothingness.

I reach for her, but she is gone.

Darkness.

Light.

Darkness.

Falling.

Falling upward into the light.

Another nightmare?” Felicity was sitting next
to me on the edge of the sofa when I awoke from the fitful
slumber.

“Yeah,” I answered, “like that’s a surprise,
huh?”

“Anything in it that might help?”

“I dunno,” I returned lethargically as I
pulled myself upright. “It mainly just told me that we were running
out of time, as if I needed a reminder.”

She moved out of my way as I swung my legs
around and allowed my feet to drop to the floor.

“Want some coffee?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. What time is it anyway?”

“Almost noon,” she called over her shoulder
as she headed for the kitchen. “I figured you didn’t get in till
late, so I let you sleep.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. I think.”

“Ben called earlier.” She returned with a mug
of hot coffee and handed it to me. “He said to tell you
thanks.”

“For what?” I queried and took a sip of the
hot liquid, letting it burn the sleep from my throat.

“For all your help,” she answered. “They
caught Roger early this morning. He came back to the house, and
they were waiting for him.”

I stared back at her incredulously, almost
dropping the steaming mug. “He what? What about the little
girl?”

“She’s fine. Not a scratch on her. She’s
already been reunited with her parents.”

I couldn’t believe it. After everything we
had been through, Roger had walked right back into the hands of the
police. I suppose I should have been thankful, but I just couldn’t
shake the feeling that something was out of sync. A sense of
foreboding that made me believe that something was terribly
wrong.

“I need to go talk to Ben,” I announced and
began searching about for my shoes.

“Slow down,” Felicity insisted. “Don’t you
think you’d better take a shower first? No offense, but you look
pretty rough.”

She was right. The activities of the night
before, combined with eight hours on our living room sofa, had to
have taken their toll on my appearance.

“Yeah, okay,” I agreed. “But do me a favor
will’ya? Call Ben and tell him I’m coming down to see him.”

“Sure. No problem.” She pecked me quickly on
the cheek. “Now go get cleaned up.”

I left her dialing the phone and tossed my
clothes haphazardly into the hamper as I stripped. The sun was
coming in brightly through the window, eliminating the need for
artificial light, so I just kicked on the exhaust fan and climbed
into the shower.

With a quick turn of the porcelain handles, I
started the water flowing and adjusted the temperature to my
liking. I turned to allow it to flow down my back and held my eyes
closed, willing away the remaining tension in hopes of at least a
few moments relaxation. It was then that something Felicity had
just said struck me as odd. She asked me if the nightmare had
contained anything that might help, yet she already knew that Ben
had called. She knew that Roger had already been captured. I
started to call out to her in search of an explanation.