Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (36 page)

“Aye.”

“Felicity, that’s dangerous.” This time I
couldn’t hide the thick rush of anxiety that spread its cold
fingers through my chest.

“You should know,” she chided.

“This isn’t the time for that,” I told
her.

“She needs me, Row.”

I stared at her for a moment, furrowed my
brow as what she said sank in, and then half-asked, half-stated in
earnest, “Honey, tell me that you’re not trying to ground out her
pain.”

She didn’t answer.

“Felicity, talk to me,” I insisted

She swallowed hard, then let out an
involuntary whimper before sucking in a breath and letting it out
slowly. Still, she refused to answer.

“You are, aren’t you?” I demanded.

“Aye,” she finally said.

“How bad is it?”

She winced, then rolled her head to the side
and opened her eyes. They were moist with the tears she was barely
holding at bay. “It’s not good.”

“Then you’re going to have to stop it,” I
urged.

“I don’t know if I can anymore.”

“Gods, Felicity…” I muttered.

“I know…” she replied softly. She took
another deep breath and then shuddered for a moment. “At least it’s
not as bad as at the mall.”

“Maybe I did some decent magick for a
change,” I offered.

“Aye, maybe so…” she said and then paused to
swallow hard once again before adding, “I think maybe it helps
being away from where it happened too.”

Her words rang like a bell inside my skull,
awakening my grey matter from its tired slumber. Muddy thoughts
parted, allowing a clear and frightening idea to advance forward. I
dwelled on the sudden revelation for several minutes as we sat in
near silence, the only sounds being those of Felicity’s labored
breathing.

I finally interrupted the quiet atmosphere
with the calm statement of two simple words, “Stay here.”

I turned in my seat and jerked the side door
of the van open, then climbed out onto the lot.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice
cracking with the next wave of pain she was channeling.

“To get you out of here,” I replied.

With that, I shut the door then set off for
the convenience store.

* * * * *

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ben said to me, waving
his hand in front of me. “Tell me again, she’s doin’ what?”

“Channeling Kimberly Forest’s pain,” I
repeated.

I had made it almost three-quarters of the
way across the lot before I was stopped. Not that I hadn’t fully
expected it. In fact, I was surprised I had made it as far as I
had. It took some finesse, but I managed to convince the uniformed
officer that it was imperative that I speak with Ben, sooner and
not later. He called over to another officer, who then went to
deliver the message. A moment later, my friend came out the front
door and looked over in our direction with an air of annoyance.

We were now standing on the lot where the
officer had stopped me, a light wind rising and falling around
us.

“So if she’s all
Twilight Zone
again, what are you doin’ talkin’
ta’ me?” he asked, concern welling in his eyes as he started to
take a step toward the van.

“It’s not exactly like that,” I said, holding
out a hand to stop him.

He halted and looked at me with his
head cocked to the side. “Well then, what ‘exactly’
is
it like?”

“She’s purposely channeling Kimberly on a
limited level in order to help her cope with the pain that’s being
inflicted.” I explained.

“So she
is
kinda la-la then?” he asked.

“Somewhat, yes.” I nodded.

“And she’s doin’ it on purpose?”

“Exactly, but that’s not the point. She’s
telling me that Kimberly can’t take it much longer, and that means
she won’t be able to either.”

“You’re not tryin’ ta’ say…”

“Yes,” I exclaimed. “I’m trying to say she’s
going to end up killing herself.”

“Well fuckin’ tell ‘er to stop.”

“She’s beyond listening, Ben.”

“Well explain it to ‘er,” he replied.

“Understanding isn’t the problem,” I told
him. “She’s connected and that’s that.”

“You mean she can’t stop?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The
connection between them is too strong. When she more or less
hijacked it earlier, she made it a part of herself. Combine that
with the fact that she knows Kimberly… She’s just not letting
go.”

“Felicity?”

“Either of them.”

“Well, then, what about some hocus-pocus,” he
pressed. “Like ya’ did earlier.”

“I could try, and I will, but I doubt it’s
going to do any good. I probably just got lucky earlier,” I said
and then looked away for a moment before adding, “Besides, that
won’t help Kimberly Forest.”

“Well whadda we do?”

“We have to make it stop.”

“Okay, how?”

“By finding Kimberly and ending the
torture.”

He shook his head and reached up to smooth
his hair. “Rowan, even if I walk in there and tell ‘em to fuck off,
we’re leavin’, we still got no idea where she is.”

“That might not be a problem.”

“Come again?”

“Felicity showed you something on the map,
right?”

“Yeah, the other fuckin’ side of the river,”
he answered in conjunction with an animated nod. “Like I said
earlier. Not much help.”

“Well…” I started and then looked away,
ashamed of what I was about to say.

“Well what? Did she remember somethin’
else?”

The thought I was about to voice was the one
that had struck me when I was back at the van. The very notion that
I had considered it then, made me ill. The fact that I was now
about to verbally suggest it, made me want to vomit.

“Right now Felicity is totally connected with
her. She’s more or less like an ethereal metal detector,” I
replied. “Only instead of metal, she’s tuned in to Kimberly Forest.
If I’m right, the closer she gets to her physically, the…” I
stopped and swallowed hard, mutely damning myself for the words
that were coming out of my mouth.

“What, Row?” Ben urged.

I took a quick breath and blurted the offending sentence,
“The closer she gets to her physically, the more intense the pain
will become.”

“L
isten, I don’t know how
you handle investigating a shooting in the city,” the detective
said. “But in the county, we make damn sure we dot all the I’s and
cross all the T’s.”

We were standing on the periphery of the
crime scene, away from the physical investigation, which was still
in full swing. The lead detective had come out to talk to us and
was now positioned with his arms crossed and a stony look on his
face. His proverbial five o’clock shadow had already gone several
hours past maturity, and it made his countenance just that much
more severe.

His suit was rumpled, and the knot of his tie
was pulled down at least three inches. The top button of his shirt
was undone, revealing an indelible ring around the inside of the
fabric. A stain, coffee from the looks of it, browned a small patch
of his shirt around mid chest.

Simply by his appearance, he painted a
picture of a long day that was just getting longer with each
passing minute. It was obvious that he was beyond tired and in no
mood for anything that was going to stand between him and bringing
an end to the shift.

Unfortunately, even with the nondescript
expression he was forcing onto his features, I got the distinct
impression that having something else piled on him, such as our
irregular request, had just gone a long way to sour his demeanor
even more.

“We do the same thing,” Ben replied,
annoyance in his voice. “So let’s not even go there.”

“Fine,” the county detective replied. “So we
don’t have much to discuss, do we?”

“Look,” Ben outlined. “Alive and in peril
beats dead and growin’ cold any day of the week. We both know
that.”

The detective gave him a curt nod. “Yes it
does. I’ll give you that in a heartbeat. So what you’re saying is
that you know where this kidnapped woman is?”

Ben looked over at me then back to the cop.
“Not exactly.”

“Can you maybe define ‘not exactly’ for
me?”

“We’ve got a rough idea.”

“How rough?”

Ben danced around the question. “A general
vicinity.”

“Major Case doing a search?”

“Not exactly.”

“You’re ‘not exactly’ sure of much are
you?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Simplify it for me.”

Ben shook his head. “It ain’t that easy.”

“Okay,” the cop said with a shrug. “Like I
said, nothing to discuss.”

“We don’t know where she is exactly, but we
can find her,” I interjected.

The detective thrust his hand out and held a
finger up in my face. “Sir, I need you to stay out of this.”

“He’s right,” Ben told him.

“Yeah, okay,” the detective said with an air
of skepticism, then pressed for more. “So if she can be found then
why isn’t the Major Case Squad handling it?”

Ben huffed out a sigh and reached up to
smooth his hair. As his hand slid back and began working at the
muscles on the back of his neck, he recited his own version of
something I’d said to him many times before. “Look, I told ya’ it’s
a long fuckin’ story, and you’d think I was nuts if I tried ta’
explain it.”

The county cop regarded him with a raised
eyebrow and then looked over at me. “Okay sir, now how is it that
you’re involved?”

At this point, I had no interest in skirting
the issue nor making friends for that matter, so I replied, “I’m
the long fucking story.”

“Yeah? So would you like to tell it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Jeezus, I wish Deckert never freakin’
retired,” Ben mumbled, mentioning the name of a former Saint Louis
County homicide detective we had both worked with.

The cop turned quickly to my friend. “What
did you say?”

“Nothin’,” he returned. “Don’t worry about
it.”

“No,” the cop insisted. “Did you know Carl
Deckert?”

“Yeah,” Ben replied, shrugging it off. “We
worked together a few times.”

“Wait a minute,” the detective mumbled, his
forehead creasing with a nagging thought. He shook his index finger
in the air and then cocked his gaze back toward my friend. “Ben
Storm. Yeah. You worked those occult homicides with Carl a couple
of years back, didn’t you? The media freaks called you guys ‘The
Ghoul Squad’.”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, that was me,” he said, his
tone uneasy. The reputation he’d gained from that case had never
ceased to haunt him, courtesy of a local television reporter with a
penchant for sensationalizing every story she did. It didn’t help
that she and Ben had been at odds almost from day one. Because of
that, the notoriety didn’t always work to his advantage— especially
with other cops.

“Yeah,” the detective said as he returned the
nod. “That’s been bugging me all evening. I knew I’d heard your
name before.”

“Well do me a favor,” my friend said. “Don’t
hold it against me.”

“Are you kidding?” the cop said. “Deckert
couldn’t say enough good about you.”

“Well, he was a hell of copper himself.”

“Yeah. Sure was. Too bad the heart attack
forced him to retire,” the county cop mused and then glanced back
over at me. “So that would make you the warlock, right?”

“Witch,” I corrected him.

“Oh, yeah, right.” He nodded. “Carl talked
about you too. He thought a lot of you and your wife.”

“Did he talk about us enough for you to
understand why we have to go?” I asked.

“You know,” he replied. “Carl Deckert was one
of the best cops I’ve ever worked with. He had this way of cutting
right through bullshit and getting to the truth. He could talk to
someone for five minutes and tell you if they were legit or lying
through their teeth. Never seen anything like it.”

The detective paused. I didn’t know if he was
waiting for a response or just sizing me up. I simply looked back
at him wordlessly.

“Makes sense now,” he finally said, looking
over at Ben.

“What’s that?” my friend asked.

“Why Major Case isn’t hot on this with you,”
he explained. “What with the ‘church lady’ running things.”

“Yeah, ‘zactly.”

The county cop reached into his pocket,
withdrew a business card and handed it to Ben. “You know, I have to
apologize. I really hate to inconvenience you Detective Storm, but
it’s getting late, I’ve got a witness to interview, and a ton of
paperwork to do.

“Do you think you would mind coming in
tomorrow to give your statement instead of tonight? And, maybe you
could bring Mister Gant and his wife along as well?”

Ben gave him a nod. “Not a prob, just one
thing. We’re gonna need the Feeb to come with us.”

“The shooter?” the cop asked. “Now that’s
really pushing it. What do you need her for?”

“Because,” my friend replied, “if we’re right
about this, we’re gonna be crossin’ state lines.”

* * * * *

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked
Felicity.

“Aye,” she replied, pulling herself into a
sitting position and fumbling for the adjustment lever on the side
of the seat.

I was kneeling next to my wife, and I slipped
my arm in behind her for support as the seatback popped upward into
place. I helped her lean back into the cushion, then reached over
and pulled the safety belt across.

“I’ll be honest,” I continued while fumbling
with the buckle on the harness. “I’m not comfortable with it. In
fact it scares the hell out of me.”

“Join the club.”

“I almost didn’t even suggest it,” I said.
“You know, it makes me sick that I’m putting you in danger.”