Never Burn A Witch: A Rowan Gant Investigation (40 page)

“What list?”

“The killer’s.”

My friend’s incredulous voice reverberated
through the porcelain echo chamber as it suddenly rose in pitch,
“Shit! You mean like ON the list, on the list?”

“Yeah,” I almost whispered. “Like ON the
list, on the list.”

“Why the hell didn’t ya’ tell me this
sooner?” he demanded.

“Like I said, I planned to talk to you about
it as soon as we were done with the interview.”

Ben came to a halt in front of me. He started
to reach for his neck in his usual unmindful gesture but seemed
distracted even from that. A second later he blurted, “All right,
so where’s Felicity right now?”

“She’s safe,” I told him. “She’s with a
client.”

I could almost see the cogs and wheels
turning behind the massive Native American’s eyes as he calculated
and schemed around the information he had just been given. After a
short interlude of silence, he wrinkled his brow and pointed at
me.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he instructed. “You
and Felicity are stayin’ with me an’ Al. I’ll call ‘er soon as we
get upstairs.”

He was already starting to hustle me toward
the door of the men’s room as he spoke. We rushed past the trash
receptacle so fast I think the wad of paper towels I tossed at it
ended up on the floor.

B
en was not at all keen on
the idea of our keeping the dinner date we had arranged with Austin
for this evening; but in the grander scheme of things, that was
actually the least of his concerns. What provided his strongest
point of consternation was the fact that Felicity and I had refused
to abandon our home in the face of my being the target of a serial
killer. While at first I was almost inclined to go along with his
cautionary actions; after some thought I knew for certain that if
this killer wanted me bad enough, he would find me wherever I holed
up. Hiding away at Ben’s would most likely only prolong the
inevitable, and that would guarantee to tip my internal scales even
farther from center in the process.

As frightening as the entire prospect was, I
mused aloud that this might even be the break we needed. There was
next to nothing in the way of useful evidence thus far, and in my
own opinion I had been no real help to the investigation either. If
the killer was after me, then perhaps we could set a trap with me
as the bait. My friend wasted no time informing me that I had seen
too many television shows and that this was real life and not an
episode of the latest cop drama. It simply didn’t work that
way.

For a moment, I made a grab for the
diaphanous skirts of a long shot and partially allied myself with
Ben to make a half-hearted attempt at convincing my wife to follow
his advice and stay with he and Allison for a while. I knew better
than to even make the suggestion, especially considering that being
pulled away from her photo shoot and escorted to the police station
by a pair of uniformed officers had already set her mood at an
oblique angle to the rest of the world. My bid for the brass ring
ended as soon as she rolled her eyes, while turning to face me, and
then slowly cocked her head to the side. From behind a spiral fall
of fiery auburn curls, her jade green eyes subjected me to the
Felicity O’Brien trademark
I beg your
pardon
glare. Her message was received free of any
distortion or ambiguity whatsoever, and no further word was spoken
on the subject—from me at any rate.

Better than an hour passed by while Ben
continued to demand, argue and even plead with both of us, but as
sound as his contentions were, we remained steadfast in our
decision to stay put. In the end he finally conceded grudgingly but
only under a specific condition. We were to be afforded the same
protection as the other individuals that were believed to be on the
killer’s list.

We agreed with the compromise, and then
Felicity dropped the other shoe—our dinner engagement with her
brother. Before my friend could even begin to object, she outlined
in no uncertain terms that there was no room for negotiation on
this point.

Ben had let out a resigned sigh as he
automatically massaged the back of his neck. After a trio of short
phone calls, he laid out his own non-negotiable terms.

One, he would be pulling the first watch with
us personally.

Two, we were to eat at a busy, very public
restaurant with valet parking, and he wanted to know which one it
was before we left so we could be tailed.

Three, we were to go straight there and come
straight home.

And finally, four, we were to meet him at our
house no later, but no earlier, than eleven p.m.

Had the service at the restaurant been slower
or had we encountered a little more traffic on the streets, we just
might have been able to comply with the last point.

The fact that the glowing digital clock on
the in-dash radio read 10:13 p.m. at the moment we exited the
highway didn’t really register—even though I looked directly at
it.

“Aye, Rowan, an’ you’re sure now you wouldn’t
want to be stoppin’ for a cheeseburger or some such?” Austin’s
cheery voice boomed from the back seat of Felicity’s Jeep. “That
fare on your plate didn’t seem enough for a young lad, much less a
grown man.”

“I got plenty,” I told my brother-in-law with
a chuckle. He had been ribbing me about my dinner selection for the
better portion of the evening. I knew it was all in fun, and it
seemed to be keeping him entertained. Besides, it was keeping my
mind off the far less pleasant realities I was facing, and a
diversion was something I desperately needed—so I played along.

“I’m still thinkin’ you would have been
better served with a good steak, man,” he offered as he reached
forward and gave me a good-natured jab in the side. “What was that
frou-frou you ordered again?”

“Seared sea scallops with
bourbon-horseradish-mustard and grilled asparagus in a balsamic
vinaigrette.”

“Aye and what about that plate of cheese and
such?”

“Mozzarella, red onions, and tomatoes with
olive oil. It’s called a caprice salad.”

“Frou-frou, man!” he announced once
again.

“Really, Austin,” Felicity piped up with her
own musical laugh. Her Celtic timbre had been thoroughly reinforced
by the evening spent with her brother. “Surely now you’re the only
one I know who would go to a restaurant celebrated for its seafood
and order a steak.”

“Aye, the menu said ‘Surf and Turf,’ didn’t
it now?” he ventured. “I simply told the lass to keep the surf and
bring me extra turf.”

“Aye.” My wife nodded into the rearview
mirror then laid on an extra helping of her thick brogue. “Sure’n
that Colleen was makin’ eyes at you too. You were just puttin’ on a
show for the young lass.”

The stick shift clicked smoothly as she
pushed the vehicle through a quiet intersection and accelerated
along the avenue in the direction of our subdivision.

“I’m single then, aren’t I?” Austin
chuckled.

“Aye, you are,” Felicity answered. “But she
was a bit young then. She’d soon grow tired of an old man like
yourself.”

My brother-in-law’s infectious laughter
filled the interior of the Jeep as we hooked through a turn and
continued down a familiar tree-lined street toward our home. A pair
of short blocks later the radio’s luminescent clock displayed 10:22
p.m. As the last digit blinked itself into a three, we made the arc
from the street into the driveway and followed the concrete strip
to the rear of our house. The next turn to the left banked us
around the back corner and brought the harsh swath of blue-white
from the vehicle’s headlamps to bear on the garage door.

The Jeep screeched to a halt as Felicity less
than gently applied the brakes, adding her own high-pitched yelp of
surprise to the sudden noise. Austin’s retort was abruptly
transformed into a deep huff as he pitched forward heavily against
his seatbelt. My hands went automatically to the dash as I did the
same. With my palms still planted firmly before me, I lifted my
head and simply cast a mute stare through the windshield.

Overspray fogged the outline of the graffiti
that graced the normally solid white overhead door. Haste had been
an obvious factor to the perpetrator of the artwork as evidenced by
the watery trails of the runs that had trickled from the paint.
Still, a familiar and somewhat steady hand had been applied to the
task. The symbols were large, even, and painstakingly clear.

Rev. 21:8

I blinked hard and glanced at the clock on
the dash. It read 10:23 p.m. I looked back at the garage door, in
some way hoping that I had been momentarily affected by a small
mass hallucination.

It still read Rev. 21:8

“Call nine-one-one,” I mouthed as I began to
fumble with the catch on my seatbelt, my voice the barest trace of
a whisper.

“What?” Felicity croaked.

“Call nine-one-one,” I repeated, forcing the
prickly lump of fear in my throat to stand aside and allow the
words to pass. “And get out of here.”

The catch popped, and I nervously wrestled my
way out of the harness. The rhizome of fear in my throat had spread
its invasive roots outward, making my hands tremble and my dinner
become a cinder block resting uncomfortably in the deep well of my
intestines. I shouldered the door open and shakily poured myself
out onto the drive.

“You aren’t staying here by yourself!”
Felicity admonished in a frightened tone. “What if he’s still
here?”

“That’s exactly why I want you out of here,”
I shot back.

“Aye, Rowan,” Austin voiced as he untangled
himself from his own safety harness and began tilting the passenger
seat forward to create a path of egress. “She’s right. You can’t be
stayin’ here by yourself with a madman runnin’ about. I’m comin’
with you then!”

“No, Austin,” I quickly objected. “I want you
to stay with Felicity.”

“But Rowan man, you can’t…”

“I’m serious,” I asserted as I cut him off.
“If he’s still here I’ll deal with it. I need to know that Felicity
is safe, and I want you with her in case something happens!”

“I’m not leaving you here!” my wife
objected.

“Don’t argue, Felicity!” I ordered as I was
pushing the door shut. “Just call nine-one-one and get away from
here NOW!”

My voice was hard and demanding. Fear of what
I might be about to face sharpened it. Fear of any harm coming to
my wife honed it beyond to a razor’s edge. I had never used such a
tone with Felicity before. I caught the look that creased her face
just before her own fear obscured it from view. I knew then that
she understood why I was asking her to do this. She didn’t want to
leave, but she knew that she had no choice.

Gears meshed violently as she jammed the
vehicle into reverse and stepped on the gas. The Jeep’s engine
roared up from idle and propelled them backwards around the corner
and out along the driveway. I listened as the rout faded then began
anew with a squeal of tires against damp asphalt.

I stood alone in the darkness, steeled
momentarily by the knowledge that Felicity was safely away. My
heart was rattling in my chest as it turned somersaults, using my
diaphragm as a trampoline and my lungs as tumbling mats. Irregular
breaths pulsed hard out of my mouth, condensing in moist clouds
before my face. I struggled to avoid hyperventilating.

My legs were stiff and heavy with near terror
as I slowly turned to face the back of my house. Darkness still
shrouded me, and I looked up above the door leading into our sun
porch. The floodlights on the outdoor sentry appeared to still be
intact but remained obstinately unlit. The motion sensor should
have snapped them to life the minute we had rounded the corner, but
it hadn’t.

I searched my memories from earlier in the
evening, but my thoughts were cloudy, and anything but the here and
now was obscured by a thick fog of fear. I suddenly couldn’t
remember if it had been Felicity or I that had locked the back door
and set the alarm. I didn’t know if the outdoor light had been
inadvertently shut off or purposely disabled in some less than
obvious fashion. I knew only that I was standing in the dark,
paralyzed. Frozen in place by horrifying thoughts I couldn’t
escape.

I fought to seek a ground, feeling like a
coward as my hands continued to vibrate in time with my anxiety.
Taking in a deep lungful of the gelid night air, I held it for a
pair of heartbeats then allowed its escape in a measured stream. I
found no calm waiting for me as I had hoped. I had only my
resolve.

Pressing myself to move, I covered the short
distance to the deck in a fraction of a minute that presented
itself to my addled senses as at least a full hour. Carefully, I
climbed the shallow flight of stairs and made my way toward the sun
porch. I glanced quickly around to see if anyone was hiding in the
shadows, only to discover that the night itself was one enormous
shadow, and I was standing in the middle of it. As I turned and
took a cautious step, I unknowingly brushed against an arm of a
pinwheel squirrel feeder. With the delicate balance of the
partially eaten ears of feed corn suddenly disturbed, the assembly
rotated with a timid squeak and dull thump as the heavier cob swung
downward. As the feed laden arms assumed their new positions, the
lowest of the four slapped against the back of my shoulder with a
thud. I leapt forward with a yelp and spun, nearly stumbling over
my own feet as I tensed. The corncob continued to swing gently as
it settled in toward stillness.

My unseen attacker now identified, I breathed
a short sigh of relief then turned and took the last few steps to
the porch door.

My bladder felt weak, and the caustic acid of
panic was brewing in my stomach. My hand was trembling
uncontrollably as I reached for the handle and wrapped my fingers
around the chilled metal. Summoning whatever courage I could find
hiding behind the towering levies of abject terror, I twisted my
wrist.