The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (23 page)

“Another officer was brought in ahead of us.
Deckert, Carl Deckert. We’ve been trying to get an idea of his
condition for a while.”

She nodded. “I’ll see if I can find out
something for you.”

“Thank you,” I told her again.

“You’re welcome.” She flashed me a quick grin
and nodded in Ben’s direction while turning to go. “You know, maybe
you can teach some manners to your friend over there.”

“I heard that!” Ben called after her as she
exited the treatment room, but she was already gone.

My friend looked back over at me and shook
his head. “Jeez.”

I gave him a tired shrug in return.

“So, was that Allison?” I asked as I dipped
my head at the cell phone in his hand, referring to his wife.

“What? Oh, no.” He shook his head and clipped
the device back onto his belt. “It was Ackman callin’ to give me an
update.”

“Good news?” I asked hopefully.

“Not really,” he returned. “Still haven’t
found Porter. The weather’s not helpin’, and it’s gonna be dark in
a few hours.”

“Is it really that late?” I asked as I pulled
my hand up to look at my watch, only to remember that it was broken
when I saw the shattered face. I don’t know why I hadn’t just taken
it off. I glanced around the room and found the face of the wall
clock. It was fuzzy, but it was large enough for me to be able to
read it without squinting too much. The position of the hands told
me it was just past two p.m. This time of the year the sun was gone
by five.

“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?” Ben
answered me with his own query.

I closed my eyes and massaged my forehead for
a moment, then carefully laid myself back on the examination table.
“No. Not much anyway.”

The tune was moving itself back into the
forefront, and its eerie chords sent a fearful shiver racing up and
down my spine. Each note seemed to carry with it a tiny pinprick of
terror that grew exponentially as the melody wove itself through
the even rhythm.

“How long you been up?” His voice sounded
hollow and distant.

I did a protracted mental calculation that
should have taken no more than a second or two then finally
answered. “Pushing twenty-four at least, I think.”

“Jeezus, white man.”

“He’s got nothing to do with it,” I
mumbled.

“Who?”

“Jesus.” This time my voice was almost a
whisper.

The song was all but completely filling my
ears now and sounding creepier by the second. If it were not for
the level of exhaustion I was battling, I think I might have been
overcome by the intangible fear. At the moment, even my earlier
anger was falling by the wayside, and darkness was becoming a
comfortable blanket. The fatigue broke through my defenses and
began to batter me with its weapon of choice—sleep. I made a
half-hearted attempt at fighting back but quickly found that I was
hopelessly outmatched. With a final, heavy sigh, I surrendered.

The beginnings of a distant echo came from
the other side of the room. “Dammit, Rowan, you know what I…”

I didn’t hear the rest.

The only thing I really remembered about the
trip home was that it was dark and that the back seat of the car
was cold. Prior to that, there were some dreamlike recollections of
unintelligible voices, a feeling like I was sitting up and floating
down a long hallway, some fuzzy streaks of white passing through
muted light, and of course, that damnable song playing in an
endless loop between my ears.

It was still echoing there even now.

With more effort than I expected it to take,
I let out a heavy sigh and tried to relax. After failing at that
task, I reached down and reluctantly shut off the water in the
shower. Then, I just stood there for what seemed like a good half
hour. In reality, I think it was more like five minutes. The steam
was dissipating quickly and water was dripping from my tortured
skin. I tingled with a self-inflicted rawness on my face, neck,
hands, and forearms where I had scrubbed to remove the soot and
grime left over from the fire. I was still afflicted with a cough
that would attack me without warning, but at least the episodes
were becoming fewer and farther between. The doctor had told me it
was an after effect of the smoke inhalation and that it would most
likely work itself out in a day or two; as far as I was concerned,
the quicker the better.

For a moment, I considered turning the water
back on and just continuing to stand there motionless as I had for
the last third of the shower. The warmth felt good, and it went a
long way toward soothing the aches and pains that were once more
answering a roll call throughout my body.

I started to reach for the chromed knob but
hesitated as I heard the door open and then close, followed by
Felicity’s concerned voice. “Row, are you okay?”

I’d been in here for close to an hour, and
she had already checked on me twice before now. Three was the charm
I suppose.

“Yeah,” I replied in a lazy voice as I
reached up and slowly slid the shower curtain aside. “Yeah, I’m
okay.”

“I’m making you some tea, then,” she told me,
leaning her back against the door as she spoke. “Are you
hungry?”

I had actually been expecting her to break
out the verbal cat ‘o nine tails on me over everything that had
happened, or at the very least give me her particular brand of
silent treatment. I knew that she was angry, but thus far, she had
not shown that side. In fact, she had not even displayed any
visible distress over the call from Porter. What was happening
instead was that I was on the receiving end of her maternal
instinct, which had evidently locked into overdrive.

“Not really,” I shook my head.

Actually, I was, but my tongue was sore, and
I didn’t feel up to dealing with any additional pains that I might
be able to avoid.

I watched my wife’s expression and decided
that she was simply doing a good job of hiding the fear that I knew
she had to be feeling. I was just too far out of it right now to
pick it up on an extrasensory level. Moreover, as to the subject of
her wrath, I was sure it would be coming at some point. There was
no doubt in my mind about that. Based on what I had seen staring
back at me from the mirror, my guess was that I just looked so
pathetic to her that there was no way she couldn’t give me a stay
of execution.

“Aye, are you sure?” She gazed back at me
with even more concern. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“I’m sure.” I gave her a shallow nod. “Ben
might want something though. You know how he is.”

“He’s already gone.” She shook her head then
reached up and pushed a loose strand of auburn curls back behind
her ear. “Constance made him go. She’s going to stay with us
tonight instead.”

I started to reach for a towel, and she
quickly stepped forward to get it for me.

“That’s good,” I told her. “He needs some
rest too.”

“Aye, now.” She shook her head and widened
her jade green eyes. “Do you really believe that Benjamin Storm
will be resting?”

“Probably not.” I agreed with what her words
implied. We both knew how Ben had a tendency to push himself until
he dropped. “Not unless Allison makes him.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe she will,” I mused.

“We can only hope,” Felicity said. “He did
say he was going to go home and get cleaned up.”

I began drying myself slowly, gently patting
at my face with the fresh cotton towel. “Any word on Carl?”

“Aye. Ben said to tell you that the reason
you two were having trouble finding out anything is that Carl was
taken to a different hospital. He’s in the cardiac care unit at
Christian. He’s stable at the moment and they’re planning to run
some tests in the morning.”

“So he’s going to be okay?”

“I hope so.” She shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s
all they would tell him.”

I nodded. “Okay. At least he’s all right for
now.”

The multi-toned harmonica whistle of a
Chantal teakettle started low and rose in volume on the other side
of the door. Felicity wasn’t a big fan of microwaves when it came
to making tea, or much else for that matter, so the kettle was one
of the few cooking implements we had brought along with us. Since
the bathroom in this apartment backed up against the kitchenette,
even with the door closed, the not-quite-harmonious chord was
loud.

My wife stepped back toward the door and
allowed her fingers to rest on the lever-like handle. “I found your
spare glasses and put them on the dresser in the bedroom… And I
laid out some fresh clothes for you on the bed. Are you sure
there’s nothing else I can get for you?”

“I’m sure, honey,” I told her. “Thanks. I’ll
be out in a few minutes.”

She opened the door and started through, then
stopped and looked back at me with what could have been sadness in
her eyes; or perhaps it was relief, I wasn’t exactly sure. “I love
you, Rowan Linden Gant. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, honey, I know. Same here.”

* * * * *

“Feeling better?” Special Agent Constance
Mandalay asked, looking up from her coffee as I trudged into the
room and eased myself into a chair.

Mandalay was petite and wore her brunette
hair in a stylish, shoulder-length crop. Still in her late
twenties, on the surface she appeared to be just a fresh-faced
youngster. She looked as though she would be right at home on any
college campus, chasing after a handful of letters to park behind
her name, or waving pom-poms and cheering the home team on to
victory. Descriptors such as pretty, cute, and perky immediately
leapt to mind in conjunction with the young woman.

To me, her youthful countenance sometimes
made it hard to believe that she already possessed a law degree
from Cornell and had joined the FBI right out of school. However, I
knew all too well that beneath the façade there was a hard-nosed
femme fatale packing a forty-caliber Sig Sauer along with the
finely honed skill to use it.

“Yeah,” I answered her. “About as much as I
can at the moment.”

“That’s good, because you look like hell,”
she offered with a sweet smile.

“Thanks, Constance,” I returned with an
amused grin. “Nice to see you too.”

We had first been introduced to Agent
Mandalay when she had exerted her federally bestowed authority to
assume the helm of an investigation Ben had been leading. The
initial contact between the two of them had been just short of
explosive; as for me, well, I was on the top of her list from the
get-go. I’m not talking about the good list either. The adversarial
interaction between us all had continued right through to the very
end of that case.

Fortunately, various events from the
investigation—negative though they were at the time—served to
enlighten her as to my usefulness as a consultant even if my
methods tended to run perpendicular to the established norm.

Since that time, our relationship had grown
beyond the boundaries of work. In fact, we had all actually become
very good friends. Even Ben, who regarded the FBI with great
disdain, habitually calling them “Feebs,” and vocally lamenting
their involvement in any investigation he was connected with, had
come to treat her like any other cop.

“Here you go,” Felicity said as she set a
large ceramic mug in front of me. “Drink it all, and I don’t want
to hear any complaints about the taste.”

I slowly waved my hand in a circular motion
over the top of the mug, wafting the steamy aroma upward to my
face. I still had the smell of burning wood and plastics embedded
in my nose, but I was able to pick up a few recognizable odors from
the pungent brew.

“Willow bark… Ummm… Valerian root… And
something else,” I offered aloud. “I’m not sure what.”

“Chamomile,” Felicity returned.

I easily recognized the analgesic and
calmative properties of the herbs that comprised the tea. “I’m
already tired, sweetheart,” I told her. “You don’t really need to
sedate me, you know.”

“Aye, I’ll be the judge of that now,” she
replied. “I’ve some honey if you want a spoonful or two to mask the
taste.”

“No, that’s okay.”

“You’re sure, then?”

“Felicity, please.” I shook my head. “You’ve
got to be exhausted yourself. Sit down. Relax.”

“I will in a minute,” she answered. “I need
to put a fresh pot of coffee on for Constance.”

“Don’t worry about that, Felicity, I can do
it,” Mandalay offered, starting up from her seat.

“You sit down, then,” Felicity instructed
her. “I’ll see to it.”

“Her maternal instinct gland is stuck in the
on position,” I said to Mandalay as an offer of explanation. “She
gets like this sometimes.”

“I can hear you, Rowan,” my wife called back
from the kitchenette behind me. “Shut up and drink your tea.”

I arched an eyebrow at Constance and silently
mouthed, “See what I mean?” Then I raised my cup and took a small
sip. The tea was still too hot for me, considering the condition of
my tongue after the two seizures. I blew on it for a moment then
set the mug back on the table to let it cool.

“So, how did you get elected to be babysitter
tonight?” I asked.

“I volunteered, actually,” Mandalay replied.
“After I got a look at Storm, it seemed like the thing to do.”

“What about our Coven? Porter might go after
one of them again.”

She shook her head as she reassured me.
“Don’t worry. All taken care of. Between federal agents and local
police, there’s no way he can get to any of them.”

“You’re sure?”

“Trust me, Rowan. It’s covered.”

“Okay,” I said. “It’s just that… Well, what
with Randy and all…”

“Don’t worry, I understand. It’s okay.”

“Well, I want you to know that I appreciate
it. Especially you staying with us.”