The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (28 page)

“Don’t you dare compare me to that sick
individual, Gant,” she ordered.

“Listen to me, Lieutenant,” I took on my own
hard edge. “When this SOB starts calling you and threatening your
life, and more importantly the life of your spouse…” I paused to
suck in a breath and try to temper my composure somewhat.
“…Eviscerates and kills one of your friends, then kidnaps someone
else you know and threatens to do the same to them, THEN you can
say whatever you want to him. Until that happens, what you can do
is get off my ass.”

“You are pushing it, Mister,” she
threatened.

“Lady, the only one pushing it here is you,”
I barked. “Now get out.”

Ben cleared his throat in a loud burst and
then mumbled, “Calm down, Row.”

Albright raised her voice. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Get out of here before I throw
you out.”

Ben cleared his throat again and shot me a
warning glance. “Shut. Up. Rowan.” He quietly voiced the
instruction in a purposeful cadence, but it was too late. I was
already well on my way over the line.

Albright cocked one eyebrow into a shallow
arch, and from where I stood it appeared as though a thin smile
passed briefly across her lips.

She held her voice even as she spoke. “Did
you just threaten me, Mister Gant?”

“Threat, promise, whatever,” I responded.
“Take it how ever you want. What I can tell you for a fact is that
if you were a man I’d be escorting you out, if you get my
meaning.”

Albright reached inside the open front of her
trench coat and slipped her hand toward her back. When she withdrew
it, there was a bright clink of metal against metal, and a pair of
handcuffs rested in her tight grip.

“Lieutenant,” Ben spoke up. “Don’t do
this.”

She glanced at him with a look of contempt
but didn’t respond to the plea. Instead, she snarled, “Get out of
the way, Storm.”

With that, she fixed her stare on me and
started across the room. She didn’t have much distance to cover,
and before I could blink, she was standing in front of me. In a
quick motion, she took hold of my wrist and twisted. A searing
lance of pain drove inward through my left shoulder as she wrenched
my arm behind my back in a rough motion. I grunted at the
discomfort as she continued to lever my forearm up until my wrist
rested between my shoulder blades. I quickly turned my head in
defense of my nose as she shoved me forward, and my face slammed
against the wall.

Felicity had been elbowed out of the way, and
my gaze met hers as my head turned. I could see that another bout
of fear and anger was welling behind her tired eyes.

My wife quickly darted her head away and
yelped, “Ben, do something!”

I could hear my friend behind me trying to
soothe her. “Calm down, Felicity. We’re gonna fix this.”

She turned back to me, her eyes wild
and then panned her glare on to the lieutenant as she launched into
a violent-sounding string of Gaelic. “
Fek
tú
S
aigh! Loscadh is dó ort! Damnú ort!
Tú tuaireapach! An-duine! Tú strìopach! Go n-ithe an cat thú, is go
n-ithe an diabhal an cat! Tú féad póg mo thóin
saigh!
”

I only picked up a few of the words;
considering what I actually did understand, it was for the best
that she had chosen Gaelic for the diatribe.

“Felicity! Honey! It will be okay.” I tried
to reassure her as she spat the curses. “Call Jackie and tell
her…”

Before I could get the instructions for our
attorney out of my mouth, Albright barked, “Shut up, Gant!”

Felicity drew closer and launched
another expletive-ridden sentence at her, “
An cac capaill, saigh! Go hifreann
leat!
”

Thankfully, Ben took hold of my wife’s arm
and pulled her away, interposing himself between her Irish temper
and the lieutenant before this could escalate to a physical level.
I wasn’t so certain that I would trade places with him at the
moment.

That was, of course, until the real pain
started.

Agony shunted into the center of my brain as
my ears began to fill with the sound of rushing blood. My teeth
clenched hard, and the horrid metallic tang from earlier in the day
returned in force. I bucked against my body’s sudden desire to
posture and fall to the floor.

Sharp pain bit into my wrist as Albright
slapped the edge of the handcuff against it. I focused on that
sensation, using it to divert the inexplicable seizure I felt
approaching. The sound of the metal teeth ratcheting grated in my
ears as she snapped the circlet shut and continued to tighten the
restraint until it pinched my flesh. Still holding me pinned
against the wall, she grasped my free arm and yanked it behind my
back as well.

Her hand pressed deep into my back, and her
touch felt cold. I involuntarily seized on the sensation and
immediately felt intense alarm. I gasped a startled breath and
closed my eyes.

Distorted, three-dimensional shapes
ricocheted through my brain, layering atop one another in jerky,
freeze-frame motions. As they joined, I could begin to make out a
defined image. In a sudden burst of light, I found myself staring
at a contrasty countenance, inverted though it was. Hanging before
me in the void was a woman seated upon an ornate throne. A crown
rested atop her head, and her vestments were regal, those of
royalty. Even though the image is inverted, her dark eyes seem to
be looking down upon me imperiously. In her right hand, she is
holding forth a shining sword.

I knew immediately that I had seen this image
before. It was the face of a tarot card—specifically, the Queen of
Swords.

My eyes snapped open and locked on the wall.
Still, the afterimage floated in the empty space before me, in
crisp focus, as clear as a framed photograph. All sound around me
began to echo languidly in my ears as the light in the room flared
then dimmed.

“You are under arrest, Mister Gant,”
Lieutenant Albright announced. Everything became surreal as I
struggled to keep myself in this reality. Voices began to slur, and
all sound took on the quality of mud. When she continued, her voice
came thick and slow—the words blending into one another as they
thudded against my eardrums. “Yooouuu haaaaavvve ttthheee
rrriiiigggghhhtttt tttoooo rrrreeemmmaaaiiinnn ssiiilleennntt. Ifff
yooouuu gggiiivvvee uuuupp…”

I wasn’t willing to let this happen
again.

Not now. And, definitely not with Albright
here.

I sucked a deep breath in through my nose and
struggled to ignore the pains that seemed to be checking in from
every inch of my body. I held the breath for a few seconds and then
began allowing the air to flow out between my lips in a slow
stream. Inside my head, I began my bid for control.

My snap decision was to counter whatever was
happening to me with the simplest defense I could imagine. Mutely,
but with great concentration I began to recite the alphabet,
backwards.

I closed my eyes and focused a small part of
myself on maintaining a steady cadence with my breathing. In
through my nose, out through my mouth, repeat. Z, Y, X, W… In nose,
out mouth, repeat… V, U, T, S… Breathe in, breathe out, repeat… R,
Q, P, O…

What I was doing was simple. It was textbook,
obvious. It was also something that in my off-kilter state, I had
been forgetting to do. I was grounding and centering—this was
Psychic Self-Defense 101.

The rush in my ears began to fade, and the
Doppler distortion of sound accordioned in upon itself, collapsing
everyone’s words into tonal reality. For what had to be the first
time today, I felt almost relaxed. Pains were still assaulting me
from every corner of my being, but they were tangible pains and
real aches—discomforts born of the physical realm instead of the
ethereal. In a bizarre sense, I welcomed them.

“I believe you might want to re-think this
action, Lieutenant.” Mandalay’s voice worked its way into my ears
through the various commotions. As close as I could figure, she was
somewhere behind me and to the right.

I opened my eyes and could see that Ben was
still restraining Felicity with as much care as he could,
considering her angered state. I could barely hear him talking to
her—or trying to talk to her at least—as she continued to vent
poignant comments in Gaelic, occasionally intermixed with
colloquial Irish profanity.

“Stay out of this,” Albright barked at Agent
Mandalay, then pressed the other cuff against my still free
wrist.

“I am very serious about this, Lieutenant,”
Mandalay continued, undaunted, raising her voice to be heard. “I
think that you may be on some fairly shaky legal ground here.”

“I don’t think that…” Albright started to
reply but suddenly shifted her attention to the side. “Storm! Can’t
you get her to shut up!”

“FEK TÙ
SAIGH!
” Felicity’s voice rose sharply as she twisted
around Ben and struggled to break free.

“Good Lord,” Albright spat. “Cuff her,
Storm.”

“Leave her out of this!” I demanded as I
tried to twist my head farther around, only succeeding in giving
myself a cramp in my neck.

Ben answered harshly, “No way, Lieutenant.
Not happenin’.”

“Storm!” she snarled.

Felicity’s angry voice pierced the
atmosphere in the small corridor once again. “
FEK TÙ! Póg mo thóin saigh!
”

“Christ!” Albright exclaimed. “What is that
gibberish anyway?”

I don’t think she really wanted an answer,
but I gave her one anyway. “It’s not gibberish. It’s Gaelic.”

She barked at me. “You shut up, Gant.”

I really wanted to spout off a comeback, but
I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be in my best interest. I
quickly weighed my situation and, right or wrong, decided it
probably couldn’t get any worse. However, just to be safe I kept my
comment near the middle of the road. “You’re the one who
asked.”

She was not amused. “Did I not just tell you
to shut up?!”

“I must have missed that,” I returned with
heavy sarcasm.

Albright took on a threatening tone. “All
right, Gant, would you like to add resisting arrest to the
charges?”

“Who’s resisting?”

“Speaking of charges, Lieutenant,” Mandalay
started again. “Just exactly what would those be?”

“I can think of several,” Albright shot
back.

“That’s interesting.” Mandalay spoke in a
professional but condescending tone. “Because I can’t imagine a
single one that would stick. However, I can think of several that
Mister Gant can bring against you.”

Albright had completed handcuffing me but
continued to hold me against the wall as if I were some danger to
her and everyone around me. My arms were starting to cramp, and I
had lost feeling in one side of my face where my cheek was pressed
into the wall. I couldn’t see what was going on behind me,
obviously, but it sounded as though Albright might have turned to
face Constance before she spoke.

“I am not interested in your opinion,” she
snarled.

“Well, I’m going to give it to you whether
you want it or not,” Mandalay continued, unfazed by the older
woman. “In short, that opinion would be that you are very close to
violating Mister Gant’s civil rights.”

Albright let out a supercilious cackle that
actually made me nauseous. “You Feds amaze me,” she asserted.
“Every single one of you thinks you know more about the law than
any other cop, no matter how much experience they have. Does the
Bureau issue the attitude with the badge, or is it learned
behavior?”

“Actually,” Mandalay said, not missing a
beat, “I paid for mine.”

“Excuse me?” Albright retorted.

“Oh yes. I just paid it off last year as a
matter of fact.” Mandalay adopted her own attitude in rebuttal.
“Cornell Law, class of ninety-seven. Of course, you could be
correct; I might not know what I’m talking about. I was only the
salutatorian.”

Edgy silence filled in behind the
explanation. Even Felicity had stopped struggling with Ben, and for
the first time since the altercation started, she was mute.

“He threatened a police officer,” Albright
finally declared, her voice filled with a tenuous confidence.

“I perceived no threat,” Constance offered.
“How about you, Storm? Did you see Rowan threaten the
lieutenant?”

“Threaten?” Ben asked with mock surprise as
he turned toward them. “No, I musta missed that.”

“You’re walking a VERY thin line, Storm!”
Albright said.

My friend shrugged. “Sorry, Lieutenant. I
must’ve been pre-occupied or somethin’.”

Albright snarled. “You both know full well
that it was a verbal threat.”

“Sticks and stones, Lieutenant,” Mandalay
offered. “Sticks and stones.”

Albright expelled an angry breath but
remained mute.

“Back to what I was saying, Lieutenant.”
Mandalay began speaking again, completely in control of the
situation. “You might want to re-think this action, and I’ll tell
you why. Let us just forget the civil rights violations, the
inevitable lawsuits, and the bad press for a moment. Instead, let’s
look at some basic facts. One, you presently have Eldon Porter
loose on the streets of Saint Louis. Two, Porter has abducted a
woman with the intention of killing her. And most importantly,
three, your one and only link to Porter is Rowan.

“Now, once again this is just my opinion.”
Mandalay added an infusion of sarcasm to the comment. “But I think
you would be better served by releasing Rowan, bidding a hasty
retreat, and allowing Detective Storm to act as your liaison.”

Weighty tension flowed in to mix with the
silence following Agent Mandalay’s carefully worded suggestion. I
was still making an indelible impression of my face in the surface
of the wall, not of my own choice of course. My earlier mental
exercise had done wonders for my inner self, but it wasn’t
accomplishing much regarding the physical aches and pains that were
wracking my body. While I had somewhat welcomed them a few moments
ago, I was more than ready for them to be gone.