The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (42 page)

“Too fucking bad,” I said.

“He’s off the street, Row,” he offered. “It’s
over.”

“Yeah. Tell that to Randy and Star.”

“Row…” he let his voice trail off.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“Whaddaya mean,” he replied with a shrug.
“We’re sittin’ here in the back of an ambulance. They’ll be takin’
you to the hospital in just a few.”

“So that’s where we are,” I said.

“Man, what did they dope you up with?”

“The way I hurt? Nothing.”

“The way you sound? Something,” he
replied.

“So which one?”

“Which one what?”

“Which hospital?”

“Oh, yeah. I already asked ‘em to transport
you to University.” He picked up on where he thought my mind was
going. “Felicity will be waitin’ for ya’.”

“Where did they take Porter?” I asked.

“Not there, so don’t worry.”

“Where then?”

He shook his head. “No way, Row.”

“So maybe I’m just curious,” I returned.

“Uh-huh, yeah, sure,” he grunted. “I know
better. You ever hear the term ‘malice aforethought’? How about
‘premeditation’?”

I stewed in silence for a moment.

“You know, this is gettin' to be a pattern
with you,” he announced. “This is the second person you’ve tried to
kill in less than a month.”

I knew that the other person he was referring
to was the deranged rapist who had kidnapped Felicity on Christmas
Eve. I had come very close to pulling the trigger on the gun I’d
had aimed at him that night. Fact is I did pull the trigger; I just
managed to point it somewhere else first.

“Can you blame me?” I asked.

“Hell no.” He shook his head as he answered.
“But like I told ya’ last go around, you need to keep that to
yourself ‘cause not everyone is as open-minded as me.”

“Yeah, right,” I grunted and then came back
around to the original question. “So, hospital, then what?”

“Home I guess,” he returned.

“Just home?” I questioned. “So I’m not under
arrest or anything?”

“Shit, Row,” he exclaimed as he began
massaging his neck again. “Not as it stands now, but I can’t really
tell ya’ what’s gonna happen at this point. This whole scene is a
clusterfuck.”

“How so?”

“Did you happen to catch that big boom
just before you went runnin’ across the street like the
wild man of Borneo
?” he
asked.

“Uh-huh. What was that all about?”

“Flash-bang grenade,” he told me. “Special
ordinance, used by SWAT entry teams for the element of surprise.
Seems that one went off in the front seat of a highway patrol
Interceptor.”

“How did that happen?”

He shook his head again. “You’re askin’ the
wrong Injun, Kemosabe. Nobody knows. Hell, nobody even knows what
it was doing there to begin with. Right now the SWAT commander is
crawlin’ all over the guy who was in charge of the van because
accordin’ to the inventory, that’s apparently where it came from.
The hubcap chasers are pointin’ fingers at City and SWAT. City is
pointin’ fingers back at ‘em since it went off in their car. The
Feebs are pointin’ fingers at EVERYONE and claimin’ that Federal
shit don’t stink. And to top it all off, since Albright’s site
commander, she runnin’ around spoutin’ crap about chargin’
everybody with everything.”

I groaned. “Including me I’ll bet.”

“Yeah,” he confessed. “She’s taken your name
in vain a few times, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“So what about her?” I asked. “Is she so
above reproach?”

“You mean tonight?” He scrunched his
face.

“Now, earlier, any of it,” I replied.

“Well, she’s site commander so the buck stops
with her,” he offered. “But she can bury the whole fuckin’ thing
and lay it on someone else, which is what she’ll do,
guaranteed.”

“What about earlier?”

“We’ll see,” he returned. “I’m talkin’ to IAD
in the morning.”

“You think they’ll listen?”

“Dunno,” he confessed. “All I can do is try.
It might take you pressing charges to get anything done.”

A paramedic climbed into the back of the
ambulance with us and pulled the door shut then quickly checked my
restraints.

“We’re getting ready to roll,” he said. “How
are you feeling, Mister Gant?”

“How do I look?” I asked.

He grinned back. “Okay, sir, we’ll have you
at the hospital in just a few minutes.”

“Feel free to take the scenic route,” I
quipped.

“Ignore ‘im,” Ben told the paramedic. “He
ain’t exactly natural.”

I rolled my gaze back to my friend. “So what
we were talking about…”

“Yeah?”

“If that’s what it takes, let me know, and
I’ll do it.”

“Okay.”

I turned my face back to the ceiling and
tried to relax as we began moving. Settling in, I noticed an extra
set of pains coming from my left forearm. I slowly cocked my head
at an angle and saw the edge of an inflatable splint encasing the
appendage. Then I remembered the snapping sound of the bone and
felt slightly queasy.

Flashes of memory whirled around inside my
skull, always seeming to come back around to Star hanging from the
end of the rope. I wondered, if I hadn’t hesitated, would it have
been different? If I’d just been there a few seconds sooner, could
I have stopped it all from happening? Or at least gotten her down
before she choked to death?

As random thoughts tend to do, something that
Agent Kavanaugh had said flitted past, and I latched onto it in an
attempt to divert my mind. I mulled the comment over for a moment
then twisted my head back to face my friend.

“Did Porter have a gun?”

“The scene hasn’t been cleared yet,” he
returned. “But they haven’t found one yet, no. Why?”

“Something Agent Kavanaugh said.”

“About the bum from this morning.” He gave me
a knowing nod as he made the statement. “Yeah, I heard. Even if
they don’t find one, that doesn’t mean anything, Row. He coulda
ditched it. Probably did in fact.”

“But he didn’t have one.” I tossed his
original answer back to him.

“Not that we’ve found.” He cocked his head
and looked at me. “Is there somethin’ I should know?”

“No,” I said in a dismissive tone. “Not
really. Just do me a favor. If you see Kavanaugh, explain
Twilight Zone
to her and let her
know I was right.”

“Jeez, Row.” He shook his head. “You and your
hocus-pocus.”

“Yeah, me and my hocus-pocus,” I
muttered.

The ambulance rocked as it bounced over what
was probably a curb then listed slightly as it hooked into a turn.
Ben reached out to steady himself, and I saw his right hand was
tightly wrapped in gauze once again.

“So how is your hand, Tonto?” I asked.

“Hurts like a motherfucker.”

“An overwhelming sense of apathy and
withdrawal is not that uncommon, Rowan.” Helen Storm’s friendly but
analytical voice filtered into my ear from the telephone. “It does
not mean that you are unsympathetic.”

The clock on the coffeemaker read 6:58 a.m. I
had fully expected to connect with the answering service when I
dialed the number to her office. I knew it was early, but I had
gotten tired of waiting for business hours to roll around. I had to
admit that I felt an almost cathartic sense of relief when she
actually answered instead of them.

“But if I had been there ten seconds sooner,
Helen…” I submitted.

“It probably would not have made a bit of
difference,” she told me. “Rowan, understand that you are human.
There is only so much that you can do. Millicent’s loss is a
horrible tragedy for you to contend with—both of you. However, you
cannot and should not obsess over something of which you had no
control.”

It had been a little less than thirty-six
hours since my life had run headlong into the floor of the
abandoned building at the corner of Ashley and Second Street. At
least, that is how I was feeling.

Felicity and I had talked, and she had
certainly helped me, but I wondered if I had done her any good. We
both had a lot to work through, on many levels. Our relationship
had never been more solid, but emotionally we were both chewing our
fingernails. We had agreed that we shouldn’t try riding it out
alone, especially not after everything that had happened.

“Her parents called me last night,” I
murmured.

“How did that go?” she asked.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” I returned with a sigh.
“As far as they are concerned, their daughter would still be alive
if she had never met me.”

“Rowan, you must understand that they are
grieving a terrible loss, just as you and Felicity are. Anger is a
stage of grief. They will reach a point where they will realize
that you are not at fault.”

“I don’t know, Helen,” I replied. “That
should have been me not her.”

“You know full well what Eldon Porter’s
intent was all along, Rowan. What you are experiencing is normal,
but still, you cannot torture yourself for an act that someone else
committed.”

“Survivor guilt,” I returned softly.

“Precisely,” Helen acknowledged. “Now, when
can the two of you be here?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Ben is supposed
to show up any minute to help us move things back over to the
house. Felicity has already gone to pick up the dogs, and we’re
supposed to pick up the cats this afternoon.”

I gingerly cradled the phone between my
shoulder and ear, wincing as it found a bruise to rest on. Using my
right hand, I tugged the carafe out of its niche on the coffeemaker
and topped off my cup. There were still a few inches of brew left
in the Pyrex globe, but they probably wouldn’t last long
considering how fast I was going through it.

The much-worshipped java machine was the last
thing left to pack, really. We hadn’t brought that much with us
when we’d been sequestered here to hide from a madman. Our
suitcases were already packed, and a half-dozen medium-sized boxes
stuffed with various personal comfort items now rested on the
small, dining room table. The last box was sitting on the kitchen
counter patiently waiting for the coffeemaker to occupy a space
within.

After I crammed the carafe back onto the
hotplate, I picked up a spoon and jammed the handle beneath the
cast on my left arm and dug gently at an insistent itch.

“What about this evening then?” Helen
asked.

“We don’t want to impose on you, Helen,” I
told her.

“You won’t be,” she returned with an almost
cheerful nonchalance. “I will come over to your house, and we will
order out pizza.”

“But, Helen…” I began to object.

“No buts, Rowan. The two of you need to deal
with this. Trust me, I am a doctor. I know these things.”

I couldn’t help but allow just a hint of a
smile to pass across my lips. “Okay then. If you insist.”

“I do,” she replied. “If it will make you
feel any better, you can buy.”

The smile grew larger, and I even chuckled
lightly. “Deal.”

Her voice took on a mischievous tone, “Do you
like anchovies?”

“I love ‘em, Felicity not so much,” I
replied.

She chuckled. “So you will have to buy two
pizzas then.”

“
I think we can do that,” I replied.
“And Helen, we really appreciate this.”

“I know you do,” she assured me. “How does
seven sound?”

“Seven is perfect.”

“Seven it is. I will see you both then.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye.”

There was a forceful rap on the door just as
I dropped the handset into the cradle. I took a quick sip of my
coffee then set the cup back on the counter before exiting the
kitchenette, hooking around the table then moving through the small
living room.

I undid the deadbolt then unlatched the door
and pulled it open. As expected, Ben was standing on the other
side, a familiar flat box resting in his hand like a platter.

He looked me over then said, “You look like
shit.”

“Yeah, nice to see you too,” I replied as I
stepped aside and allowed him to come in. “There’s some coffee left
if you want it.”

“Got a cup?”

“Look in one of the boxes on the table.” I
waved as I shut the door. “There should be some travel mugs in
there.”

He had set the box of donuts on the counter,
so I flipped it open and dug out one that looked as though it might
have jelly or something injected into it.

“They were outta glazed, can ya’ believe it?”
Ben asked rhetorically as he drained the coffeepot into a large
plastic mug bearing the logo of a particular film Felicity often
used.

“Just stick it in the sink,” I told him as he
started to stick the carafe back on the burner. “I need to rinse it
out before I pack it.”

He nodded as he twisted then set the pot down
in the sink. Turning back, he snapped the lid onto the mug with his
good hand.

I swallowed a bite of the donut as I held up
my cast-encased arm then said, “Looks like we have one good pair
between us.”

“Yeah, well at least you broke your left,” he
returned. “I shoot with my right you know, so now I have to fly a
desk for at least six weeks.”

“I thought that was all you did anyway,” I
jibed.

“Yeah. Funny.” He rolled his eyes. “So
where’s Firehair?”

“Picking up the dogs.”

“At seven in the morning?” he asked. “Did she
miss ‘em that much?”

I nodded. “Yeah, we both did I guess. But the
real reason is that Joe and Terri both work Saturdays, and she
wanted to pick them up before they left. It just works out easier
that way.”

I finished off the jelly-filled pastry in a
series of quick bites as I moved in past him. Stopping at the sink,
I twisted on the faucet and then began rinsing out the carafe.