by Dale Mayer
He needed to research her background, and he wanted to talk to his grandmother to see if she had picked up anything about Phoenix, but he figured that would lead him down a path he didn’t want to go. His grandmother had more than her fair share of Gypsy blood. She’d come and gone throughout his life. She’d spent most of the last few years in town, except for short trips to visit the rest of her Gypsy family wandering all over the globe. He liked her independence, but some of her messages were dark.
And she often saw what he didn’t want her to see. She’d see his attraction to Phoenix. Sometimes his grandmother seemed to slip into trances, and what came out of her mouth then was stuff that even he didn’t want to question. He had tapes of some of her messages somewhere. He’d often considered destroying them but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
After the chief had tried to commit suicide, Rowan had wondered if something was wrong with the entire town. Was something psychic going on here? Irene’s death seemed to confirm it. Rowan sat down in this big chair with a heavy thump.
When he brought up his emails, he groaned because, of course, there were dozens and dozens of them. While he sorted through the list, one of the office staff walked in with a sheaf of paperwork in her hands. He shook his head, his palm up in a stop signal.
“You know, until he’s back up and running, if he’s ever back up and running,” she said quietly, “somebody has to handle the paperwork.”
“I get it,” he said. “I will temporarily step up to the plate to do what’s necessary. But that doesn’t mean it’s my job.”
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t either,” she said cheerfully.
With that, he went through the pages and initialed the ones that needed initialing and signed the ones that needed signing. He handed the stack back to her. “I’ll take an hour so. If you can hold calls for me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Will do.” She stopped at the doorway and said, “I’m really sorry about Irene.”
He nodded. “So am I,” he said. “So am I.”
She went out and closed the door behind her.
Immediately he delved into Phoenix’s history. But in order to get into the files he wanted, he needed access. He sent off several requests for information on Phoenix Rising. After researching several databases, he ended up contacting law enforcement in New Mexico, drilling down to police officers who had handled the surrounding area to the north of Albuquerque. He mulled over a reason for his request, then finally typed in, “Possible connection to the death of a local here.” And left it at that.
He was surprised when he got an answer almost immediately, and a file was attached. Except it was just a summary.
He opened it and gasped. His breath caught at the back of his throat at the sight of the photos of a young girl taken on the day she was rescued. The damage to her face, her body. The scars were incredible.
With that heavy introduction he sat back and read through the summary. Her father had run a cult on private property twenty minutes from the closest town. On the day the cult had been raided, he’d shot at the cops, and his body had ended up riddled with bullets. At the bottom of the page was a notation saying suicide by cop. And Rowan understood that. Because, at the end of the day, not all cult leaders were capable of killing themselves. They usually shot everybody else around them or had everybody else die and then couldn’t do the last deed themselves.
Also, according to the report, the police found multiple women and children deceased in the building. The fire had burnt a large portion of the building but not all of it. Further autopsies showed they’d died from poison. It was suspected the father had started the fire, and the only surviving member was eleven-year-old Phoenix.
He shook his head. “In black and white,” he muttered to himself. “This is beyond devastating.” He just couldn’t imagine what she’d lived through or how.
What a shock her condition would have been to the doctors at the time too.
At the bottom of the summary was a file number to request more information.
He followed up, asking for the full file. Rowan closed the email, saving it to a personal folder and sat back. So far everything matched with what little Phoenix had said and so much more. All this did was bring up more and more questions. Just like Phoenix herself.
Chapter 6
Back at the hotel Phoenix found she’d missed the dinner hours and was now in her room alone. So far nobody had shown up to claim the other bed, and she was damn grateful.
Her body and emotions were exhausted, and yet her mind wouldn’t shut down. Her stomach was empty and wouldn’t stop growling. Everything was complete opposites. She wanted to relax, but every muscle was tight, tense. Before she left for her room, Rowan had asked for her cell phone and room numbers, although she had a suspicion Rowan already had them.
She had said, “Can’t you just get all this from the hotel?”
They were walking through the front lobby at the time. “I already have,” he said. “I’m just confirming.”
She’d been too tired to care what that meant. As they’d passed the dining room, she had whispered, “And I missed dinner too. I don’t know if I can make it till morning.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said at her room door, which he unlocked, swiping the card down through the lock, opening it for her. He glanced at her. “You sleep here alone?”
“Apparently. It’s supposed to be two to a room but …” she replied. “Every other night on this tour has been the same.”
While he watched, she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. “Will you be okay?”
She rolled over and glared up at him. “Hell, no, I won’t be okay.”
He winced. “Okay, I deserved that. I’ll go down and get a couple cups of tea and find something to eat. Why don’t you get up and wash your face? Do anything you can to make yourself feel better, and I’ll be back, okay?”
She’d nodded. Now she was back on the bed, looking around the small room, wondering why she was in Iceland.
Of course she knew. Her gaze went to her travel bag and the weird letter her father had shown her so long ago.
Her father had powers and abilities she’d thought were normal. Only later had she realized it wasn’t normal to light a flame on the end of a finger. As a child, she’d been terrorized because she had been the one on the receiving end of that fire. But it also seemed normal. Only she’d never seen anyone else do anything so strange and otherworldly. She’d never seen anything else quite like it until today. That black hole of ugly memories she wanted to avoid.
It had never occurred to her that other people could be in a position of power, like her father, as he’d pounded it into her that she was special. Now she knew others were out there too who were special. She sat cross-legged with her laptop—a small cheap one for traveling.
She keyed in the internet password for the hotel. Very quickly she had it up and working and searched terms like suicide season and premonitions. By the time a knock came on her door, she was well into the research. And feeling a little better. She hopped off the bed, walked across the room and opened the door.
Rowan had a trolley in front of him and one of the staff members with him.
She looked at the stranger and smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”
He nodded, and such compassion and understanding was on his face that she realized Rowan must have said something to him. With the door closed after the employee’s exit, she looked down at the trolley. “What did you get?”
“Leftovers,” he said with a small laugh. “But the leftovers Patro makes are pretty fine indeed.”
“And who is Patro?” she asked, lifting the lids to see large plates of what looked like roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes and veggies. Her stomach growled again. She motioned at a small table by the window. “Let’s sit over there.”
He pushed the trolley so it was right beside the table and then, from underneath, pulled out plates and cutlery.
“I’
m surprised they gave you this,” she said.
“Once they realized what had happened, they were all too willing to make our evening a little easier.”
She nodded. “Meaning, I wouldn’t have anything bad to say about the town or the hotel after I leave?”
“You can’t blame them,” he said, putting a plate in front of her. “Their livelihood is dependent on tourists.”
“Keeping the suicide season quiet has got to be difficult.”
“It is,” he said. “The internet picks up on things like that and runs with it like crazy. Embellishing the truth and making it out to be something it’s not, driving more people to commit suicide,” he ended grimly.
“I’ve been doing research since you left.” She rubbed her eyes. They were dry and scratchy and still hot from all the tears. She blinked to ease them, noticing, as she opened them, a pot of tea. She smiled. “In a way this is much nicer than in a dining room. Plus I don’t have to eat alone.”
“Are you always alone when you eat?”
She tilted her head to the side as she thought about that. “Since the bus tour, yes, but I’m not sure why.”
“It’s an even number of people on the bus,” he said. “I asked, so I’m not sure why you’re alone in this room either.”
“I’m not sure either, unless there’s an odd number of women, so I’m the odd one out,” she said. “Or why, every time I go into the dining room, I’m given a table alone. Maybe they expect I’ll have a partner join me, but I never do. I’ve often wondered what others know that I don’t.”
“Interesting,” he said. He picked up his knife and fork and motioned at her plate. “Eat while it’s hot.”
She didn’t argue, and, with the first bite, she was lost. “I’m so hungry,” she said. She chewed several more bites and then smiled. “Patro is truly talented if this is his cooking.”
“He is indeed,” Rowan agreed. “He’s lived here all his life, except for the years he went to France and Italy for special training. But he came back and took over his father’s position at the restaurant.”
“Did his father want to be taken over?”
At that Rowan looked down at the plate and didn’t answer.
She slowly lowered her hands. “Don’t tell me that suicide season hit?”
He winced at the term. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened.”
“I’m sorry for Patro,” she said. “Does anybody know why or what the extenuating circumstances were?”
“In his father’s case, he had just found out he had stage four cancer,” Rowan replied. “He had no intention of following the recommended course of treatment, according to the hospital.”
“Ouch,” she said. “I understand his thinking.”
“Except for what it does to the families left behind,” he said, his voice harsh.
“Right,” she said, admitting that point. Something in his voice said either he’d known Patro’s father and had been really close, or he’d known somebody else who had done the same thing. “It must be tough policing a part of the world where people come to kill themselves.”
“Not only that,” he said, “one of our own police force just tried the same thing. And I’m sure you’ll hear about it from the gossip, if you talk to anybody locally tomorrow. The suicide chatter will be loud again after today. Our police chief tried to commit suicide almost six weeks ago.”
“Tried?” She pounced on that word. “Is he still alive?”
“Yes,” he said. “He’s been in a coma ever since. In the meantime, I’ve been doing his job.”
“Oh,” she said. “Any worries you’ll end up the same way?”
He lifted his head and studied her features. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, maybe policing a place where so many people choose to kill themselves would have a negative effect on you. As if maybe you will eventually choose that as the answer for your own future.”
He looked at her in surprise. “I hadn’t considered that as a reason behind why my boss made that choice, but,” he said, “I suppose it’s possible. He was the police chief here for over forty years.”
“That’s a long time,” she said in surprise. “Didn’t he have to retire?”
“Because he was in such good health, he stayed well past the point he should have retired. But he was now heading into forced retirement, and I think that’s what precipitated his actions.”
“When would he have retired?”
“Two weeks after he attempted to take his life,” Rowan replied. “So this helped him to avoid those last couple weeks where everybody would say goodbye, when that’s the last thing he wanted to do.”
She nodded. “I can understand that too. If this was my entire life, and I was being forced to leave it, I’m not sure I would want to continue afterward either, particularly if I didn’t have family and other things I wanted to do.” She glanced at him. “What about his family?”
“His wife died of cancer years ago.”
“Oh,” she said. “And if he didn’t commit suicide back then …”
“He didn’t,” Rowan replied. “Obviously. As far as I know, he didn’t make any attempts either. I think he just was ready to go this time. He wanted to join his wife.”
“Was he talking about her a lot?”
“He was. Not that he was planning on joining her, just that she was always on his mind. He did tell me how he thought he’d seen his wife, and that’s when he realized he was starting to lose it.”
She slowly lowered her knife and fork and placed it on the empty plate, her thoughts shrouded by his words. “And what if he really did see her?” She picked up her water glass and took a sip. “After what we saw today, maybe he did see her and realized the only way he could join her was to die.”
“I’ve thought of that,” he said. “It’s been on my mind since watching Irene. I keep going through all the other suicides I know about personally in the last few years, wondering if something like that didn’t also happen to them.”
“Were they all the same?”
He shook his head. “No. The police chief ate a bullet. He just didn’t do a complete job of it.”
She winced at that. “But that makes sense too. He was on the job. And I guess he wanted to go out the same way he lived his life.”
“Maybe.” He cleared away their empty plates, put them back on the trolley. “Patro also sent up dessert.”
She smiled up at him. “I’m not sure I could eat anything else,” she said. “I am feeling much better with a full belly though.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s why it was important you get a hot meal.” He poured her a cup of tea and then brought over the third silver tray. When he lifted the lid, there were two plates. Each with a large slab of a multilayered chocolate cake and some fluffy filling in between.
“Wow,” she said. “That looks gorgeous.”
“I hope you’re not allergic to anything,” he stated. “A bit late to be asking now though, isn’t it?”
“Much too late,” she said, reaching for a plate. “And, no, I’m not allergic to anything that I know of.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I was recently laid off from my position due to budget cuts,” she replied. “I was an associate professor at a college. I used to teach mythology and several art classes.”
“Oh, I don’t see you as a teacher,” he said in surprise.
She lifted her gaze. “What do you see me as?”
He thought about it and frowned. “I’m not really sure.”
“I didn’t do a lot of teaching,” she said. “I was there for four years, hoping to get into a full-time position, but the college suffered because of multiple sexual harassment lawsuits, bringing the enrollment numbers down, plus the legal fees from the lawsuits impacted their bottom line. They were forced to do layoffs. Six of us were offered a payout, so I took mine.”
“And came here?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was putting some other iss
ues of my own life to rest.” At that, she gave him a half smile. “I thought maybe, if I could see one of the places I’d heard about, I could walk away from my past and start fresh.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Because walking away from the past is often what people do by committing suicide. They can’t handle their life, so they walk away from it permanently.”
“I didn’t come here to commit suicide,” she said, her voice firm. She could feel the intensity of his gaze, and she smiled up at him. “I get that, after what we saw today, you’re worried about me. I presume that’s why you brought dinner and why you’re sitting here, babysitting me. But I promise I’m not planning on committing suicide.”
“Good,” he said. “Because that’s not a memory I would want to live with.”
“That would be tough, wouldn’t it? I’m already struggling with Irene’s swan dive as it is. And I never met the woman until today. The thing that really gets me is the joy and the peace that settled on her face as she made some decision and then took off on us. But what if we could have grabbed her faster?” She stared at her teacup. “That’s what’ll haunt me—the what-ifs.”
“And that’ll be my nightmare,” he said heavily. “I mean, I was close. I was so close. And then it was like she had wings on her feet and just flew.”
“I was afraid you would go over the edge too,” Phoenix said. “You were following her so closely. I was afraid you wouldn’t stop.”
“That’s something I didn’t tell you,” he said. “It’s almost as if this unseen wall stopped me. I’m not sure I could have gone over.”
Her eyes rounded. “Wow. Okay, that takes this into the realm of something else yet again.”
“Something else?” he said with a laugh. “What else could there possibly be?”
“Fate? Angels? Decisions from above? Your time? Not your time? Things like that.” She shook her head. “I’ve already questioned those concepts. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. I keep thinking of the Burning Fires. If I could just find a way to close it, maybe it would not bother me anymore.”