*****
“Why do you have to be so reckless, then?” Felicity asked, her voice calm but still betraying a definite subtext of annoyance.
I had taken it as a good sign that she didn’t simply walk away when I approached. She was still leaning back against the light standard, and I was next to her doing the same, more or less sitting on the edge of the large concrete base and pressing the back of my head against the cold post. At first it seemed to afford a little relief from the pain in my skull, but as expected it didn’t last long.
We had been standing in silence for a long measure. I was keeping an eye on Ben as he talked on the phone while at the same time trying to focus my aching brain on a suitable apology I could offer my wife. I certainly wasn’t going to say something empty just to get myself out of hot water. I wanted to honestly attempt to make amends to her. I just wasn’t sure where to start except to simply say I was sorry, which seemed a bit lame under any circumstances.
Since I was finding myself at a loss for the appropriate verbiage, she beat me to the punch with her straightforward question being the first thing either of us had uttered. I was actually a bit surprised that she was talking to me in such an even tone. Had she snarled a string of acerbic Gaelic at me, it would have been much closer to what I was expecting.
I paused then grunted in response, “That’s a good question.”
“I’m serious, Row.”
“I know you are,” I offered with a heavy sigh. “I just don’t have a good answer.”
Quiet fell between us again for several heartbeats, and I waited for her reply, watching my breath condense in a frosty cloud in front of me before dissipating into nothingness.
Finally, I heard Felicity sigh and shuffle as she repositioned herself against the post. “You know I think what bothers me the most is that I know I would probably have done the same thing.”
“Yeah, you’ve had your share of moments too,” I replied.
“You needn’t remind me,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Aye, now that, you definitely needed to say.”
“I thought I might,” I said. “Sorry about the whole thing with the car too. I just felt I needed the strength of the physical connection if I was going to get anything tangible.”
She responded without pause. “I know.”
“It worked…” I offered sheepishly.
“I heard,” she replied. “I think everyone did. You were your usual vociferous self where that was concerned.”
“They weren’t listening.”
“I know.”
I glanced toward Ben for a visual check on his progress. He still had his cell phone pressed to his ear, and he seemed to be waiting. I was at least heartened by the fact that he appeared to be edging toward impatience himself.
I sighed. “Now if it just pans out.”
“It will,” she murmured.
After a brief pause I shifted slightly and glanced over in her direction. “So… Still mad at me?”
She didn’t turn, but she held her hand up over her shoulder with her index finger and thumb around a half inch apart. “Just a little.”
“Could be worse I suppose.”
“Aye.”
“Am I sleeping on the couch?”
She shook her head out of reflex as she spoke. “No. I’m sure I can think of a suitable punishment for you though.”
I felt my brow furrow automatically at the way she almost purred the comment. “Umm, honey… Are you in one of those moods again? Because, you know, this really isn’t the time or place…”
“I know, I know…” she replied, rushing to explain. Her voice sounded almost as if she were ashamed of what she had just said. “I wasn’t and then suddenly I was. It just came over me. I know this isn’t the time, believe me. But…the feeling is more than just a little overwhelming.”
“Like with Miranda?” I nearly whispered the question.
“Almost,” she replied, giving her head a shallow nod. “Not exactly, but almost.”
She definitely hadn’t given me the answer I had hoped for, but it was better she was honest rather than lie about something like this.
“That’s not good,” I said, unable to find any other words that fit.
“I was thinking the same thing, trust me.”
On a whim I reached into my jacket pocket and checked for the bottle containing the necklace. I breathed a small sigh of relief when I felt my fingers wrap around it. Even if I had lost it I couldn’t think of any way for it to end up back in Annalise’s hands. But I also wasn’t sure what effect it might have if it was released from its salt-filled coffin.
Although I knew by feel that the bottle was still in my pocket, just to be safe I pulled it out and inspected it closely. I even gave the glass vessel a light tap against my palm in order to uncover the piece of jewelry just enough to make sure it was still entombed in the salt. Once satisfied, I shook it again and stuffed it back into my jacket.
I pondered what to say for a moment before finally venturing, “I hate to ask this, but I feel like I have to. Are you certain you are in control of yourself?”
“Aye,” she replied. “It isn’t like that. I’m still me.”
“Sorry again… I just needed to know.”
“I understand…” She paused for a moment then continued with, “I’m fine, Rowan. Really, I am. Don’t worry. I have to admit that I’m embarrassed by the situation though…if you know what I mean. I really shouldn’t be getting aroused right now. It seems rather sick, don’t you think?”
“If things were different, I would probably say it was odd, yes,” I admitted. “But, right now, I’d have to say it’s sick only if it’s for the wrong reasons.”
“I don’t know if there are any right reasons for it to come on me now,” she replied. “But, it certainly isn’t because of all this. At least, I don’t…”
“Hey Rowan!” Ben called out, interrupting the balance of her explanation.
We both looked up to see him half jogging across the parking lot then ducking beneath the crime scene tape a few feet from us.
“Did you find it?” I asked hopefully.
“Probably,” he told us. “There’re seven Millston’s in a fifty mile radius-three in Illinois, two in Saint Charles, and two in the county.”
“Are all of them being checked?”
“Yeah, but you said the house looked like it had been through a fire, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, nodding quickly. “It was boarded up and you could see where the fire had scorched the brick above the windows. And, it was near a corner intersection, but I didn’t get the other street name.”
“Well, one of the addresses in the county fits that description,” he said. “It’s in Overmoor. Got torched by an arsonist about four years ago and been vacant ever since. The local coppers are doing a drive-by right now, and SWAT is on standby if they find anything.”
“Overmoor? That’s thirty-five or forty miles back the other direction,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “That’d be about right.”
“Then why is Judith Albright’s car abandoned all the way out here?”
“Who knows how these wingnuts think,” he said with a shrug. “More’n likely ta’ send us lookin’ in the wrong direction. Besides, even you said ya’ didn’t know if she was with the SOB.”
“I know,” I replied. “I know… But it doesn’t make sense.”
“None of it does, Row. I thought you’d be used ta’ that by now.”
“I don’t think I want to get used to it.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re sayin’. So listen, we prob’ly need ta’ head out. Dependin’ on how this shit goes down, it could be over before we even get there, which ain’t such a bad thing in my opinion. I don’t need you goin’ off half cocked like usual.”
“What did Albright say?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t talked to ‘er yet. Figured I’d go ahead and fill �
��er in before we hit the road ourselves.” He looked around and huffed, “Just gotta find ‘er first.”
A state trooper was walking past us just as Ben made the comment. He paused then doubled back and interrupted, “Are you talking about Captain Albright? She’s gone.”
“Whaddaya mean gone?” Ben asked, turning toward him. “She was here just a couple of minutes ago.”
The trooper glanced at his watch then back to Ben. “More like five or six.”
“Yeah, okay,” my friend retorted. “She say where she was goin’?”
“No,” the officer replied. “But she crossed the median and was heading east with her dash light going.”
“Goddammit, Beebee…” Ben sighed then spoke up. “Get on the radio and give your guys a description. Have ‘em pull ‘er over.”
“Isn’t she responding to…”
“Yeah, she is. That’s the problem. Just pull ‘er over and detain ‘er.” With that said, Ben pulled out his cell phone and started stabbing numbers as he mumbled, “Jeezus fuckin’ Christ…”
CHAPTER 31:
I reached down and checked the clasp on my safety belt, giving it a tug to make sure it was tight. I had lost count of how many times I had made the inspection by feel since we left the rest area, but I was betting this wouldn’t be the last time by a long shot. I knew I shouldn’t be so nervous. After all, I had been on countless insane rides with Ben and his infamous “move it or lose it” attitude behind the wheel, but for some reason this one seemed worse than all the others combined.
My friend’s own magnetic bubble light was strobing atop the van, casting a flickering glow down onto the dash as we sped along the highway. A slice of cold air was whistling in through an ultra thin gap along the edge of the driver’s side window caused by the emergency beacon’s coiled wire, which was threaded through to the accessory plug powering it.
Thus far, I hadn’t been brave enough to glance in the direction of the dimly lit speedometer. It was bad enough that we were whipping by cars so fast that they appeared as little more than blurred lights rocketing past us in reverse. I feared that knowing where the needle was actually hovering would just be too much for me to take right now.
The siren Ben had mounted behind the grill of the vehicle was warbling, burping, and vomiting a string of randomized alert tones to help clear the way, but it soon became obvious that some people simply didn’t listen. Every now and then the van would sway violently as he would be forced to steer around a car whose driver wasn’t paying attention and therefore hadn’t bothered to move to the right. As usual, each time it happened the blaring siren was joined by an angry string of verbiage from my friend, aimed squarely at the receding headlights reflected in the rear view mirror.
I turned in the seat as best I could and glanced back over my shoulder at Felicity. She was braced in her own seat with one hand gripping the armrest, while the other was hooked tightly to the shoulder harness across her chest in a white knuckled hold. She was known to have a heavy foot herself, but this was obviously excessive, even by her standards. She stared back at me, eyes wide, and all I could do was shake my head.
When I turned back around, I saw that we were topping a low hill, and the brightly lit casino on the Saint Charles riverfront was looming in front of us on the left. The aircraft anti-collision lights ringing the roof of the tall structure winked on then off in a rapid cadence, but we were moving so fast that the top of the building disappeared from view before I could see more than two cycles of the warning flash.
The Fifth Street exit had been coming up when I turned around to face forward but was now already long behind us as we rushed along the outer lane of Highway 70 toward the Blanchette Bridge. I shot a quick glance at my watch. In a little over twenty minutes, we had already covered a distance that at normal speeds would have taken better than a half hour.
With Ben’s attention focused on keeping the van on all four wheels-although I wasn’t convinced we had stayed that way the entire time-conversation between the three of us had been non-existent. I wasn’t about to distract him with chatter, idle or otherwise. Unless it was earth shattering and I felt he desperately needed to know, I was keeping my mouth shut. Felicity’s silence told me that she had either adopted the same attitude or was simply too frightened to speak.
We had just blown beneath the first overhead girder of the eastbound bridge when Ben’s cell phone began to ring. My heart jumped into my throat as he swerved around yet another oblivious driver, while at the same time fumbling for the warbling device. After barking an angry slur at the vehicular obstacle, he flipped open the cell and pressed it against his ear.
“Storm… Yeah… Yeah… Dammit! Any sign of ‘er yet? Jeezus… No, nothin’ here… Yeah, but she had a good ten minutes on us, so she could show up at any minute. Better keep an eye out… Yeah… Good deal… What? Yeah, we’re just crossin’ the river now. If the idiots’ll stay the fuck outta my way, we should be there in ten, fifteen tops. Yeah… See ya’.”
Folding the phone shut with a flick of his thumb, he shoved it back into his pocket then grabbed the steering wheel. I felt better now that he was guiding the van with both hands instead of just one-but, only slightly better.
“Hubcap chasers didn’t find Beebee,” he said, casting a quick glance at me before returning his attention to the road.
“I pretty much gathered that from your reaction,” I replied, breaking my self-imposed reticence with more than a little internal trepidation.
He huffed out a heavy breath. “Shit… Guess I can’t really blame ‘er. I’d prob’ly do the same if it was my kid. Know what I mean?”
“Knowing you, probably,” I agreed. Obviously he expected an answer, so I had little choice but to talk. Since we were still traveling in a straight line, I went ahead and asked, “By the way, did you know about that little secret?”
“Hell no.” He gave his head a slight shake to punctuate the response even more. “I was told she was a niece. But, lemme tell ya’, I’m bettin’ somebody up on high knew about it.”
“It kind of explains something I was wondering about,” I offered. “I wasn’t quite sure how she reconciled her particular set of strict values with a niece who was involved in the whole vampire scene-and apparently bisexual at the very least. That didn’t really seem to fit with her holier-than-thou attitude.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Extended family is one thing. But your own kid is somethin’ completely different. Ya’ love ‘em no matter how much you think they’re fuckin’ up.”
“Yeah…” I replied. “I suppose that might explain why she claimed she was her niece, too. Some part of her still had to spare herself the perceived embarrassment.”
After a brief pause Ben shot another quick glance my way and asked, “So, you two doin’ okay? Both of ya’ been pretty quiet.”
“As well as can be expected.”
“What about you, Firehair?”
“The same,” she replied, her voice pitched slightly higher than usual.
“You havin’ a Twilight Zone moment or somethin’?”
“No. Just a fear of low altitude flight.”
“Of what? Oh… you mean… Jeez, c’mon, my drivin’ ain’t that bad. I don’t hear Firehair complainin’.” On the heels of the comment, he jerked the van to the right then quickly back to the left while growling, “Fuckin’ assholes.”
Felicity yelped in time with the maneuver then a few seconds later sighed and said, “Yes, Ben, it is that bad.”
He shot a look over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, that’s just how it is sometimes.”
“Please keep your eyes on the road then,” she appealed. “I’m not ready to die just yet.”
“Gimme a break.”
“Just keep your eyes on the road, please?” she appealed.
“Relax. I know what I’m doin’.”
I heard my wife quietly mutter, “Gods, I hope so.”
“So anyway,” Ben reverted back to his original train of th
ought without ceremony. “No Albright yet, but you can bet that’s where she’s headed. As far as the house itself goes, the Overmoor coppers are pretty sure they saw a light go on then back off through one of the basement windows.”
“That’s where the killer was in the vision,” I acknowledged. “The basement.”
Ben snorted. “So, were ya’ plannin’ ta’ tell anyone about that part?”
“Sorry. But, I had enough trouble convincing you about the address as it was, don’t you think?”
“So you’re blamin’ me?”
“The situation, mostly. But, yeah, maybe just a little.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he replied in a dismissive tone. “So you pick up on anything else we should know?”
“The vision was a bit disjointed, and some of the imagery was classic la-la land, as you call it. But, if I’m remembering correctly, just beyond the front door is what appeared to be a living room…”
He interrupted. “You got a floor plan?”
“Some,” I answered. “Not all.”
“Hold on,” he snapped.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell and flipped it open once again. With a quick stab he hit redial and then speaker. The phone beeped then trilled briefly. On the second ring it was answered.
“Sergeant Madden,” a woman’s voice said.
“Sergeant Madden, it’s Detective Storm, you got anyone from SWAT handy?”
“Yeah, just a second…”
There was a brief pause, and we could hear a mix of voices, then someone else came on the line.
“This is Lieutenant Penczak.”
“Lieutenant, Detective Storm, Major Case. I think I might have a partial floor plan on the house for ya’.”
“I’ll take it,” the man replied.
“I’m handin’ ya’ over ta’ Rowan Gant,” Ben told him then thrust the phone at me.
I took it from him quickly out of an attack of self-preservation since he was already paying more attention to it than the road. As I grabbed the phone I stabbed my finger toward the windshield and shook it. My friend just rolled his eyes but returned his focus on the blurred white lines in front of us.
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