The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  “Let’s give her what she wants,” I muttered.

  “HELL No!” Ben stood and thrust his hand at me as he made the exclamation. “You just forget that shit right now! Hear me?”

  “Look, Ben.” I focused on him with as much intensity as I could muster. “This sonofabitch is playing this out like some kind of contrived, low-budget movie. He’s going to torture and probably kill an innocent woman just to get me out in the open. I can’t let him do that.”

  “We don’t plan to,” he shot back.

  “You can’t stop him.” I shook my head. “He is going to keep killing until he gets to me.”

  “You don’t know that we won’t get him, Row,” Ben said.

  “Oh yes I do,” I nodded and spoke with absolute certainty.

  “You wanna tell me how?”

  I just stared at him. The silence in the room grew thick and charged with a frightening energy that made my skin prickle.

  “Dammit, Rowan, stop this crap. Just get in there and talk to your wife.”

  “I can’t yet,” I said with a disconcerting calm.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because that’s him now.”

  Ben shook his head and gazed back at me with confusion creasing his forehead. “Him now what?”

  The startling ring of the telephone answered the question for me.

  CHAPTER 24:

  Ben followed me all the way into the kitchenette, spouting instructions as he made himself my shadow. “If it is him, then don’t explode on ‘im, Row. You’ve gotta keep the bastard talkin’ until we pin him down.”

  “I know, Ben,” I returned.

  “I’m serious, white man,” he said as he continued to reinforce the mandate. “After this afternoon, I can easily see you losin’ it here. You gotta keep your temper under control.”

  I rounded the corner of the doorway and turned, placing my hand on the telephone as I stared wordlessly back at my friend. On the fourth ring, I lifted the receiver and placed it against my ear, then spat, “What the hell do you want this time, Eldon?”

  Ben moved his head through a frustrated gyration as he grimaced, closing his eyes and then opening them again as he came back to face me. He settled his stare on me with a thin-lipped frown cutting a deep gash beneath his angular nose.

  I continued to watch him as he held the obvious question in his eyes.

  “So you ARE going to answer the phone, Gant.” Porter’s voice poured out of the speaker, blended throughout with self-righteous arrogance. “I was beginning to wonder if you had run back to Hell where you belong.”

  I gave my friend a quick nod in the affirmative to his visual query.

  “Without you?” I asked into the handset, my tone a fountain of dark sarcasm. “Never crossed my mind. I want to make sure you don’t miss it.”

  He actually chuckled, something I hadn’t expected. The very sound of his voice was already sickening to me, but the theatrical measure of forced laughter made me want to turn and vomit in the sink.

  “Well, Gant,” he replied. “When I am finally called by the Lord, unlike you, I will have the pleasure of living in his divine presence.”

  “Yeah, well, we will have to see about that,” I snarled. “So while I’ve got you on the phone, why don’t you answer something for me.”

  “She’s still alive,” he returned. “For now.”

  “Slow down, Eldon. That wasn’t even the question.”

  “Really?” He seemed almost surprised. “Okay. I’ll play along. What did you want?”

  I watched Ben carefully as I spoke. “You see, what I want to know is this: If I’m such a big, bad minion of Satan like you say I am, then what exactly makes you think that I am going to give a damn about some insignificant woman’s life?”

  My friend’s eyes widened, and he glared at me as he made a grab for the phone. I had anticipated the reaction and easily ducked his hand as I stepped backwards.

  “You see, I should expect you to say something like that. It’s exactly what Satan would say. But, it’s not her life that I think you are worried about,” he replied with undaunted surety in his words.

  “Sounded that way to me,” I prodded. “Maybe you should explain it to me so I understand.”

  The fact that I still had Porter on the line appeased Ben for the moment, and he started to calm even though he still kept a suspicious eye cast in my direction.

  Porter chuckled again. “Be serious, Gant. We both know that it’s her soul you want.”

  “You think that’s what it is?” I asked.

  “Of course. Tempting the weak is what you do—corrupting their souls and recruiting them into Satan’s army. This is what keeps you in his good graces. If you can’t succeed then you will fall from favor with Satan.”

  “What? You actually think that I am recruiting a satanic army?” I returned. “You’re crazier than I thought you were, Eldon.”

  “So you are admitting your allegiance to Satan, then.”

  “No. I don’t even believe Satan exists, Eldon. Not that you are going to believe me, no matter what I say.”

  The speaker on the telephone issued a forlorn plink then shifted into the hollow thrum of a disconnected line. I stepped forward and dropped it carefully into the wall cradle.

  “He says that Millicent Sullivan is still alive,” I said as I leveled my gaze on my stoic friend.

  “He hang up?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah,” I returned.

  “Row, I asked you not to go ape-shit on the SOB,” he began to admonish.

  “He didn’t hang up because of anything I said, Ben,” I told him. “And he’s going to call back any minute.”

  “That’s not exactly what I mean,” he said. “Hold on a sec.” He frowned hard then turned away from me and called back into the living room. “You get anything, Mandalay?”

  “He was using the Sullivan woman’s phone,” her voice echoed back to us. “They’re tracking the… What?… Hold on for a second Storm… Okay, go ahead…”

  She shifted attention back to the conversation on her cell phone once again.

  Ben twisted his head back to me, “Listen, Row, you’ve got to calm down. If you antagonize the sonofabitch, he just might kill the woman.”

  I shook my head. “No. Not yet.”

  “How can you be sure of that?” He cocked his head to the side as he looked back at me. “This ‘effin wingnut is just about as off kilter as you can get. You don’t know what he’s gonna do.”

  “I won’t dispute the first part,” I told him. “But the fact that she’s still alive tells me that she is his bargaining chip. He’s got my attention, so now he’s going to use her to get me out in the open.”

  “How do you know she really is still alive?” he pressed.

  “Because he would have gloated about it if she wasn’t.”

  “I dunno about this, white man. You’d better hope you’re right.”

  “We’ve got him crossing between two cells,” Mandalay’s voice came from almost immediately behind Ben.

  My friend stepped to the side and turned to look at her. “Where?”

  “Near Interstate Two-Seventy and Highway Forty,” she answered.

  “Troop C headquarters is just west of there off of Forty.” Ben referred to the highway patrol.

  She nodded briskly. “The field office has already notified MHP and County. I was just getting ready to call in to the Major Case Squad and let them know what’s going on.”

  “Good deal.” Ben reached up to his neck but caught himself. Judging by the look on his face, he apparently managed to do so just before flexing his hand enough to bring on any real pain. He dropped his hand back down and continued. “Maybe we can put an end to this whole thing right here and now.”

  “It’s not going to be that easy,” I told him as I shook my head.

  He held up his hand to stop me and then huffed out a breath as he stared at my face. He was looking for something in my expression but wasn’t finding it
. “Look, Row,” he said. “Do you think that maybe you just might be wrong this time?”

  “You have no idea how much I’d like to be,” I retorted. “It’s not like…”

  My sentence was truncated by the telephone pealing for attention once again. I snatched up the handset and brought it to my ear.

  “What took you so long, Eldon?” I chided. “I was beginning to think you’d lost my number.”

  “I am her absolution, Gant,” he said in a measured cadence, but this time his voice held more distraction than arrogance. “And you will be witness when she is released from her darkness and given unto the glory of God Almighty.”

  “Let me talk to her,” I demanded.

  He continued, ignoring my assertion. “You will know when it is time. Vengeance is mine.”

  Flat resonance issued from the speaker for yet another time as the connection was unceremoniously ended.

  I took in a deep breath and let it go in a heavy rush as my shoulders dropped. I rested the handset back onto the hook and looked up at Ben and Constance.

  “Well?” Ben appealed.

  “He wants me to see him kill her,” I answered.

  “Jeezus…” my friend muttered. “He give you a place or somethin’?”

  I shook my head. “No. He sounded a little preoccupied. I think he knows he was on the line too long the first time around.”

  “He’s probably going to try getting off the main roads then,” Mandalay offered as she began stabbing at the buttons on her cell phone.

  I could feel the icy breath of the Dark Mother on the back of my neck, and I shivered inwardly. She was waiting in the wings for someone, and I had a bad feeling that the someone just might be me. There was simply no way that this was going to play out well.

  Ben stared at me and furrowed his brow. “I know that look, Kemosabe. Whaddaya got chewin’ on ya’ now?”

  “Nothing,” I replied in an absent tone.

  “You’re lyin’, Row.”

  “Am I under oath all of a sudden?”

  “Awww, man, Row…” he started.

  I moved past him with deliberate purpose. “I need to go talk to Felicity.”

  * * * * *

  “Hey.” I offered the word softly as I pressed my back against the door and felt it click shut.

  It was quiet in the room. My wife was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over, with her arms encircling a pillow. Her back was to me, and I could hear her sniffling. Either she was still crying, or she had only recently stopped.

  The only light in the room came from a reading lamp on the book table to one side of the bed. It cast a soft luminescence across the dark blue comforter, then dissipated, leaving Felicity in the muddy shadows just beyond its reach.

  I waited for a long stretch and received no response.

  “Do I need a white flag?” I finally asked.

  I watched as she slowly moved, releasing her grip on the pillow and setting it aside. Her dainty hands slipped upward and pushed her mane of spiraling auburn back from her face. She continued to the back of her head, where she gathered it with a twist and pulled it into a fiery fall over her left shoulder then began to fiddle with it absently. The pale skin of her now exposed neck seemed to glow in the semi-darkness.

  “Aye, it was him again, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice almost a hoarse whisper. “On the phone?”

  “Yes,” I answered, keeping my own voice low for fear of shattering the tenuous calm in the room. “It was him.”

  “Is Star dead?” she asked, the words catching in her throat.

  I noticed after a moment that I was shaking my head even though she couldn’t see me; I verbalized the answer. “No. She’s still alive.”

  Silence filled the space between us and thickened as each second passed. The energy in the room was a chaotic mix of anger, sadness, fear, and resolve. It assaulted me on every level, igniting my nerve endings with cold fire. The physical atmosphere was warm—too warm—but I still fought off an overwhelming need to shudder as I pushed away from the door and stepped farther into the room.

  “We need to talk about all of this, honey,” I said.

  She still hadn’t turned to face me, but I could see her head bob in the shadows as she spoke. “Aye, we do.”

  I pressed on. “Star is still alive, for now, but he does intend to kill her.”

  “This shouldn’t be happening,” she muttered

  “I know,” I said. “Believe me, I wish it wasn’t.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “No, honey,” I objected. “There’s no need for you to…”

  “Dammit, Rowan,” she half demanded, half pleaded. “Don’t leave me out. The bastard called me this afternoon.”

  “Ben told me,” I acknowledged. “I was going to talk to you about that later.”

  “He’s sick, Rowan.”

  “I know that.”

  Another lull slipped through the room. I heard her take in a cleansing breath and watched the shadows as her shoulders moved upward then slowly fell when she exhaled. She pulled her hair upward and began working it into a loose pile on her crown.

  “So what did he say to you?”

  “Honey…”

  Insistence permeated her voice. “What did he say, Rowan?”

  I lowered my head in resignation. “He said that he was her absolution.”

  “What else?”

  I sighed and moved another step toward the bed. “He said that I would be a witness to her release.” I left out the “vengeance is mine” comment.

  “So you are going to go save her, then” came her flat reply.

  “I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try.”

  “You could let the police handle it now.” There was a narrow thread of hope woven through her voice.

  “I will. If they can…” I let my words trail off.

  She turned slightly, twisting her body and glancing over her shoulder. As she repositioned herself, she moved partially into the light. My eyes were finally adjusting, and I could see that her cheeks were flushed. Her smooth skin glistened with the dampness of her tears, and she reached up to wipe her eyes.

  “Aye, you think they can’t?”

  “It doesn’t feel very good,” I offered.

  “Aye, so you will sacrifice yourself for her, won’t you?”

  “It’s not my intention.”

  “But you will if you have to.” She offered the comment as a statement of fact and then paused before finally asking, “Won’t you?”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Aye, what about me?”

  “You’ll be safe,” I said softly. “Mandalay will be here with you.”

  “That’s not what I mean, then, Rowan!” She turned farther into the light and glared at me sharply. “What of me? Why are you so willing to leave me alone? Don’t you love me anymore?”

  “Felicity!” I was stunned. “How can you even think that? Of course I love you. More than anything, you know that.”

  “Why do you want to leave me then?”

  I moved forward and took a seat next to her on the bed. She leaned into me as I slipped my arm around her and pulled her close.

  “Honey.” I tried to soothe her. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Aye, but you will,” she said. “If you die…”

  I didn’t want to lie to her, but I didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility either. I had nowhere to redirect the conversation, and I was beginning to share her pain.

  “I have to do whatever I can to keep you safe,” I finally said. “That is what this is about. I love you. I will always love you. No matter what.”

  She moved her head against me as she slowly shook it. “Aye, I am not ready to be without you.”

  “I’m not ready to leave,” I told her.

  “But you will…”

  “If that is what it takes to keep you safe,” I said. “Then, yes, I will.”

  “Do you really think that he wo
uld try to come here?”

  “If he can’t get me out in the open, yes I do. And I can’t allow that to happen.”

  A siren sounded outside, muted by the walls, but audible all the same. I gave her a reassuring squeeze before standing up and moving to the window. I cautiously pulled back the heavy drapes and peered out through the hole then down across the parking lot. I watched the emergency lights of a squad car flickering in chaotic strobes as the vehicle accelerated down the street. The lights disappeared, and the wailing siren slowly faded in the distance. I allowed the insulated fabric to fall shut, and I turned back to face Felicity.

  “You don’t have to do this, then,” she insisted, her Irish brogue thick from her ongoing distress.

  “Yes I do,” I answered, feeling a strange calm at the decision.

  Her nervous fidgeting had been completed, and her spiraling curls now sat atop her head in a loose Gibson-girl. Her green eyes flashed wetly in the dim light as concern deepened the lines in her face. She’d run the gamut—anger, guilt, all of it. The tone in her voice brought everything back around to demands once again.

  “What did Ben say,” she contended as if the answer would somehow make a difference.

  “The same thing you just said,” I replied.

  I took a deep breath as I ran my hand across the lower half of my face, brushing my bearded chin. I winced as my fingers grazed a still-healing wound on my upper lip—a leftover from my stunt with Ben’s van.

  Felicity took on a pleading tone as she gazed at me, “Then why are you doing it?”

  “Because we can’t keep living like this,” I answered. “Because I want us to have our lives back.”

  “How can we have our lives back if you get yourself killed?”

  I wasn’t sure if the next words out of my mouth were the truth or a lie. I spoke them anyway. “I’m not going to get myself killed.”

  Tears were once again rolling across my wife’s cheeks, and her voice cracked as she trembled. “Damn your eyes, Rowan Linden Gant, you’d better not, then. Aye, you’d better not.”

  CHAPTER 25:

  “Stay right there” were the first words to issue from Ben’s mouth as I walked out of the bedroom.