I dropped the phone four times before my unsteady hands managed to dial 9-1-1.
CHAPTER 26
I was sitting on the floor staring straight ahead with the handset of the phone still clasped tight in my hand when the first uniformed police officers arrived on the scene. I was in so much pain I couldn’t move. Emotional distress had transcended the boundaries of the physical, and I literally ached with despair. I could feel a hole deepening in my chest and spreading outward in a bid to consume me.
I was more than happy to let it.
I didn’t fight, didn’t struggle. I just sat and let the cold darkness eat away at my soul. Right now, this pain was all I had to cling to. It was the only feeling I had left.
I had no idea what I’d told the emergency operator. All I knew is that I could hear his voice issuing faintly from the earpiece. He was asking me something it seemed, although it was just so much gibberish in my mind. Whatever I’d said to him, it had to have been barely coherent but ultimately grievous, as the two officers entered through the back door with extreme caution and weapons drawn.
I continued to sit motionless, watching as they came toward me. They were speaking but their words made no more sense than the tinny ramblings of the 9-1-1 operator. It was obvious to me that until they’d fully assessed the situation, I was considered a possible threat.
I didn’t care.
At this moment-this horrifically drawn out and extended instant in all of time and space-my life meant absolutely nothing to me. If Felicity was gone then I had no desire to continue.
A brief spark of a thought glowed in the forefront of my brain. All I had to do was move. Make a threatening gesture. Act as though I was about to train a weapon on the officers and it could all be done. They could end this hollow pain for me.
Fortunately for me, I simply couldn’t make myself do it.
I just continued to sit and embrace the pain, letting it pool deeper and deeper, until finally, I was fully immersed in it.
Sinking.
Drowning.
Then the unexpected took place. The pain actually began to fade. Warming slowly from cold agony to hot anger. From the moment I laid eyes on that Bible, my life had taken on a completely surreal property. Everything I’d ever seen, everything I’d ever accomplished, everything I’d ever set out to do, no longer mattered to me in the least. The standard by which I had lived my life seemed like a cruel joke.
I had raced immediately into the blind desire to end my life, and while that was a prospect I’d not yet ruled out, it would have to wait. I was now climbing out of the hole. A desire for vengeance was upon me, and I was becoming driven.
I was going to find Eldon Porter, and now the Rede was no longer an option. Harm none, my ass; I was going to send him to meet his God in person.
*****
This wasn’t the first time my home had been a crime scene. I could only hope that it was going to be the last. CSU technicians assigned to the Major Case Squad were going over every inch of the house, including the garage and Felicity’s Jeep.
I could have stayed inside, but I simply couldn’t bear to watch them at work. Not when I recognized so many of them from working the Porter case earlier this year, and especially not when I considered that everyone knew what Porter had done to his victims.
No, not when I could look into their eyes and know exactly what they all were thinking.
I wandered out of the house and found myself standing outside the perimeter, smoking yet another cigarette in what had become one unending chain. Yellow and black crime scene tape cordoned off my yard, and I’d ducked under it to get to the sidewalk. I didn’t need the reminder, so I turned my back to it.
I’d already given a statement, but I knew the drill. They’d want to talk to me again. There was even a chance that those who didn’t know me might consider me a suspect.
I thought about that for a moment. I guess I’d better be prepared for it. It could very well present itself as an obstacle to my finding Porter and bringing about his end. Someone would set them straight, though, of that I was certain. I was, after all, up to my neck in the previous investigation, and it had been no secret that Porter had tried to kill me. It stood to reason that he would be trying to finish the job, and Felicity would make the perfect pawn.
I gave brief notice to the fact that I was standing outside on Christmas Eve, coldly calculating and planning to kill someone. I knew this should disturb me greatly, but it didn’t. It was a curious feeling, yes, but right now it was keeping me warm.
A quick glance around told me that there were still a few of my neighbors ogling the scene. I didn’t even waste time being angry about it. It wasn’t worth my time.
I heard a loud screech in the distance and turned toward the sound. Thirty yards up the street, Ben Storm’s van screamed around the corner and accelerated through the puddles of luminance cast by the streetlamps. The magnetic bubble of an emergency light flickered wildly on the corner of his roof and he locked up the brakes, sliding to a diagonal halt in front of the house. He was out of the Chevy and running toward me before the engine stopped knocking.
“Rowan, are ya’ okay?” He fired the question at me with genuine concern.
I stared back at him and didn’t utter a word. I took another drag on my cigarette and tried to find a reason not to hit him as hard as I could. Not that I believed I could inflict any damage, but I definitely felt like I wanted to try.
Deep down inside I suppose I knew that this wasn’t his fault, but right now I needed someone to blame. He had known Porter was alive and on the loose, but he’d kept it from me.
While I’d doubted right from the beginning Porter’s demise, that night on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, my friend hadn’t believed me. No matter what I’d said, he hadn’t been willing to give in to trust. And then, when I was finally proven correct, he’d hidden the fact from me. Whatever he claimed was his motivation for the secretiveness, at this moment it didn’t wash. It was unacceptable.
I continued to stare into his eyes, feeling my own expressionless face harden to a blank mask.
“Rowan? Talk ta’ me.” His voice held a pleading tone.
I quietly lit another cigarette from the one I’d just finished and then flicked the spent butt out into the street. I took a deep breath and shook my head.
“Where were they, Ben? Where the fuck were all those concerned people that were supposed to be watching after us when the sonofabitch came and took my wife?”
“Rowan…”
“Save it.” My voice was cold and sharp. I could tell that each word was cutting him deeply and I didn’t care. “You had a chance to stop this and you didn’t.”
“Row…”
“Go to hell, Ben,” I cut him off again. “Just fucking go to hell.”
I turned and walked away.
*****
“Benjamin is terribly concerned about you, Rowan.” Helen Storm spoke to me in a soothing voice.
She was direct and wasted no words; still, her tone had the ability to lull one into the fold of her confidence. I was glad that she was here, even if I didn’t show it.
I had been spiraling through the various emotional states one can experience at a time such as this. Disbelief, anger, fear, guilt… All of them rolled into a tense ball that I couldn’t escape. At the moment I was experiencing some form of defiant hostility that had arrived directly on the heels of an uncontrolled fit of sobbing.
“What about you, Helen?” I asked, my dull words forming a weak challenge. “Are you concerned about me too?”
We were seated on my deck, both of us holding lit cigarettes and staring into the darkness. Well, I was staring into the darkness; she could have been staring at me for all I knew. I didn’t bother to check. It was nearing 10 p.m.. Crime scene technicians were still finishing up around the interior of the house but had finally vacated the garage, so this one spot had become my safe haven for the time being. Out of sight, out of mind-if only that really worke
d.
A biting wind rose and fell in a serpentine arc around the corner of the house and dragged its icy claws across my face. I ignored it. I could hear Helen shift, and I glanced over as she pulled her heavy shawl tighter, but that was her only acknowledgement of the chill.
“Of course I am, Rowan,” she said.
“Humph,” I grunted. “There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.”
“You do understand,” she began and then paused for a brief second. I could tell from her silence that she was gingerly picking the words she was about to use. “There is every indication that your wife has not been harmed.”
“I don’t feel her, Helen,” I stated plainly. “If she was okay, I’d be able to feel her.”
“I am not so certain of that. You have been dealing with a severe emotional trauma, Rowan,” she offered. “I would be greatly surprised if you could feel anything at all in the sense to which you refer.”
Helen was correct. I couldn’t even feel her, and she was sitting right next to me. How could I expect to sense Felicity, wherever she was? The only thing I really felt was bitter hatred for Eldon Andrew Porter.
“So did Ben bring you over here to make sure I didn’t wig out?” I changed the subject.
“Benjamin asked me to come here with him because, as I said, he is very concerned about you.”
“He thinks I blame him for this, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does,” she answered. “You all but told him that yourself when we arrived.”
“I guess I do, in a way,” I sighed. “But not completely. Not irrevocably.”
“That is understandable, considering the circumstances. But be aware, Rowan, that he blames himself much more than you blame him. The judgment that my brother is exacting upon himself is a far higher price than you would ever dream of asking.”
“Are you asking me to feel sorry for him?”
“Not at all,” she confessed matter-of-factly. “I am simply showing you both sides of the coin.”
“How clinical of you,” I remarked with an underlying harshness in my voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be coddling me and telling me everything will be okay?”
“If I was dealing with someone else in this situation, perhaps. But not you… And not now. It would serve no purpose.”
“What? I don’t deserve a little coddling? My wife has been kidnapped and is probably dead,” I spat the comment almost angrily.
“What you deserve, and what you want are two vastly different things, Rowan. You know that,” she answered. “Besides, I have a feeling that your particular talents will be necessary to find her, so the time for coddling will have to come later.”
“You seem convinced that she’s still alive.”
“You should be too.”
“I want to be.” I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. “Gods, I want to be. But then at the same time, for her sake, I have to hope that she isn’t. I saw what he did to his other victims, Helen.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you?” I asked. “Because when I say that I saw what he did, I mean I saw what he did. I saw it… I felt it… I experienced it. To believe that he is doing those things to Felicity, now… That’s more than I can take.”
“Yes, Rowan, I understand that far better than you know.”
“Then you know why it’s hard for me to believe that Felicity is still alive.”
A healthy supply of anxious energy was crackling along every nerve in my body, and I found myself fidgeting almost constantly. I was unable to maintain a grip on myself for more than a few minutes at a time. This latest period of calm reached the end of its somewhat protracted cycle, and I angrily leapt from the chair.
“What the hell are they doing in there?” I exclaimed as I began to pace. “Shouldn’t they be out there looking for the sonofabitch?!”
“They are, Rowan,” Helen told me calmly. “You know that.”
“A few minutes,” I muttered. “If I’d only been here a few minutes sooner.”
“What would you have done had you been here?” she asked with a shake of her head.
“What would I have done?” I echoed the question back to her harshly. “I would have blown the sick bastard into next week.”
“Would you have?” she asked simply.
“I have a gun and I know how to use it,” I retorted. The words sounded sophomoric even as they tumbled out of my mouth.
“I do not doubt that, Rowan.” She tactfully ignored the childish bravado of my comment. “But neither the implement nor the skill to use it are what I am questioning. What I am curious about is your innate ability to take a life.”
“I shot him once,” I offered.
“Yes, you did,” she agreed. “But you shot him to wound, not to kill. Furthermore, you did so when your own life was literally hanging in the balance.”
“I assume you have a point here?” I contended.
She didn’t allow my adversarial posture to faze her. “My point is that when presented with the opportunity to kill this man, you did not. Furthermore, when you believed that there was some possibility that you may have been responsible for his death-however unintentional-emotionally, it brought you very close to the edge.”
“I never really believed he was dead. I made no secret of that,” I told her. “Besides, this is different.”
“Now it is,” she nodded in agreement. “But what if you had been here? Would he not have set his sights on you instead of Felicity? At least, initially?”
“I think that’s a given,” I responded with a shrug.
“Then you would simply have been repeating history,” she commented.
“So maybe I realized I made a mistake out there on that bridge,” I offered.
“Perhaps,” she returned. “But I do not believe that, and I am inclined to think that you do not either. You are a man of firm conviction, Rowan. The rede by which you have lived your life is more a part of you than you wish to admit.”
“Maybe it’s time for me to wake up,” I told her sadly. “Idealistic beliefs are for fools.”
“That would be a terrible loss, Rowan,” she offered. “Your ideals are a very large part of who you are. And I know that you do not truly believe that idealists are fools.”
Before I had a chance to formulate a retort, our conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone purposely clearing his throat. I looked over toward the door and saw Ben standing on the top step. The light cast at a downward angle across his face and his chiseled features were craggy with lines and shadows. He looked tired, and he looked very old. Helen was correct. He wasn’t taking this any better than I was.
“Ben.” I acknowledged his presence with a curt nod. I no longer wanted to hit him, but he wasn’t at the top of my list for chatting with either.
“Listen, Row, I know ya’ don’t wanna talk ta’ me right now, but this is important,” he began, smoothing his hair back and bringing his hand to rest on his neck. He was thinking hard.
“I will leave you two alone,” Helen offered, making a move to stand.
“No, stay,” I told her.
I needed her to be here. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, everyone was correct. I was very close to the edge, and I had no compunction about jumping. Right now she was the only one standing between me and the sudden stop at the end.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to keep the bark out of my voice.
“It doesn’t look like Porter has anything ta’ do with this.” He blurted out the words as if he could no longer contain them. “There’s some shit that just doesn’t add up.”
“Excuse me?” I stared back at him like he’d grown an extra head. “What are you talking about? Of course he did this!”
“Hear me out, Rowan.” He rushed the request out as quickly as he could and moved down the steps toward me. “The only thing that really pointed ta’ Porter to begin with was the Bible, and he ain’t the one who left it…”
“How do you know tha
t?” I demanded before he could continue.
“I made some calls,” he explained. “Everyone in Felicity’s charity group got one of those Bibles. They were gifts to ‘em from the kids at the children’s home they visited this afternoon.”
“W-W-What?” I stammered.
“Yeah,” he nodded as he spoke. “Everyone I talked to said Felicity didn’t have the heart not ta’ take it, ‘cause the kids were so excited about givin’ them somethin’. She’s the one who left it on the table, Row. Not Porter.”
“Okay, so then where the hell is she?!” I snarled the demand.
“I dunno yet, white man,” he returned. “But I’m gonna find ‘er.”
CHAPTER 27
Hope was ignited from a miniscule spark that set flame to a tiny candle somewhere deep inside me. Its glow was so incredibly faint so as to be almost beyond notice, but it was there-flickering defiantly into the face of the shadowy fear that threatened to extinguish it.
“It could still be Porter,” I announced.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Ben replied.
“Well I really doubt she just went for a walk,” I snapped. “Something obviously happened here.”
“Yeah, and we’re gonna find out what,” Ben told me. “Accordin’ to your monitoring service, the alarm was disabled usin’ Felicity’s code via the keypad in the kitchen at six-oh-seven p.m.”
“Then it had to have happened after she was already in,” I offered. “We have a duress code she would have used otherwise.”
My friend nodded agreement. “Figured as much. There wasn’t a trigger from the panic buttons either.”
“Then whoever took her must have been following her.”
“Maybe, but I’m workin’ a different angle. We’ve done a door to door. Nobody saw anything, but considerin’ what day it is, no big surprise there.”
“What about the people who were actually supposed to be watching the house?”
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