The Law Of Three argi-4

by M. R. Sellars

  “Ben asked you to come here for my sake, didn’t he?” I asked.

  My matter-of-fact tone didn’t faze her. “Of course, Rowan, but you knew that already.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “I am certainly willing to be here for all of your friends as well,” she added.

  “I’m sure they would appreciate that.”

  “Under the circumstances, however, you are the primary concern.”

  “I’m okay,” I told her.

  “I am certain that you are,” she replied. “However, I sense that you have concerns of your own.”

  “Don’t we all?” I asked the question in an easy, rhetorical sense. I wasn’t looking to be difficult, and I didn’t want to come across to her that way.

  “Of course,” she answered in her own comfortable tone. “Your concerns, however, are far less… shall we say ‘mundane’, than most.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Guess so.”

  “Benjamin told me you had some type of seizure earlier.”

  “You could call it that.”

  “Do you think that it was something else?”

  I looked over at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Your comment.” She shrugged. “It implies that you think of the episode as something other than a seizure.”

  “Oh, that.” I nodded then shrugged. “I’m not really sure what it was. I know it wasn’t very pleasant, but other than that…” I allowed my voice to trail off as I pondered the event.

  “Do you feel that it might have something to do with Eldon Porter?” she asked.

  “Maybe.”

  She shuffled for a moment and then looked up at the grey sky. “I love snow. It carries with it such a simple purity.”

  “It’s frozen water crystallized around any number of impurities it picks up in our polluted atmosphere.” I stated the fact. “Not sure how that qualifies in the purity department.”

  She regarded me with a slight chuckle. “I see that you are not in the mood for philosophical metaphors today, Rowan.”

  “Guess not.”

  She nodded as she fished out a fresh cigarette and lit it from the smoldering butt of the first. After discarding the spent smoke in the sand bucket, she cocked her head to the side and watched me for a moment.

  “How has Felicity been holding up?” she finally asked, shedding her initially adopted clinical air.

  “Okay I guess. But, you probably know more about that than me.”

  I based my observation on the fact that my wife had recently taken advantage of Helen’s offer of therapy in the wake of the kidnapping and attempted rape she’d experienced.

  She clarified the question. “I meant in light of what has happened today.”

  “She’s frightened,” I offered with a shrug. “Natural reaction if you ask me.”

  “I should think so.” She nodded. “Porter’s threats are coming on the heels of a very traumatic experience for her. She is feeling terribly vulnerable right now.”

  “How deep does that vulnerability go is the question,” I said aloud.

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess I’m lamenting my own feelings.”

  “Would you like to share those feelings, Rowan?”

  “Like? No. But, to be honest, standing here talking with you, I have to say that I feel compelled to, yes.”

  She let out a small, musical laugh. “Compelled? Oh my, Rowan, I truly wish that all of my patients were as easy to work with as you.”

  “You mean you don’t have this effect on everyone?” I smiled.

  “Believe me, my life would be much easier if I did,” she returned.

  “Probably be boring though,” I offered.

  “Perhaps, however, you are certainly not boring in any sense of the word, Mister Gant.” She puffed on her cigarette and watched the large woodpecker as it continued drilling away at the suet cake. “So, you were saying?”

  Her casual attitude had put me at ease as usual, and suddenly my emotional baggage seemed much easier to unpack in front of her.

  “I can’t help but wonder if part of the vulnerability she is feeling might stem from a lack of confidence in my ability to protect her.” I offered the thought to her and waited patiently for her analysis. The wait was short.

  “What is it that would lead you to believe such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Just a feeling.”

  “Is it really a feeling, or is it something you have conjured in your imagination?”

  “Full of questions today, aren’t you?”

  “It is my job, Rowan,” she returned with a smile and cocked her head to the side. “Now, do you happen to have answers for my questions?”

  I raised an eyebrow as I looked back at her. “I get the impression that I do whether I know it or not.”

  “You catch on fast.”

  “I can probably find a few people who would dispute that,” I returned with a grin.

  “We all have our critics,” she answered then brought her free hand up and began tapping her index finger against her pursed lips as she deepened a crease in her brow. After a moment, she spoke again. “I am confident that I would not be breaking a doctor-patient trust by telling you that your feeling is incorrect. Felicity has no lack of confidence in your ability to protect her.”

  I sighed heavily as I weighed the information I’d just been given. “I’m sure that should make me feel better, but unfortunately it doesn’t.”

  “Why do you think that is, Rowan?”

  “I suspect that the logical answer would be that I am the one who lacks the confidence.”

  “That would be the logical answer, yes.”

  “But not the correct answer?” I asked.

  “I am certain that it is a part of it, Rowan, but I believe we both know that it goes somewhat deeper than that.”

  “Okay. How about, I’m afraid?” I said simply.

  “What is it that you fear, Rowan?”

  “It isn’t obvious?”

  “Why don’t you tell me? Is it so obvious?”

  “Well, I think it is,” I shrugged as I spoke. “I’m afraid of Porter.”

  “Are you really?”

  Again, I raised an eyebrow and regarded her silently for a moment. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m afraid of him. I mean, the bastard is out to kill me, and he doesn’t seem interested in giving up on the idea.”

  “I am not so certain that you are being honest with yourself, Rowan.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite.”

  She drew her lips into a thin frown for a moment, her expression telling me that she was obviously in search of the words to express what was on her mind. It didn’t take her long to track them down.

  “As I recall, you are the man who purposely drove a van through a set of plate glass windows, climbed injured from the wrecked vehicle, and then headed straight into a situation where you could have been ambushed by a killer.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It does not sound like the action of a fearful man to me.”

  “No,” I agreed. “It was the action of a desperate man. The son-of-a-bitch had kidnapped my wife.”

  “All right, perhaps that was not the best example for you. How about this…Do you remember a conversation we had a few weeks ago, Rowan, when I asked you why you had chased Eldon Porter out onto that bridge by yourself instead of immediately calling the police?”

  “You mean the conversation where you refused to tell me why YOU thought I did it?” I asked with good-natured sarcasm in my voice. “Vaguely.”

  Helen smiled back at me. “You have been thinking about it then.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Have you reached any conclusions?”

  “You mean other than the fact that it was a stupid move on my part?”

  “I would not necessarily call it a stupid move, Rowan. You were ill prepared, perhaps, but not stupid. That is,
however, a matter of opinion.”

  “I’d have to say that you are in the minority with that opinion,” I told her.

  “Be that as it may, you still have not answered my question.”

  I huffed out a breath and brought my cigar up to my lips but hesitated without taking a puff. Instead, I watched the feathery snow as it threw itself against the ground in gathering clumps, quickly overcoming the landscape with its whiteness.

  “I’ve heard a rumor that I did it because I have a ‘heroing complex’ and that I’m suicidal,” I finally responded.

  “That would be a pseudo-scientific term coined by an amateur psychiatrist, I assume?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one with the sheepskin.”

  “Let me ask you this. When you have placed yourself in harm’s way, have you done so in order to seek glory and recognition?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to die?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Then, were I you, I would ignore that diagnosis.”

  “I’ll give it a try.”

  “Good. Now, you are still not answering my question, Rowan,” she pressed with gentle firmness. “What I want to know are the conclusions YOU have reached about why you did it.”

  “I’m not sure that I have, Helen,” I told her then took a long drag on the cigar and rolled the smoke around in my mouth. I still wasn’t enjoying it.

  She sighed heavily and then joined me in silently watching the forming snowscape. This sudden inconsistency in her otherwise calm demeanor was probably the closest to impatience I’d ever seen in her. Still, her annoyance didn’t seem to be directly with me although I am sure I played some role in it. What I felt from her was that she was struggling with a decision that on an everyday basis she would have easily snubbed out of principle. After a full measure of heartbeats, she spoke again.

  “The situation you currently face has placed an unfair imperative upon you, Rowan. Normally, I would feel it best to continue guiding you along your path until you reach a logical resolution. However, I fear that in this case I may need to take a more active role, and because of these extraordinary circumstances, I am going to break one of my own rules.”

  “You’re going to tell me I’m a fruitcake?” I looked back at her with a smile as I cracked the joke.

  She ignored my thin attempt at levity and locked her eyes with mine in a coldly serious gaze. “You are not afraid of Eldon Porter, Rowan. You are afraid of yourself.”

  CHAPTER 13:

  I blinked.

  I thought about what she had just said, and then I blinked again.

  “I’m afraid of myself?” I repeated the comment back to her as a question.

  “Yes, Rowan. You fear yourself. You harbor a deep-seated fear of the things you are capable of doing.”

  “You mean the nightmares? The channeling? That stuff?”

  “That is a part of it, yes,” she explained. “But in reality, those are simply talents you possess which fuel your turmoil.”

  “I’ll admit the nightmares tend to be pretty scary, but…”

  “No, Rowan,” she interrupted. “Open your eyes and see beyond the surface. You recently told me that you felt as though you were on the inside looking out but could see only darkness, did you not?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I remember something like that, and as I recall, you told me to use that darkness as a mirror.”

  “Yes.” She smiled and gave me a curt nod to the affirmative. “Now what I want you to do is look into the reflection, not merely at it. For you, understanding lies within the depths of the image.”

  I tilted my head forward and removed my glasses then rubbed my eyes for a moment before sliding the spectacles back onto my face and returning my gaze to her. “Helen, your wisdom is starting to sound like the mystical advice of a little, green swamp creature from the sci-fi movies we all know and love.”

  “Really? I rather saw myself more as a drifting Shao-Lin monk.” She allowed herself a small chuckle as she made the reference to the old television show.

  I continued with the theme. “So, should I pluck the pebble from your hand now?”

  She returned a brief smile then in almost the same instant fixed me with a hardcore seriousness in her eyes as she gazed at my face.

  “Levity aside, Rowan, you should heed what I am telling you, for I cannot give you the full answer. With only a very few exceptions, I can merely guide you. In this case, guiding has become a bit of a shove, yes, but I dare not do anything more lest you lose sight of that which you need to see.”

  “So, what you are saying is that I still have to learn the lesson the hard way.”

  “If you are to learn it and not simply hear it, yes.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “I’ll buy that. But what if I’ve already learned the lesson, and you just think I haven’t?”

  “All right, then.” She looked back at me with an even gaze. “Enlighten me, Rowan.”

  I blurted out my conclusion, “You think I’m afraid that I might be capable of killing Eldon Porter.”

  “Do I?”

  I halfway expected her non-committal response. “Yes.”

  “Then I believe you have missed my point entirely.”

  My overblown confidence in the statement was immediately deflated. “Excuse me?”

  She shook her head. “Like I have told you before, Rowan, it is not about what I think. It is what YOU think that is important.”

  “Okay.” I played along, couching the comment differently in an attempt to regain my position. “Then, I’m afraid that, given the opportunity, I might kill Porter.”

  “Are you?”

  I tilted my head and endeavored to take a puff on my cigar, only to find that it had gone out. “You were supposed to say, ‘Correct, Rowan, now pass go and here is your two hundred dollars.’”

  “That prize is not going to come from me, Rowan. It is an epiphany that will come from inside of you.”

  “Helen, you’re making my head hurt.”

  She smiled and chuckled once again. “I am sure that this is not the first time I have done so, Rowan, and I suspect that it will not be the last.”

  “Thanks.” Sincerity permeated my voice.

  Helen finished lighting a fresh cigarette and allowed herself a deep drag then exhaled before looking out across the yard and answering me. “For what, Rowan?”

  “For putting up with my hard-headedness, I guess.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  I rummaged about in my pocket for a lighter and then knocked the dead ash from the end of my cigar. I turned my back to the wind and shielded the end of the smoke as I brought fire to it once again, twisting it carefully to keep the ember even. While I stuffed the lighter back into my pocket, I turned the stogie around and gazed at the glowing coal as I blew on it, inspecting for runs. Satisfied, I tucked it back in the corner of my mouth and puffed as I leaned forward on the deck railing.

  “So, back to Felicity,” I finally said. “She’s seemed kind of edgy-even before she was kidnapped, I mean. You’re sure she feels safe?”

  “I never said that your wife feels safe, Rowan,” she answered in a no-nonsense tone. “I said that she does not lack confidence in your ability to protect her.”

  “Okay, call me dense, but I don’t see what the difference is.”

  “She has her own fear, Rowan.”

  “Has she been any better at recognizing hers than I am at mine?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, she has.”

  “Any chance you could share?”

  “No, Rowan. That is something for her to express if she is to come to terms with it herself.”

  “You do know that she’s a Taurus, right?”

  “Then I suspect that when she decides to express her feelings, you will be hard pressed to miss her point.”

  I nodded as I stared out into the falling snow. “Yeah, but will I end up impaled on it is the question.”

  *****

/>   “I thought Albright took you off this case?” I asked Ben, keeping my voice low.

  My friend had just finished telling me that he’d been in touch with the officers searching the area where the phone call from Porter had originated. Unfortunately, they were coming up empty; of course, I had expected that to be the case.

  “Yes and no,” he answered, keeping his voice hushed as well. “I’m not involved in the investigation, but I just got officially assigned to you and Firehair.”

  We were standing in the kitchen, both of us working on steaming mugs of coffee. It was probably the best cup I’d had in a month and most certainly the best I’d had today: a rich, flavorful brew derived from freshly ground Kona beans with just a hint of cinnamon and hazelnut in the background. We owed this small pleasure to the fact that Nancy had always been the connoisseur of the drink within our group; therefore, her pantry was always fully stocked with the finer makings of java.

  “Bodyguard duty?” I asked before taking a sip of my drink.

  He nodded. “Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

  “So maybe she had a change of heart,” I offered. “She knows that we’re friends.”

  “Dream on, white man.” He shook his head and frowned as he spoke. “She wants ta’ make sure she can find us. It’s her way of keepin’ me under her thumb.”

  I nodded in understanding. “If you’re watching us then she knows where you are at all times.”

  “Where we ALL are,” he added. “‘Zactly.”

  I gave him a quick shrug. “Could be worse.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “At least this way I can keep my finger in without raisin’ too much suspicion.”

  “You know, Ben,” I began. “If your connection with me is going to screw up your career…”

  “Haven’t we talked about this before?” he interrupted.

  “I’m just saying…”

  He held up his hand and gave his head a quick shake. “Forget it. My career, my decision, end of story.”

  Looking past my friend for a moment, I watched as Felicity re-filled her own cup. She was standing in the pass-thru alcove between the kitchen and the dining room.