“You aren’t coming anywhere near my wife, you fucking bitch!” I growled.
I allowed myself to fall across the table as I brought both hands to bear on her. In a flash I had my left tangled into her hair, wrenching her head back as my right gripped her throat. I heard no sound coming from her as I dug my thumb into her windpipe, but she kept her eyes locked with mine. There was no mistaking the contented look they now held. The smug air only served to enrage me further, and I resolved to bring about her end, here and now.
My blindly stupid act, however, was terminated before I could follow through.
I heard shouting filtering in through the sound of blood rushing in my ears. It was faint but unmistakable. I felt my fingers being pried off Miranda’s thin neck, although there didn’t seem to be much sense of urgency behind her rescue. I suspect that given what she had done to his colleague, the corrections officer wasn’t overly concerned for her welfare. Eventually I heard a sharp gasp from Miranda as my grip was broken, but I saw no change in her expression. In fact, she didn’t even blink.
Several seconds later my left arm was twisted behind my back, then I was pulled backwards and restrained, even though my rational self had instantly kicked in and I was no longer struggling.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to end this interview, Mister Grant.” The voice belonged to Baker, the officer who had searched me prior to my entry into this room. He sounded almost apologetic.
I didn’t realize he had joined us until now, but it only took a quick glance for me to see that both he and Officer Bardwell were holding me back.
“Not yet,” Miranda said. “I’m not through with him.”
“It’s not your call, Devereaux,” he shot back, adopting a far more gruff tone with her than he had with me.
“Look, I’m sorry…” I stuttered.
“Yeah, me too,” he replied, softening again before grumbling. “But sometimes the job gets in the way.” Directing himself at the other guard with a jerk of his head, he ordered, “Bardwell, take Devereaux to the infirmary. I’ll take care of Mister Grant.”
I didn’t bother to correct him this time. I had far more serious matters to worry about than the massacre of my name. Of all the times I had found a way to screw up, if this one wasn’t the crowning jewel of them all, at the very least it definitely ranked among the top three. I simply stood there with my mouth shut. I knew there was nothing I could say to fix this, and unfortunately I didn’t believe in miracles.
A low warble sounded in the room, quickly increasing in volume. Officer Baker pulled a cell phone from his belt, glanced at the face of it, then muttered, “Hang on a sec there, Bardwell.”
The other corrections officer had just unlocked one of Miranda’s cuffs, so he clicked the restraint back into place and stepped back, keeping watch on the situation while he waited.
“This is Jeb,” Officer Baker said into the cell phone as he placed it against the side of his head. “Yeah… Yeah… I thought you might have…”
I looked away from him and centered my gaze on Miranda once again. She stared back at me with a satisfied smile perched on her lips. Her earlier grayish pallor was now flushed, a fact less obvious than the smile but still a visual cue that she was stimulated. Blood trickled from one corner of her mouth where my hand had made contact when I first threw myself at her, and a bright red welt was already forming on her neck.
She arched her eyebrow and then asked, “Feel better now, little man?”
“Not really,” I replied.
“I do.”
“I’m not surprised. You got what you wanted.”
“Not everything.”
“…Are you sure about this?” Officer Baker’s voice interrupted. He wasn’t actually speaking to anyone in the room, but the obvious change in his tone diverted my attention all the same.
I glanced over at him and saw that he was looking up into the security camera while still talking into his cell. “All right. You’re the boss.”
He closed the phone and stuffed it back into the holder on his belt before addressing me. Shaking his head in disbelief, he said, “Like I said before, you must be one hell of an important sonofabitch, Grant.” He turned to Miranda and thrust his chin at her. “I’m only asking this once, Devereaux. Do you want to go to the infirmary?”
“No,” she replied. “I do not.”
“So, am I to understand that you are refusing medical treatment?”
“Yes.”
“Officer Bardwell, did you hear the inmate?”
“Yes sir, she is refusing treatment.”
Baker let go of my arm and took a few steps over to the toppled chair. He righted it, slid it behind me, then put a hand on my shoulder and somewhat forcefully guided me into the seat. As I sat down he said, “Psychological advantage, huh?”
“Apparently not,” I replied sheepishly.
“Yeah, no kidding. Well, do us all a favor. Stay in the chair until the interview is over, and keep your hands to yourself, Mister Grant. Just like I told you the first time, okay?”
I nodded and answered, “Yes sir.” Under the circumstances I still thought it best not to correct him about my name.
Once he had exited and Officer Bardwell resumed his station, I glared across the table at Miranda.
She smirked. “That was fun.”
“You aren’t getting Felicity,” I told her. I kept my voice at an even timbre, but it was impossible to mask the hatred that drove it.
“And who is going to stop me? You?”
“Obviously I already have.”
“Do you really think so?”
“You’re here.”
“No. Annalise is here. I am wherever I wish to be.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re trapped here with her.”
“Really?” She actually chuckled. “How do you know I am not trying Felicity on for size again right now?”
I steeled myself and clenched my fists at her question. What made it almost intolerable was her casual use of my wife’s name. To an outside observer it wouldn’t have meant a thing, but to me it inferred an unwanted intimacy between them.
As my fingernails bit deeply into my palms, I replied, “Because you’re here talking to me.”
“That means nothing, and you know it. Connections, little man.”
“Not anymore. I broke your connection to her.”
“Did you?”
“You know I did.”
She laughed. “Is that the lie you have been telling yourself these past months?”
“It isn’t a lie, it’s a fact.”
“Be truthful, little man. You do not believe that.”
“How do you figure?”
“That is easy. You came here, did you not? If you truly believed you had broken all of the connections, you would never have shown up.”
She was a step ahead of me all the way. Maybe even two. However, I had already given up too much, so I wasn’t about to surrender anything else if I could help it.
“You’re the one who demanded to see me,” I spat. “Besides, if you know so much, you should be well aware that I came here to talk to Annalise. Not you.”
“Of course you did.”
“Then let me,” I said. “Or are you the one who’s afraid?”
She snorted out a laugh. “What is it you think I fear?”
“What Annalise might tell me.”
“Such a sad little man,” she told me, shaking her head. “Annalise has nothing to tell.”
“Then let me talk to her.”
“No.”
“I can make you go away.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“Thirsty at all, Miranda?” I threatened but remained still in my seat.
All it took was that simple phrase for her to know exactly what I meant. I had used salt water on more than one occasion to chase her out of Felicity’s body when she had managed to sneak her way in. That was before I had discovered the gateway that was allowing
it to happen in the first place—one half of a paired necklace that had been charmed by magick well over a century ago, and more recently, re-empowered by blood.
My query didn’t sound like much of a threat, I know, but salt was the basest form of purification, and when it came to magick, sometimes the simplest path was the most effective. At this particular moment I was perfectly happy to test that theory by pouring some down Annalise’s throat.
She laughed again then shook her head. “Petty magic, little man. Is that your answer to everything?”
“It works,” I growled.
“Perhaps not. Maybe I merely allowed you to believe that,” she corrected.
Our eyes remained locked for a handful of heartbeats. Finally, I said, “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“Of course you are.”
She laughed. “Go ahead and cling to your faulty beliefs. It only makes things easier for me. Although, I must admit, I was looking forward to a challenge from you. I should have known better.”
Her words were audible but shrouded by the resurgence of blood rushing in my ears. In that instant the hammering in the back of my head spread forward to encompass my entire skull, and all I wanted to do was scream. Instead, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes as I rubbed my temples.
“Yeah… Whatever…” I mumbled.
“All right… Now I am done,” Miranda said.
“Done what?” I asked in return while opening my eyes.
She ignored my question. Instead, she turned and called over her shoulder in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, “Officer Bardwell, we can go now.”
“Hold on,” I demanded, shifting forward and glaring at her. “We aren’t finished here yet.”
The corrections officer was already starting to disconnect her restraints from the table as I spoke.
“Yes, little man,” she replied. “We are.”
“Stand up,” he ordered her.
She complied, waiting silently as he deftly reconnected the cuffs with the Martin chain looped around her waist. Taking hold of her upper arm, he guided her around the chair and away from me toward the door where they had entered earlier. I couldn’t do anything but sit there quietly and watch them go. Hanging my head, I let out a long sigh. As if the agony trying to chisel its way out through the side of my skull wasn’t enough, now I was stewing in self-recrimination over the fact that I had allowed her to win.
“Just a minute,” Miranda said, her voice coming from a few steps away.
I looked up and saw the two of them standing next to the door. Miranda turned slightly and leveled yet another pitying stare upon me.
After a thick silence she stated coldly, “You want to know about the other half of the necklace.”
My throat tightened as my heart jumped in my chest. Suddenly, her lead was no longer measured in steps. She had already lapped me and was still pulling out ahead. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that she knew what I wanted. The dead always seemed to know things they shouldn’t. I guess, under the circumstances, I was simply having trouble thinking of her as dead, and that was just another of my critical errors in all of this.
It was obvious that lying about the necklace wasn’t going to work, so I replied, “Yes.”
She regarded me coolly for a moment. “Come back tomorrow and maybe I will let you ask Annalise if she knows anything about it.”
With that, she turned away from me. A few seconds later they were gone, and I was left alone with a blinding headache and an icy chill slowly working its way up my spine.
CHAPTER 5
“Are you okay, Rowan?” Constance asked. “You don’t look well at all.”
We were sitting in an office normally used by one of the staff psychologists. Actually, I was the one doing the sitting. Constance was pacing back and forth in front of me.
Following my less than productive visit with Miranda, Officer Baker had escorted me back to the administrative unit where the petite FBI agent was waiting. Although the thrum in my head had been blinding me to most everything else resembling lucid thought, I still somehow managed to make it a point to apologize to him again for my reckless outburst. Given the back-story he had relayed earlier, I wasn’t terribly shocked by his contrite reply. The words themselves were innocuous but their hidden meaning clear—that being the fact that he would just as soon I had been successful in my attempt to choke the life from Annalise.
I rubbed my eyes, pushing my glasses up off the bridge of my nose with little regard for them. Finally I muttered, “The headache’s finally started to dial back a bit, but honestly, I’ve been a hell of a lot better.”
“Should we have one of the doctors take a look at you?”
“Wrong kind of headache. Wouldn’t do any good,” I breathed. “You’ve figured that pattern out by now.”
“True enough,” she sighed. “Even so, is there something I can get for you? Water? Coffee? Soft drink?”
“How about a bottle of Scotch?” I replied.
“I said soft drink. Scotch will have to wait until later.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that. Coffee would probably be good. Maybe some aspirin. It won’t fix it, but it usually helps take the edge off at least…” I replied. “And a phone.”
“Do you really need a phone?”
“Yeah, actually. I do.”
From the sudden lack of audible footsteps, I could tell she stopped moving. A second later I felt something tapping against the back of my wrist and heard her say, “Here.”
I lowered my hands from my face and looked up to see that she was offering me her cell.
“You can use mine,” she said. “I know I can get you some coffee. I’ll have to ask around about the aspirin.”
“Two outta three…” I mumbled, leaving the rest of the cliché unspoken as I took the proffered device from her hand.
“I’ll go see what I can do,” she told me as I flipped the cell open. Stopping at the door, she turned and blurted, “What the hell were you thinking, Rowan?” Her tone was a jumble of admonishment and confusion, with neither one taking any real prominence over the other.
“Ben must be rubbing off on you too,” I replied, skirting the query. “I’m pretty sure he’s asked me the same thing at least a dozen times.”
“Probably,” she replied then deepened her voice and added, “But it’s more likely he said, ‘Jeezus H Christ, white man. What the fuck didja’ think ya’ were doin’ in there?’”
“Yeah,” I grunted, a slight chuckle in my voice. “That sounds more like it. Not a bad imitation, either. So I take it you were watching the show too?”
She nodded. “I was with Doctor Jante and Doctor Clayton.”
“Who’s Doctor Clayton?”
“Chief psychologist for the facility.”
“Great. How many shrinks does it take to screw Rowan? Three. One to fuck him up and two to analyze.” I sighed then asked, “Speaking of which, where are they? I would have thought Jante would be ready to read me the riot act.”
“I asked them to let you have some time to decompress.”
“I’m amazed she agreed,” I mused. “Gives them some time to compare notes, I guess. They’ve probably got me diagnosed as a complete nutcase by now.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But getting back to my original question,” she pressed. “You don’t usually go off the deep end like that. I’m serious, Rowan, what were you thinking?”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger as I tried to ground the pain. After a heartbeat or two I said, “I’m pretty sure we can safely say I wasn’t.”
She clucked her tongue. “Yeah… I think you’re right…”
I grimaced then looked up at her. “I hate to even ask, but exactly how pissed off is Doctor Jante?”
“Believe it or not, I don’t think she is. I doubt she’s happy about it, but she really acted like what happened was no big surprise.”
“What about the other guy?”
“Doctor Clayton? Pretty much the same. He seemed to follow her lead.”
“Who was responsible for allowing the meeting to continue?”
“It was Doctor Clayton’s call, but Jante pushed for it, and like I said, she seems to have quite a bit of influence over him.”
I furrowed my brow and mumbled, “Curiouser and curiouser…”
“Okay, forget the were. What are you thinking?”
“That I’m being used for something and somebody didn’t bother to clue me in.”
“That crossed my mind as well,” she replied with a shake of her head. “But what?”
“That’s a good question.”
She added, “Another good one would be why.”
“No offense, but I’ve been asking myself that for quite awhile where the cops and feds are concerned. It’s not like this would be the first time I’d been used and abused by someone with a badge.”
Constance nodded, answering in a chagrined tone, “I know.”
She wasn’t paying me lip service. She really was well aware of the backstabbing Felicity and I had endured, not only from the Saint Louis police but the FBI as well. Over the years I had been used as bait for a serial killer without my knowledge, threatened, and even investigated. However, for me, none of that could begin to compare to how they’d tried to railroad my wife for crimes she didn’t commit. And, all of this had been done by the very same authorities that had sought our help in the first place.
But, by the same token, I also had a tendency to be the beneficiary of nebulous bureaucratic intervention just when my hour seemed to be at its darkest. Who was playing the puppeteer was still a complete mystery to me, but to say I felt like I was firmly attached to the ends of their strings was an understatement. To say the least, my confidence in most law enforcement was growing thin. Were it not for Ben and Constance, it was doubtful I would trust anyone with a badge ever again.
Miranda: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 5