“No prob, white man.”
I dumped the contents of my own hand into his large palm. He stepped to the railing and then glanced at me. “Just anywhere?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just anywhere.”
He drew his arm back and with a heavy grunt he launched the necklaces into the thick air.
I see the roiling waters as they rush toward her.
She’s screaming…
A shower of salt sprinkled across us as it was caught by the wind. The necklaces, however, sailed true along their shallow arc before seeming to hover for a brief moment then plummet downward. A good twenty feet out from the stern, a pair of tiny splashes dotted the surface of the foamy wake.
I feel pain as she strikes the hard surface of the water…
I feel panic as the swift current pulls her under…
I feel death as the silty river flows into her lungs…
We stood there in silence, watching the waters continuing to churn. After a languid pause, Ben cleared his throat.
“That it?” he asked
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“So what now?”
“We wait,” I said.
I slowly turned from the rail and stepped over to where Helen was waiting with Felicity. I looked at my wife’s still vacant eyes and then knelt in front of her.
Magick wasn’t always instantaneous. It could happen right away, or it could take an entire cycle of the moon. Either way, I would wait for her, and if I was wrong and it didn’t work at all, I would find another way to bring her home, even if I had to die to do it.
I watched her face as she blinked and continued to stare into nothingness. With a sigh, I carefully slipped my arms in around her waist and laid my head in her lap.
Tears were beginning to burn my eyes when I felt a hand softly brush against my hair.
Behind me, Ben muttered an exclamation, disbelief rampant in his voice, “Jeezus H. Christ…”
Then a soft, weak, Celtic lilt drifted into my ears. “Caorthann… I knew you would come for me… I knew you would…”
Sunday, December 24
4:58 P.M.
Saint Louis, Missouri
CHAPTER 38
“Aye, do we really have to talk about this right now?” my wife asked.
I shrugged. “I know, I know… But it’s only two weeks away, Felicity.”
“So I’ll worry about it then,” she replied and then thrust a card and ink pen at me. “Here, sign this.”
I took the proffered items but simply held them in my hand and gave her a quick nod. “Look, I’m no more excited about it than you are, but you’ve been subpoenaed to testify at the trial. So have I.”
“It doesn’t matter, then,” she replied. “Annalise isn’t Miranda anymore. Miranda is gone. She can’t hurt me.”
“That’s true,” I told her. “But Annalise tried to kill you too, so you really need to be prepared for this when you walk into that courtroom.”
“I will be.”
I sighed. “She’s already in Saint Louis, you know. Constance told me that they moved her here the middle of last week.”
“Aye, I know, but it’s Christmas Eve and I don’t want to think about it. We can talk it over this next week,” she replied. “Now, sign that card please.”
I let out a heavy sigh and then shook my head. “Okay, but next week for sure. So who is this one for?”
“Constance,” she replied. “You already signed Ben’s.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” I said with a nod then laid the card on her desk and scrawled my name beneath hers.
“Just remember,” she instructed. “Constance is getting the Irish wool scarf, and Ben the bottle of Black Bush.”
“Okay…so, I remember buying the scarf for Constance when we were in Ireland, but didn’t we get Ben a piece of dirt?” I replied.
“Not dirt,” she told me. “A bit of the auld sod.”
“Okay, sod…dirt…whatever.”
“I’ll forgive you for that since I love you,” she gibed. “Anyway, that’s in there too. But he needs to learn about good whisky, so I picked up a bottle of Black Bush.”
“He already knows about good whisky,” I told her. “He drinks Scotch.”
“Scotch is okay, but Irish whisky is better,” she replied.
I tossed the pen on the desk then handed her the card.
She opened it and gave my signature a quick glance. “Your handwriting is as bad as a doctor’s,” she admonished.
“Yeah, you’ve told me. So I take it you already wrapped their gifts?”
“Of course. You didn’t think I would let you do it, did you?”
“I’m not that bad at wrapping stuff.”
My wife cocked one of her patented incredulous stares in my direction and muttered, “Cac capaill.”
“Okay, so they aren’t as perfect as you make them,” I replied, waving my index finger in the air. “With all the creases, and symmetrical lines, and ribbons and bows and… Well, you know…”
“Aye,” she nodded. “The way they’re supposed to look then.”
“Okay, okay,” I laughed, holding up my hands. “I surrender.”
“You will as soon as I change into what I’m wearing this evening,” she quipped.
“Really?”
“Aye. Actually, it’s more a matter of what I’ll be wearing under what I’m wearing this evening.”
“So I sense an unwrapping theme here,” I replied.
“Exactly.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “I’m definitely, very, extremely good with that.”
“I thought you might be. But you’ll have to wait until we get home.” Felicity finished stuffing the card into an envelope and laid it aside on her desk then suddenly exclaimed, “Damnú!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I was supposed to pick up the black and white puddings from the butcher for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
I glanced at my watch. “How late were they staying open today?”
“Five,” she replied.
“Ouch, too late. I guess we’ll have to do without.”
She shot me another one of her looks. “Excuse me? I don’t think so. You don’t muck about with an O’Brien family tradition.” She grabbed the phone and stabbed out a number. A moment later she said, “Aye, John? It’s Felicity O’Brien. Yes… Yes, I know, I just now remembered. Really? You’re a doll. Thank you so much. I’ll be there in five minutes then. Bye.” She dropped the phone back onto the cradle and smiled. “He’s still there closing up. Since we’re just around the corner he said he’d wait for me.”
“Tell you what,” I said, gesturing at her petite figure. “You still have that wrapping to do. I’ll run over and pick them up. That way I won’t be tempted to peek.”
“Aye, good idea,” she replied.
I gave her a quick peck on the cheek and started out the door of her basement office.
“Oh, and let the dogs in before you go,” she called after me. “And, there’s an extra bottle of Bushmill’s on the counter in the kitchen. Take that with and give it to John as a thank you.”
“Okay, I’ll do that,” I returned then started up the stairs.
Once I hit the main floor I looked back down the stairs to make sure she wasn’t on her way up for any reason and then closed the door. I actually had an ulterior motive for making the run to the butcher shop for her. I needed to call Ben while she wasn’t around so that I could check on the status of her gift. It was supposed to have been delivered to his house earlier today, but I’d yet to hear from him, so I was starting to worry just a bit.
I snagged my phone from my belt and flipped it open as I walked through the living room. With a quick stab of my thumb, I hit the speed dial for Ben’s number and put the cell up against my ear.
I skirted around the dining room table and into the kitchen as it started to ring. I had made it only a few steps into the room when I noticed that the back door was hanging wide open. I started tow
ard it just as Ben answered his phone.
“Merry freakin’ ho, ho, ho, Kemosabe…” My friend’s voice flowed into my ear with a jovial laugh.
I never got the chance to respond. A weight suddenly slammed into me from behind, hurling me forward into the island. As I pitched against it, my head bumped directly into a vase Felicity had put there to dry, and it toppled over. Almost in slow motion, the ceramic vessel rolled across the butcher-block island and off the side, hitting the floor with a loud crash.
I pushed back and started to twist, but the weight was on me again, and this time it was literally on my back. An arm hooked around my throat and I was starting to choke. I pushed back again, and as I came upright I began to teeter backwards from the extra bulk. From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of metal and brought my hand up out of reflex just as the knife was coming down.
I struggled to lunge forward and slammed into the island once again. My cell phone popped from my hand and skittered halfway across the surface, coming to rest well out of my reach against a cookbook at the other end. At the same moment, the weight on my back shifted and let out a bloodcurdling and patently female scream. The arm around my neck loosened just long enough for me to suck in a breath and shout, “BEN!”
The knife came back down, but instead of deflecting it I unintentionally caught it in my grasp. The sharp edge sliced into my scarred palm, and I let out a howl of pain.
Somewhere through all the noise, I heard Ben’s frantic voice screaming from the earpiece of my cell, “…ROWAN? ROWAN?! GODDAMNIT! WHAT THE HELL’S HAPPENIN’ OVER THERE?! JEEZUS H…”
I had no idea how the thin reverberation was even audible to me since at this point the device was lying several feet away. I struggled to push myself up and stumbled backward, slamming first my attacker and then myself into the doorframe, but she didn’t even loosen her grip.
The fresh chokehold from the woman was working. The room was starting to spin as my vision tunneled. My ears were ringing, and I struggled for a breath that simply wasn’t allowed to come. I twisted and then pitched forward, unintentionally ramming my forehead—followed by the rest of my face—into the wall. The squirming weight on my back wasn’t helping my balance, but in the grand scheme of things, that was the least of my worries.
A flash of thought bounced through my head, tweaking what consciousness was left in my brain. It reminded me that this wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined meeting my demise. But then, I’d held fast to an unspoken feeling for quite some time now—a sense that my death would be violent. If this didn’t qualify as such, I’m not entirely certain what would. I’d come close many times. Maybe this was the one.
A blaze of raw pain seared my right palm as I desperately tried to work my fingers in behind the pale forearm that was attempting to crush my windpipe, and it was nearly succeeding by all present indications. However, the bone-baring gash in my hand was rendering my task nearly impossible, as my fingers didn’t seem capable of carrying out the orders my brain was giving them. Unfortunately, my left hand was of no help either because it was otherwise occupied by holding fast to the wrist of my attacker’s other arm. I would have simply let go were it not for the fact that she was still clenching the eight-inch butcher knife tightly in her white-knuckled fist, and this was the only way I could keep it at bay.
The blade already had enough of my blood on it as far as I was concerned.
I abandoned my vain attempt to loosen the constriction clamped around my neck and thrust my hand forward instead. A fresh lance of pain screwed its way through my palm then up my arm as my hand hit with a wet slap against the wall, leaving a bright red smear in its wake. I stumbled out of control as I propelled myself backward, the frenzied weight still clinging to my back by way of my tortured neck.
I had yet to actually see the woman who was now trying to kill me, although I had a better than solid idea who it was. Still, given everything that had led up to this moment and the fact that I had been attacked from behind, there was a sick churn in the pit of my stomach telling me I could be wrong. That maybe, just maybe, I had made a critical error where magick and the dead were concerned. It was that acrid, nauseous feeling that was keeping me from fighting back with the unbridled fervor it seemed it was going to take to save my own life. Until I knew for sure whom I was up against, I couldn’t take any chances.
With the lack of oxygen beginning to shut down my brain, the rest of my muscles were beginning to weaken as well. I could feel my right arm buckling against an unnatural strength that was trying to drive the butcher knife downward into my chest, and my legs were quivering as they took on the properties of an elastic band stretched to the breaking point.
Still careening wildly in reverse and unable to see any obstacles in my rearward path, my luck with staying upright finally ran out. In a single misstep, my heel hooked around what felt like the leg of the coffee table, effectively negating what little balance I had left, and the two of us launched into a backward free-fall. A heartbeat later, the dull rush of a crash punctuated by shattering glass ornaments sounded in my ears as we brought the Christmas tree down with us.
The arm was no longer around my neck since the force of the impact had shaken my attacker loose. I gulped hungrily for the air as I tried to roll away, only to entangle myself even farther into the branches of the artificial tree as well as the still winking strands of lights. Twisting back the other direction in a bid for escape, I lost my newly found breath as a knee came down hard on my stomach.
The acid churn in my gut suddenly twisted into a fearful knot as I looked up into an all too familiar face framed in fiery auburn hair, and then I saw a sharp glint from the blade of the upraised butcher knife in her hand.
“You bastard!” she screamed. “You sonofabitch! You killed her! You took her away from me!”
I tried to call my wife’s name as I reached for the weapon, but she couldn’t hear me. Any faint sound I could muster with my again empty lungs was completely drowned out by the ungodly concussive explosion of a handgun fired a scant few feet away within the tight confines of the room. Hot blood sprayed my face, the knife clattered harmlessly to the floor, and her lifeless form slumped downward across me.
In the muted distance, sirens began to play, drawing closer as each morbidly long second ticked past.
I looked up at Felicity. She was still stiffly holding our semi-automatic pistol stretched out at arm’s length in front of herself. There was a glassiness to her eyes as she stared, but I could tell it was merely shock and nothing preternatural. Given what she had just been forced to do, I would have expected no less.
“Are you okay?” I asked, still panting as I regained my breath.
She nodded mechanically.
“Relax and put the gun down, honey,” I told her. “The police are going to be here any minute. Just cooperate with them and everything will be fine.”
The muffled sounds of racing engines were drawing close, and now emergency lights were flickering through the windows. A siren burped out a half tone as it switched off in front of the house, and I could hear distant, hurried footsteps coming up the driveway.
In that moment, a bell on the toppled-over Christmas tree jingled an abrupt, sad peal…
Tuesday, January 29
9:37 A.M.
FBI Field Office
Saint Louis, Missouri
EPILOGUE
“So, even after I told Doctor Jante to take a flying leap, you still want me to come work for you? You’re kidding, right?” As the question tumbled from my mouth, I was training a bemused stare on the section chief seated behind the desk in front of me. Given the look on his face definitely wasn’t one of jest, it didn’t take any of my uncanny psychic prowess to tell me his reply was definitely not going to be “Well damn, you caught me. I’m just kidding.”
In fact, the truth is I wasn’t really expecting an answer at all. The words I had spoken were in and of themselves rhetorical. Verbalizing them was, in effect, merely a way for me t
o express astonishment at what he’d just said and not really a serious quest for an answer. That much was nothing if not obvious.
Or so I thought.
He leaned forward in his seat, adopted an even more stony expression, and answered me anyway. “I can assure you, Mister Gant, I am… The bureau…is entirely serious about this.”
Well, at least his answer verified what I already knew, not that it was necessary. Score one for the Witch I guess, even if it was a perceptual gimme.
I shook my head. “Pardon me for saying this, but the bureau hasn’t exactly earned my trust lately, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand. I’ve read your file.”
“Yeah, I can’t say as that I’m surprised by that,” I grumbled. “I mean after all, who hasn’t?”
“This bothers you,” he observed with a slight nod.
I didn’t hold back on the sarcasm. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Mister Gant…”
“Sorry,” I said, stopping him with a wave of my hand. I let out a long sigh before going ahead and grimacing slightly at my indiscretion and then added, “I shouldn’t have said it like that. It’s just that it has become a bit of a sore spot recently. I mean, if you’ve done all this reading about me then you should know why I’m not a fan. Hell, just last month Annalise Devereaux escaped on the FBI’s watch, and you know how that turned out.”
“Yes, I do. But you’re mistaken. It wasn’t our watch.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, I’m familiar with the blame game, trust me. But that doesn’t matter. To be honest I think what bothers me most is that I even have a file in the first place.”
His forehead visibly creased for a moment. “With all of the consulting on high profile homicide cases you’ve done, why wouldn’t you? I’m not sure I understand?”
“It’s not that exactly. What I mean is…” I started and then allowed my voice to trail off as I shrugged. With another quick shake of my head I told him, ”Don’t worry about it… I really wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Miranda: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 31