Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation (42 page)

“I just wish I could remember the vision I
had. I’m sure it means something.”

“Have you been able to remember any of it?”
Deckert queried.

“Not really,” I answered. “Just something
about not being able to breathe, but that could’ve been my own
anxiety. I don’t know. If this headache would just go away...”

“Maybe if ya’ get some rest,” Ben
volunteered. “You can always call me if you remember somethin’. You
got my cell phone number.”

“Yeah, I can do that. I’m still sorry for
causing all the trouble though.”

“Hey, no prob, white man,” he returned as he
gazed through the thick window that was the top half of the door.
“The dragon lady’s got nothin’ on what’s waitin’ out there for
you.”

“Huh?” I gave him a confused grunt.

In answer, he simply pointed into the
distance outside the window. I slipped my glasses back onto my face
and stepped over next to him. Peering in the direction he
indicated, I immediately saw what he was referring to.

Red hair tousled about, green eyes glowing
harshly, and Irish temper fully aflame, Felicity was striding
across the room.

I
told you I’ve already gone through this with Ben,” I explained
to Felicity as she viciously up-shifted the Jeep and sped onto
Highway 170, aiming north toward where my truck was still
parked.

She had begun reading me the riot act from
the moment we left the MCS command post. While we were still
inside, I had been subjected to the patented Felicity O’Brien
silent treatment. It was shaping up to be a very long night.

“Aye, but you haven’t gone through it with
me!” she shot back angrily. “I come home to an empty house, no note
or anything. The next thing I know, Ben is on the phone telling me
that Carl is bringing you in to the station bleeding. What was I
supposed to think?! What were YOU thinking?!”

“I told you already. I was looking for an
answer.”

“You could have told me what you wanted to do
when I called this afternoon.”

“Would you have agreed to it?”

“Maybe.”

“Be serious, dear.”

“That’s not the point!” she burst forth once
again. “Whether or not I would have agreed to it has absolutely
nothing to do with what you did. You lied to Carl and you lied to
me.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” I told her. “I just
didn’t tell you what I had planned.”

“Don’t split hairs. You know exactly what I
meant!”

“You’ll want to exit up here at Page and hang
a left,” I told her, as much to change the subject as to provide
her with directions. It didn’t work.

“So what did you accomplish?” she demanded
stonily.

With a downshift and quick spin of the wheel,
she arced the Jeep through the green light at the bottom of the
exit ramp and merged into the right lane.

“I had another vision,” I answered her. “At
least, I think I did.”

“What do you mean ‘you think you did’?”

Open mouth, insert foot, I thought to myself.
I didn’t really intend for the last part of that sentence to come
out, but I guess my own personal doubts were starting to take hold.
It didn’t matter much now because I knew my wife, and she wasn’t
going to let it drop. I had no choice but to explain it.

“I haven’t been able to remember much of
anything,” I began outlining. “I feel like I had a vision, but
everything is all foggy. I seem to remember the little girl, and I
keep flashing on not being able to breathe, but that’s about it.
The rest is all just a blur.”

“Why do you think that is?” She cautiously
pushed the vehicle onward through an intersection guarded by a
winking yellow traffic signal. “Do you think it might have
something to do with what Carl was saying then?”

Detective Deckert had detailed to her his
story about the basement door and the events that followed. Every
time he reiterated the tale, his eyes grew wide, and he would shake
his greying head while repeating, “It’s just kinda weird, y’know?”
I almost wished that Agent Mandalay had been the one to have his
experience. Then maybe she would be slightly less skeptical.

“It’s possible. Roger spoke to me in the
vision last night, and then there was the nightmare...” I mused
aloud. “I was expecting some kind of presence from him. That’s why
I went there in the first place.”

We were both silent for a short while as
Felicity pressed the Jeep along, occasionally shifting gears up and
down to adjust speed for the various intersections we crossed. The
pulsing yellow and red signals gave warning at each junction,
serving also to punctuate my realization that the hour had grown
later than I realized.

“How’s your head?” Felicity finally
asked.

“Still hurts—hang a right up here on
Ashby—but not as bad as before.” I settled back in the seat and
closed my eyes for a moment. “I took a handful of aspirin earlier,
and they’re starting to kick in. Not quite as fast as willow bark
tea, but they don’t leave an aftertaste.”

“I know what you mean.”

I could feel the Jeep sway to the left,
centrifugal force acting in opposition to the right-hand turn. My
eyes were still closed, and I heard the smooth, metallic click of
the stick shift as the gears were shifted down then back up. The
hum of the tires against pavement was pinpricked by a low, quick,
electronic beep as Felicity’s watch announced the half-hour.

“What time is it anyway?” I asked, still
resting limply in the seat. Before she could answer, I began a
wildly disorienting carnival ride between realities.

“
Hey, mister, what time is it?” A little,
strawberry-blonde girl is talking to me. She is dressed in white
lace and is tugging franticly at my sleeve. “What time is it? Hey,
mister!”

“It’s twelve-thirty,” she answered.

“
Hey, mister, what time is it?” The little
girl is pointing above the horizon. The pregnant globe of the moon
is lifting itself heavily, casting its reflected light down upon
her upturned face. The hands of a clock spin urgently about the
mottled silvery-white surface. “What time is it? Hey,
mister?”

“Rowan? Rowan? Are you okay?”

There is a grove of trees surrounding a
small clearing. Centered in the clearing is a hooded, robed figure
standing with hands raised high. Moonlight glints from an object
held in those hands. Moonlight glints from an athamè.

A small figure lies prone before the cloaked
one. A small figure clad in white lace. Preened and arranged.
Unblemished and virginal.

“Rowan! Answer me!”

Trees begin to erupt from the landscape, and
the earth begins to tremble and sink. The depression fills with
dark water and ripples in the slight breeze. The moonlight reflects
in a shimmering stripe.

Another stand of trees erupt skyward. The
tall pines form a line before us, completely obscuring the view
except for a few small glimpses of the shallow lake.

“
What does it say, mister?” The little
girl is pointing at a small sign. Bold letters spell out PLEASE DO
NOT FEED GEESE.

“Rowan! Breathe, dammit!”

I can’t breathe. My lungs are on fire, and
the flames are licking up my throat. My chest feels heavy, and
there is something tightening about my neck. The atmosphere feels
thick and fluid around me. I want to gasp for air, but something is
telling me I shouldn’t. My thoughts are beginning to cloud; my mind
is turning murky and dark.

“ROWAN!”

I snapped fully back into conscious reality
when Felicity combined her urgent voice with even more urgent
one-handed jostling. We had just rolled to a halt in a bus turnout
near the off-ramp onto Midland. The Jeep made a jarring lurch as
she franticly switched off the engine and in her haste, released
the clutch pedal a second too soon. At almost the same instant, I
gasped, ravenously sucking in the cool air.

“Rowan! Answer me! Are you all right?”

I choked and sputtered on the intoxicating
oxygen and wheezed in more as I began to catch my breath. The dull
ache that had been residing in the back of my head for the majority
of the evening was now making an all out assault on my skull,
pounding rhythmically through my scalp. The faint tickle of
oncoming nausea started down the back of my throat, and my mouth
began to water slightly. I fought it back, concentrating on my
breathing and forcing myself to at least try to relax.

“Okay,” I sputtered between breaths, “I’m
okay.”

“What happened?” Concern permeated Felicity’s
voice. “You stopped breathing.”

“The vision.” I was no longer gulping air,
and my respirations were beginning to slow. “The vision came
back.”

“What did you see?”

“The little girl. A small clearing and some
trees. The full moon,” I described slowly, reviewing the brilliant
Technicolor playback of the memories in my mind. “The moon had
hands on it. Like a clock. They were spinning around, and the
little girl kept asking me what time it was.” My speech started
coming quicker as the vision flooded in. “There was a lake too. And
a row of pine trees that hid the clearing. The little girl was
pointing at a sign.”

“What did it say?”

“Please do not feed geese, in bold letters.”
I painted the image for her. “It was black on white. Like a road
sign.”

“A park sign maybe?” she ventured.

“That would explain what it said,” I agreed.
“And the lake and trees too. Do you have your cell phone with
you?”

“Sure.” She pulled it from a pocket on the
side of her purse and offered it to me. “Who are you going to call?
Ben?”

“Yeah. I promised I’d let him know if I
remembered any of the vision. This whole park thing might be
important.”

Thumbing the power switch, I began stabbing
out Ben’s number on the lighted buttons. The amber, segmented
digits advanced across the small display, and a second later there
was a brief, mechanical trill from the earpiece as the phone rang
at the other end.

“Storm,” Ben answered with a sharp, frenetic
tenor to his voice.

“Ben, it’s Rowan. I remembered some of the
vision.”

“Hold on a second...”

I could hear him exchanging words with
someone in the background. Various noises were issuing from the
small speaker in the handset. Those sounds, coupled with his tone
of voice, led me to believe that all hell had broken loose, and the
MCS command post was at ground zero.

“What’s the story?” Felicity queried,
noticing my expectant silence.

“He’s got me on hold,” I answered. “It sounds
like everything’s hitting the fan over there. I guess we can go
ahead and get moving. No use in just sitting here.”

She nodded and reached for the ignition.
There was a muffled plastic rattle on the other end of the phone
and the clunk of a door being shut, followed by a relative
hush.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Ben’s voice issued forth
again. “It’s a fuckin’ circus down here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Aww, the parents made an appeal to the
kidnapper on the ten o’clock news. We’ve been gettin’ crank calls
ever since you and Felicity cut out. Forget about that, whaddaya
got?”

The engine on the Jeep had sparked to life
and was now idling smoothly. Felicity popped the vehicle into gear
and started rolling forward.

“I remembered the vision,” I expressed. “I’m
not sure what all of it means, but I’ve got some ideas.”

“Shoot.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s going to do the
ritual outdoors where he can see the moon. I think he might be
planning to do it in a park or something.”

“Any idea which one?”

Felicity gunned the engine slightly and eased
from the bus turnout onto the off-ramp leading into the city limits
of the small Saint Louis suburb of Overmoor.

“Not for sure. In the vision, I saw trees and
a small lake,” I explained further. “The only specific thing about
it I can remember is a sign that said ‘please do not feed
geese’.”

“No offense, white man, but do ya’ know how
many parks with lakes and geese we have in the metro area alone?
Not to mention the state.”

“Too many.”

We continued down the small incline, past a
wide opening in the chain link fence that ran alongside the ramp. I
watched out my window as the obese moon lumbered across the night
sky, arcing high above the trees. Apparently, a slight breeze was
blowing, as I noticed the boughs of a stand of pine trees were
gently waving. A line of tall pines obscuring all but the smallest
glimpses of the lake behind them.

“Stop,” I almost whispered at first and then
spoke louder. “STOP!”

Felicity immediately cranked the steering
wheel to the right, pulling us onto the shoulder. The tires ground
coarsely against the loose gravel when she jammed on the brakes and
brought us to a sliding halt.

“What? What’s wrong?” she appealed.

Similar questions, only spoken by Ben’s
voice, were issuing raspily from the cell phone as I handed it to
her and opened my door. Slowly, I covered the short distance
between the Jeep and the fence, staring out across the moonlit
landscape. I twined my fingers through the links and pressed my
face against the warm, galvanized metal, intently studying the
scene.

A line of tall pine trees reached upward to
the star- speckled night. Between them, I could see the occasional
shimmer of moonlight reflecting from rippling water. At the head of
what appeared to be a trail, a small white and black rectangle was
affixed vertically to a short post. It was too far away to read
with the unaided eye, but I didn’t have to make out the words to
know that it simply said, PLEASE DO NOT FEED GEESE.

I turned my gaze upward at the almost
perfectly round disk floating in the sky. Marbled grey and white,
its luminescence cast the view in an eerie glow. In my mind, I
could see the minute hand relentlessly chasing its smaller and
slower rival about the surface. Overtaking it and repeating.
Overtaking it and repeating.