Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (27 page)

“I don’t care much for guys who beat up their
wives, girlfriends, women in general…” he told me, allowing his
voice to trail off, then suddenly asked, “You don’t have any
children do you, Mister Gant?”

“No sir,” I replied, struggling to keep the
annoyance out of my voice and failing miserably.

“Good,” he said with a nod. “Because if
there’s one thing I hate worse that a wife beater, it’s a child
abuser.”

That last implication was more than I was
willing to take. Calling me a wife beater was bad enough, but as
far as I was concerned, he had just stepped over the line.
Discarding my better judgment, I replied. Of course, I’d never been
much good at keeping my mouth shut anyway, so there was really no
reason that now should be any different.

“Listen, Sergeant…” I glanced at his nametag.
“Ruddle. That comment was uncalled for. I know you think you have
me pegged, but there are some things going on here you simply
wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, I’ve got you pegged all right,” he told
me with a nod. “And, yeah, I’ve heard all of the excuses, so don’t
even try that crap with me.”

“Well, I doubt you’ve ever heard this one,” I
offered.

“What? Are you going to tell me it’s some
kind of Witch thing?” he replied.

I’m sure there was a look of surprise on my
face, and he wasted no time addressing it. “Yeah, I know who you
are. I read the papers. I also think it’s all a crock. And, just
because you’ve gotten lucky and somehow helped Major Case solve a
couple of murders, that doesn’t mean you’re a great guy and an
upstanding citizen.”

“Maybe not,” I replied. “But, whether you
choose to believe me or not, all I can tell you is that I did NOT
assault my wife, and whatever she told you is a fabrication.
Detective Storm explained…”

“…
That she has MPD and hasn’t been
taking her medication, yeah, I know. That still doesn’t explain
what the responding officers witnessed when they
arrived.”

“Yeah, well don’t believe anything you hear
and only half of what you see. But, I guess you’ll just have to
believe what you want to believe, and nothing I can say is going to
change that.”

“You’re right about that.”

He continued to stare at me without another
word. I allowed the intimidation tactic to play out for several
moments before I had simply had more than enough to top off my
disaster of a day.

“So,” I said with a shrug. “Is that it?
Lecture over? Can I go now?”

“Yeah, I was right.”

“About what?”

“I took one look at you on the security
monitor, and I could tell right away that you’d be a smartass.”

I barely managed to refrain from an urge to
offer him a congratulatory cigar, but I knew that sarcasm
definitely wouldn’t play right now.

After another hard stare, the sergeant turned
and stepped back out the door. A moment later there was a loud
buzzing coupled with a heavy metallic thunk. Ben immediately
reached out and slid the door open.

“C’mon, let’s get your stuff and go find
Felicity before she hurts someone.”

* * * * *

For the first time I could remember, I wasn’t
frightened by Ben’s almost maniacal approach to driving. If
anything, I was urging him on through red lights, stop signs, and
intersections alike.

Flickering red splashes were playing down
across the windshield from the magnetic bubble light my friend had
literally slapped onto the roof of the van. As we raced up the off
ramp from the highway, the cold November night air was whistling
through the crack where the emergency light’s cigarette lighter
cord was keeping the window from fully closing.

Without slowing, he urged the vehicle through
the yellow light and cranked the steering wheel into a hard left
turn. The van fishtailed with a screech of tires then straightened
and shot down the two-lane street, actually straddling the white
line for several yards before edging over into the proper lane. We
were now less than five minutes from my house, and we had been on
the road for no more than ten as it was. Still, it seemed like
forever had passed since I’d walked out of that holding cell.

Originally, I didn’t think that Felicity
would be at our home or that she would have even gone there in the
first place. However, it was still a possibility, and given that we
had no clue where she was going, it was as good a place as any to
start.

The reason we were in such a rush now was
that we had been unable to raise Constance on her cell phone, and
that seriously concerned us both.

“Maybe she has it turned off,” I offered, not
really believing it myself.

At that moment Ben leaned hard on the brakes,
and I was forced to thrust my arm out in front of me in order to
brace myself against the dash.

He whipped the van around a slower vehicle
that hadn’t bothered to move off to the side and then careened to
the right before glancing over at me and replying, “We’re talkin’
about Constance here, Row. She never turns the fuckin’ thing
off.”

“Then maybe the battery died,” I tried again.
“Or maybe she left it in her car.”

“Yeah, well I hope you’re right, but I
wouldn’t lay money on it.”

“Yeah, me too.”

My friend withdrew his own cell phone from
his pocket and flipped it open. After a pair of aborted attempts,
he tossed it over into my lap.

“Friggin’ little ass buttons,” he complained.
“Try ‘er again. She’s three.”

I peered at the backlit screen and thumbed
the button to backspace out of the several numbers he’d managed to
fumble into the device with his oversized digits. Once cleared, I
stabbed three and hit the send button.

The phone at the other end rang a trio of
times and was followed by a click and Constance’s digitally
recorded greeting as it switched over to voice mail. I thumbed the
end button and began stabbing in Felicity’s cell number.

“Still just voice mail,” I announced as I
tucked the device back up to my ear.

My wife’s phone mimicked Mandalay’s in that
it switched almost immediately to the pre-recorded voice mail
announcement.

I ended the call without leaving a message
then folded the cell back on itself and placed it on the console
between us.

“Same thing with Felicity’s,” I said
aloud.

“We’re almost there anyway,” he replied.

He slowed a bit as we approached the
intersection at the head of my street then veered into a shallow
turn, clipping the curb and barely missing the stop sign. As he
aimed the vehicle along the pavement, I looked up through the
windshield, and my heart skipped into the pit of my stomach. In the
distance were two sets of flickering light bars atop what were most
likely Briarwood patrol cars. Even though we were still almost a
block away, I knew immediately that they weren’t there on a routine
traffic stop.

By the time we came to a halt behind them and
in front of my house, there was a new set of frantic lights coming
toward us from the opposite end of the street. I looked quickly up
to my front porch, where an officer stood speaking into his radio,
then back down to the rapidly approaching emergency lights.

I could tell by their configuration that they
belonged to either an ambulance or a life support vehicle.

Agent Mandalay’s sedan was parked on the
street in front of the house with one of the Briarwood squad cars
positioned immediately behind it. The other patrol vehicle was
occupying a space against the curb across the street from them. I
shot a glance up the driveway, searching for any sign of Felicity’s
Jeep but found none. Of course, it was entirely possible that she
had pulled completely behind the house—or into the garage for that
matter. While I hadn’t thought she would come here, the present
level of activity was more than enough to tell me that maybe I had
been wrong.

Even from the street, the entire scene felt
strange. There was a tickle in the center of my brain that sent a
cold shiver shooting down my spine. It continued to repeat until a
ripple of gooseflesh marched across the back of my neck, and even
then it didn’t totally subside.

I could only describe what I was feeling as
an overall sense of violation, and I knew that it was coming from
the ethereal wards I had placed around the house, just like any
other Witch would do. Now, those preternatural shields were howling
out an alarm that only I could hear, and what they were telling me
was that someone uninvited had intruded upon my space.

The feeling wasn’t one of just any intrusion
either, so I was fairly certain that it wasn’t the police officers
I was being warned about. I was, however, firmly convinced that
whoever it was that Felicity had now become was in large part
responsible for the uncomfortable prickling sensation.

I looked up and saw that the life support
vehicle was only a half-block away now, but I didn’t intend to wait
for it. I slammed the passenger door on the van and started toward
the house only a half step ahead of Ben.

I tried not to pay attention to the gawking
neighbors as we ran across the yard and up the front steps, but I
couldn’t help feeling their stares. This was far from the first
time we’d had the front of our house painted with the multi-hued
lights from emergency vehicles. In fact, Felicity and I had
actually become somewhat well known on our block because of
incidents such as this, though that celebrity was really more
infamy than fame. Owing to that, I figured the nearby residents
would all be used to this sort of thing by now.

Still, it had been a couple of years since
the last episode, and a lull of that length was bound to allow some
of their curiosity to return. I suppose that was the reason why
several of them were now peering at the show from behind the fogged
glass of their storm doors. In fact, there were even a few
onlookers, who apparently lived on a side street, who were braving
the chilly night just to come up the block and watch from the
corner.

As we hit the porch, Ben flashed his badge
and identified himself then gave the officer a cursory explanation
that I was the homeowner. The cop gave him a nod then pulled open
the door and called out to the officer inside as he ushered us
in.

The first thing I noticed as we entered the
house was the sweet odor of Felicity’s favorite perfume. It was
strong, almost to the point of cloying; the scent lingered on the
air even heavier than it did whenever she first sprayed it on. The
problem was I still didn’t see her anywhere.

The second thing was a muffled ruckus coming
from both of the dogs barking and whining. Their boisterous clamor
was coupled with the hard scrape of frenzied pawing somewhere
deeper into the house.

“Is my wife here?” I asked immediately. “Is
she okay?”

“Your wife would be a Ms. Felicity O’Brien?”
the officer waiting inside the door asked.

“Yes. Where is she?”

“Calm down sir,” the officer replied. “She
wasn’t here when we arrived.”

“Do you know if she was here at all?” Ben
asked.

“Oh yeah,” a weak female voice came from the
dining room. “She was here all right.”

Ben and I both turned toward the source of
the words.

Agent Mandalay was sitting in the dining room
looking at us. If ever there was an expression that said “splitting
headache”, it was the one glued to her face at this very
moment.

She was leaning forward with one elbow
resting on the surface of the table and her forehead clasped in her
hand. The other hand was occupied with holding a dishtowel to the
side of her head, just above and behind her ear. Even so, she
couldn’t hide the blood that stained both her hand and neck.

“Jeezus!” Ben exclaimed as he rushed toward
her with me close on his heels.

“Glad you two could join the party,” she
quipped, voice still thready.

“What the hell happened?” Ben appealed.

Before my friend had even finished the
question, I heard the storm door open and heavy footsteps entering
the house.

“Over here,” the police officer’s voice
sounded behind us.

A second later a new voice entered the mix.
“Excuse me. Coming through.”

An ordered commotion broke out around us as
two paramedics entered the dining room and elbowed us out of the
way to close in around Constance. One of them was already donning
latex gloves as he asked her what had happened.

I didn’t hear her answer as her low voice was
drowned out by the polite but firm words of the other paramedic
addressing Ben and me. “We’re going to need for you to give us some
space.”

Ben pulled me to the side as he reluctantly
stepped out of the way himself, but he remained on the periphery
watching silently with deep concern behind his dark eyes.

“This way sir,” the Briarwood police officer
said as she took me by the arm and guided me back toward the living
room.

Now, not only was I feeling like an intruder
had been in my home, I was feeling like one myself. My frustration
level was rapidly climbing. I still didn’t know where my wife was;
Constance had been injured somehow, probably by Felicity; and to
top it off the dull ache in my head had chosen this moment to
ratchet up the scale yet again.

Sensory overload was kicking in, and I was
losing ground very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I wasn’t
entirely sure that I shouldn’t just surrender and give myself over
to it.

Having little choice but to follow the
officer’s lead, I turned away from the activity behind me and
looked toward the living room. Now that I was focusing in that
direction, I noticed that the area seemed more dimly lit than
usual, and I looked upward. The overhead lights were on full and
reflecting down from the vaulted ceiling. I caught a quick glimpse
of Dickens and Salinger, who were safely perched on the exposed
rafters, peering down at the goings on with curious eyes while
their tails twitched nervously. Emily, our calico, was far too
skittish for such activities and was probably hiding someplace
upstairs as usual.