Love Is The Bond: A Rowan Gant Investigation (38 page)

My friend gave me an understanding nod as he
took the phone from me and placed it up to his own ear.

“Heya, Firehair,” he said in as soothing a
tone as he could muster under the circumstances.

After he stood listening for a moment, he
spoke again, “Yeah, I know… It’s all gonna be over soon… Well,
that’s because you’ve done some things that aren’t so good… Yes…
Yes, I’m afraid so… I know… That’s why I’m here… Now, listen
carefully. I need ta’ tell ya’ how we’re gonna handle this…”

Detective Ackman took me by the arm and
started leading me back toward the barrier of vehicles. I didn’t
resist, instead I simply trudged along on autopilot as I twisted my
head and continued looking back at Ben.

“Don’t worry, Mister Gant,” he said to me.
“We’re going to take care of her.”

“This has gotten completely out of hand,” I
managed to reply.

“Yeah, it has,” he agreed. “But we’re trying
to fix that.”

“You should just let me go in there.”

“We can’t do that.”

“I know… But, you still should.”

“Listen, Mister Gant,” he began. “You need to
understand that your wife is going to be arrested.”

“I know that.”

“I mean she is going to be arrested right
now,” he stressed. “When she comes out, she is going to be cuffed
immediately.”

“Don’t hurt her.”

“We don’t want to.”

All I could do was repeat my three-word
appeal.

It seemed as though an entire decade passed
before the door of the motel room even moved. And, when it finally
did, it was barely perceptible, simply appearing as the sudden jump
of a shadow across its whitewashed face. In fact, since it was so
quick and wasn’t followed by any other movement, I began to wonder
if it was only my eyes playing tricks on me.

I went ahead and blinked. It was something I
probably hadn’t done for several minutes. Nothing changed, so I
blinked again.

As it turned out, I hadn’t been completely
removed from the scene, as McCann wanted. Still, since I was now
parked in the back of a squad car, I was about as far from the
action as I could get. I’m not sure who was responsible for
ordering me placed here, but I suspected that there hadn’t been a
single objection to it, not even from Ben.

I continued watching through the window,
trying not to exhale against the chilled glass so as to avoid the
obscuring fog. It was rapidly becoming a losing battle, and after
wiping my sleeve against the frosted surface more than once, I had
taken to holding my breath rather than look away.

My stomach was roiling with fear. The nagging
trepidation told me that I didn’t want to watch for fear of
witnessing something I wouldn’t be able to bear. Still, I was
unable to avert my gaze; no matter how hard I tried. In fact, I had
even begun telling myself that as long as I was watching, nothing
bad could happen.

The police radio in the front of the patrol
car burped with a blast of static, followed by voices exchanging
meaningless information—well, meaningless to me, at least. All that
mattered right now in my world was Felicity and her safety.
Everything else was moot.

The jump of the shadow was finally followed
by a slow drifting motion as the panel of muted darkness elongated
and spread. It continued to become more oblique with each passing
second, until it completely consumed the opening.

Detective Ackman, Agent Drew, and Ben were
all positioned strategically around the room’s entrance, weapons at
the ready. I could somewhat understand Ackman and Drew. They didn’t
know Felicity. They couldn’t understand what was really going on
and that she posed no threat.

But, the fact that my friend’s hand was also
filled with a pistol made me physically ill. Deep inside I wanted
to despise him for it. I just hoped that the dark feeling was
something I would be able to get over.

I kept staring at the doorway, now fully
open. Dim yellow light spilled outward, only to be immediately
consumed by the harsh glare of the spotlights directed toward the
front of the building.

A new shadow began to move in the framed
opening, and I saw Felicity step forward to the threshold. Even at
this distance, I could make out a wealth of detail, and I could see
that her face was painted with a heavier than usual application of
makeup. Considering both that and the harsh shadows, I almost
wouldn’t have recognized her, save for her petite build and fiery
mane of auburn hair. Still, I knew the person standing there was my
wife, and I could see the fear twisting her face as she
trembled.

She was clad in all black, not that there was
much of it mind you; it was a stark contrast against her ivory
skin. Of course, the ensemble was obviously intended to be the
trappings of the dominatrix persona who had possessed her, and it
certainly succeeded, consisting of no more than a flared miniskirt,
cropped mesh top, thigh high stockings, and stiletto heels.

I watched her, unblinking, as the blood began
rushing in my ears. My heart was pumping furiously, driving against
my ribcage at an ever-quickening pace. Of course, I’m sure the fact
that I still hadn’t taken a breath wasn’t helping in the least.

Felicity moved forward slowly then hesitated.
My eyes darted about, and though I couldn’t hear him, I could see
that Ben’s lips were moving as he instructed her on what to do.

The rapid thud in my chest ramped upward,
strove toward a summit, and upon reaching the peak, began to turn
back in on itself. Harsh light bloomed in front of me, washing
color in and out of the scene as my heartbeat became an off-balance
metronome ticking along a wholly different timeline from the rest
of the world.

The radio in the front of the vehicle
stuttered once again, but this time it became a droning mix of
unintelligible noise. The sound slid past my ears in a stream of
Doppler distorted gibberish.

Felicity finally moved again, coming forward
with fluid lethargy, as my world transformed into a slow motion
video clip. She was now standing only a few paces in front of the
doorway, and Ben’s mouth began moving again as he held his Beretta
pointed at her back. My gaze remained frozen on that single point
as my wife’s arms started floating upward through a protracted
arc.

I stared hard at the pistol in my friend’s
hands then to the weapons held by Ackman and Drew. Bile seared up
my throat and I swallowed hard.

My eyes were beginning to burn as they dried,
but I forced them to stay open. I simply could not blink until this
was over. If I did, I would break the spell. And, if I broke the
spell, something bad would happen.

My wife’s arms finally came perpendicular to
the rest of her body, then they began folding inward with the same
hurtful torpidity. A handful of seconds transformed into what
seemed like minutes before her hands landed firmly atop her head,
and she began to ooze downward onto her knees. Ben was now in
motion, moving in behind her and holstering his sidearm as she
knelt. With equal lethargy he brought his hand up and placed it on
top of hers. In his other hand I saw the light glint from the shiny
metal of the handcuffs as he slapped them against her dainty
wrist.

Detective Ackman was already going through
the door of the motel room, pistol stiff-armed before him as he
skirted behind Ben. Agent Drew was continuing to hold his weapon
pointed at my wife as my friend pulled one of her arms down behind
her back, then the other, each with painfully unnatural
slowness.

A discordant rhythm suddenly began to rattle around me,
driving into my skull and threatening to shatter my eardrums. The
tableau beyond the window shifted in that instant, making the leap
from slow motion to real time, and I watched Ben placing my wife
face down on the sidewalk.

Detective Ackman came back out of the door
and said something to Agent Drew as they were both holstering their
own sidearms. Drew looked toward the emergency vehicles and began
gesturing quickly as he beckoned someone.

The crescendo continued unabated,
transforming from merely discordant to horrifically painful.

Sharp agony started biting into my shoulder
from nowhere, disappearing one moment, only to return the next. My
hands were beginning to ache, and I was almost certain that what
felt like a blow had just landed against my forehead. I had no clue
from where the sudden attack was coming; I only knew that I refused
to succumb. Even as the pain continued, the scene before me began
fading into obscurity behind a bloom of frosty white.

The deafening noise warbled into nothingness,
then returned anew, immediately on the heels of the dying
sound.

It was at that moment, I realized that the
pain I felt was the product of me slamming my own body against the
locked door of the squad car in a futile attempt to reach
Felicity.

And, the ghastly wail was none other than my
own voice screaming out her name.

Thursday, November 10

8:27 A.M.

FBI Field Office

Saint Louis, Missouri

I thought I heard a noise, but given that it
was so quiet in the room and the sound itself had been so soft, I
wasn’t really certain. I thought it might simply be my imagination.
Since it didn’t seem particularly important, I just ignored it.
Instead, I continued staring at the blob of metal bits that made up
the magnetic sculpture sitting on the edge of the desk in front of
me, absently pondering just exactly what the current shape was
meant to be.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had
slept, and while my body was screaming at me to allow it to shut
down, I staunchly refused. Although I am sure that to the outside
world I looked like I had slipped into a vegetative state, I
actually had a singular mission in mind, and it required that I
remain conscious.

A louder noise eventually followed the first,
but I disregarded it too. Apparently, it didn’t want to be ignored,
so it poked me in the eardrum once again, sharper and louder. This
time I had no choice but to take notice of a looming presence at my
side. I broke my stare away from the desk art and turned my face
upward.

Initially, I couldn’t muster anything more
than a questioning grunt of “Huh?”

Ben looked down at me and asked, “I said, do
ya’ want some more coffee?”

I glanced down at my hands and noticed that
they were fiddling with a Styrofoam cup, moving deliberately but
completely of their own accord. Then, I looked back up to him. “No.
What I want is to see my wife.”

“I’ve been workin’ on it.”

“You’ve been sitting here with me.”

“No, I’ve been gone for twenty minutes,
Row.”

“You were?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Just now. I just walked in the room two
seconds ago.”

“What’s taking so long?”

“I dunno.”

“That’s not a very good answer.”

“Yeah, well, I prob’ly got less pull around
here than you do, so gimme a break. I’m tryin’.”

In all the years I had been involved with
police investigations, I had never set foot inside the FBI field
office. Of course, like most anyone living in Saint Louis, I had
driven past it numerous times when traveling along Market Street.
Still, it had never been on my top ten list of places to visit, and
there was a huge difference between absently cruising past a
building and occupying a chair in one of its offices for so long
that you literally lose track of the passing hours.

I had to admit, however, that the seating
here was vastly more comfortable than the molded plastic dinette
refugees I was used to warming when sitting next to Ben’s desk at
city police headquarters. The coffee was far better too. I just
didn’t think my stomach could take any more of it, good or not.

“Got some other news,” my friend offered.
“Mister ‘Door Mat’ is conscious and talkin’.”

Felicity had been wrong. Lewis hadn’t been
dead after all; this was a fact they quickly discovered when they
finally entered the room. He had, however, been unconscious and
bleeding from several wounds. Considering how bad he looked when
the ambulance crew brought him out, I could easily see why my wife
had thought he was deceased. To be honest, up until now I hadn’t
known whether he had died on the way to the hospital or if he would
even recover from his injuries.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked. As callous
as it made me feel, the only reason I cared was because a good
portion of my wife’s impending fate hinged on his health. Other
than that, I didn’t give a damn one way or the other, and that was
unlike me.

“He actually looked a lot worse than he
really was… Not that he ain’t pretty screwed up though… He’s got a
broken nose so mosta the blood ya’ saw was from that, and some
other superficial wounds…

“He’s got some busted ribs, a concussion, and
a buncha scrapes ‘n cuts… Lotta contusions shaped oddly enough like
high-heeled footprints in Firehair’s size… Tons of gouges that
‘pparently came from the tips of the heels… Guess that’s why they
call ‘im Door Mat though… Go figure…

“Ackman said he’s already startin’ ta’ turn
black, blue, purple and the whole nine… Workin’ on a pair of
shiners that are prob’ly gonna make ‘im look like a friggin’
raccoon… Gonna have some serious scars too, ‘cause she tore ‘im up
good… Real good…”

My friend finally paused at the end of the
inventory, then for some odd reason, he actually let out what
sounded to be a perplexed chuckle before continuing. “But yeah…
Yeah… He’s gonna be just fine. Physically anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re not gonna believe this,” he
replied, shaking his head. “But the first thing the sick fuck
wanted ta’ know when he came to was where his Mistress was. Ackman
said he tried to explain the situation to ‘im, but all he did was
ask for Mistress Miranda’s number, so he could ask her what he was
allowed to say. Guess you could say he was exercisin’ his right ta’
remain silent after bein’ Mirandized.”