Perfect Trust: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

  I stared at him, dumbfounded by the realization that had overtaken my grey matter.

  “You gotta work with me on this, Row. We’re gonna find ‘er, but I’ve gotta have your help.”

  My mind was racing, applying a mental litmus test to a list of possible suspects I was compiling in my head. I couldn’t imagine anyone that we knew wanting to harm her. I was disregarding names as fast as they popped into my head, and soon, I found myself placing the yardstick up against the same people over and over again.

  “Rowan? Talk ta’ me,” Ben prodded.

  “I… It just doesn’t… I’m not…” I stammered. “I don’t know, Ben. I just can’t think of anyone we know who would do something like this.”

  “Okay, what about enemies? You two are pretty open about your religion,” he suggested. “Anyone you know that could maybe have gotten hooked up with a radical group or somethin’?”

  “You pretty much know who my enemies are.” I shook my head. “And to my knowledge Felicity doesn’t have any. And religious groups? I doubt it. Besides, I can’t imagine any going this far.”

  “Try tellin’ that ta’ the dead doctors that were killed by the anti-abortion wackos,” he harrumphed. “It takes all kinds, Row. Have ya’ pissed off anyone that ya’ know of?”

  “I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head.”

  “What about Firehair? She have any acquaintances you’re not familiar with? Someone who might be a bit hinky?”

  “Sure,” I shrugged. “I don’t know all of her business contacts, clients, or even members of her photography club. I suppose one of them could be off kilter.”

  “We’re already checkin’ out the folks she was with today,” he nodded. “She have a rolodex or somethin’ we can look at?”

  I glanced around for her purse and found that it was no longer on the side table in the living room where I’d last seen it. “Her purse,” I expressed. “It was on the table over there.”

  “It’s already been bagged,” Ben told me. “She have an address book in there?”

  “Her PDA,” I acknowledged. “She keeps everything in there. Contacts, appointments, everything.”

  “Okay, stay here,” he told me, punctuating the command with a quick gesture of his hand as he headed for the front door. “I’ll be right back.”

  Silence fell in behind him for a moment, and I turned my head to see Helen looking back at me with a studious expression.

  “How are you holding up,” she asked.

  “As good as can be expected, I suppose.”

  She nodded slightly and continued to watch me as she offered comment. “Benjamin can sometimes resemble a bull in a china shop with his methods.”

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged, “I’ve seen him be gentler.”

  “It is only because he is frightened, Rowan. He fears for your wife’s safety, and for your sanity. He considers you family, and you know his sense of duty.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  She pursed her lips and her brow furrowed deeply. Pressing her palms together she held her hands up and rested her chin on her steepled fingertips. We stood quietly for a moment, and it became my turn to watch her.

  “Rowan, your wife is going to be fine,” she finally told me.

  “Is this the coddling I was asking for earlier?” I questioned with a flat tone to my words.

  “No. It is merely an observation.”

  “Do you know something that the rest of us don’t?”

  “I simply know what it is that I feel,” she answered as she canted her head to the side and blinked. “You of all people should understand that.”

  I allowed her words to comfort me, though the solace was brief. “Thanks, Helen. I hope you’re right.”

  “This thing what you’re talkin’ about?” Ben interrupted as he entered and thrust a thin, silver case at me.

  “Yes,” I nodded as I took it from him and opened the cover to reveal the electronic device within.

  I activated the PDA and withdrew the stylus from its recessed holder then began systematically tapping it against the touch sensitive screen. “Here.” I offered the device back to him. “This is her address book.”

  “You go through it,” he told me. “See if anyone rings a bell. Someone she might’ve mentioned havin’ a disagreement with. Anything like that.”

  I turned the small LCD display back toward myself and proceeded to page through the listings, one entry at a time. She had combined our home address book with her own, so various bits of data stood out as familiar while others did not. Before long, however, they all began to look like just so many letters and numbers jumbled together.

  I stopped and removed my glasses then rubbed my eyes.

  “Somethin’ wrong?” Ben queried.

  “Not really,” I answered as I slipped my glasses back on to my face. “It just seems like I’ve been staring at small print all day.”

  “Ya’ pretty much have. So, ya’ recognize anything?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “But nothing that leaps out at me as particularly suspicious.”

  “So, what are ya’ doin’ now?” he asked as he nodded in the direction of the device.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what are ya’ doin’?” he reiterated, raising an eyebrow. “You aren’t even lookin’ at the damn thing.”

  The sound of the stylus clacking against the touch sensitive plate reached my ears, and I realized my hand was moving completely of its own accord. As I rotated my head and looked down at the PDA in my hand, the out of phase tones of a voice echoed quietly in the back of my head.

  “There. Is this better?”

  Unconsciously, I had switched the handheld computer into a notepad mode and even traded it off to my right hand. My left was now rapidly scratching the stylus against the surface of the screen.

  A quick glance at the LCD showed a digitized string of handwriting that repeatedly scrawled, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM…

  “Dammit!” I exclaimed as I immediately forced my hand to stop moving. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!”

  “Whoa,” Ben raised his voice to compete with mine. “What the hell?”

  “Schaeffer!” I exclaimed, dropping the PDA and stylus onto the table then shaking my hands as if trying to rid them of something disgusting. “She won’t leave me alone!”

  “What? Like she’s here now?”

  “Yes, dammit!” I was angry, and I spun in place looking for any indication of the girl’s spirit around me. “Go away, Debbie! I can’t help you right now!”

  In my head I could hear her chanting at an ever-quickening pace, “DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAM…”

  I seized on the welling anger within me and thrust it outward in a violent rush, attempting to sweep away anything ethereal in my path. The energy exploded outward, only to reach unanticipated limits and return in force. A shockwave of pain backlashed through my head as the energy ricocheted around the room. I saw Helen turn her head then squint, which told me that she had felt it as well, a fact that for some reason I didn’t find all that surprising. Fortunately for her, she was only a spectator; I was the target.

  A pinpoint of agony drilled into my skull directly between my eyes and sent me physically staggering backward. I felt my heel thump against something, and I started to fall, then a tight grip latched on to my arm as someone guided me into a chair.

  “Rowan? Rowan?” Ben’s words were thick as they flowed into my ears. “Are ya’ okay? What’s goin’ on? Answer me.”

  I leaned forward in the seat, dropping my face into my hands, and heaved hard against the pain. I’m sure that to him it looked like I was having a seizure.

  “ROWAN?!” he demanded again, his voice loud.

  I held up a hand as a signal to him as I grimaced through the onslaught of agony. I’d brought this upon myself. My own anger was bouncing around inside the
ethereal barriers Felicity and I had placed around the house, and it now came back to me threefold if not more. I was simply paying for my own lack of control.

  While my presence within had acted as a doorway for Debbie Schaeffer to enter, it hadn’t been terribly effective as an exit for the burst of energy. On top of that, I hadn’t been the least bit grounded when it returned.

  I mutely cursed myself for the stupidity of the action as the pain slowly began to subside. After a moment, misery faded into something resembling a severe sinus headache, and I sighed heavily.

  I remained motionless as I opened my eyes and allowed them to focus on the object I’d tripped over.

  There on the floor was a sealed cardboard box, roughly eight-by-ten by maybe twelve inches tall. I stared at it as the image clarified, then slowly allowed my eyes to come to rest on the label. It was upside down from my point of view, but I could still read it without difficulty.

  It was addressed to Felicity O’Brien and Emerald Photographic Services, which was her company name. What really drew my attention, however, was the return address: Arch Color Labs, 3754 Ash Bend Avenue.

  CHAPTER 28

  There is an old adage that most everyone has heard, about snakes, nearness to them, and getting bit by same because of said close proximity. This is where I now found myself, and the fangs of this particular serpent were, to say the least, firmly embedded in my carotid artery, and the venom was now reaching my brain.

  Bits and pieces of information, snippets of conversations, and channeled vices began coalescing in my frontal lobes to form a mental picture that should have been crystal clear all along. How I’d managed to avoid putting this all together, I had no idea, but there was no stopping it now. Whatever mental block had been shielding the overtly obvious from my sight had now been obliterated, and it was all making sense.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered just loud enough to be heard.

  “Do what?” Ben asked. “Rowan, what’s goin’ on? What the hell was that all about?”

  “Harold,” I said a bit louder. “It’s Harold.”

  “Harold who?”

  “Harold…the sorry sonofabitch that owns Arch Color Labs,” I announced, ignoring the throb in my skull and looking up at my friend. “That’s Harold who.”

  “You’re gonna hafta elaborate, Row.”

  “This box,” I explained as I pointed to the offending container. “It wasn’t here when I left this morning.”

  “Yeah, so maybe it got delivered while you were with me and Chuck. Ya’ haven’t been home all day ya’know.”

  “No. Wouldn’t happen. Arch is less than a mile from here. He never ships orders to Felicity. She picks them up.”

  “Okay, so just playin’ devil’s advocate here…are you sure she didn’t?” he asked.

  “She didn’t have time. Not today of all days. And before you ask, he’s closed on weekends so it wasn’t riding around in her Jeep for the past few days either.”

  “Okay, good, we’re maybe onta’ somethin’ here. So what makes ya’ think it’s this Harold guy and not an employee?”

  “Because it’s a one man operation. Besides, he smokes like a fiend and that’s why he’s been dressing them up.”

  “He dresses ‘em up ‘cause he smokes? What?”

  “No!” I snapped. “Listen to me. The bastard smokes! And Felicity is why he’s dressing them up!”

  “Whoa, back up,” my friend said. “Which case are we talkin’ about here?”

  “All of it, Ben,” I said in exasperation. “All of it. He’s the one who killed Debbie Schaeffer and Paige Lawson. He’s the one who’s been raping all these women, and he’s the one who took Felicity. Now can we go?”

  “Whoa, slow down, white man,” he instructed. “I think maybe you’re gettin’ some stuff crossed up here.”

  “No, no I’m not.” I shook my head, incredulous that he wasn’t understanding, and then I realized that he had no reason to. Thus far I’d told him next to nothing by way of the facts as I saw them. I was simply spouting random observations and my own fevered conclusions.

  I forced myself to stay in my seat and tried to explain what I was talking about. “Okay, here it is. Did you by any chance notice the resemblance between Felicity and Heather Burke?”

  “Heather Burke is a blue-eyed blonde, Row.”

  “I know,” I returned. “But try to follow me here. I’m talking about her other physical attributes. Size, shape of face, skin tone. That’s why he uses the wig and the tinted contacts. Try to imagine Heather Burke with long red hair.”

  “Okay.” He nodded slightly after a thoughtful pause. “I guess maybe I can see that.”

  “Now, what about Miranda Hodges and Paige Lawson?” I urged.

  “Yeah, they all kinda resemble one another, but don’t ya’ think you’re pushin’ it a bit?”

  “No, I don’t.” I shook my head hard. I wanted to get moving but I knew it was never going to happen unless I could convince him I was correct. “He has been dressing them up to look like Felicity and then taking pictures of them. He’s been living out his fantasy about my wife through them.”

  “I dunno, Rowan. We’ll check it out, but let’s not start drawin’ conclusions just yet.”

  “Fine,” I snarled, “fine, just forget all that. The important thing is I’m telling you he’s the one who’s got Felicity, and we need to stop him before he hurts her.”

  “I’m not doubtin’ ya’,” Ben held up a hand before I could object, “Well, actually, yes I am, ‘cause we don’t need ta’ go off half-cocked an’ chasin’ our tails right now.”

  “Dammit, Ben!”

  “Row, I told ya’, we’ll check it out. But, we can’t just go bust ‘is door down without probable cause. Can ya’ at least give me a motive?”

  I heaved out an exasperated sigh. “Just the other day Felicity told me she thinks he has a crush on her.”

  “Just a crush, or somethin’ more serious?” he asked. “Like, has he been stalkin’ ‘er?”

  “I don’t know,” I couldn’t keep the urgency out of my voice. “But he has been know to call here for no good reason, and I don’t doubt what Felicity said.”

  “Okay, okay, I believe ya’,” he said. “I’m afraid a suspected crush ain’t gonna get us a warrant, but let’s start by checkin’ ‘im out. You got a last name so we can get a home address?”

  “He won’t be at home,” I told him confidently as I glanced down at the label on the box. I suddenly realized that in my haste I’d neglected to give him a piece of information that would have made my theory quite a bit easier to swallow. “He’ll have her at the lab where he can take pictures of her.”

  “Okay, then, we can start there then move ta’ the home. What’s the address?”

  “Thirty-seven fifty-four Ash Bend Avenue.”

  He was scribbling in his notebook as I recited the address. His pencil slowed and he looked up at me silently.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t a name. It was an address.”

  “But…”

  “Dyslexia,” I said before he could finish. “I’ll bet you anything that Heather Burke suffers from dyslexia.”

  * * * * *

  Ben killed the headlights on the van and eased it into the parking lot of Arch Color Labs, allowing the high idle of the engine to slowly propel us forward as he surveyed the building. It had taken us less than five minutes to make the trip, and my earlier overabundance of nervous energy was returning in full force. I reached for the door and popped the latch while the vehicle inched along at a pace that would make a tortoise ashamed.

  “Dammit, Rowan!” Ben hissed as he quickly twisted a control on the dash to extinguish the dome light. “What the fuck are ya’ doin’? Close the door!”

  “Well what are you doing?” I shot back between clenched teeth. “Felicity is in there and you’re just screwing around out here!”

  “Listen, I understand where you’re at, believe me, but we can’t just rush in there l
ike the cavalry or somethin’.”

  “Dammit, Ben, he’s got Felicity!”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “I do!”

  “Fine,” he spat, “I ain’t gonna argue with ya’. But we’re doin’ this my way. Got it?”

  It was all I could do to contain myself. The earlier thud that had occupied my head was still there and seemed to be acting as a pump for the visceral rage I was experiencing. With each thrum of pain, I could feel the anger course through me. It was rising fast, and it wasn’t going to be long before it consumed me.

  The van idled its way around a low retaining wall to reveal the opposite end of the L-shaped parking lot. There in the shadows of the far back corner sat a car. The tall lamps positioned around the building poured their sodium vapor glow into the night and cut a small swath across the front quarter of the vehicle.

  A vague memory of the night Ben had hurried me out of my house in advance of the descending media flitted through my mind. It was the Thunderbird that had been parked on the side street across from my driveway. I recognized the blotches of primer.

  “Remember the car we almost hit the other night?” I asked, pointing toward the T-bird. “You wanted to know if he was stalking her… Well there’s your answer.”

  “Yeah, I see it,” he grunted.

  Ben brought the van to a halt next to the concrete retaining wall and switched off the engine. The silence that followed rang hollow in my ears, piercing directly into my soul.

  Through the windows, the interior of the building appeared dark. The only sound inside the van was that of me, Ben, and Helen breathing. The coldness of the night began to quickly seep in.

  “What now?” I finally asked, my words riding out on a cloud of visible breath. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”

  “Rowan, ya’ wanna can it?” my friend ordered more than asked. “Ya’know, if you were anyone else I woulda kicked your ass by now.”