The magnetic bubble light was once again laying down its flickering red glow in front of the speeding van as we headed east. As soon as we knew where we needed to go, my friend had quickly exited the highway, looped us through various mid-town side streets, then jumped onto 40 once again and pointed us back toward Illinois.
“NO!” Ben stressed the objection loudly into his cell phone. “Absolutely not… No, I don’t give a fuck… I’m tellin’ ya’, don’t call ‘er… Let me handle this… Yeah…”
I tuned out his side of the conversation and focused my attention toward my own cell. Felicity was still on the line with me but hadn’t said more than a dozen words in the past five minutes. Even though I continued to speak, trying to calm her, all I could get from the other end was frightened sobbing and an occasional “yes” whenever I asked her if she was still there.
“Felicity, talk to me,” I appealed.
Her only audible answer came in the form of a hard sob, punctuated by a pleading whine that sounded like “What’s happening to me?”
At this point, we didn’t know what the full situation really was. After the initial shock of her call had subsided, I had begun questioning my wife as to her whereabouts. At first all she seemed to be able to do was sob, but I eventually got her to tell me that she was in a bathroom. The sound of her voice made me conjure images of her cowering in a corner, and that only served to make the painful hollowness return to my chest.
After much gentle urging, I had managed to coax her out of the bathroom long enough to tell me she was in what appeared to be a motel room. Ben tried having the call traced, but we only found that she was using a cell belonging to the individual with whom she had left the club. While they worked on pinpointing her location via the cell towers, I continued to do the only thing I could-talk to her.
It took me another five minutes, but I did convince her that she needed to leave the bathroom once again and look for something that would tell her the name of the motel. I found quickly that I was damning myself for putting her through it as I listened to her hyperventilate and weep while she moved through the room. Fortunately, it wasn’t in vain, as she eventually came up with the needed information from the room key before audibly scrambling back into the perceived safety of the bathroom. I wasn’t particularly surprised that the number she squeaked out happened to be seven.
While I suspected the numeral held a greater meaning for the killer, I had a terribly sick feeling that it was going to say something entirely different to the police investigating the killing spree. After what Ben had told me earlier, I had no choice but to believe there would be a tremendous amount of significance placed on that fact in an attempt to tie my wife to the murders.
Once we had the name of the motel, Ben had made a quick call and determined that it was a dive known for cheap hourly rates and a guest register full of Smith’s and Jones’. On top of that, it was back across the river and only a mile or so from the club we had recently left. In fact, we had to have driven past it, both on the way there and back.
The only other thing I had been able to glean from the mostly one-sided conversation with my wife was that apparently, Brad Lewis was in the room with her. At least, that was our assumption. All I could ever really make out was that someone was there, that she believed “he” was dead; and moreover, that she had been responsible for his death. I was hoping that she was wrong, but the fact that she probably still had Constance’s sidearm was making my stomach twist into a knot. While I had relayed the information to Ben, he hadn’t let it go any further. I didn’t know why he was keeping it to himself, but I appreciated the discretion.
All in all, I counted us lucky to have gotten as much as we did. Felicity seemed on the verge of absolute hysterics at one moment, only to shift into quiet sobbing the next. It was painfully obvious that she was completely disoriented, not to mention scared out of her wits. I couldn’t truly imagine what she must be going through at the moment, but my brain was definitely barraging me with a host of emotions that I was desperately trying to ignore.
I also didn’t even want to consider imagining what she might have done. Even if I discounted the firearm, I felt little comfort, as there were many other ways to take a life.
Of course, we don’t always get what we want, and unlike the song says, we don’t necessarily get what we need either. Since my brain was already stuck in overdrive with the emotional attack, it began generating horrific scenarios to add to the torturous mix. And, no matter how hard I tried to discount each of them, they still played out inside my head with agonizing repetition.
Not knowing what this Lewis individual actually looked like other than a brief description, my mind’s eye did the best it could with the imagery at hand. Unfortunately, what that meant was that I kept seeing Officer Hobbes’ lifeless, mutilated body with my wife standing over it. And, every time I saw the flash of her face, she was wearing the wicked grin I had seen twisting her features earlier in the day. I fought hard to deny the image, but it soon became the only thing I saw each and every time I blinked.
As if the torment my psyche was doling out wasn’t enough, frustration was coursing through me like a heavy static charge. The anxiety was so high that I could barely remain still in my seat. A voice in my head kept telling me that I needed to be with Felicity right now, this moment. I knew without a doubt that this time the voice was my own.
I wanted to hold my wife in my arms and protect her. I wanted to make all of this just go away. Unfortunately, the voice also kept telling me that the last half of my “want” simply wasn’t going to happen. Whatever had occurred during the past few hours was going to be with us for a long time to come, probably even forever.
Whether it was a word, the Gods, or simply luck, I don’t know. But, whatever the subconscious trigger was, something suddenly drew me out of my introspection and tuned me back into the conversation going on beside me.
“…Yeah,” Ben said again, still talking into his cell. “Better get an ambulance… Good… No, I don’t know… Yeah, guess you better call the coroner too, just in case… Yeah, we’ll be there in less than five… Yeah…”
“Hold on, honey,” I said into my phone. “We’re almost there.”
The only response I received was the sound of her nasal whimpering, but at least that told me she was still at the other end.
“What’s happening?” I asked my friend as I cocked the cell away from my mouth.
“Ackman just pulled into the parking lot, and Osthoff’s on ‘is way,” he replied, naming off two members of the MCS. “Ther’re also a coupl’a uniforms on scene already.”
“Don’t let them hurt her,” I appealed.
“Right now they’re waitin’ on us, Row,” he replied. “I told ‘em not to go in until we got there.”
“You’re sure they won’t?”
“Right now they’re just watchin’ the door and waitin’ for us,” he tried to reassure me. “Ackman’s gonna talk to the clerk and watch for the ambulance.”
“Don’t let them hurt her, Ben,” I said again.
“Row…” he started then paused.
My voice slipped into a frightened plea. “Promise me.”
My friend sighed heavily then finally said, “Yeah… I won’t let ‘em.”
A frigid chill ran the length of my spine. I knew his clipped reply was meant only to placate me for the moment. Logically, I realized that there were still far too many unknowns at work for him to truly be able to make such a guarantee.
Emotionally, however, I just didn’t care. I wanted her safe, no matter what the cost.
“She still on the line?” he asked after a long moment of silence.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“How is she?”
“Scared” was my initial reply. I followed it a split second later with “And confused.”
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Not dangerous,” I stressed.
“Yeah, I know.”
I waited in silence for what was most likely a full minute then asked, “What’s going to happen, Ben?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You’ve got to know something.”
“This isn’t the time, Row.”
“Dammit, Ben,” I said, but the words came out only as a fearful whisper. “You promised.”
I put my hand against the console and stiffened my arm to brace myself as my friend whipped the van through the cloverleaf and back onto Route 3 for the third time tonight. Two impossibly drawn out minutes later, he turned into the parking lot of the aptly named Route Three Motel.
“Honey, we just pulled in,” I said into my phone.
“Help me, Rowan…” she cried.
“What the…” Ben yelped suddenly as we rounded the end of the L-shaped building and came into view of the front of the motel.
What had originally been described to us as “a couple of uniforms” had drastically increased in that it now took the form of four Illinois state police vehicles and a county sheriff’s patrol car. Mixed in with the marked cruisers were several plain sedans sporting emergency lights similar to Ben’s. The face of the small building was lit up by an insane jumble of headlamps and flickering light bars. The chaotic luminance was enough to drive even a non-epileptic into a seizure.
The most frightening part of the tableau, however, was the bustle of activity among the individuals surrounding the wedge of vehicles. With a single glance I counted at least three shotguns and what appeared to be a sniper rifle.
“Goddammit, Ben!” I half-screamed.
“Calm down!” he barked in return. “I’m gonna handle it!”
“Felicity!” I said into my phone with a panicked urgency. “Stay right where you are! Lay down on the floor and don’t move. Do you hear me? Don’t move, just lay down and don’t move!”
Ben pulled up to the scene and cranked the gearshift up hard, slamming the van into park even as he was applying the brakes. Before the vehicle had even stopped swaying, he swung his door open and jumped out. I was no more than two seconds behind him, but I could hear his voice already bellowing before I even made it around the front corner of the Chevy.
“What the fuck is going on here?!” he demanded.
“The locals,” a sandy-haired man I recognized as Detective Ackman was replying as I came up next to my friend. “They started pulling in as soon as I got off the phone with you.”
“What the hell do they think they’re doin’?” Ben asked with a hard shake of his head.
“It’s the Feeb’s gun,” Ackman replied. “They’re treating this like a hostage situation.”
“Goddammit!” my friend spat as he finished slipping his badge onto a heavy cord then hung it around his neck. “Why didn’t you shut ‘em down?”
“I tried, but there’s a county sheriff on scene taking over.”
“Jeezus…”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Didn’t you tell ‘im this was under a Major Case investigation?”
“Yeah, and he said he already knew that.”
“Already knew… Then what the… Screw it, where the hell is he?”
Ackman pointed across the top of the squad cars. “Over there. Grey hair, blue jacket.”
“Come on,” Ben barked, starting around the van in the direction of the individual who had just been singled out.
I followed at a near jog, still keeping the cell phone pressed to my ear, although I couldn’t hear much of anything over the noise of the bustling scene. Detective Ackman had to quicken his pace as well, just to keep up with my friend’s long-legged gait.
“I better warn you, Storm,” he said as he strode along with us. “This guy dropped Albright’s name.”
“Dropped it how?”
“Like maybe he’s been in touch with her recently.”
“You think she’s directin’ this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Fuck me.”
As much as my brain was screaming for me to plead with all of them to not hurt my wife, I managed to keep my mouth shut. Right now, Ben was my only hope in this and I knew it. I had to let him at least try to keep his promise, frail though it was.
My eyes were darting about, taking stock of the level of preparation. The comment I had earlier made to my friend about cops with itchy trigger fingers leapt back to the forefront of my thoughts, and it instantly made the hair on the back of my neck pivot upward. Everywhere I looked there was someone wrapped in a bulletproof vest and brandishing something lethal. In fact, the least threatening firearm I saw was a teargas gun.
When we were only a few yards away from the sheriff, Ben called out, “Hey, we need ta’ talk.”
The man turned toward us and immediately showed more than a simple glimmer of recognition. In fact, it appeared as though he was expecting us. Still, the look on his face became even harder in that very instant when he saw me.
I’m sure my own expression had to be no better because as it happened, I was just as familiar with him as he obviously was with me. He was just the last person I had expected to see, especially here. My heart fluttered in my throat the moment my eyes met his then thudded back down into my chest and began to pound viciously as the blood rushed in my ears.
The sheriff centered his gaze on my face as we took the last few steps then came to a halt in front of him.
Until now, I never knew what had actually happened to Detective Arthur McCann. All I could say was that my last run-in with him had been at least five years ago. After that, he had all but fallen off the face of the earth. I’d heard rumors of him retiring, and even one that he had been fired. To be honest I didn’t particularly care one way or the other. Either of those options was fine by me as long as he was no longer packing a badge. Unfortunately, he quite obviously still was.
My experiences with the man had been less than pleasant but still not as bad as it had been for some other Pagans I knew. In brief, McCann was a self-proclaimed expert on the occult who had made it his mission in life to campaign against anything non-Judeo-Christian. Those personal crusades had often included the unwarranted hassling of Saint Louis area Pagans and alternative religious organizations from behind the auspices of his official shield.
While Barbara Albright had stepped in to fill the void he left, I wasn’t actually sure just which one of them I would consider more dangerous. Either way, it didn’t matter now because they had apparently been in touch with one another, and that was even worse. Of course, I suppose I really shouldn’t have been surprised.
Planting his hands on his hips, McCann glowered at me for a moment then looked over to Ben.
“Detective Storm,” he said. “I think you need to get Mister Gant out of here now, or I will have him removed myself.”