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.”
He snickered half-heartedly at his own joke, but his flippancy faded when he noticed that I wasn’t laughing. I really couldn’t find much of anything funny right now, least of all a play on words when the word happened to be Miranda. I simply stayed quiet and mulled over the meat of the commentary.
Finally, I said, “I guess that means he won’t be pressing assault charges against her then.”
“Yeah, I really doubt if he’ll be filin’ a complaint… And if he won’t do that, then the prosecuting attorney most likely won’t file either… Wouldn’t be worth the time. So, I think you’re prob’ly free ‘n clear on that one,” he agreed. “Although, ta’ be honest it wouldn’t surprise me if ya’ ended up filin’ a restrainin’ order against the friggin’ wingnut if he ever finds out where ya’ live. It sounds a lot like he lell in fuv with your wife.”
“That wasn’t my wife he fell for.”
“Yeah, I know… But you know what I meant.”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” I replied. “I’m just glad she didn’t kill him.”
“Uh-huh. For his sake or for hers?”
“Hers.”
“Yeah. I figured as much.”
“Sorry,” I told him in a humorless tone. “When it comes to anyone besides my wife right now, I’m just not in a particularly compassionate mood.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Like I said, the sick fuck got ‘zactly what he wanted, and he’s already beggin’ for more.”
I fell silent and dropped my eyes back down to the disposable cup in my hands. I watched with a distant gaze as my hands continued moving without the benefit of conscious direction. My left was slowly spinning the Styrofoam vessel while with my right thumbnail I was making small indentations around the rim. It was already starting to crumble where I had been over the same spot repeatedly for who knew how long.
“What time is it?” I finally asked, looking back up to my friend and not bothering to check my own watch.
“Eight thirty or so, why?”
“Just wondering. Seems like we’ve been here quite awhile.”
“Yeah. We have. You got someplace to be? You need me ta’ make a call for ya’ or somethin’?”
“No,” I answered with a shake of my head.
“You sure?”
“No,” I repeated, mainly because I wasn’t really sure of anything at the moment. For all I knew I was leaving a client hanging or missing a breakfast meeting. That part of my life seemed so distant right now that it was as if it belonged to someone else.
“Well, just let me know if ya’ need me to call someone.”
“What about you?” I asked, purely out of reflex.
“What about me?”
“Do you have someplace to be?”
“No.”
Something about the way he spoke the word sparked a reaction in my brain that made me feel that he was lying.
“No?” I echoed, my psyche still hovering in a no-man’s-land somewhere between the conversation and my prison cell of introspection. “Are you sure?”
He sighed heavily and dropped his oversized frame into a chair next to me. “Well, funeral’s not until tomorrow, not that I really wanna be there ta’ begin with. I suppose I did promise Helen I’d help with some stuff today, but that can wait till later.”
“Funeral?” I asked.
“Yeah, the funeral,” he stressed bitterly.
His tone lit a wide swath through the fog of my obfuscation, and I seized on a vague memory that his father had recently crossed over. The remembrance made me feel like I wasn’t being much of a friend to him; but then, like I had told him, I wasn’t feeling much sympathy for the rest of the world right now anyway.
It also didn’t help much that the man next to me had been pointing a gun at my wife only a few hours ago, ready to pull the trigger if he felt it warranted. I still wasn’t sure that I had forgiven him for that trespass against our friendship, and I had already told him as much.
After a weighty pause he said, “You know I wasn’t aiming for a kill shot, Rowan. Right?”
I knew he couldn’t read my mind, but I got the distinct impression that everything I had said to him while standing on that motel parking lot was still weighing on him just as heavily as it was me. I suppose his sudden return to the subject was a verbal testament of that fact.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I replied coldly.
“I was doin’ my job, Row. I wouldn’t have killed her.”
“Maybe so, but did you really have to treat her the way you did?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Cuffing her on the ground like some kind of hardened criminal. I mean, come on… She’s over a foot shorter than you and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, Ben. Not to mention that there were three of you. She was confused and scared. She wasn’t dangerous.”
“She took Mandalay’s weapon, Row.”
“You saw what she was wearing. Where was she going to hide it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“She wasn’t dangerous-she isn’t dangerous, Ben.”
“Tell that ta’ Door Mat.”
“That was different. He obviously wanted the abuse.”
“Uh-huh…Yeah, well then forget him. Just grab a mirror an’ look at what ‘barely a hundred pounds soakin’ wet’ did ta’ you.”
“That was different too.”
“Yeah, right. Well, I wasn’t interested in wearin’ her claw marks. Neither were Ackman or Drew. It was just procedure, Row.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Let’s just drop it, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. But, the point is I wouldn’t have shot to kill. I just want ya’ ta’ know…” He ended the sentence in a mumble, allowing his voice to trail off.
A tense silence fell between us, and I re-inspected my progress on the coffee cup’s disintegrating rim for a long moment while I listened to him shift uncomfortably in his seat.
“Look, if you need to go…” I offered, not looking up.
He replied without hesitation. “Like I said, it can wait. Unless, you’re just tryin’ ta’ get me ta’ leave.”
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“Well, shouldn’t you call your sister then?”
“I’m bettin’ she’s already seen the news, Row. She’ll prob’ly call me.”
A faint noise fell in behind his words. Instead of ignoring it, however, this time my attention had been pulled back far enough into the here and now to realize I was hearing a door open behind us as someone entered the office. I turned to glance over my shoulder and saw Special Agent Mandalay coming through the opening.
“Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?” Ben asked her as he shot a look her way then did a double take and came up from his seat even as he was turning to fully face her.
“No,” she replied. “I should be right where I am.”
“You positive ‘bout that?”
“The doctor released me hours ago, Ben,” she returned. “Lighten up.”
“So, you get stitches?”
“Twelve,” she said as she reached up and gently touched the gauze bandage taped behind her ear.
“You got a concussion?”
“Mild.”
“‘Kay then, so shouldn’t ya’ be resting or somethin’?”
“I need to stay awake, so I might as well be useful,” she replied. “Besides, I needed to be down here to pull some strings.”
“Yeah, okay,” he conceded. “So how’s that goin’?”
“We may have it worked out,” she told him. “My SAC’s got to file something, there’s no way around that. But, I think I’ve convinced him to just turn me in for a letter of censure for temporarily misplacing my sidearm. If we can do that, and make a few calls to the local authorities regarding the actual assault, Felicity should walk away from this okay as long as nothing else changes.”
Ben gave her a nod and the grim look on his face left me with the impression that they now shared a secret to which I was not going to be made privy. I assumed it had something to do with the letter of reprimand she was inviting upon herself. While my attitude toward the rest of the world still hadn’t changed much, I felt I should at least apologize to her.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “You shouldn’t be taking this on yourself.”
“Don’t be,” she answered with a smile. “It’s okay.”
“But how is this going to affect your career?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Rowan. I’ll be fine. Let’s just worry about you and Felicity right now.”
I didn’t press the subject. There was someone else on my mind whose importance outweighed everyone, including me, and Constance had just uttered her name.
“Have you seen her?” I asked hopefully.
She nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going to take you to see your wife.”
I don’t know how long we stood there in the tight embrace. It could have been a minute; it could have been an hour. It didn’t matter to me if it was forever, as long as I could hold my wife and feel her heart beating, her warm breath against my neck, and even her hot tears dampening my shoulder.
At the moment, life was far from perfect, but it had taken immense strides from where it had been less than a day before.
We had been left alone in the interview room, Ben and Constance excusing themselves, ostensibly to get coffee. However, it was fairly obvious that the ploy was actually to give us a moment or two of privacy, for which I was appreciative. They even managed to get the agent who had been conducting the interview to join them, although I was certain that the door was still being guarded.
“Oh, Caorthann…” Felicity murmured through her quiet sobs as she lifted her head and gazed into my face. Concern welled in her wet eyes as she gently brushed her fingertips against the scabbed over welts along my cheek and whispered, “Gods… What happened?”
“It’s nothing,” I told her.
“Did I do this to you?” she asked.
“No,” I replied. “Someone who was keeping you from me did.”
She dropped her face back against my shoulder and continued to sniffle as more tears made their way onto my shirt.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’m here. It’s going to be fine.”
I knew my words had to sound like trite dialogue from a B-movie, but there was nothing else for me to say.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me, then…” she said, the Celtic brogue thick in her voice.
As much as I adored her on again-off again accent, I never could have imagined how hearing it at this moment could make me feel. Even with the heavy emotion threading through her words, its very sound was a calming melody whispering lightly in my ears.
“I know,” I soothed. “I know.”
“Aye,” she said. “I killed him, didn’t I?”
“No,” I told her. “No. He’s alive and he’ll be fine.”
I felt her shudder against me as she released a relieved sigh and tightened her grip.
“You’re certain?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“I thought sure I had killed him then…” she said as she finally loosened her grip on me and pushed back.
She put her hand to her mouth and trembled as she closed her eyes, tears still rolling down her flushed cheeks. She looked far more waiflike than she had hours before. Her face had been scrubbed clean of the makeup, and her pale complexion was blotchy from her continuous weeping. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans that were a half size or so larger than her shape required and over them, a baggy sweatshirt with a faded and peeling college logo silk-screened above the left breast.
Constance had told me on our way down here that she had brought Felicity some clothing from her own wardrobe since what my wife had been wearing when she was taken into custody was being confiscated. I hadn’t been told why they were taking her clothes, but I didn’t really care.
It simply didn’t matter what she was wearing. It was enough for me that she was safe.
Felicity took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I could tell she was trying hard to ground herself. I could also tell she was having very little success. After repeating the breaths several times, she finally opened her eyes and looked up at me.
“Aye, what’s happening to me then, Rowan?” she asked.
“Honey, we can talk about this later,” I replied.
“I need to know,” she came back with a pleading tone in her voice.
I looked at her and let out my own heavy sigh. I didn’t think this was the time or the place, but she deserved to know. After all, it was her to whom it had happened.
“I think you underwent a possession by a Lwa,” I stated.
“A Lwa? Isn’t that a Vodou deity?” she asked, sniffling.
“Yes.”
“But how? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, shaking my head. “I wish I did. All I know is that some form of Voodoo ritual was performed at the murder scene where you showed up yesterday.”
“But… But why would it affect me, then?” she stammered.
“Again, I don’t know,” I said with a note of apology in my voice. “I wish I did… Do you remember anything? Anything at all? Maybe that would help us figure it out.”
She shook her head then hugged herself tightly as she began pacing around the room. “I remember arguing with a police officer about letting me in somewhere… I’m not really sure where, it’s all fuzzy… Then I think I called you on my cell phone… But… But I’m not sure…”
“That would have been the crime scene where the ritual was done,” I acknowledged. “Is that it?”
“Aye,” she said with a nod then stopped pacing and dropped her eyes to the floor. “After that it was as if I was in a dreamless sleep, right up until I awoke in that room with…”
“It’s okay,” I told her as her voice trailed off. “You’ve been through enough.”
“Rowan,” she said, looking up at me with a startled visage. “They took some of my hair. Why?”
Constance had told me that Felicity had been filled in on her escapades with the assault, taking the firearm, and even some sketchy details about the search that had ensued. My wife’s question, however, told me that they had completely left out any reference to her being a suspect in the two homicides. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but I knew for certain that I didn’t want to tell her. Unfortunately, it looked like I wasn’t going to have a choice.
“It isn’t important right now,” I said, stepping forward and reaching for her in an attempt to skirt the issue.
She backed away and cocked her head to the side, unwilling to yield to my half-hearted attempt. “No. Tell me.”
I dropped my forehead into my hand and massaged it for a moment before looking back to her frightened face. “They found several long red hairs at both of the homicide crime scenes. After what happened yesterday, you’re being considered a suspect.”
“Gods…” she murmured, as an icy terror frosted her eyes.
“It’s going to be okay, honey,” I offered. “When they compare your hair with the ones from the crime scenes, you’ll be cleared.”
“Aye, and what if I’m not?”
“You will be.”
“Rowan…” she started, then paused.
“What?”
“There is something else I remember then,” she said quietly.
“What?”
She swallowed hard, looked to the ceiling, then back to my face. “When I woke up in the motel room, I was standing on that man’s chest and stamping on his face.”
I shook my head hard and waved at her with a dismissive gesture. “That’s not important honey. You were under the influence of a spirit possession at the time.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she objected. “When I came to, that was what I was doing, and I was… I was… Aroused.”
“Again, that’s part of…”
“Listen to me, Rowan,” she interrupted. “I was VERY aroused.”
“So?”
“So… So…” She closed her eyes again as she took in a deep breath then opened them and blurted, “So I kept doing it.”
“You kept doing what?” I asked, even though I was afraid I already knew the answer.
“I kept stomping on him,” she said, her voice cracking with a mix of fear and excitement. “I didn’t stop. I just kept stomping on his body because it felt so good to do it… To be dominant… To punish him… I was enjoying it, and I kept going until… Until… Until I came to an orgasm.”
I stared back at her. I truly didn’t know what to say.
“Have you told anyone else about this?” I finally managed to ask.
“No.”
“Don’t.”
“Aye, but maybe I should,” she replied, her voice near a whisper. “Maybe it is me. Maybe I am the killer.”