the doorway and hissed, “Either help her, or let me, dammit!”
I completely lost track of my heartbeats as my chest thudded through the silence. After what seemed like several hours rolled into a single moment, Ben shot a glance my way then looked over at Agent Cobb.
“Tell ‘em I’m goin’ down now,” he said.
“That bottom landing is completely blind,” he replied.
“Yeah, but I’ve been down there before. I can handle it.”
Cobb thumbed his phone and relayed the message. No sooner had he finished speaking than Constance’s voice came back over the device.
“Ben, we can hear you conversing with her. Is the situation stable?”
“Tell ‘er that depends on what the fuck she calls stable,” my friend snipped.
Cobb thumbed the button and said, “She’s talking, and we’ve spoken to the hostage.”
Constance replied, “As long as she’s talking to us, and Felicity is unharmed, stay where you are. I’ve already called in the HRT.”
“You heard her,” Cobb said. “Hostage Rescue is on the way.”
“Ben…” I appealed again.
My friend shot a glance my way then replied, “Yeah, well tell ‘er I’m not waitin’.”
The agent relayed the new message and was again greeted by Constance’s voice saying, “Storm, as long as the situation is stable, stand down and wait for the HRT!”
Ben looked at Cobb then past him at me. Glancing back, he settled his eyes on the phone for a brief second. Stepping forward through the opening he said, “Fuck the HRT.”
Before the federal agent could make a move, my friend had skirted in through the opening and disappeared. I could hear him slowly working his way down the stairs.
“I’m coming down,” his voice echoed from the opening.
Blood was rushing in my ears, and my head was throbbing with pain both ethereal and mundane. I leaned against the doorjamb and fought to listen as my friend continued down the stairs but heard nothing other than the thumping of my own heart.
Seconds eked by, each one adding to the next until they drew themselves out into languid minutes that seemed like hours. I closed my eyes and waited out the eternity since it was all I could do.
Finally, I heard muffled voices through the floor, bleeding in through the pounding in my ears. A piercing yelp and a string of curses that sounded as if they came from Ben followed. After that came the sound of a woman laughing then the creaking noise of the side door opening on oil-deprived hinges. A moment later, Ben’s voice called up the stairwell.
His tone was calm and held only the barest note of urgency when he said, “Cobb… Uncuff Rowan and get him down here.”
CHAPTER 39:
I was already heading for the stairs before Agent Cobb had the handcuffs fully removed from my wrists. I could hear several voices as I headed downward, but my wife’s wasn’t among them, which firmly seated the panic roiling through my gut. My heart still hadn’t stopped racing nor had my head ceased to pound with its bizarre mix of pain. If anything, the headache had grown worse.
As I neared the bottom of the stairs, I was struck full in the face by an all too familiar but wholly foreign sensation. It was a too pleasant tingle I had felt brush against me from somewhere between the worlds while I was more or less held captive in the bathroom waiting for this to be over. Unfortunately, I knew the feeling well. I’d ignored it then, and I tried my best to do so now, even though it was growing in intensity with each step I took.
Skipping the last two stairs, I leapt from the lower landing, following the direction of the voices to the left. When I came around the corner, I found Ben, Constance, and another FBI agent standing a few feet away from the entrance to my wife’s office.
“Where’s Felicity?!” I demanded. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, Row,” Ben said as he turned toward me. “Physically, anyway.”
“What do you mean? Where is she?”
He sidestepped a bit and turned back toward the office. There, just outside the entrance was one of the vertical, eight-by-eight support beams which were spaced throughout the basement. Sitting cross-legged on the floor at its footing, with her chin resting against her chest, was my wife. Her arms were wrapped around the solid post and a pair of handcuffs was securely locked about her wrists, holding her in place. The wood of the upright was gouged and scraped where the connecting chain between the cuffs had been raked against it. Though I was still several feet away, I could see welts, and even some trickles of blood, where she had been struggling against the restraints.
“Felicity…” I breathed as I started toward her.
Ben grasped my shoulder and held me back. It was only then I noticed he had one hand wrapped in a washcloth from our nearby laundry room, and a bright splotch of red was soaking through it.
“Why haven’t you taken those off her?!” I shouted.
“Because, it might not be a good idea just yet,” Constance replied.
“What?…” I stammered. “What’s going on?”
“You’re gonna wanna keep some distance for a bit,” Ben replied, holding up his wounded hand.
“What happened?”
He cocked his head toward Felicity.
“What? Why?” I stammered, confusion rimming my words. Jumbles of thoughts were bouncing around my head in competition with the odd feelings that were creeping in from elsewhere. I knew deep down the meaning behind the odd rush of pleasure that was fighting to overtake me, but I didn’t want to admit it. I glanced around as I chose to let the puzzlement continue its reign over my grey matter instead. Finally I asked, “Where’s Annalise?”
“She ain’t here, White Man,” Ben told me. “Never was.”
“Then what’s going on?” I demanded.
“Ask her,” he replied, nodding again toward my wife.
She slowly turned her face up and stared at me with a wicked grin stretched across her lips. A smear of blood was streaked from the corner of her mouth and down across her chin. I knew without hesitation that it wasn’t her own.
She casually tossed her head, flipping her hair back over her shoulder in the process, then settled her gaze back on me. After a moment she said, “Hello, little man. Have you missed me?”
Her tone held the same Southern affectation as the voice with which my friend had carried on the conversation via the stairwell. Up close, however, the ethereal hollowness of it resonated through to my very core. I had no idea if anyone besides me could detect the ghostly echo, but that didn’t really matter. As long as I could hear it, I knew exactly who belonged to the words.
“Miranda,” I said.
“You remember,” she replied.
“You’re hard to forget.”
“Of course I am.”
I glanced over at the FBI agent who was standing with Constance. While I was sure there had been some manner of briefing done, I doubted it came with an instant comprehension of the paranormal, especially as it pertained here. Constance caught my gaze and turned to the agent.
“Reynolds,” she said. “Why don’t you go let everyone know we’re secure. And, have Cobb cancel the HRT.”
“Yeah, okay,” he replied, casting a baffled look toward Felicity then me before going.
Once I heard his footsteps receding up the stairs, I turned back to my wife and stated in a flat tone, “You aren’t welcome here, Miranda.”
