“That’s an unexpected about-face,” I replied.
“Maybe that’s how it has to be.”
“I really don’t see that as an option.” I shook my head to punctuate the statement. “Besides, the way I remember it, this was a mutual decision. I don’t want this happening to me any more than you do.”
“Are you certain of that?”
I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll admit there was a time when I thought I had no choice but to accept it as my fate, but now I just don’t know.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead as I breathed a heavy sigh of my own. “Right now, all I can say is I’m tired, sweetheart. I’m just…tired.”
“I know… But when you don’t fight it… When you let them in it isn’t as bad. Not like this…”
“I’m not so sure that’s true.”
“I am…” she replied, nodding. “I’m not saying it’s good when you let them in. It isn’t… I’ve grown to hate it… But now it seems to be worse when you fight them, and I’m afraid it won’t get any better.”
“Maybe it will, in time. Let’s just give it awhile,” I said, trying to soothe her. “If I ignore her long enough maybe she’ll finally get the message and leave me alone for good.”
“And what about the next one? And the next?”
“If this works then maybe there won’t be anymore.”
“Do you really believe that then?”
“I have to hope it will work out that way,” I answered, avoiding any commitment that might come back to haunt me.
“But you know it won’t, don’t you?”
I wanted to say no, but I had a sick feeling that she was correct. Besides, it didn’t matter any longer. Even if I gave in to the urge and lied, my hesitation had already told her the real answer.
“That’s what I thought,” she whispered. “Go on, take a shower then. I’ll heat up that tea.”
With the exception of a lingering fatigue, the rest of my day was uneventful. Felicity made it a point to never allow me out of her line of sight, but I could definitely think of worse things to endure. In fact, it was nice to actually spend some time together instead of being cloistered away in our separate home offices. Of course, it would have been more enjoyable if it hadn’t been obvious that she was expecting me to once again start bleeding profusely at any moment.
However, by evening, she had relaxed considerably and so had I. The irritated spot on my neck remained sore, and the ethereal thump in the back of my head was still making itself known, but provided they didn’t get any worse, those were both things with which I could easily cope.
Under the circumstances, everything was fine.
The only thing I couldn’t explain is why, when I went to sleep that night, I dreamt of a moonlit lake, the bank of which was blemished with the corpse of a single black swan.
CHAPTER 8:
“Gant Consulting,” I said into the handset as I leaned back in my chair. “This is Rowan speaking.”
I had grabbed the phone on the first ring. Customarily I didn’t get to it before the second at least, and usually not even before the third. But business wasn’t exactly booming right now, so when the bell began to peal I hadn’t been deeply involved in anything that needed my undivided attention.
Truth be told, the lack of work was a good thing at the moment. I’d awakened this morning with the haunting vision of the dead swan still flashing in my head, and it hadn’t yet faded. If anything, it had intensified. That was bad enough in itself, but the imagery was also coupled with an odd, jittery sensation that had only grown worse as the day wore on. Dealing with those aggravations was keeping me more than a little preoccupied, so concentration definitely wasn’t one of my strengths right now. In fact, I’d been having enough trouble staying focused on the game of solitaire that was now sitting idle on my screen. If real work had been involved, I would be worthless.
“Yo, white man,” Ben’s voice buzzed from the earpiece in response to my businesslike greeting.
I pulled off my glasses and laid them on the desk before allowing the chair to rock all the way back on its springs. I reached up and began massaging the bridge of my nose with my free hand as a quiet sigh escaped. On top of the nervous agitation, yesterday’s dull headache was still living somewhere around the base of my skull, and it had been randomly sending out raiding parties to the front of my brain all morning. I seriously doubted it was a coincidence that one of those infiltrators had just now managed to dig in and set up a forward base camp right behind my eyes.
To be honest, I couldn’t say I was all that surprised to hear my friend on the other end of the line. In fact, more than once this morning I had almost been the one to dial the phone. I kept telling myself it would just be to see if he had the name of Annalise’s attorney for me yet; but deep down I knew better than that, which is why I never followed through. I couldn’t help but harbor a conscious fear that there was an underlying motive for me to make the call and that if I did so, I would fall into the trap of talking to him about his current homicide investigation. In my mind it was a tossup as to which one of us would be first to broach the subject, but I definitely didn’t want it to be me. If I did it, then that just meant I had caved, and the spirit world would have gained yet another foothold in my life.
Of course, it really didn’t matter who started it. The end result would be the same either way and could easily invoke a repeat performance of yesterday’s events, which was exactly what I was trying to avoid. While I wasn’t willing to place all the blame on Ben, Felicity had made a valid point-he and his case just might be a corporeal trigger. Unfortunately, the fresh stabs of pain inside my skull at this particular moment went a long way toward being a smoking gun where that theory was concerned.
“You still there?” my friend asked.
His tone told me I had paused far longer than I thought. I rocked forward in my chair and managed to spit out, “Hey, Ben… Yeah, I’m here.”
“This a bad time?” he asked, trying to interpret the verbal cue. “You busy?”
“No, not really,” I replied. “It’s just… Nothing… Don’t worry about it. So, how are you this morning?”
“Not bad I guess. Better’n yesterday. I actually got some sleep last night. How ‘bout you?”
“Fine,” I told him. “I’m doing fine.”
I could feel my body tense as a fresh wave of foreboding swept over me. If he didn’t pursue the previous day’s events any further everything should be okay. But I knew it wasn’t very likely he’d stop now. He had a motive for the contact, he always did, and exchanging simple pleasantries was never it. I tried pretending that maybe this call was for the express purpose of giving me the information on the attorney and nothing more, but unfortunately, I wasn’t having much success where suspension of disbelief was concerned.
As expected, his next question made it a moot point to even continue trying.
“So how’s your neck?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Any Twilight Zone or other weird shit to report?” he asked.
“No,” I lied again and then added a bit of truth to reinforce the statement, “Not that I’d be reporting it if there was.”
“Why not?”
“You know why, Ben. I’m pretty sure we’ve already beaten this conversation to death.”
“Yeah, okay, but really? Nothin’ happened?”
“Yeah, really.”
He paused for a moment then said, “You’re lyin’. I can tell.”
“Okay, Columbo. So what if I am?” I asked.
He chuckled. “I ain’t that short and I dress better.”
“But you smoke cigars and drive a piece of junk,” I offered, hoping to divert the subject.
“Okay, enough with the comedy routine. So seriously, how’s your neck?”
