While I was fairly certain I wasn’t displaying it outwardly, I had a feeling that I was just as disappointed by the beginning of this process as were the spectators. I shifted my grip on the handle and held tight, trying to increase the area of object-to-skin contact for maximum effect.
I remained unmoving for one of the longest minutes I could remember, hoping for at least a hint of something. A tingle…some sensation other than the ramping undulation of pain inside my skull. But there was still nothing. All I felt was cold metal leaching the warmth from the palm of my hand, and the sensation was definitely a product of elementary science on this side of the veil.
“I’ve got nothing so far,” I said, forcing my voice to be loud enough for Ben and Felicity to hear me. “I’m going to open the door.”
“Just open it, that’s all,” my wife ordered. “Don’t get in.”
I was beginning to feel like I was on a bomb squad detail, slowly picking my way toward a ticking explosive with Felicity as my guide. I suppose in a way that was as good an analogy as any. The primary difference was that I wasn’t trying to avoid an explosion. I fully intended to set off this ethereal booby-trap so that I could see what it had to say.
I had just popped the latch and was starting to pull the door toward me when Felicity called out again, “Aye, did you hear me, Rowan? Don’t get in the car. That might be too much for you to handle right now.”
“I’m not,” I answered verbally, which I hadn’t bothered to do earlier, but it was apparently what she wanted. However, I didn’t voice the addendum to the reply that flitted through my head, which was “not yet.”
The interior of the car smelled like a familiar perfume-cloyingly sweet but with a hint of earthiness and a peculiar sharp note hidden somewhere in the center. It was intermixed with the fresh odor of tobacco smoke. It took me a moment to identify the olfactory melange as all coming from the same source, clove cigarettes. Whether or not any importance resided in the scent, I had no idea just yet, but it was prominent.
I pulled the door open wide then stepped forward, bending down so that I could inspect the interior more closely. Residue of fingerprint dusting powders coated the passenger side dash and steering wheel, just as they had the door handle. Other than that, however, the automobile appeared to have been all but cleaned out by the crime scene technicians who had bagged and tagged everything in sight.
A sharp auger of pain drilled into my skull to join the continuous jackhammer-like ache that was trying to break through from the inside. I let out a heavy groan as I tensed and then dropped my face into my hands. Although I’d tried to stifle the noise, it was loud enough to be heard. Combined with the fact that since I felt myself double forward, I knew it had to be noticeable. I wasn’t surprised to hear my wife’s voice from only a few short feet behind me.
“Rowan? Are you all right?” she asked, concern underlining each word with a bold stroke.
I didn’t answer right away for the simple reason that I couldn’t get my mouth to form the words since my jaw was clenched in a tight grimace.
She waited only a few seconds before calling to me again, the distress in her voice moving several notches up the scale within a pair of syllables, “Rowan?!”
“Okay.” I managed to blurt out the muffled reply on the tail end of a heavy breath. Sighing for a second time as the latest addition to the orchestra of agonies began to subside, I lifted my face out of my palms but kept my eyes squeezed shut as I added, “I’m okay.”
I knew full well that I didn’t sound okay. The truth is, I didn’t actually feel okay either. I just didn’t want Felicity slamming the door on this before it was even fully open. Of course, it was two against one at this point, in this plane of existence at any rate. Counting the other side of the veil and what it was doing to me, I was even more outnumbered than that. So if my wife decided to pull the plug on this endeavor, there was nothing I would be able to do. I was barely up to keeping myself upright, much less fending off a six and a half foot tall cop on a mission to rescue me from myself.
I opened my eyes and focused on the interior of the car once more. The voice in my head was still unintelligible, but it was getting louder by the second. I was beginning to wonder if it was actually a lone voice or merely the background chatter of an entire chorus of tortured spirits clamoring for my attention. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. The only thing that kept me believing this was singular was the uncanny familiarity of its pitch and tone along with the lack of any other ethereal noise to dull it.
Several seconds had ticked by, and my wife had yet to send in the cavalry. However, the recent and painfully overt stress in her voice told me she was only inches from doing so. All it would take is another stumble, and I had a feeling I was going to be flying backwards by my belt. If that happened, and Felicity closed the circle, there was a good chance I would lose connection with the other side. It certainly wasn’t a given, but it was a chance I didn’t want to take. Not yet.
I looked at my palm and then back at the interior of the car. I knew it was possible I might glean something by reaching in and touching the steering wheel. Another option would be to touch the headrest on the seat. Both of them may well hold what I was seeking, but by the same token, one could be a crystal clear connection and the other like a frayed speaker wire cutting in and out.
I continued to stare into the dark passenger cabin of the sedan. My eyes kept being drawn back to the fingerprint powder on the passenger side dash. I was certain that it was merely standard procedure to check for prints throughout the entire car, but there was something gnawing at my gut where that was concerned.
After a lengthy pause, I straightened back up and made a quarter turn back toward the circle but remained standing next to the opening. I was about to make good on my earlier omission, but I had to make sure my timing was at least in the ballpark if this was going to work.
“Rowan?” Felicity called my name, a quizzical note in her voice replacing at least part of the concern.
“I’m fine,” I told her, looking over my shoulder and forcing the comment out in a tired drone.
I cast my glance toward the crowd of cops, and my gaze fell on Captain Albright. She was still wearing a stoic frown, but her eyes broadcast a far different message. I didn’t have any way of knowing what her exact relationship was with her niece, but the anguish flowing from her was akin to what I would expect from a parent.
This woman had caused me nothing but grief since the day I had met her. While I could rightfully be accused of having turned the other cheek more than once in my lifetime, where she was concerned I had long ago grown tired of her slapping me each time I did. I owed her nothing. I knew it, and so did she.
Judith Albright, however, was someone I had never met. But, like all of the other victims I had never met but helped anyway, I owed her nothing either. Still, between the two of them and my own conscience, I felt somehow compelled to pay whatever price was asked.
I hung my head and sighed before casting my glance toward Ben. “Hey, Tonto,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Do you have a Slim Jim in your van?”
He gave me a puzzled look as he said, “Yeah, wh…” Before he could manage to get the “why” fully out of his mouth, his eyes widened and he started forward as he barked, “Goddammit! Don’t do it, white man!”
Before the last word had finished passing his lips, I ducked into the driver’s seat of the sedan, slammed the door and hit the lock.
Felicity instantly screamed a severely pissed off “damn your eyes” that was still perfectly audible to me even through the tempered glass of the car.
I knew that neither Ben nor she could possibly be surprised that I had pulled this particular stunt. After all, we’d been doing this sort of thing long enough that they had to know I would do something they considered stupid but that I felt absolutely necessary. I had merely managed to catch them off guard. But regarding that particular coup, I still wasn’t quite sure if I should consider myself lucky or not.
My wife was at the door, yanking hard on the handle, and glaring at me with the same emotion she had just voiced, but her eyes were glistening with a healthy dose of fear as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to offer her any reassurances, verbal or otherwise. With as many state troopers as there were standing around the perimeter, I knew a Slim Jim or other tool for unlocking the door was likely to be produced at any moment, whether from Ben’s van or one of their trunks. The way I had it figured, I probably had somewhere around thirty seconds before I was wrestled out of this seat by someone. What they probably didn’t realize was the fact that I was actually counting on them to do just that in case this turned out to be a worse idea than I already thought it was.
Through the windshield I could see uniformed bodies moving in every direction as trunk lids began flying open. The tableau outside seemed almost like a surreal picture as my contact with the seat began to melt into an
