“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice cracking with the next wave of pain she was channeling.
“To get you out of here,” I replied.
With that, I shut the door then set off for the convenience store.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ben said to me, waving his hand in front of me. “Tell me again, she’s doin’ what?”
“Channeling Kimberly Forest’s pain,” I repeated.
I had made it almost three-quarters of the way across the lot before I was stopped. Not that I hadn’t fully expected it. In fact, I was surprised I had made it as far as I had. It took some finesse, but I managed to convince the uniformed officer that it was imperative that I speak with Ben, sooner and not later. He called over to another officer, who then went to deliver the message. A moment later, my friend came out the front door and looked over in our direction with an air of annoyance.
We were now standing on the lot where the officer had stopped me, a light wind rising and falling around us.
“So if she’s all Twilight Zone again, what are you doin’ talkin’ ta’ me?” he asked, concern welling in his eyes as he started to take a step toward the van.
“It’s not exactly like that,” I said, holding out a hand to stop him.
He halted and looked at me with his head cocked to the side. “Well then, what ‘exactly’ is it like?”
“She’s purposely channeling Kimberly on a limited level in order to help her cope with the pain that’s being inflicted.” I explained.
“So she is kinda la-la then?” he asked.
“Somewhat, yes.” I nodded.
“And she’s doin’ it on purpose?”
“Exactly, but that’s not the point. She’s telling me that Kimberly can’t take it much longer, and that means she won’t be able to either.”
“You’re not tryin’ ta’ say…”
“Yes,” I exclaimed. “I’m trying to say she’s going to end up killing herself.”
“Well fuckin’ tell ‘er to stop.”
“She’s beyond listening, Ben.”
“Well explain it to ‘er,” he replied.
“Understanding isn’t the problem,” I told him. “She’s connected and that’s that.”
“You mean she can’t stop?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The connection between them is too strong. When she more or less hijacked it earlier, she made it a part of herself. Combine that with the fact that she knows Kimberly… She’s just not letting go.”
“Felicity?”
“Either of them.”
“Well, then, what about some hocus-pocus,” he pressed. “Like ya’ did earlier.”
“I could try, and I will, but I doubt it’s going to do any good. I probably just got lucky earlier,” I said and then looked away for a moment before adding, “Besides, that won’t help Kimberly Forest.”
“Well whadda we do?”
“We have to make it stop.”
“Okay, how?”
“By finding Kimberly and ending the torture.”
He shook his head and reached up to smooth his hair. “Rowan, even if I walk in there and tell ‘em to fuck off, we’re leavin’, we still got no idea where she is.”
“That might not be a problem.”
“Come again?”
“Felicity showed you something on the map, right?”
“Yeah, the other fuckin’ side of the river,” he answered in conjunction with an animated nod. “Like I said earlier. Not much help.”
“Well…” I started and then looked away, ashamed of what I was about to say.
“Well what? Did she remember somethin’ else?”
The thought I was about to voice was the one that had struck me when I was back at the van. The very notion that I had considered it then, made me ill. The fact that I was now about to verbally suggest it, made me want to vomit.
“Right now Felicity is totally connected with her. She’s more or less like an ethereal metal detector,” I replied. “Only instead of metal, she’s tuned in to Kimberly Forest. If I’m right, the closer she gets to her physically, the…” I stopped and swallowed hard, mutely damning myself for the words that were coming out of my mouth.
“What, Row?” Ben urged.
I took a quick breath and blurted the offending sentence, “The closer she gets to her physically, the more intense the pain will become.”
CHAPTER 36:
“Listen, I don’t know how you handle investigating a shooting in the city,” the detective said. “But in the county, we make damn sure we dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s.”
We were standing on the periphery of the crime scene, away from the physical investigation, which was still in full swing. The lead detective had come out to talk to us and was now positioned with his arms crossed and a stony look on his face. His proverbial five o’clock shadow had already gone several hours past maturity, and it made his countenance just that much more severe.
His suit was rumpled, and the knot of his tie was pulled down at least three inches. The top button of his shirt was undone, revealing an indelible ring around the inside of the fabric. A stain, coffee from the looks of it, browned a small patch of his shirt around mid chest.
Simply by his appearance, he painted a picture of a long day that was just getting longer with each passing minute. It was obvious that he was beyond tired and in no mood for anything that was going to stand between him and bringing an end to the shift.
Unfortunately, even with the nondescript expression he was forcing onto his features, I got the distinct impression that having something else piled on him, such as our irregular request, had just gone a long way to sour his demeanor even more.
“We do the same thing,” Ben replied, annoyance in his voice. “So let’s not even go there.”
“Fine,” the county detective replied. “So we don’t have much to discuss, do we?”
“Look,” Ben outlined. “Alive and in peril beats dead and growin’ cold any day of the week. We both know that.”
The detective gave him a curt nod. “Yes it does. I’ll give you that in a heartbeat. So what you’re saying is that you know where this kidnapped woman is?”
Ben looked over at me then back to the cop. “Not exactly.”
“Can you maybe define ‘not exactly’ for me?”
“We’ve got a rough idea.”
“How rough?”
Ben danced around the question. “A general vicinity.”
“Major Case doing a search?”
“Not exactly.”
“You’re ‘not exactly’ sure of much are you?”
“It’s complicated.”
