and told her, “Yes, you are. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Aye, that’s true. No more than I like it when you do the same to me then.”
On that point, I couldn’t even begin to argue. Over the years I’d seesawed between embracing my curse and trying to ignore it completely. The attempts to deny it never lasted long, and when all was said and done, I would put myself right into the middle of the strife, no matter what anyone else said. Unfortunately, it didn’t always end well, and Felicity was the one charged with picking up the pieces and putting me back together. I fully realized that task exacted its own kind of toll; still, that didn’t mean I wanted her to trade places with me.
But, now that I’d finally come to terms with accepting my unwanted abilities as an ever-present part of my life, they had been unceremoniously taken away. Since I had no real inkling of exactly how Miranda had done this to me, I was at a loss as to how to circumvent or change it, which left me standing on unfamiliar ground.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would find myself silently begging the universe to re-open a door I’d been trying to shut for what seemed like a huge slice of forever. And in keeping with the status quo, today was no different than all of those before it because my pleas were apparently still falling upon deaf ears.
The decision was being made for me, against my will and without opportunity for appeal. If we were going to stop Miranda, then I needed to let Felicity take the lead, and that wasn’t going to be an easy task for me. Especially given what I’d been forced to see.
“So…” Ben said. “We good here?”
“No,” I mumbled. “No, we aren’t.”
“Rowan…” Felicity appealed.
I sighed, “Yeah, honey, I know… I don’t guess I have any choice, do I?”
“Aye, you’re right. You don’t.”
“Fine…but we go at it with our eyes open. No taking unnecessary risks.”
She shook her head and gave me a mocking chuckle. “In other words, don’t be like you then?”
“Yeah…” I agreed. “Don’t be like me.”
We fell quiet for a moment then Ben glanced back and forth between us and interjected. “Okay, are we all good now?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s give it a try, I guess.”
I heard myself saying the words, but in my heart and soul I wasn’t comfortable with them at all. Before the last syllable faded, I was already regretting the decision.
“That’s more like it,” my friend said.
“All right then, so where do we start?” Felicity asked.
“Breakfast,” he replied. “That’s actually the reason I got down here early.”
“Okay, and after that?” she pressed.
“After that we head ta’ the county medical examiner’s office and make nuisances or ourselves.”
Felicity shook her head and commented, “And you want to eat breakfast first?”
“Yeah. I’m hungry,” Ben replied then jerked his thumb toward an archway leading off from the lobby. “Wanna go ahead an’ grab somethin’ in the restaurant since we’re already here?”
I glanced down the short corridor then turned back to him and shook my head. “I didn’t exactly have a good dining experience at the last hotel restaurant where I ate. How about we try somewhere else.”
“Your call.” He shrugged then ushered us ahead of him toward the door. “We could hit a pancake house or somethin’ on the way, long as it’s quick.”
“Are we in a hurry now?” I asked.
“A little. Ya’ kinda hafta get there at the right time, if ya’ know what I mean,” he replied.
I sighed. “We don’t actually have an appointment, do we?”
“Relax. I got it covered. We just need ta’ make a coupl’a quick stops before we get there and it’ll all be good.”
“Oh, by the way, I meant to ask,” Felicity said. “How are the dogs doing?”
“Okay, I guess.” Ben gave her a sarcastic grunt. “The big one seems fine, but I don’t think the other one likes me.”
“Quigley? What’s wrong?” she pressed.
“Little bastard stole my towel and tore it ta’ shreds while I was in the shower this mornin’.”
CHAPTER 19
“When we go inside, just hang loose and let me handle it,” Ben told us as we climbed out of his van in front of the squat brown building on Helen Avenue. He elbowed his door shut then came around the front of the vehicle and waited for us, adding, “There’s kind of a process I gotta go through ta’ get things rollin’.”
Timing what it was, breakfast itself had ended up being rushed, tasteless, fast food eaten while on the way to our next stop. Of course, given that an autopsy suite containing a dead body was our intended destination, we probably didn’t need to have too much sitting on our stomachs right now anyway. Although, I’m not sure our greasy selection was going to be much better in the long run.
As he’d mentioned earlier, upon drawing closer to the county medical examiner’s office, we made a pair of side trips into some nearby drive-thrus. Between them, Ben shelled out more than twice as much as he’d spent on his earlier meal.
I levered the sliding side door of the Chevy closed and then followed Felicity up onto the sidewalk where Ben was waiting. I gestured at the items in my friend’s hands and said, “By process, I take it you mean bribe, right?”
“Not a real good word ta’ use around coppers, white man,” he grunted while shaking his head.
Since Ben was taking the lead, I held open the entry door while he and Felicity filed through and then followed behind them into the lobby area. Once inside I sidled up next to my wife and glanced around, but we both remained mute just as we’d been instructed to do.
Behind the low counter in front of us was seated a woman who looked to be in her late forties to early fifties. She was dressed in scrubs and wore her dark brown hair in a short but stylish bob. As the door was closing behind us, she looked up, her expression blank; then without uttering a word she returned to her work.
“Krystal not in today?” Ben asked.
“She’s running late,” the woman said without looking up.
“Ahh,” my friend muttered then announced, “Well…don’t guess it matters really. This is actually for you anyway.” He placed the large cup he was carrying onto the surface of the counter in front of her. It was wrapped in a heat resistant sleeve that bore a logo made up of an anthropomorphized coffee bean depicted leaning against a trio of interlocking J’s. Beneath it were the words, Jenna’s Java Joint. The actual contents of the vessel made up more than half the money he’d spent a few minutes earlier. He waited the better part of a minute for a response, but when none was forthcoming he added, “Dull-duh-somethin’-somethin’ coffee.”
The woman on the other side still didn’t look up. She simply kept pushing an ink pen across a form she had in front of her on the lower portion of the desk. As she continued to write, she replied, “Dulce de Leche Latte, Detective Storm. Dulce de Leche.”
“Yeah, that,” Ben grunted.
“I know you know how to say it.”
“Yeah, but it’s more fun this way.”
“For you it seems,” she acknowledged and then asked, “Large I presume?”
“Biggest one they’d sell me, yeah.”
“Whole milk, of course?”
“Uh-huh. And an extra shot of the duh-letchee stuff.”
“Day Lay-chay.”
“I thought that’s what I just said.”
She sighed and shook her head but still didn’t break her gaze from the task before her. A moment later she held out her free hand, fingers and thumb crooked in a semicircle as if she was already grasping the cup. Ben took the cue, picked up the drink and pushed it into her waiting grip. She carefully withdrew the appendage, took a
