pressed firmly against the side of my head. I could feel fingers working against mine in an attempt to pry it loose. My entire body trembled from the mental pain.
And, although through the watery blur I could see the nurse’s face, and beyond my sobs I could hear her calling my name, my own voice was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER 34
“You’re absolutely sure Felicity is okay?” I asked.
This was the second time I had ventured the question in the last five minutes, but at the moment I needed all of the reassurances I could get.
“Yes, Rowan, for the third time, I checked on her myself,” Constance told me, an almost impatient tone shrouding her voice. She outlined the answer once again, giving me a demonstrative nod at the end of each sentence. “Agent Parker is still with her. She’s safe. Don’t worry.”
Apparently my personal count was off, but in my mind it didn’t matter; I continued to press her on the subject anyway. “But her condition hasn’t changed?”
She shook her head. “No. She’s still the same as before. No better, but no worse either.”
I laid my head back against my pillow and sighed heavily. My throat was raw, and my eyes still burned from the earlier bout of weeping that came along with the almost convulsive hysterics. A quick shot of diazepam directly into a port on my IV had quelled that quickly enough, but it wasn’t really doing anything for my foul mood other than to dull it a bit. Between the antibiotics, sedatives, and painkillers being pumped into me at what seemed an almost constant rate, I was beginning to feel like some kind of pharmaceutical dumping ground. But, under the circumstances I didn’t really care. In fact, right now I welcomed the numbness.
I brought my forearm up and rested it on my brow to shield my eyes. The severely reclined angle of the bed was allowing the overhead light to shine directly into them, and that wasn’t helping with the irritation. However, I just didn’t feel much like sitting up at the moment.
“So…” I finally said. “Are you going to fill me in, or are you just going to leave it all up to my imagination?”
“It’s not very pretty, Row,” Constance replied.
“Trust me, neither is my imagination.”
As I was speaking, a quick rap came at the door, and then it opened. Ben followed it in and then turned and levered it shut.
“How we doin’ in here?” he asked as he ambled over to the foot of the bed.
Rolling my arm up a bit more so that I could see him better, I grumbled, “Not especially well.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Doesn’t look much like it.” He continued to stand there quietly for a moment and then huffed out a breath as he reached up and massaged his neck. “Well, if you’re up to it, here in a little bit they’re gonna wanna take your statement about that phone call. Ya’know… While it’s still fresh and all.”
“I doubt it’s going to go stale anytime soon,” I replied.
“Yeah…I hear ya’,” he said. “But it’s procedure.”
“Yeah, I know. You can tell them I’m good with that,” I agreed as I rolled my arm back down to cover my eyes. My heart definitely wasn’t in the task, but I realized the interview had to be done. Much like ripping a bandage off quickly made the removal a little easier to bear, in this case sooner would probably be better than later.
“How is it out there?” Constance asked.
“It’s still a fuckin’ circus,” Ben replied. “Right now we’re basically sandwiched in between two crime scenes, two P.D.’s, Major Case, and the Feebs… No offense, of course…”
“Of course.”
“And that’s not ta’ mention the media vultures are all over the parkin’ lot too.”
“Two crime scenes?” I asked, rolling my arm up once again.
“Yeah,” Ben grunted and nodded at me. “The guy upstairs that she turned into a Rowan doll. He’s dead.”
“He died? I thought he was stable?”
“He was,” Ben replied. “And he didn’t just die. She got in there and killed ‘im.”
“How?”
“A clusterfuck across the board, unfortunately,” he replied. “She walked right in, told the admissions desk she was his sister and that we had called her. Friggin’ media had it all over the tube, so it wasn’t really that hard for her ta’ find out where he was. So, anyway, whoever was workin’ the desk didn’t catch the flag, and they sent her right on up to his room even though visitin’ hours were over. After that the onus falls on us, I’m afraid.”
“How so?”
He gave his head a disgusted shake. “Miscommunication, I guess. I’d reported what you said about ‘er knowin’ the vic, but apparently it didn’t trickle down through the ranks, or it got lost in translation or somethin’. When she said she was family, the security guy on the door let ‘er through, no other questions. Ten minutes later she walked out, told the guard she was goin’ ta’ get somethin’ ta’ drink, and disappeared. Few minutes after that the nurse went in for her rounds and found the vic dead. He was a coupla’ quarts low, and there was friggin’ blood all over the floor. It’s a goddamn mess.”
“That was the phone call you kept pushing me about earlier,” Constance added. “We had to assume she was still in the building, which obviously she was. That’s why I was ‘skulking around,’ as you put it. But there was no reason to get you worked up about the situation.”
“No, Miranda did that for you.”
She blinked and nodded. “True.”
I let out a slow breath as I mulled over the explanation and then said, “I guess that was her last shot at trying to use magick to kill me.”
“Yeah, could be,” Ben agreed. “It’s not like she was gonna get at ya’ any other way.” He paused for a moment, rubbing his neck while staring at some imaginary point in space. Eventually he looked at me and half- shrugged. “Not ta’ be morbid and all that, but since ya’ brought it up…”
I finished the thought for him. “Why didn’t it work? Why am I still alive?”
“Well, yeah,” he grunted as he shrugged again. “I mean, not that I ain’t happy that you’re still with us. But the whole blockin’ ya’ from the Twilight Zone thing seemed ta’ work okay. So why not that too?”
“Well, it was a long shot in the first place, and she knew it,” I explained. “Magick affecting the ethereal is one thing. Directly affecting the physical is much harder. Besides that, she had already used him as a poppet for a different spell, so she was dealing with conflicting magicks right from the start. But, I guess it was all she had so she went for it.”
“So what you’re sayin’ is it coulda’ actually worked?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t very likely, but if the conditions were just right, it could have. Especially with me like I am right now.”
“That’s fucked up, white man.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I mumbled. I took a couple of deep breaths then asked, “What about the second crime scene. I guess that one would be Miranda herself?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “Body belongs ta’ a Lisa Carlson actually, accordin’ to her driver’s license. She’s the one who came in posin’ as the sister, and apparently who you were talkin’ to. Found ‘er cell phone about fifty feet across the parkin’ lot from the impact site, and it actually still kinda works believe it or not. This room was the last number dialed. And…well, I’m sure ya’ already know she took a header off the roof of the hospital. Right in front of the main entrance.” He grimaced a bit then exhaled heavily before continuing. “Not pretty at all.”
“How did she know to call this particular room?” Constance asked.
Ben shrugged. “Dunno. We’re lookin’ inta’ that, especially since ICU rooms don’t normally have phones in ‘em. But we’re thinkin’ it was probably the hospital. She was able ta’ find out about the vic, so maybe she asked the right person an’ got Row’s room number and just took a chance.
“Anyhow, once we had an ID, we sent a unit to this Carlson woman’s address in Saint Flora… They found… well…I’m not gonna get into it. Let’s just say it’s more than a little disturbing, and the DNA guys are gonna be busy
