always do. Perhaps not everything, but enough to fill in at least some of the blanks.”
Her eyes were fixed with mine, and she gave me a nervous smile before looking down at the table. She was outwardly displaying a tenuous amount of confidence in my presence here, and I accepted it for what it was worth. I fought back my own desire to rush headlong into a series of questions and ushered it into the background. I couldn’t afford to betray her trust, nor did I want to.
“I have plenty of those.” She let out a forced laugh. “Blanks I mean.”
“Rohypnol does that,” Charlee told her. “That’s one of the reasons it’s called the date rape drug.”
I continued to watch the young woman, not placing any demands on the situation but keeping my attention focused directly on her. Engaging in a simple exercise, I allowed my breathing to grow more and more shallow as I drew air slowly in through my nose and let it escape from my mouth in a quiet stream.
“While it may seem painful at first, Miranda,” I offered, keeping the measure of my voice even, “filling in those blanks can offer closure.”
She turned her gaze back to me and brought her eyes to rest directly on mine once again. I continued to stare, unblinking as I spoke, “And with that closure can come peace of mind.”
She was beginning to relax as I soothed her with my voice. I could feel a connection beginning to flow between us, and I prepared to press forward. Ben, however, immediately figured out what I was about to do. He had seen me enter into such a hypnotic state before, and he wasn’t going to allow it this time around.
My friend cleared his throat with almost over-animated gusto and bumped against me. I was betting the move was no accident.
“Excuse me,” he offered the bogus apology, grabbing my arm as I stumbled. “Clumsy of me. Sorry ‘bout that, Mister Gant.”
When I caught his eye I knew I’d won my bet. But it didn’t matter. He’d done what he set out to do. The thin connection was broken and Miranda Hodges, wearing a mildly bewildered expression as if she’d just awoke, shook her head and blinked.
“I want you ta’ know I appreciate ya’ talking to us,” Ben offered, stepping farther forward and insinuating himself even more prominently into the scene.
“So why are you interested in this, Detective Storm?” Miranda turned her attention to Ben as she took a hit from her cigarette. “Did…did the sonofabitch that raped me kill someone too?”
“We don’t know for sure,” he told her. “But I’ll be honest, yes, that is a possibility. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”
Her reaction was instantaneous and not all that unexpected.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered as she brought her hand up to her mouth. She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and blinked hard before squeezing them tightly shut. She let out a low, nasal whine as she began trembling. Large tears proceeded to roll down her cheeks, and we all stood in awkward silence.
I personally erected a shabby wall of ethereal defense against the woman’s burgeoning emotions as I felt a lump begin to rise in my throat. Apparently the empathy I had been missing seemed to have chosen this inopportune moment to return.
I managed to stave it off, thankful that the distress wasn’t aimed directly at me because I still wasn’t all that well grounded. Right now, I needed to take things one at a time.
Charlee found a box of tissues and offered it to the young woman. She took them and sniffed loudly as she dabbed at the tears, and then looked up at us and weakly uttered, “I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” Ben told her. “Can we get ya’ anything? Maybe somethin’ ta’ drink? Coffee? Soda? Water?”
“A soda,” she nodded. “A soda would be good.”
“Particular kind?”
“Anything diet.”
“How about you, Chuck?”
“Coffee’s good. Two creams, four sugars.”
“Okay, one diet soda and one coffee, two by four,” Ben repeated. “Come on, Rowan, why don’t ya’ come with and gimme a hand. Ladies, we’ll be right back.”
“Just what the fuck was that?” Ben snarled at me as we entered the corridor and rounded the corner toward the vending machines.
I didn’t answer and just kept walking.
“You were tryin’ ta’ do one of those hocus-pocus things, weren’t ya’?” he continued angrily.
I felt his large hand come down in a firm grip on my shoulder, and with a quick jerk he twisted me around. “Goddammit, Rowan! Don’t walk away from me when I’m talkin’ to you!”
“Back off, Ben,” I spat.
“Me back off?” he asked, incredulity coloring the question. “I talked to ya’ about this before we went in there. You promised me ya’ wouldn’t do any of that shit.”
“I didn’t promise you anything,” I shot back. “I said I’d try. That’s it.”
“Ya’ didn’t try very fuckin’ hard!”
The few people that were in the hallway were giving us wide berth as each of them selected the nearest escape route. Ben was seething, and the very sight of him like this tended to strike fear directly into the heart. He hadn’t been willing to make a scene in front of Miranda Hodges, but apparently once the door to the interview room had closed he had no problem at all with us being center stage.
“Guess again! I’ve been trying ‘very fucking hard’ for a week now. Maybe it’s your turn!”
My comment took him completely by surprise. He just stared at me dumbfounded with his jaw hanging open. Whatever biting comment he’d been prepared to hurl at me had instantly evaporated into nothingness. After a moment he spoke, this time with a little less fire in his voice. “So what the hell is that s’posed ta’ mean?”
I sighed and consciously forced some of my own anger to drain away. “It means that it’s time you started trusting me again.”
“When haven’t I trusted you?”
“For the past week, at the very least,” I told him. “Ever since I walked in here with that notepad it has been like pulling teeth to get you to listen to me.”
“Yeah, well, I thought I had a damn good reason for that.”
“Fine. I’m willing to accept that. But start adding it up, Ben. How much more do I have to do to prove to you that I’m right? Do you really still have reason to keep shutting me out on this?”
“You mean besides the fact that you ain’t a copper and have no authority here?”
“That’s never stopped you from listening before.”
“I promised Felicity.”
“And we saw how that ended up, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, well that wasn’t entirely my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.” I shook my head. “It was nobody’s fault. But it’s a moot point anyway. All the promises in the world aren’t going to keep these nightmares out of my head.”
“But if I keep ya’ out of it, I can keep ya’ safe.”
“Not from the visions, you can’t.” I shook my head.
“That’s Felicity’s end of the deal.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I just handle what I can see.”
“That’s just it. It’s not what you see that’s doing the harm. It’s what I see,” I appealed. “And even she can’t protect me from these things, Ben. I think you’ve both realized that by now. If you haven’t, then you’re blind.”
“Jeezus, Rowan.” He shook his head and rested one hand on his hip while sending the other up to smooth back his hair and begin massaging his neck. “Man, if I had a freakin’ time machine…”
“You’d do what? No, let me guess. You’d go back in time and never get me involved in the Ariel Tanner case?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that.”
“We’d still end up right where we are now, Ben.” My voice softened as I spoke. “She was a friend of mine, and I would have gotten involved anyway. You know that. If you hadn’t shown up that night to ask me about the Pentacle at the crime scene maybe someone else would have. Or I would have heard about it somewhere. Even I
