A healthy supply of anxious energy was crackling along every nerve in my body, and I found myself fidgeting almost constantly. I was unable to maintain a grip on myself for more than a few minutes at a time. This latest period of calm reached the end of its somewhat protracted cycle, and I angrily leapt from the chair.
“What the hell are they doing in there?” I exclaimed as I began to pace. “Shouldn’t they be out there looking for the sonofabitch?!”
“They are, Rowan,” Helen told me calmly. “You know that.”
“A few minutes,” I muttered. “If I’d only been here a few minutes sooner.”
“What would you have done had you been here?” she asked with a shake of her head.
“What would I have done?” I echoed the question back to her harshly. “I would have blown the sick bastard into next week.”
“Would you have?” she asked simply.
“I have a gun and I know how to use it,” I retorted. The words sounded sophomoric even as they tumbled out of my mouth.
“I do not doubt that, Rowan.” She tactfully ignored the childish bravado of my comment. “But neither the implement nor the skill to use it are what I am questioning. What I am curious about is your innate ability to take a life.”
“I shot him once,” I offered.
“Yes, you did,” she agreed. “But you shot him to wound, not to kill. Furthermore, you did so when your own life was literally hanging in the balance.”
“I assume you have a point here?” I contended.
She didn’t allow my adversarial posture to faze her. “My point is that when presented with the opportunity to kill this man, you did not. Furthermore, when you believed that there was some possibility that you may have been responsible for his death-however unintentional-emotionally, it brought you very close to the edge.”
“I never really believed he was dead. I made no secret of that,” I told her. “Besides, this is different.”
“Now it is,” she nodded in agreement. “But what if you had been here? Would he not have set his sights on you instead of Felicity? At least, initially?”
“I think that’s a given,” I responded with a shrug.
“Then you would simply have been repeating history,” she commented.
“So maybe I realized I made a mistake out there on that bridge,” I offered.
“Perhaps,” she returned. “But I do not believe that, and I am inclined to think that you do not either. You are a man of firm conviction, Rowan. The rede by which you have lived your life is more a part of you than you wish to admit.”
“Maybe it’s time for me to wake up,” I told her sadly. “Idealistic beliefs are for fools.”
“That would be a terrible loss, Rowan,” she offered. “Your ideals are a very large part of who you are. And I know that you do not truly believe that idealists are fools.”
Before I had a chance to formulate a retort, our conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone purposely clearing his throat. I looked over toward the door and saw Ben standing on the top step. The light cast at a downward angle across his face and his chiseled features were craggy with lines and shadows. He looked tired, and he looked very old. Helen was correct. He wasn’t taking this any better than I was.
“Ben.” I acknowledged his presence with a curt nod. I no longer wanted to hit him, but he wasn’t at the top of my list for chatting with either.
“Listen, Row, I know ya’ don’t wanna talk ta’ me right now, but this is important,” he began, smoothing his hair back and bringing his hand to rest on his neck. He was thinking hard.
“I will leave you two alone,” Helen offered, making a move to stand.
“No, stay,” I told her.
I needed her to be here. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, everyone was correct. I was very close to the edge, and I had no compunction about jumping. Right now she was the only one standing between me and the sudden stop at the end.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to keep the bark out of my voice.
“It doesn’t look like Porter has anything ta’ do with this.” He blurted out the words as if he could no longer contain them. “There’s some shit that just doesn’t add up.”
“Excuse me?” I stared back at him like he’d grown an extra head. “What are you talking about? Of course he did this!”
“Hear me out, Rowan.” He rushed the request out as quickly as he could and moved down the steps toward me. “The only thing that really pointed ta’ Porter to begin with was the Bible, and he ain’t the one who left it…”
“How do you know that?” I demanded before he could continue.
“I made some calls,” he explained. “Everyone in Felicity’s charity group got one of those Bibles. They were gifts to ‘em from the kids at the children’s home they visited this afternoon.”
“W-W-What?” I stammered.
“Yeah,” he nodded as he spoke. “Everyone I talked to said Felicity didn’t have the heart not ta’ take it, ‘cause the kids were so excited about givin’ them somethin’. She’s the one who left it on the table, Row. Not Porter.”
“Okay, so then where the hell is she?!” I snarled the demand.
“I dunno yet, white man,” he returned. “But I’m gonna find ‘er.”
CHAPTER 27
Hope was ignited from a miniscule spark that set flame to a tiny candle somewhere deep inside me. Its glow was so incredibly faint so as to be almost beyond notice, but it was there-flickering defiantly into the face of the shadowy fear that threatened to extinguish it.
“It could still be Porter,” I announced.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Ben replied.
“Well I really doubt she just went for a walk,” I snapped. “Something obviously happened here.”
“Yeah, and we’re gonna find out what,” Ben told me. “Accordin’ to your monitoring service, the alarm was disabled usin’ Felicity’s code via the keypad in the kitchen at six-oh-seven p.m.”
“Then it had to have happened after she was already in,” I offered. “We have a duress code she would have used otherwise.”
My friend nodded agreement. “Figured as much. There wasn’t a trigger from the panic buttons either.”
“Then whoever took her must have been following her.”
“Maybe, but I’m workin’ a different angle. We’ve done a door to door. Nobody saw anything, but considerin’ what day it is, no big surprise there.”
“What about the people who were actually supposed to be watching the house?”
“That’s a cluster.” He shook his head. “Left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doin’. Locals thought the Feebs were on tonight, Feebs thought the locals were on, and…and well…there’s just no way ta’ sugar coat it, Row. Somebody fucked up, and there hasn’t been anyone watchin’ the house since about three this afternoon.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. I wanted to explode, but logically I knew that doing so wouldn’t help. Still, just how much longer I was going to stay on the side of rationality remained to be seen.
“That doesn’t sound at all like Constance,” I said. “She’s meticulous.”
“That’s ‘zactly why it’s a cluster. Mandalay had ta’ go back down ta’ the scene in Cape, so she wasn’t even in Saint Louis.” Ben’s disdain for the FBI was almost legendary. Constance Mandalay was the only agent he trusted, and the events of this evening added just that much more evidence to his personal case file against the agency. “But let’s not go there, ‘cause it ain’t gonna get us anywhere with this. Now, movin’ on,” he continued. “The front door was unlocked. Did you do that?”
“No,” I shook my head vigorously. “They’ve already asked me that.”
“I’m just double checkin’,” he told me. “Since you two normally come in the back, that’d mean Felicity had ta’ have opened it since there was no sign of a forced entry.”
