“I simply know what it is that I feel,” she answered as she canted her head to the side and blinked. “You of all people should understand that.”
I allowed her words to comfort me, though the solace was brief. “Thanks, Helen. I hope you’re right.”
“This thing what you’re talkin’ about?” Ben interrupted as he entered and thrust a thin, silver case at me.
“Yes,” I nodded as I took it from him and opened the cover to reveal the electronic device within.
I activated the PDA and withdrew the stylus from its recessed holder then began systematically tapping it against the touch sensitive screen. “Here.” I offered the device back to him. “This is her address book.”
“You go through it,” he told me. “See if anyone rings a bell. Someone she might’ve mentioned havin’ a disagreement with. Anything like that.”
I turned the small LCD display back toward myself and proceeded to page through the listings, one entry at a time. She had combined our home address book with her own, so various bits of data stood out as familiar while others did not. Before long, however, they all began to look like just so many letters and numbers jumbled together.
I stopped and removed my glasses then rubbed my eyes.
“Somethin’ wrong?” Ben queried.
“Not really,” I answered as I slipped my glasses back on to my face. “It just seems like I’ve been staring at small print all day.”
“Ya’ pretty much have. So, ya’ recognize anything?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “But nothing that leaps out at me as particularly suspicious.”
“So, what are ya’ doin’ now?” he asked as he nodded in the direction of the device.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what are ya’ doin’?” he reiterated, raising an eyebrow. “You aren’t even lookin’ at the damn thing.”
The sound of the stylus clacking against the touch sensitive plate reached my ears, and I realized my hand was moving completely of its own accord. As I rotated my head and looked down at the PDA in my hand, the out of phase tones of a voice echoed quietly in the back of my head.
“There. Is this better?”
Unconsciously, I had switched the handheld computer into a notepad mode and even traded it off to my right hand. My left was now rapidly scratching the stylus against the surface of the screen.
A quick glance at the LCD showed a digitized string of handwriting that repeatedly scrawled, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM…
“Dammit!” I exclaimed as I immediately forced my hand to stop moving. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!”
“Whoa,” Ben raised his voice to compete with mine. “What the hell?”
“Schaeffer!” I exclaimed, dropping the PDA and stylus onto the table then shaking my hands as if trying to rid them of something disgusting. “She won’t leave me alone!”
“What? Like she’s here now?”
“Yes, dammit!” I was angry, and I spun in place looking for any indication of the girl’s spirit around me. “Go away, Debbie! I can’t help you right now!”
In my head I could hear her chanting at an ever-quickening pace, “DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAM…”
I seized on the welling anger within me and thrust it outward in a violent rush, attempting to sweep away anything ethereal in my path. The energy exploded outward, only to reach unanticipated limits and return in force. A shockwave of pain backlashed through my head as the energy ricocheted around the room. I saw Helen turn her head then squint, which told me that she had felt it as well, a fact that for some reason I didn’t find all that surprising. Fortunately for her, she was only a spectator; I was the target.
A pinpoint of agony drilled into my skull directly between my eyes and sent me physically staggering backward. I felt my heel thump against something, and I started to fall, then a tight grip latched on to my arm as someone guided me into a chair.
“Rowan? Rowan?” Ben’s words were thick as they flowed into my ears. “Are ya’ okay? What’s goin’ on? Answer me.”
I leaned forward in the seat, dropping my face into my hands, and heaved hard against the pain. I’m sure that to him it looked like I was having a seizure.
“ROWAN?!” he demanded again, his voice loud.
I held up a hand as a signal to him as I grimaced through the onslaught of agony. I’d brought this upon myself. My own anger was bouncing around inside the ethereal barriers Felicity and I had placed around the house, and it now came back to me threefold if not more. I was simply paying for my own lack of control.
While my presence within had acted as a doorway for Debbie Schaeffer to enter, it hadn’t been terribly effective as an exit for the burst of energy. On top of that, I hadn’t been the least bit grounded when it returned.
I mutely cursed myself for the stupidity of the action as the pain slowly began to subside. After a moment, misery faded into something resembling a severe sinus headache, and I sighed heavily.
I remained motionless as I opened my eyes and allowed them to focus on the object I’d tripped over.
There on the floor was a sealed cardboard box, roughly eight-by-ten by maybe twelve inches tall. I stared at it as the image clarified, then slowly allowed my eyes to come to rest on the label. It was upside down from my point of view, but I could still read it without difficulty.
It was addressed to Felicity O’Brien and Emerald Photographic Services, which was her company name. What really drew my attention, however, was the return address: Arch Color Labs, 3754 Ash Bend Avenue.
CHAPTER 28
There is an old adage that most everyone has heard, about snakes, nearness to them, and getting bit by same because of said close proximity. This is where I now found myself, and the fangs of this particular serpent were, to say the least, firmly embedded in my carotid artery, and the venom was now reaching my brain.
Bits and pieces of information, snippets of conversations, and channeled vices began coalescing in my frontal lobes to form a mental picture that should have been crystal clear all along. How I’d managed to avoid putting this all together, I had no idea, but there was no stopping it now. Whatever mental block had been shielding the overtly obvious from my sight had now been obliterated, and it was all making sense.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered just loud enough to be heard.
“Do what?” Ben asked. “Rowan, what’s goin’ on? What the hell was that all about?”
“Harold,” I said a bit louder. “It’s Harold.”
“Harold who?”
“Harold…the sorry sonofabitch that owns Arch Color Labs,” I announced, ignoring the throb in my skull and looking up at my friend. “That’s Harold who.”
“You’re gonna hafta elaborate, Row.”
“This box,” I explained as I pointed to the offending container. “It wasn’t here when I left this morning.”
“Yeah, so maybe it got delivered while you were with me and Chuck. Ya’ haven’t been home all day ya’know.”
“No. Wouldn’t happen. Arch is less than a mile from here. He never ships orders to Felicity. She picks them up.”
“Okay, so just playin’ devil’s advocate here…are you sure she didn’t?” he asked.
“She didn’t have time. Not today of all days. And before you ask, he’s closed on weekends so it wasn’t riding around in her Jeep for the past few days either.”
“Okay, good, we’re maybe onta’ somethin’ here. So what makes ya’ think it’s this Harold guy and not an employee?”
