“Well, I want you to know that I appreciate it. Especially you staying with us.”
“It’s not a problem, Rowan,” she shrugged as she spoke. “It’s my job.”
“Maybe so, but after today…” I hesitated for a moment, feeling awkward at voicing my weakness to her. “After today, I think I’ll sleep better knowing that you’re here.”
We sat in silence for a moment then I spoke again, a hint of embarrassment in my voice, “I guess that sounded pretty corny, huh?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I tilted my head down and looked back at her over the rim of my glasses for effect. “This is me here, Constance.”
“Okay, yeah,” she smiled. “It sounded corny, but I know what you mean.”
“Well thanks for not laughing.”
The telephone on the wall in the small kitchen trilled, and I slid my chair back.
“I’m laughing on the inside,” Mandalay replied with a smile.
“Yeah, I figured as much.”
Felicity called out to me as I stood up. “Stay put, Rowan, I’ll get it.”
“I’m not an invalid, Felicity,” I responded as I turned and reached around the corner, snatching the phone from its cradle just before my wife’s hand reached it.
I shot her a tired grin, and she rolled her eyes at me before stepping back to the counter and sliding the freshly rinsed coffeepot into its base.
I tucked the phone up to my ear and said, “Hello?”
There was no formal greeting in return. Just a cold, familiar voice reciting in monotone, “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”
CHAPTER 22:
My face was hot in an instant, and I could literally feel my heartbeat thumping in my ears as I flushed with anger. My first inclination was to explode, lash out as I had done earlier in the day. My emotional reaction bolted from its corner and landed a solid punch on the jaw of logic as the bell sounded. The contest had begun.
Hateful words formed on my lips, and I clenched my teeth to keep them at bay. Blood rushed in my ears as I took a deep breath, searching for a solid ground to which I could attach. The opposing sides of my brain were engaged in an all out brawl with the prize being control of what would come out of my mouth in response to his selected verse.
It all came down to a fight between my overwhelming compulsion to explain to him in minute detail exactly how little regard I held for his life and the need to remain rational. I have to admit that rationality was looking very weak at the moment.
The pause was lethargic, and my mute struggle continued as I simply stood there with the phone pressed against my ear. I was just about to spew a stream of vile adjectives into the mouthpiece when he spoke again.
“I know that you are there, Gant,” he said. “I can hear you breathing.”
Again, his voice oozed into my skull from the handset. The very sound of it made me feel physically ill, and I swallowed hard to push back the column of bile I felt climbing up my throat.
The mouthful of expletives rammed against the back of my teeth in an attempt to break free, and I drew my lips into a tight line. I started to tense then felt myself connect to the ground I had sought. I don’t know how I managed it, but I wasn’t about to refuse the link. A calm washed over me, and I let my hot breath out in a slow stream. My logical half rallied and landed its own sucker punch to my emotional side then took over-for the time being, at least.
My first rational thought was to appeal to his sense of morality, as much as it existed within the confines of his malformed psyche. We had already established that he had not exhibited the same restraint regarding the safety of those he perceived as guiltless as he had during his last spree. Still, it was worth a try.
“You almost killed an innocent man today, Eldon.” I turned to face Agent Mandalay as I spoke, clenching my fist and concentrating on keeping my voice even.
Her eyes widened as she immediately picked up on the cue. Behind me, I heard Felicity gasp, and I turned quickly, trying my best to paint a reassuring mask onto my face.
“Detective Deckert?” he asked.
“Yes.” I held my initial reply to a single syllable lest I lose what little control I was exerting over my temper. Accomplishing that, I forged ahead with an entire mouthful. “Or even Detective Storm for that matter. Neither of them are Witches.”
I could hear Mandalay in the background as she pushed away from the table and began whispering into her cell phone.
“Both of them are your friends, aren’t they?”
“Yes they are.”
Porter actually chuckled at my answer before saying, “Then for you to claim that they are innocent is ridiculous.”
“Guilt by association then?”
“Of course,” he replied. “If you are not part of the solution, Gant, then you are part of the problem.”
“I don’t remember that from the Bible, Eldon,” I offered.
“But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.” He laid heavy emphasis on the word idolater as he recited the passage.
“You don’t think that you are taking that out of context?”
The earpiece chirped once, and the phone went to hollow silence punctuated by distant clicking. I pulled it away from my ear and turned back to Agent Mandalay.
“He hung up,” I told her. “Or we got cut off, I don’t know which.”
“He’s on a cell,” she told me as she twisted her own away from her mouth. “The signal dropped before they could pinpoint it on the grid.”
“Dammit,” I spat. “How did he get this number anyway? How did he know where we are?”
“Believe me, Rowan, I’m wondering the same thing myself,” she told me. “But don’t worry, we’ll… What?” She stopped abruptly and twisted her phone back up to her mouth then looked at me and held up a finger. “Hold on a second.”
I nodded, then turned back, and dropped the handset back into its cradle on the wall. I looked over at Felicity and saw that her fear had now surfaced and was evident in the form of a hard edge stricken across her soft features. I was just opening my mouth to reassure her when the phone rang again.
I snapped my head around and stared at the device. On the second ring, I picked it up and placed it against my ear without a word.
“I was beginning to think you planned on leaving the phone off the hook all night, Gant,” Porter said.
“What happened,” I asked with a heavy note of sarcasm. “Did you go through a tunnel?”
“Don’t try to play that game with me, Gant. I know you’ve figured out that I’m on a cell phone. I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were, Eldon.”
“Then you know that the reason we were cut off is that I hung up. I know how this works.”
“So you think you can’t be tracked,” I spat back. “Good for you.”
“You know better than that, Gant,” he instructed me. “I know that I am being tracked. I hung up so that Agent Mandalay would at least have a challenge.”
I turned to Constance and motioned her over.
“Enough of that, Gant,” Porter continued. “Let’s get back to our little talk. What I follow is scripture. There is no context, only truth.”
