When they had arrived Felicity hit the ground in full motion the moment she saw me standing in the driveway with Ben and the other officers. She slammed into me with all the force her petite frame could muster while running in a long, far less than billowing wool skirt. She had clenched her arms around me and the very first thing she said was, 'For as long as you live Rowan Linden Gant you NEVER ask me to do that again or I'll make you wish you hadn't.'

  I knew she meant it.

  Ben leaned against the wall, then neatly folded his arms across his chest and eyed me calmly. "So what exactly were you planning to do if that asshole had been in the house?"

  "I don't know," I admitted with an embarrassed shrug.

  "Good plan," he added a raised eyebrow and quick nod of his head to underscore the sarcastic statement.

  "I know… I screwed up."

  "Yes, you did," he agreed. "You started by getting here before eleven, which I specifically told you not to do. Both of you. Now other than that, you did great right up until you got out of the Jeep."

  "Yeah. I know," I conceded.

  "You entered a potentially dangerous scene unarmed and completely unprepared. It's beyond me what you were thinkin'."

  "I was thinking this guy needs to be stopped."

  "Yeah, I can agree with that. But just how did you think you were gonna do it?"

  "I hadn't gotten that far yet."

  "Jeez, Rowan," he exclaimed. "Whatever's got you all outta whack on the 'hocus-pocus' stuff must be affecting your judgment too. What you did was just plain stupid!"

  My friend fell silent and studied me from across the room. I wasn't sure what was going through his mind but the glassy shimmer in his eyes told me that he was wrestling with something that was going to involve a serious decision.

  "You'd do it again, wouldn't you?" he finally asked.

  I pondered the question with a frown and after a moment doled out the truth, "Given the circumstances, yes, I probably would."

  "Storm?" A deeply timbered voice vied for attention from the kitchen doorway.

  "Yeah, Murv, whatcha got?" Ben turned to the head Crime Scene technician.

  "A lot of nothin'," the man drawled. "No prints, no fibers, no nothing. Looks like whoever it was just did the spray job and beat feet… And they apparently did that entirely on solid ground 'cause there's not a fresh imprint in the snow anywhere around this house."

  "Yeah, I was afraid of that."

  The CSU tech shrugged. "Got samples of the paint for the lab, not that I'm expecting much."

  "Great, thanks," Ben told him. "Why don't you and your team go ahead and wrap it up."

  "Will do."

  "Austin?" Ben directed himself at my brother-in-law.

  "Aye?"

  "Can you hang out for a bit and keep Felicity company?"

  "Aye, no problem that."

  "Good. Come on, Rowan, let's you and me take a walk."

  "This," Ben told me, "is a Glock Seventeen."

  We were standing on the street at the back of his decrepit looking Chevrolet van. The doors were splayed open and he had just withdrawn his large hand from a gym bag. In his palm was a sturdy black holster filled with the handgun he was now describing.

  "Austrian designed, mounted on a lightweight, high impact plastic frame," he continued as he unsnapped the holster and withdrew the firearm. "Magazine releases here."

  He held the pistol out into the glow of the streetlamp with the muzzle pointed at the ground and displayed the grip to me. Using his thumb he pressed the release and slid the magazine out with his other hand.

  "Ben… " I started to object as I realized where this was heading.

  "Shut up and learn," he cut me off succinctly, and then began indicating points on the weapon with his index finger. "Sights are here and here. This is a semi-automatic and the firing pin is fully enclosed here, so there's no hammer like on your revolver. The slide is spring-loaded and it's actuated each time you fire so keep your thumb down and out of its way or it'll take a chunk out of it. Guaranteed. There's a safety here. You depress it automatically when you squeeze the trigger so the only thing it's good for is keepin' it from firing if you drop it. Follow me so far?"

  "Yes," I nodded.

  "This is a high capacity magazine." He held up the oblong rectangle for me to view. "It holds seventeen nine millimeter rounds." He turned the magazine at an angle to display the blue nosed bullets it carried. "These are Glaser Safety Slugs. They're eighty-grain rounds with number twelve shot suspended in Teflon gel. They're specifically designed to frag on impact and not ricochet. This does two things. One, you don't send a wild round through the wall and kill your neighbor. Two, they make a very nasty mess of soft targets. If you hit him you'll fuck him up. Guaranteed."

  He turned the magazine back on its side and made a show of sliding it into the bottom of the grip. "Mag goes here, just slide it in till it locks." The telltale snap of the catch taking hold punctuated his instruction. "Pull the slide back, let it go, and it's ready to rock."

  Ben jacked the metal slide on the weapon backwards as he stated the instruction then released it. With a quick mechanical snap and a metallic ping, a shell was extracted from the magazine and chambered. He lifted the dock and continued his demonstration.

  "Hold it firmly, cup your left hand and press the knuckles of your right hand into your left palm. Extend your arms and pull back with your left while pressing forward with your right. Use equal pressure and you get a stable firing position. No stupid TV bullshit or anything. Hold it upright and use both hands. Sight down the barrel just like you would with your revolver and squeeze the trigger, don't jerk it.

  "If it misfires or jams, don't panic. Just turn it on its side and repeat what I just showed you. Just rack it and return to the firing position. Got it?"

  "Yeah, I've got it."

  Ben carefully slid the sidearm back into the nylon holster and snapped the loop over the grip before handing it to me. "I want that on your belt at all times. Any questions?"

  I could smell the pungent odor of solvent and light oil wafting from the handgun as I hefted it. It had obviously been very recently cleaned. This told me that Ben hadn't made this decision on the spur of the moment as I had originally believed. There had been serious thought involved and he had intended to arm me even before the incident tonight. Still, I wasn't sure how comfortable I was with the idea.

  "Are you sure I need this, Ben? We've got the Ruger in the house." I referred to the .357 magnum revolver Ben had convinced us to purchase some years ago for the purpose of home protection. At that time, he had put both Felicity and I through a much less abbreviated version of what he had just finished.

  "This one is easier to conceal and no offense, white man, but Felicity is a hell of a lot better shot with that revolver than you are. This one has almost three times as many rounds so maybe you can hit somethin', which reminds me—This gun has a little quirk. The first two rounds out of it will be about six inches low, but don't worry about that. Just aim it dead center and keep pullin' the trigger. When it's empty the breach'll lock open."

  "Aren't your colleagues going to wonder why I'm carrying a pistol?" I made another appeal.

  "Wear a coat and don't go through any metal detectors and they'll never know."

  "Let me rephrase that, Ben. You know I'm not licensed to carry this."

  "Yeah, so?"

  "A little technicality called breaking the law?"

  "Better judged by twelve than carried by six, paleface."

  "I'm still not so sure about this… "

  "Look, Row, I can't be with you twenty-four hours a day, and to be honest, I just don't trust you not to pull another stunt like you did tonight." He levered the doors on the van shut as I sidestepped out of the way. "Just indulge me. Put the damn thing on your belt and don't let me catch you without it until this is all over."

  "Okay," I surrendered. "But I won't guarantee that I'll use it."

  "Trust me, Kemosabe. I hope like hell ya' don't ever have to make that decision."

  In the resulting quiet my friend pulled a pair of stubby Chateaus out of his pocket and offered one to me. He proceeded to slip his cigar out of its cellophane wrapper and with a quick snip he trimmed the end. Borrowing his guillotine, I followed suit.

  After lighting the tight roll of tobacco and giving the glowing tip a cursory inspection he tucked it in the corner of his mouth and puffed.

  "So fill me in," he said between clenched teeth. "What's the scoop with Rev. 21:8?"

  "Book of Revelation, Chapter twenty-one, verse eight," I told him as I finished igniting my own smoke. "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers," I stressed the word sorcerers, "and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

  "Second death?"

  "The proverbial afterlife, Ben. I think maybe since he couldn't kill me tonight he just wanted to make sure I know that I'm going to burn in hell."

  Austin was supposed to be leaving for Ireland the next morning and had reluctantly departed our home somewhere around one AM; but only after we had spent a solid hour convincing him there was nothing he could do. We still weren't sure whether or not he was going to cancel his flight.

  Neither Felicity nor I had come down from our adrenalin highs so after a fitful try at sleep we elected to sit up with Ben.

  It was four-thirty in the morning and the deep fold of darkness had yet to lighten when he and Felicity came out the back door in search of me. My friend had been maintaining his caffeine buzz with one cup of Java after another and I was supposed to be brewing a fresh pot of the fuel. Unfortunately, somewhere in that process time had suddenly segmented itself and fallen away from my reality. A void now occupied the space in my mind between then and now. I was barely conscious of standing coatless in the cold air, shivering as it chilled me through.

  "Rowan, honey, what are you doing out here? What's wrong?" My wife's concerned voice was the first to meet my ears.

  "Dammit, white man," Ben's words followed close behind. "You scared the hell out of us."

  Their voices prodded me from my catatonia and I broke my locked gaze from the inscription gracing my garage door. As their thick words formed coherence in my sluggish brain I slowly turned to them.

  "What are you doing out here by yourself?" my friend persisted.

  "I… I don't know," I stammered.

  Felicity let out a sudden gasp then gently grabbed my hand and pulled my arm further into the light.

  "Awwww, Jeez! What the hell is this?" my friend exclaimed as the reason for her surprise came into full view.

  I looked down at my arm.

  Scattered randomly across the surface of my flesh were a half dozen small welts, each one surrounding a puckering lesion. Thin trickles of blood still wept from the puncture wounds to streak my skin. The deep pricking sensation that had been masked by my earlier blankness returned with a sharp, biting rhythm. In my mind there could only be one meaning for this torture.

  "I think he might have moved to the next name on the list," was all I said.

  It was late afternoon before the Major Case Squad managed to determine for an absolute certainty that Amanda Marie Stark was missing.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 23

  Nothing.

  There had not been a public or traceable move from the killer for almost seven days. A mere dwindling handful of sixty-minute revolutions around the clock face were all that stood in the way of officially making it an entire week since the suspected kidnapping of Amanda Stark.

  Each day had slid quietly and uneventfully into the next. Each one completely devoid of anything to set it apart from another except for the random appearance and disappearance of various lacerations on my arm. I didn't even want to imagine what was happening to the young woman who was on the receiving end of the tortures the wounds were mimicking. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep from it.

  The Major Case Squad frantically chased down every lead—even the insignificant ones—and as feared they had all fallen colder than the winter's chill. The miniscule amount of evidence that had been collected endowed us with no more information than we already possessed. There were no witnesses to be found. No new clues brought forth into the light of the day.

  The daunting concrete wall of a dead end alleyway was staring us squarely in the face and it showed no remorse.

  If there was anything positive to be said it was that the nothing we faced included that there had been no more killings. Unfortunately, that one positive was tainted with an overshadowing negative. We all knew beyond any doubt that another murder was looming close and Amanda Stark would be the victim. Even worse, there was every indication that there was nothing we could do would stop it from happening unless something suddenly led us to the killer's doorstep; and that was something that seemed less probable with every moment that passed. The unspeakable horror that no one wished to voice was simply the fact that it would most likely be the exact catalyst it was going to take to resurrect this case.

  A sixth violent murder was the other shoe we all abhorred, but knew would strike the floor no matter what we did. Until then, the investigation was all but dead.

  So, expectantly, we waited.

  As we approached the final hours of the week, within each of us the mainspring of tension was twisted tightly in upon itself. With the coil of stress hovering a mere quarter-turn from the point where that clockwork spring would violently release, the internal mechanisms of our psyche's kicked into high gear. In defense of our own individual sanities we all became mindless automatons. Each moment was spent awaiting the heavy soled thud that would return us to a horrific reality, and with any luck, provide us with a tangible lead.

  With the investigation at a standstill, a frighteningly eerie apathy had epoxied itself to the city of Saint Louis. While the search for this serial killer officially remained a priority, bureaucrats were in control of the purse strings and decisions made behind closed doors routed tax dollars to projects viewed as more important by those in power. Overtime for the members of the MCS became a thing of the past and officers were shifted and shuffled to meet the demands of other cases. Suddenly, the round the clock protections originally provided for those believed to be on the killer's list became little more than semi-frequent drive-by's courtesy of the local police departments.

  Adding insult to injury, Detective Deckert was forced to reluctantly absent himself to fill in for a vacationing colleague with the County Homicide division. Shortly thereafter the FBI recalled Special Agent Mandalay, assigning her to tend other duties deemed more critical in light of the stalled manhunt. Ben continued to head up what was left of the effort, even with the greatly reduced staff.

  And then there was me.

  While I was still listed as a consultant for the MCS, there was very little for me to consult about. With each cut or contusion that inexplicably appeared on my arm I became a barometer by which we knew, or at least suspected, that Amanda Stark was still among the living. Beyond that, I was relegated to playing the role of potential victim; watched over day and night by Ben and off duty officers who owed him for one reason or another.

  The 'Ghoul Squad' was no more.

  I was almost certain that the seemingly endless supply of favors owed my friend was in reality a rapidly mounting debt for him. While I knew he had markers he could call in, Felicity and I were never left alone and it would have taken one man several lifetimes to accumulate such a surplus of obligements. Fortunately, Carl and Constance took it upon themselves to fill whatever shifts they could and I knew they were doing it out of friendship and not for the trade off.

  My daily objections always fell on deaf ears with Ben. It didn't matter to him that I felt it unfair that I should receive protection when the other potential targets weren't; or even that I was worried about what he would end up owing to the parade of cops who came in and out of my home. He had told me before that he was going to protect his 'corner of the world,' and there was no stopping him from doing just that—whatever it took.

  Truth was, I was actually relieved to have them there. Not so much for my own safety as for the peace of mind it gave me knowing I wouldn't have to worry about Felicity if something happened. The real debt being accumulated was on my end. I owed my friends in a big way.

  When the long anticipated other shoe finally did meet the floor, the resulting explosive crash instantly reduced our anxious calm to shimmering crystalline shards that fell abrasively upon the landscape.

  It didn't seem like we had been in bed any time at all when I awoke to heavy handed pounding on our bedroom door blended with the distant sound of my name being urgently called. Strategically placed within the stream of noise a duet of angry barks and growls filled out the cacophonous melody. At first, I thought it was nothing more than the dying remnants of a dream as I strained to listen in the darkness and heard only the rhythmic in and out rush of ocean waves droning from a compact disk set on repeat. I had been using the natural sounds for a meditation aid as I urged myself back toward center—not that I had been overly successful. Apparently, on this night, Felicity and I had fallen asleep with the player still running.

  I gave a moment's consideration to answering the phantom voice and decided I should check the time first. I rolled to the side and before my eyes were even fully open a square fist of pain rained a double jab down upon my forearm. I winced as I started to move the appendage and sent the agony in a reverberating right hook up through my elbow and into my shoulder. Reflexively I reached for the origin of the torture and was presented with a handful of sticky wetness far beyond anything that had occurred in the past septet of days.

  I knew instantly that the voice had not been a dream at all.

  "Goddammit, Rowan! Felicity! Wake up!" Ben Storm's muffled demand joined once more with his frantic hammering against the bedroom door and again the dogs loudly announced their displeasure in return.

 

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