“Rowan? Are you all right?” she asked, concern underlining each word with a bold stroke.
I didn’t answer right away for the simple reason that I couldn’t get my mouth to form the words since my jaw was clenched in a tight grimace.
She waited only a few seconds before calling to me again, the distress in her voice moving several notches up the scale within a pair of syllables, “Rowan?!”
“Okay.” I managed to blurt out the muffled reply on the tail end of a heavy breath. Sighing for a second time as the latest addition to the orchestra of agonies began to subside, I lifted my face out of my palms but kept my eyes squeezed shut as I added, “I’m okay.”
I knew full well that I didn’t sound okay. The truth is, I didn’t actually feel okay either. I just didn’t want Felicity slamming the door on this before it was even fully open. Of course, it was two against one at this point, in this plane of existence at any rate. Counting the other side of the veil and what it was doing to me, I was even more outnumbered than that. So if my wife decided to pull the plug on this endeavor, there was nothing I would be able to do. I was barely up to keeping myself upright, much less fending off a six and a half foot tall cop on a mission to rescue me from myself.
I opened my eyes and focused on the interior of the car once more. The voice in my head was still unintelligible, but it was getting louder by the second. I was beginning to wonder if it was actually a lone voice or merely the background chatter of an entire chorus of tortured spirits clamoring for my attention. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. The only thing that kept me believing this was singular was the uncanny familiarity of its pitch and tone along with the lack of any other ethereal noise to dull it.
Several seconds had ticked by, and my wife had yet to send in the cavalry. However, the recent and painfully overt stress in her voice told me she was only inches from doing so. All it would take is another stumble, and I had a feeling I was going to be flying backwards by my belt. If that happened, and Felicity closed the circle, there was a good chance I would lose connection with the other side. It certainly wasn’t a given, but it was a chance I didn’t want to take. Not yet.
I looked at my palm and then back at the interior of the car. I knew it was possible I might glean something by reaching in and touching the steering wheel. Another option would be to touch the headrest on the seat. Both of them may well hold what I was seeking, but by the same token, one could be a crystal clear connection and the other like a frayed speaker wire cutting in and out.
I continued to stare into the dark passenger cabin of the sedan. My eyes kept being drawn back to the fingerprint powder on the passenger side dash. I was certain that it was merely standard procedure to check for prints throughout the entire car, but there was something gnawing at my gut where that was concerned.
After a lengthy pause, I straightened back up and made a quarter turn back toward the circle but remained standing next to the opening. I was about to make good on my earlier omission, but I had to make sure my timing was at least in the ballpark if this was going to work.
“Rowan?” Felicity called my name, a quizzical note in her voice replacing at least part of the concern.
“I’m fine,” I told her, looking over my shoulder and forcing the comment out in a tired drone.
I cast my glance toward the crowd of cops, and my gaze fell on Captain Albright. She was still wearing a stoic frown, but her eyes broadcast a far different message. I didn’t have any way of knowing what her exact relationship was with her niece, but the anguish flowing from her was akin to what I would expect from a parent.
This woman had caused me nothing but grief since the day I had met her. While I could rightfully be accused of having turned the other cheek more than once in my lifetime, where she was concerned I had long ago grown tired of her slapping me each time I did. I owed her nothing. I knew it, and so did she.
Judith Albright, however, was someone I had never met. But, like all of the other victims I had never met but helped anyway, I owed her nothing either. Still, between the two of them and my own conscience, I felt somehow compelled to pay whatever price was asked.
I hung my head and sighed before casting my glance toward Ben. “Hey, Tonto,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “Do you have a Slim Jim in your van?”
He gave me a puzzled look as he said, “Yeah, wh…” Before he could manage to get the “why” fully out of his mouth, his eyes widened and he started forward as he barked, “Goddammit! Don’t do it, white man!”
Before the last word had finished passing his lips, I ducked into the driver’s seat of the sedan, slammed the door and hit the lock.
Felicity instantly screamed a severely pissed off “damn your eyes” that was still perfectly audible to me even through the tempered glass of the car.
I knew that neither Ben nor she could possibly be surprised that I had pulled this particular stunt. After all, we’d been doing this sort of thing long enough that they had to know I would do something they considered stupid but that I felt absolutely necessary. I had merely managed to catch them off guard. But regarding that particular coup, I still wasn’t quite sure if I should consider myself lucky or not.
My wife was at the door, yanking hard on the handle, and glaring at me with the same emotion she had just voiced, but her eyes were glistening with a healthy dose of fear as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to offer her any reassurances, verbal or otherwise. With as many state troopers as there were standing around the perimeter, I knew a Slim Jim or other tool for unlocking the door was likely to be produced at any moment, whether from Ben’s van or one of their trunks. The way I had it figured, I probably had somewhere around thirty seconds before I was wrestled out of this seat by someone. What they probably didn’t realize was the fact that I was actually counting on them to do just that in case this turned out to be a worse idea than I already thought it was.
Through the windshield I could see uniformed bodies moving in every direction as trunk lids began flying open. The tableau outside seemed almost like a surreal picture as my contact with the seat began to melt into an ethereal connection to things past. The murmuring voice inside my head stepped upward as if someone had just twisted the volume knob to full. I still couldn’t make out what was being said, but it was becoming clearer with each sound it uttered.
I wasn’t able to keep literal track of the seconds as they ticked by, but I knew my hesitation over my own doubts had already cost me part of the already short span of time. I now began to wonder if thirty seconds would be enough to accomplish what I needed to do.
I took another glance out the driver’s side window and saw Felicity. Though I could no longer hear her, or anything other than the preternatural noise inside my skull, I saw her lips moving in slow motion and could make out the words, “ Damnu! Rowan, open the door! ”
A few feet behind her I saw Ben snatching a Slim Jim from a state trooper and turning toward the car. My hoped for thirty seconds was about to become something closer to fifteen or twenty at the most.
I realized then I couldn’t wait for the connection to take its normal course. Unfortunately, the only way I knew to speed it up added yet another layer of peril to the unbridled risk I was already taking. Given that fact, I might well be glad to be pulled out of here in twenty seconds instead of thirty.
Ben was already nearing the car, sprinting in an extruded slow motion through my distorted view of the here and now. If I wasted any more time, this whole undertaking would be for naught.
I grasped the steering wheel with my left hand, slapped my right palm onto the passenger side seatback, and then leaned back against the headrest as I purposely stopped grounding and allowed all of my psychic defenses to fall by the wayside.