He pulled the handset away and pressed his thumb against the off-hook switch.
“Well?” Agent Mandalay asked.
“Park attendant found the gate unlatched when she arrived Saturday morning,” he answered. “Chain had been snapped. Prob’ly with a bolt cutter, but there was no other vandalism they could find. Apparently, this happens every now and then. According to the Sergeant, they’ve caught a coupl’a drunk good ol’ boys in the past who thought it’d be a good idea to go fishin’ in the middle of the night and broke in so they could use the boat ramp.”
“But not this time?” I asked.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “But since there was no other damage, they just wrote it off and filed a vandalism report.”
He offered me the handset and I took it.
“So what was the eye roll about?” I asked as I started backing slowly toward the kitchen doorway.
“She asked if I was the same Detective Storm that’s been on TV with ‘that Witch’,” he replied flatly.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “You’re my freakin’ claim to fame apparently.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he sighed. “It’s not the first time I’ve been asked, won’t be the last I’m sure.”
I turned then continued through the doorway and dropped the phone back into its wall base. My mouth was already open to speak to my wife when I looked up and saw that the room was empty. I had been fairly intent on Ben’s side of the phone conversation, but I couldn’t imagine having missed Felicity coming into the room. Still, it wasn’t something I could rule out either.
I glanced around and then turned and called back into the dining room, “Felicity?”
I waited a few seconds but heard no reply. I called out again, “Is Felicity in there?”
“I thought she was in there,” Constance called back to me.
I felt my mouth curl downward into a frown as the hair on the back of my neck began to prickle in a wave of gooseflesh. The frightening hollowness that tended to visit the pit of my stomach from time to time announced its arrival, and I knew instantly that something was amiss.
I walked through the kitchen without a word and continued out the back door, through the atrium sun porch, and exited onto the deck. The security floods were still lit, casting illumination across the raised expanse but eventually dissipating as they lost their battle against the darkness a few feet beyond the railing. My wife was still nowhere to be seen.
I frowned harder and advanced across the deck, peering into the night toward the back of the yard. It wasn’t unheard of for her to sit on the bench along the side of her potting shed when she wanted some solitude. I strained to see if I could pick out her form amid the faint silhouette of the outbuilding but saw nothing resembling a person at all.
“Felicity?” I called out.
Hearing no reply, I pressed forward and down the shallow flight of stairs to the concrete apron of the driveway leading to the garage.
“Felicity?” I called into the darkness again.
Still, I received no reply.
The hollowness was beginning to gnaw a hole in my stomach, and every sense in my body started advancing toward overload. I turned to my right and walked across the driveway/patio area until I cleared the corner of the house and gazed down toward the street.
Ben’s van was off to the side of the drive, having been straightened by RJ earlier after the cop’s drunken parking attempt. Past that, I could see the tail end of Constance’s sedan where she had parked on the street in front of our house. What was conspicuously missing from the scene was my wife’s Jeep.
I spun in place and began a fast walk back across the concrete to the deck then back into the house. As I entered the back door, I looked up at the note board on the side of the refrigerator. Next to it was a line of hooks for extra keys, and the spot reserved for Felicity’s spares was empty.
Ben was just pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee as I came in, and he looked up. It didn’t take any of his training for him to see that I was distressed. He immediately asked, “What’s wrong, white man?”
“Felicity’s gone,” I told him quickly. “So is her Jeep. I think she’s gone out there by herself.”
CHAPTER 23:
“Goddammit!” my friend exclaimed. “Hasn’t she ever heard of a chain of evidence? If there’s a crime scene out there, and she fucks it up, it’s not gonna do us any good at all.”
“She’s not thinking straight right now, Ben,” I replied sharply.
Constance apparently heard the commotion and came through the doorway with a puzzled expression on her face. “What’s going on?”
“Felicity’s gone,” I told her quickly.
“Are you sure? I didn’t even hear her leave.”
“Apparently neither did the dogs because they didn’t bark or anything, which is unheard of.” I shook my head. “But her Jeep is definitely gone.”
“You don’t think she…” she began.
“That’s exactly what I think,” I replied before she could finish the question. “And, we have to stop her.”
“Jeezus!” Ben spat. “She’s worse than you, white man. At least you wait until I’m not around before pullin’ some kinda stunt.”
“She doesn’t deal well with people being victimized,” I told him, impatience growing in my voice. “Especially women.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda obvious,” he shot back, starting toward the phone. “But what the hell does she think she’s gonna do out there?”
“Probably the same thing we’ve been trying to do here. Figure out who is doing this,” I explained, growing more agitated with each passing second. “Can we save the why’s for later? We’ve got to stop her.”
“What the fuck are you so worked up about, Row?” Ben asked as he snatched the telephone receiver from the wall. “Worst thing that can happen is she screws over the crime scene. I’m the one that needs to be pissed, not you.”
“No it isn’t!” I snapped. “You saw what happened here tonight. What do you think is going to happen if she manages to connect directly with Brittany Larson’s corpse?”
“What? You’ve done that kinda stuff before,” he replied. “I’ve seen you do it at the morgue.”
“Yes, you have,” I shot back. “And think about it. Remember what happened? If Felicity hadn’t been there to bring me back, I would have ended up being their latest customer.”
His eyes widened as the realization hit him. “Jeezus.”
“Not my choice of deities,” I spat. “But, yeah. Exactly. We have to stop her before she finds the body and tries something stupid.”
“Surely she knows what could happen,” Constance offered.
“Probably, but like I said, she’s not thinking straight,” I reiterated. “The way she’s been shifting in and out of trances, I’m not even sure she’s fully in this world right now.”
“Yeah, Detective Storm again.” Ben was speaking into the phone. “I need to speak with Sergeant Marshall again… Thanks…” He twisted the phone down and looked over to Constance. “Yo, Mandalay. See if you can figure out the most likely route she would take from here.”
Agent Mandalay gave him a quick nod and ducked back into the dining room to check the maps.
“Yeah, Sergeant Marshall,” Ben said as he suddenly twisted the phone back up to his mouth. “Listen, I got a situation… Yeah, I wish… So listen, you got someone headed for Woodcrest Park right now and she’s intent on gettin’ in… No, no, she’s a civilian consultant… No, she’s just a little overzealous right now… Yeah, I just need you to stop her if we don’t get to her first. Yeah, her name is Felicity O’Brien. About five-two, one-ten or so, long red hair. She’s drivin’ a black Jeep Wrangler, license plates…” Ben looked at me questioningly and motioned for me to give up the information.