“I was backing her up, and you two were witnesses,” he replied.
“Can’t you just get them to hurry up?” She was almost physically shaking from her frustration.
“I’m a city cop, Felicity. This is the county, and I’m not with the MCS so it ain’t my jurisdiction. Besides, you don’t rush this kinda shit. Not when people are dead. You know that.”
“So, how is Constance anyway?” I interjected, trying to change the subject.
“Holdin’ up,” he replied, pursing his lips and casting a glance back her way. “It’s never easy… Especially when it’s a kid.”
“How old was he?”
“Got no ID yet, but he looks like he can’t be more than fourteen.”
“Too young,” I muttered.
“Tell me about it,” he replied and then reached up to his neck.
“Ben,” Felicity appealed again, her voice softer but no less demanding. “We have to go. Kimberly can’t hold out much longer.”
“Felicity…” His voiced trailed off for a moment, obviously tired. “You don’t even know for sure where she is.”
“I showed you on the map,” she replied.
“You showed me the Chain of Rocks Bridge to the other side of the river,” he returned.
“But it has to be somewhere close to there.”
“Yeah, but where?” he asked. “Twenty-five mile arc? Fifty-mile arc? Huh? What are we gonna do, go across the bridge, start yellin’ ‘er name and hope she answers?”
“Dammit, Benjamin!” she snipped. “There’s a way to find her, I know it, but we have to go!”
“What way? How?”
She shot me a furtive glance. “You wouldn’t understand. Just… We need to go!”
“Try me.”
“There’s no time for explaining!” she insisted. “We have to go!”
“Okay! Fine! Whaddaya want me ta’ do?”
“Get us out of here.”
“Okay, how?”
“Tell them about Kimberly.”
“Tell ‘em what?”
“That she’s out of time!” she spat. “That she’s going to die if we don’t do something!”
“So, lemme get this straight. You want me to go to the lead detective and say, ‘hey, the little redheaded Witch over there says we gotta go now, ‘cause she saw a kidnap victim in her crystal ball’ is that it?” he asserted.
“I thought you believed me,” she snarled.
“I do, Felicity,” he shot back. “I’ve always fuckin’ believed you two.”
“Then just trust me!”
“I told you, I do, but right now what I believe doesn’t mean shit to these cops!”
“How do you know if you don’t try?!” my wife demanded.
“You know better than that. You think tellin’ ‘em some Twilight Zone crap is gonna fly? Gimme a break.”
She glared back at him for a moment, then stepped around him and started across the lot. All she said was, “Well if you won’t do it, then I will.”
CHAPTER 35:
She didn’t get very far.
It took Ben less than two full steps to catch up to her and clamp a large hand around her arm, stopping my petite wife dead in her tracks.
“You don’t wanna do that,” he told her.
“And why not?” she demanded.
“Because I doubt they’re gonna be as understanding as I am, for one,” he retorted. “And for two, they’re liable to put your ass in a rubber room. Want some more?”
“We’ll just have to see what they do, won’t we.” She offered the question as a rhetorical statement.
My friend shook his head. “No. No we won’t.”
She tugged hard, trying to pull away. “Let go of me!”
“Dammit, Felicity, don’t make me cuff you to the fuckin’ van,” he barked.
“You wouldn’t dare!” my wife returned angrily.
“Watch me,” he growled.
“Fek tu!”
“Yeah, right back atchya’.”
Felicity twisted harder, still trying to pull away. She struggled for a moment, and having no success, she suddenly cocked her leg back then kicked him hard in the shin. Ben winced as he let out a stifled yelp but still maintained his grip on the auburn-haired firestorm. When she tried to repeat the attack, he shuffled quickly out of the way, causing her to miss and almost lose her balance.
He responded to her near fall by pushing her against the front corner of the van and steadying her there. Stepping back, he held my wife at arms length and then simply glared at her without so much as a word.
Felicity started her struggle anew and found herself locked in an even tighter grip. She looked over and called out to me. “Rowan?!”
From the tone of her voice, I knew she was appealing for help, and that was going to be a problem. I had been purposely staying out of the middle of this for the most part. I knew Ben wouldn’t hurt her, although I wasn’t entirely sure about the reverse. I also knew better than to get in front of Felicity when she was on a mission, and that put me in a quandary, because with everything that had happened, I could plainly see what Ben was up against.
Of course, the fact that they were both too stubborn to admit fault didn’t help. In truth, I had seen this coming. As on edge as we had been the past few hours, this altercation was all but a forgone conclusion. And, it came as no surprise that it was between the two of them.
As usual, life was an obstacle course, and unlike the movies, you couldn’t always make the hurdles in a single, graceful leap. In fact, you usually fell flat on your face and skinned your knees before moving on. Even worse, some of the bars were set higher than others, and this particular one was starting to look more like a wall.
Now I was caught with my back against that barrier, knowing exactly how my wife was feeling at this very moment but also fully aware of how police investigations worked. I didn’t like the situation any more than they did. But, in the end, we had no choice in the matter, and that was an irrefutable fact.
“Honey, Ben’s right,” I told her. “There’s nothing he can do.”
“You’re taking his side?” she almost pleaded.
“I’m not taking anyone’s side,” I explained. “I’m just telling you how it is.”
“That’s fine!” she snapped. “I said I’d do it myself then.”
“Okay, but tell me this,” I said. “What makes you think they’re going to listen to you if they won’t listen to him?”
She stared back at me with anger, anxiety, and a host of other emotions dancing in her eyes. I could tell she was on the verge of declaring one of the Gaelic epithets she kept in her arsenal of curses, but I could also see a look of resignation behind her molten gaze. As impetuous as she could be under the right set of circumstances, she was also one who subscribed to logic. Even though it was obvious that she didn’t want to admit it, she knew we were both correct.
A long moment passed with nothing said, then she literally shrieked, venting her frustration into the night with an audible burst.
“All right!” she said. “Let me go.”
“You gonna calm down?” Ben asked pointedly.
“Yes, damn you, now let me go.”
My friend slowly released his grip on her upper arm, a tentative look filling his face. She jerked it away and began rubbing the spot where he had been clamped on. I could tell by the way Ben had positioned himself that he was expecting her to bolt, but to his surprise, she stayed put and simply glared back at him.
“Sorry if I hurt ya’,” he apologized.
She answered him in a flat tone. “Aye, you did.”
“Yeah, well that fuckin’ kick wasn’t exactly pleasant either,” he offered in reply.
“Be glad I actually like you then,” she returned flatly. “With someone else, I would have aimed differently.”
Ben shook his head, then said, “Listen, just stay here and calm down. I’m gonna see what I can do, but I’m not makin’ any promises.”
“Thank you,” Felicity said.
“Yeah, well don’t thank me yet, I’m prob’ly not gonna get anywhere.”
“For trying, Ben,” she returned. “Thank you for at least trying.”
“What are we going to do, Rowan?” Felicity asked.
She was parked in her seat, and she had reclined it even farther than it had been earlier. The light of the streetlamp above was filtering in through the tinted windows, bringing a dim glow to the interior that made her pale complexion look just that much more ghostly. She had her eyes closed, and she was slowly massaging her temples.