“ Why, Rowan, why?” she mouths as she falls away from me into nothingness.
I reach for her, but she is gone.
Darkness.
Light.
Darkness.
Falling.
Falling upward into the light.
Another nightmare?” Felicity was sitting next to me on the edge of the sofa when I awoke from the fitful slumber.
“Yeah,” I answered, “like that’s a surprise, huh?”
“Anything in it that might help?”
“I dunno,” I returned lethargically as I pulled myself upright. “It mainly just told me that we were running out of time, as if I needed a reminder.”
She moved out of my way as I swung my legs around and allowed my feet to drop to the floor.
“Want some coffee?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure. What time is it anyway?”
“Almost noon,” she called over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen. “I figured you didn’t get in till late, so I let you sleep.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. I think.”
“Ben called earlier.” She returned with a mug of hot coffee and handed it to me. “He said to tell you thanks.”
“For what?” I queried and took a sip of the hot liquid, letting it burn the sleep from my throat.
“For all your help,” she answered. “They caught Roger early this morning. He came back to the house, and they were waiting for him.”
I stared back at her incredulously, almost dropping the steaming mug. “He what? What about the little girl?”
“She’s fine. Not a scratch on her. She’s already been reunited with her parents.”
I couldn’t believe it. After everything we had been through, Roger had walked right back into the hands of the police. I suppose I should have been thankful, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was out of sync. A sense of foreboding that made me believe that something was terribly wrong.
“I need to go talk to Ben,” I announced and began searching about for my shoes.
“Slow down,” Felicity insisted. “Don’t you think you’d better take a shower first? No offense, but you look pretty rough.”
She was right. The activities of the night before, combined with eight hours on our living room sofa, had to have taken their toll on my appearance.
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed. “But do me a favor will’ya? Call Ben and tell him I’m coming down to see him.”
“Sure. No problem.” She pecked me quickly on the cheek. “Now go get cleaned up.”
I left her dialing the phone and tossed my clothes haphazardly into the hamper as I stripped. The sun was coming in brightly through the window, eliminating the need for artificial light, so I just kicked on the exhaust fan and climbed into the shower.
With a quick turn of the porcelain handles, I started the water flowing and adjusted the temperature to my liking. I turned to allow it to flow down my back and held my eyes closed, willing away the remaining tension in hopes of at least a few moments relaxation. It was then that something Felicity had just said struck me as odd. She asked me if the nightmare had contained anything that might help, yet she already knew that Ben had called. She knew that Roger had already been captured. I started to call out to her in search of an explanation.
When I opened my eyes, I was looking directly at the back wall. Across the normally pristine white tiles, dark crimson strokes inscribed- ALL IS FORGIVEN.
— A sour, cackling laugh filled my ears, and the water against my back suddenly felt oddly thick. I looked down at my chest where it splashed across my shoulders and saw blood, viscid and hot, dripping from my skin.
I tried to escape the horror, only to find the shower curtain had become solid and unyielding. I began to pound on it wildly, screaming for my wife, as the enclosure quickly began to fill with the sticky, crimson liquid. My cries remained unheeded as the level reached my chest, then my chin, until finally, I was submerged. My throat and lungs began to burn, and I was starting to black out. No longer able to hold my breath, I was about to face my own innermost fear. I was drowning.
I awoke screaming.
Felicity was over me, firmly grasping my shoulders and shaking me into consciousness. “Rowan, wake up! Rowan!”
I bolted upright on the couch, steeped in my own sweat. The cool breeze from a nearby register sent a shiver up my spine as the air conditioner followed orders from the thermostat and worked to maintain the temperature.
Soft morning light was beginning to filter in between the slats of the mini blinds covering our windows, bringing a murky pallor to my surroundings. My wife, clad in an oversized t-shirt, was staring back at me with the same gentle concern I had seen in her eyes just one night before.
“Another nightmare?” she asked rhetorically, sitting back on the edge of the sofa.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “a weird one. Whatever you do, don’t tell me it’s almost noon, and Ben called to tell me thanks.”
“Why would I?”
I heard a muffled series of barks, telling me that the dogs wanted to be let back in. For some reason, that familiar noise, added to my wife’s puzzled expression and my overall feeling as if I had been beaten severely with a two-by-four, was the evidence I needed to tell me I was actually, truly awake this time.
“It’s a long story,” I told her.
After a shower that began hesitantly, I relinquished the remaining hot water to Felicity and prepared a quick breakfast. Over eggs scrambled with broccoli and Swiss cheese, a side of turkey bacon, and coffee, she and I discussed the events of the past evening. For the most part, the discussion was one-sided, with me doing the talking and her doing the listening as I filled her in on the details of the assault on Roger’s house, followed by those of the doubly bizarre nightmare. The latter accounting, I recorded in my Book of Shadows as I went.
“I got a call from a client last night,” Felicity announced while we put away the freshly washed dishes. “Apparently, they lined up a last minute product shoot with some model that’s only available today.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be fine,” I answered her unspoken question.
“Are you sure, then?” she posed. “I can refer it over to Hartley. He owes me one anyway.”
“Really. I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “There’s no need in both of us sitting around here staring at the walls. I don’t know if there’s much more either of us can do to help Ben right now anyway. Besides, like I said, Agent Mandalay isn’t exactly my number one fan.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
I helped her load the Jeep and waved goodbye as she backed out slowly and went on her way. The landscape around me was growing brighter as the sun crept higher in the morning sky, chasing away the dimly shimmering globe of the moon-the moon that was less than twenty-four hours from full.
I called Ben shortly after Felicity left and was told that he was following up leads in the field. After leaving a message for him, I resigned myself to performing what had become the more mundane tasks in my life-support calls, returning email, and even some minor house cleaning. Don’t get me wrong, I was actually looking forward to returning to the everyday normalcy, but not until this whole thing was over and done with.
It was approaching three in the afternoon when the phone rang. Ben was on the other end, returning my call.
“So, any good news?” I queried into the handset.
“No,” he told me, “not really. The parents made a positive ID on the little girl’s dress. And they found a spot where the floor had been dug up in the corner, but that’s about it.”
“That’s where he buried the hearts he took from the victims,” I stated mechanically.
“Yeah… It wasn’t pleasant… Oh, and that tip ya’ gave us on the syringe. We found it right where ya’ said it would be. Lab showed traces of a sedative called Diazepam.”