“Almost,” she replied, giving her head a shallow nod. “Not exactly, but almost.”
She definitely hadn’t given me the answer I had hoped for, but it was better she was honest rather than lie about something like this.
“That’s not good,” I said, unable to find any other words that fit.
“I was thinking the same thing, trust me.”
On a whim I reached into my jacket pocket and checked for the bottle containing the necklace. I breathed a small sigh of relief when I felt my fingers wrap around it. Even if I had lost it I couldn’t think of any way for it to end up back in Annalise’s hands. But I also wasn’t sure what effect it might have if it was released from its salt-filled coffin.
Although I knew by feel that the bottle was still in my pocket, just to be safe I pulled it out and inspected it closely. I even gave the glass vessel a light tap against my palm in order to uncover the piece of jewelry just enough to make sure it was still entombed in the salt. Once satisfied, I shook it again and stuffed it back into my jacket.
I pondered what to say for a moment before finally venturing, “I hate to ask this, but I feel like I have to. Are you certain you are in control of yourself?”
“Aye,” she replied. “It isn’t like that. I’m still me.”
“Sorry again… I just needed to know.”
“I understand…” She paused for a moment then continued with, “I’m fine, Rowan. Really, I am. Don’t worry. I have to admit that I’m embarrassed by the situation though…if you know what I mean. I really shouldn’t be getting aroused right now. It seems rather sick, don’t you think?”
“If things were different, I would probably say it was odd, yes,” I admitted. “But, right now, I’d have to say it’s sick only if it’s for the wrong reasons.”
“I don’t know if there are any right reasons for it to come on me now,” she replied. “But, it certainly isn’t because of all this. At least, I don’t…”
“Hey Rowan!” Ben called out, interrupting the balance of her explanation.
We both looked up to see him half jogging across the parking lot then ducking beneath the crime scene tape a few feet from us.
“Did you find it?” I asked hopefully.
“Probably,” he told us. “There’re seven Millston’s in a fifty mile radius-three in Illinois, two in Saint Charles, and two in the county.”
“Are all of them being checked?”
“Yeah, but you said the house looked like it had been through a fire, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, nodding quickly. “It was boarded up and you could see where the fire had scorched the brick above the windows. And, it was near a corner intersection, but I didn’t get the other street name.”
“Well, one of the addresses in the county fits that description,” he said. “It’s in Overmoor. Got torched by an arsonist about four years ago and been vacant ever since. The local coppers are doing a drive-by right now, and SWAT is on standby if they find anything.”
“Overmoor? That’s thirty-five or forty miles back the other direction,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “That’d be about right.”
“Then why is Judith Albright’s car abandoned all the way out here?”
“Who knows how these wingnuts think,” he said with a shrug. “More’n likely ta’ send us lookin’ in the wrong direction. Besides, even you said ya’ didn’t know if she was with the SOB.”
“I know,” I replied. “I know… But it doesn’t make sense.”
“None of it does, Row. I thought you’d be used ta’ that by now.”
“I don’t think I want to get used to it.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re sayin’. So listen, we prob’ly need ta’ head out. Dependin’ on how this shit goes down, it could be over before we even get there, which ain’t such a bad thing in my opinion. I don’t need you goin’ off half cocked like usual.”
“What did Albright say?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t talked to ‘er yet. Figured I’d go ahead and fill ‘er in before we hit the road ourselves.” He looked around and huffed, “Just gotta find ‘er first.”
A state trooper was walking past us just as Ben made the comment. He paused then doubled back and interrupted, “Are you talking about Captain Albright? She’s gone.”
“Whaddaya mean gone?” Ben asked, turning toward him. “She was here just a couple of minutes ago.”
The trooper glanced at his watch then back to Ben. “More like five or six.”
“Yeah, okay,” my friend retorted. “She say where she was goin’?”
“No,” the officer replied. “But she crossed the median and was heading east with her dash light going.”
“Goddammit, Beebee…” Ben sighed then spoke up. “Get on the radio and give your guys a description. Have ‘em pull ‘er over.”
“Isn’t she responding to…”
“Yeah, she is. That’s the problem. Just pull ‘er over and detain ‘er.” With that said, Ben pulled out his cell phone and started stabbing numbers as he mumbled, “Jeezus fuckin’ Christ…”
CHAPTER 31:
I reached down and checked the clasp on my safety belt, giving it a tug to make sure it was tight. I had lost count of how many times I had made the inspection by feel since we left the rest area, but I was betting this wouldn’t be the last time by a long shot. I knew I shouldn’t be so nervous. After all, I had been on countless insane rides with Ben and his infamous “move it or lose it” attitude behind the wheel, but for some reason this one seemed worse than all the others combined.
My friend’s own magnetic bubble light was strobing atop the van, casting a flickering glow down onto the dash as we sped along the highway. A slice of cold air was whistling in through an ultra thin gap along the edge of the driver’s side window caused by the emergency beacon’s coiled wire, which was threaded through to the accessory plug powering it.
Thus far, I hadn’t been brave enough to glance in the direction of the dimly lit speedometer. It was bad enough that we were whipping by cars so fast that they appeared as little more than blurred lights rocketing past us in reverse. I feared that knowing where the needle was actually hovering would just be too much for me to take right now.
The siren Ben had mounted behind the grill of the vehicle was warbling, burping, and vomiting a string of randomized alert tones to help clear the way, but it soon became obvious that some people simply didn’t listen. Every now and then the van would sway violently as he would be forced to steer around a car whose driver wasn’t paying attention and therefore hadn’t bothered to move to the right. As usual, each time it happened the blaring siren was joined by an angry string of verbiage from my friend, aimed squarely at the receding headlights reflected in the rear view mirror.
I turned in the seat as best I could and glanced back over my shoulder at Felicity. She was braced in her own seat with one hand gripping the armrest, while the other was hooked tightly to the shoulder harness across her chest in a white knuckled hold. She was known to have a heavy foot herself, but this was obviously excessive, even by her standards. She stared back at me, eyes wide, and all I could do was shake my head.
When I turned back around, I saw that we were topping a low hill, and the brightly lit casino on the Saint Charles riverfront was looming in front of us on the left. The aircraft anti-collision lights ringing the roof of the tall structure winked on then off in a rapid cadence, but we were moving so fast that the top of the building disappeared from view before I could see more than two cycles of the warning flash.
The Fifth Street exit had been coming up when I turned around to face forward but was now already long behind us as we rushed along the outer lane of Highway 70 toward the Blanchette Bridge. I shot a quick glance at my watch. In a little over twenty minutes, we had already covered a distance that at normal speeds would have taken better than a half hour.
With Ben’s attention focused on keeping the van on all four wheels-although I wasn’t convinced we had stayed that way the entire time-conversation between the three of us had been non-existent. I wasn’t about to distract him with chatter, idle or otherwise. Unless it was earth shattering and I felt he desperately needed to know, I was keeping my mouth shut. Felicity’s silence told me that she had either adopted the same attitude or was simply too frightened to speak.