“Felicity, he’s right,” Constance offered. “We need reasonable cause to enter the property. We can’t just kick the door in like they do on TV.”
“I thought you could enter if you had a suspicion that someone’s life was in danger,” I said.
“We can,” she replied. “But we don’t have that, not a reasonably explicable one anyway.”
“Well, can’t you call someone and get a search warrant or something?” my wife appealed.
“Again, based on what?” Ben asked, turning in his seat to look back at her. Then he added, “Like I’ve told ya’ before, the Twilight Zone stuff ain’t gonna cut it.”
“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who asked us to help this time,” she snipped.
“Yes I did,” he returned. “And I’d freakin’ do it again.”
“Then listen to me!”
“I am, but what happens if we get in there and they’ve moved her?”
“They haven’t.”
“You got physical proof?”
“I know they haven’t.”
“I wish that was good enough, but it ain’t. Look, we just gotta be sure we can make it stick, okay?” he explained.
“Then what do we do?” I asked.
Ben puffed his cheeks and blew out a hard breath. “We try ta’ figure out a valid reason for entering the premises.”
“We could try ‘consent once removed’,” Constance offered.
“Entry by deception?” Ben queried.
She nodded. “It’s weak, but it might fly.”
“Weak ain’t the word for it. We’re not officially workin’ this case,” he argued. “Prosecutor is gonna want to know why we did it.”
“Hey, it didn’t start out that way. We have car trouble,” she replied. “It’s a true story. I go knock on the door and ask to use the phone. I get in, look around, and we go from there.”
“Yeah, besides the fact that you’d be lyin’, even if you gain entry, what are the odds you’re gonna see anything that’ll get us anywhere? Felicity… Kimberly… Crap… Well, whoever it was said she was in the basement.”
“Maybe I’ll hear something.”
“Jeez, Mandalay, that’s stretchin’ it. If you…”
Ben’s sentence was interrupted by Felicity as she suddenly let out a sharp yelp. We all turned quickly to see her tensing as she gritted her teeth. However, before any of us could say a word, there came a startling pair of sharp raps on the driver-side window.
CHAPTER 40:
Apparently, the hiatus was over.
Felicity groaned as she entered into a new round of ethereal torture. For the moment, it seemed no worse than it had when we first began this expedition, which at least made it tolerable. However, I suspected it wouldn’t stay that way for long, and that was not something I was willing to let happen. I simply wasn’t going to sit by and watch her suffer through this again, especially when we were this close.
Ben twisted his body back around and began cranking down the window. A fresh gust of cool night air swept inward, this time bringing with it the distinct smell of a burning cigar riding along the chill.
There was a brief spate of silence, and in that moment, the van filled with a disturbing unrest. The feeling struck me hard, actually competing with Felicity for my attention.
“Are you folks okay,” a husky voice finally asked. The timbre sounded odd and not quite identifiable in gender. I immediately flashed on Kimberly’s reference to ‘the dyke’ and wondered if one of her tormentor’s was standing only a few feet away at this very moment.
I tried to see around my friend, but in the darkness, caught only the orange end of the cigar as it glowed briefly then disappeared from view. I felt a stab of pain in my cheek and knew immediately that my fleeting thought was confirmed.
“Yeah,” Ben replied with a quick nod. “We’re fine.”
There was a barely perceptible but very distinct change in my friend’s mood as soon as he began talking to the person. It wasn’t something I could audibly detect in his voice, but I could definitely feel it emanating from him. It would probably have gone unnoticed but for the chaotic energy coming from outside the window. All of my senses were triggering- both natural and supernatural.
The voice came again, “Heard you skidding all the way back up at the house.”
“Yeah. Saw somethin’ in the road and swerved.”
“Probably a dog. We get a few strays around here. Lucky all you did was skid. Could have been worse.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Lucky.”
“Do you need a hand?” the voice asked with a tone that sounded more annoyed than concerned.
“Nah,” Ben replied, shaking his head. “I think we’ve got it under control.”
“Are you sure? You’ve been sitting here for a while,” the voice observed.
“Yeah, I know…”
Ben was interrupted as Felicity let out another sudden yelp. This time it morphed into a quiet but prolonged whine. I looked back at her and saw that she was leaning forward in the seat with her arms crossed.
“She okay?” Ben instantly called back to me, voice flat.
This time his tone was an obvious cue. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I simply replied with, “Yeah. She’s fine.”
“Good” came his equally emotionless reply.
“What was that?” the voice asked.
“A friend,” he said. “She wasn’t wearin’ her seatbelt, so she got knocked around a bit.”
“She doesn’t sound good.”
“She’ll be fine.”
There was a tense silence for a moment, and then the voice spoke again, “Sure you don’t need a hand?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay then.” There was another pause before I heard the less than sincere words “Be careful.”
“Thanks.”
I heard footsteps as the owner of the genderless voice began walking away. Ben was already cranking the window upward and had his head cocked so that he could watch the side-view mirror. I leaned farther forward and tried to see what he was looking at.
He held out his hand to Mandalay and made a quick gesture then glanced over to her and whispered, “You clear over there?”
Constance shot a glance out her window then shook her head and returned quietly. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Shit!” he muttered.
“What’s going on?” I asked, dropping my voice to a whisper as well.
“I’m pretty sure she’s the one on the surveillance tape,” he said as he continued watching the mirrors, then after a moment, he levered the van into reverse and gunned the engine.
There was a momentary hesitation as the tires spun then took hold. The vehicle gave a slight buck and then jumped backward, rocking with a creak and groan as it rolled back up onto the highway.
“Nooooo!” Felicity whined, and then asked in a pained voice. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Gotta move,” my friend announced.
My wife continued pleading, “But, Kimberly…”
“…Is in there. I know,” Ben hissed, cutting her off. He kept the van slowly rolling backward then came to a stop. “Mandalay, can you see ‘er?”
“Not really… Wait… Yeah, there she is. About twenty feet up the driveway. She just looked back. Okay, now she’s moving again.”
“Can you see if she’s armed?”
“…Something on her belt… Could be a cell phone… Not sure.”
“You call it. Whaddaya wanna do?” he asked quickly.
“It’s not good,” she replied, shaking her head again. “Go around and we’ll call for backup.”
“No!” Felicity demanded. Her voice was still holding a pained edge but had grown far beyond a whimper.
“Not with you and Rowan in the van!” Ben hissed. “It’s too dangerous!”
“Nooooo!” Felicity cried out again, but this time she was moving.
I felt a hard thump as she swivel-hipped out of the seat, striking purposely against my back and driving me off balance. I pitched forward and fell between the front seats and into the center console. A split second later I felt her sneakered feet stumbling over the backs of my legs.
Ben suddenly exclaimed, “Goddammit, Felicity! NO!”
But he was too late. The next thing I heard was the grating sound of the van’s side door as it began to quickly slide. I twisted to grab for my wife, but she was too far out of my reach. The door continued moving by sheer momentum, as she shot through the second she could fit. It locked back in the open position with an angry thump that I could barely hear over Felicity’s impromptu war cry.