The only light in the room came from a reading lamp on the book table to one side of the bed. It cast a soft luminescence across the dark blue comforter, then dissipated, leaving Felicity in the muddy shadows just beyond its reach.
I waited for a long stretch and received no response.
“Do I need a white flag?” I finally asked.
I watched as she slowly moved, releasing her grip on the pillow and setting it aside. Her dainty hands slipped upward and pushed her mane of spiraling auburn back from her face. She continued to the back of her head, where she gathered it with a twist and pulled it into a fiery fall over her left shoulder then began to fiddle with it absently. The pale skin of her now exposed neck seemed to glow in the semi-darkness.
“Aye, it was him again, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice almost a hoarse whisper. “On the phone?”
“Yes,” I answered, keeping my own voice low for fear of shattering the tenuous calm in the room. “It was him.”
“Is Star dead?” she asked, the words catching in her throat.
I noticed after a moment that I was shaking my head even though she couldn’t see me; I verbalized the answer. “No. She’s still alive.”
Silence filled the space between us and thickened as each second passed. The energy in the room was a chaotic mix of anger, sadness, fear, and resolve. It assaulted me on every level, igniting my nerve endings with cold fire. The physical atmosphere was warm-too warm-but I still fought off an overwhelming need to shudder as I pushed away from the door and stepped farther into the room.
“We need to talk about all of this, honey,” I said.
She still hadn’t turned to face me, but I could see her head bob in the shadows as she spoke. “Aye, we do.”
I pressed on. “Star is still alive, for now, but he does intend to kill her.”
“This shouldn’t be happening,” she muttered
“I know,” I said. “Believe me, I wish it wasn’t.”
“What did he say to you?”
“No, honey,” I objected. “There’s no need for you to…”
“Dammit, Rowan,” she half demanded, half pleaded. “Don’t leave me out. The bastard called me this afternoon.”
“Ben told me,” I acknowledged. “I was going to talk to you about that later.”
“He’s sick, Rowan.”
“I know that.”
Another lull slipped through the room. I heard her take in a cleansing breath and watched the shadows as her shoulders moved upward then slowly fell when she exhaled. She pulled her hair upward and began working it into a loose pile on her crown.
“So what did he say to you?”
“Honey…”
Insistence permeated her voice. “What did he say, Rowan?”
I lowered my head in resignation. “He said that he was her absolution.”
“What else?”
I sighed and moved another step toward the bed. “He said that I would be a witness to her release.” I left out the “vengeance is mine” comment.
“So you are going to go save her, then” came her flat reply.
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try.”
“You could let the police handle it now.” There was a narrow thread of hope woven through her voice.
“I will. If they can…” I let my words trail off.
She turned slightly, twisting her body and glancing over her shoulder. As she repositioned herself, she moved partially into the light. My eyes were finally adjusting, and I could see that her cheeks were flushed. Her smooth skin glistened with the dampness of her tears, and she reached up to wipe her eyes.
“Aye, you think they can’t?”
“It doesn’t feel very good,” I offered.
“Aye, so you will sacrifice yourself for her, won’t you?”
“It’s not my intention.”
“But you will if you have to.” She offered the comment as a statement of fact and then paused before finally asking, “Won’t you?”
I didn’t answer her.
“Aye, what about me?”
“You’ll be safe,” I said softly. “Mandalay will be here with you.”
“That’s not what I mean, then, Rowan!” She turned farther into the light and glared at me sharply. “What of me? Why are you so willing to leave me alone? Don’t you love me anymore?”
“Felicity!” I was stunned. “How can you even think that? Of course I love you. More than anything, you know that.”
“Why do you want to leave me then?”
I moved forward and took a seat next to her on the bed. She leaned into me as I slipped my arm around her and pulled her close.
“Honey.” I tried to soothe her. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Aye, but you will,” she said. “If you die…”
I didn’t want to lie to her, but I didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility either. I had nowhere to redirect the conversation, and I was beginning to share her pain.
“I have to do whatever I can to keep you safe,” I finally said. “That is what this is about. I love you. I will always love you. No matter what.”
She moved her head against me as she slowly shook it. “Aye, I am not ready to be without you.”
“I’m not ready to leave,” I told her.
“But you will…”
“If that is what it takes to keep you safe,” I said. “Then, yes, I will.”
“Do you really think that he would try to come here?”
“If he can’t get me out in the open, yes I do. And I can’t allow that to happen.”
A siren sounded outside, muted by the walls, but audible all the same. I gave her a reassuring squeeze before standing up and moving to the window. I cautiously pulled back the heavy drapes and peered out through the hole then down across the parking lot. I watched the emergency lights of a squad car flickering in chaotic strobes as the vehicle accelerated down the street. The lights disappeared, and the wailing siren slowly faded in the distance. I allowed the insulated fabric to fall shut, and I turned back to face Felicity.
“You don’t have to do this, then,” she insisted, her Irish brogue thick from her ongoing distress.
“Yes I do,” I answered, feeling a strange calm at the decision.
Her nervous fidgeting had been completed, and her spiraling curls now sat atop her head in a loose Gibson-girl. Her green eyes flashed wetly in the dim light as concern deepened the lines in her face. She’d run the gamut-anger, guilt, all of it. The tone in her voice brought everything back around to demands once again.
“What did Ben say,” she contended as if the answer would somehow make a difference.
“The same thing you just said,” I replied.
I took a deep breath as I ran my hand across the lower half of my face, brushing my bearded chin. I winced as my fingers grazed a still-healing wound on my upper lip-a leftover from my stunt with Ben’s van.
Felicity took on a pleading tone as she gazed at me, “Then why are you doing it?”
“Because we can’t keep living like this,” I answered. “Because I want us to have our lives back.”
“How can we have our lives back if you get yourself killed?”
I wasn’t sure if the next words out of my mouth were the truth or a lie. I spoke them anyway. “I’m not going to get myself killed.”
Tears were once again rolling across my wife’s cheeks, and her voice cracked as she trembled. “Damn your eyes, Rowan Linden Gant, you’d better not, then. Aye, you’d better not.”
CHAPTER 25:
“Stay right there” were the first words to issue from Ben’s mouth as I walked out of the bedroom.
Felicity was still in the process of making herself presentable before coming out-her words, not mine-and I swung the door shut to give her some privacy. I wasn’t paying all that much attention to what was going on up the hallway as I exited, but his voice was urgent and the instruction concise. The energy forming the sentence told me that I needed to pay heed.
I looked up and saw immediately that he had positioned himself at the opening of the short corridor. His back was to me, and his left hand was extended behind, motioning me to stop. I caught a quick glimpse of his right hand and saw that it was filled with his sidearm.