“What’s that?”
“An idiot.”
Mandalay smirked at the insult. “I’ll agree with you there.”
“Yeah, well, you can…” Ben barked suddenly and then paused for a moment to regain his composure before continuing in a restrained tone. “Yeah, well you’ll just have to tell him that yourself. Yeah. Fine.”
My friend ended the call without ceremony and then terminated the connection with a pair of clumsy thrusts from his thumb against the keypad. He looked up at us while shaking his head in an animated arc. “Jeezus H. Christ on roller skates!”
“What did she say?” Mandalay asked him, then added, “Like we can’t guess.”
“Well,” he huffed. “She started out by blaming Row for her wasting time here, but I guess you prob’ly caught that. Other than that, she told me she’s en-route to the scene and has officially ordered us to stay put until we hear from her.”
“What are you supposed to tell me?” I asked.
“Let’s not go there, white man.”
“Ben…”
“Just the same shit, Row,” he growled. “She’s all about saying that you’re responsible for whatever happens to Sullivan.”
“Well,” I returned, “I am.”
“Look, Row,” he said. “What I was saying earlier, forget it. You went with your gut, and you kept him on the line long enough to peg a location. You made the right call, and you aren’t responsible for what this wingnut does.”
“I won’t argue it with you, Ben,” I answered. “I know what I have to own up to in the end.”
“You won’t have to,” Constance offered. “It won’t hold up in court. There’s no way.”
“That’s not where I will have to face it. Anything you do comes back to you,” I told them, then recited a snippet of the Wiccan Rede as explanation. “Mind the threefold law ye should, three times bad and three times good.”
“Aye,” Felicity spoke up. “Don’t you start quoting like Eldon Porter now. The law of three would not apply here.”
“I won’t debate it with you, either,” I told her gently. “I deliberately antagonized him, and I just might have made the wrong choice.”
“Stop second guessing yourself, Rowan,” Ben instructed. “Albright’s wrong. That’s all there is to it. End of story.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Ain’t no remains to be nothin’,” he spat. “She’s wrong, so drop it.”
Across the room, the bell on the telephone sprang to life, jangling out an angry-sounding demand to be answered. We all froze, staring at one another with shared trepidation. I started to move toward the kitchenette just as the ringer belted out its noise for the third time.
Behind me, Mandalay’s cell phone began to chirp. By the time I brought my fingers to rest on the handset in the kitchen, Ben’s phone had added itself to the fray, forming a discordant trio of chaotic tunes.
CHAPTER 28:
My stomach was starting to churn as I lifted the receiver and placed it against the side of my head. Bouncing around inside my skull was a desperate fear that I was about to become wholly responsible for Eldon Porter taking the life of a young woman who was associated with me by only tenuous threads at best. The concept of guilt by association was abhorrent enough, but this was virtually a case of guilt by future association.
It didn’t matter how much reassurance I was given by Ben and Constance; the fact remained, in my mind I would hold myself accountable. I would experience a threefold return for my actions; there was no doubt. It was a foregone conclusion. And, I knew that if nothing else, it would be self-imposed. If it came to that, the payback would be harsh, and worst of all, inescapable.
My brain tabbed through the possible greetings, both appropriate and not-several of which I desperately wanted to snarl. I wanted to scream each of them at Porter in unending succession, backed with every thread of anger I could muster; anger was something I had in abundance right now.
However, at the same time the fire raged inside me, I was fully aware that even a single one of the phrases might possibly seal Star’s fate the moment it was uttered. I simply didn’t know what would push him over into the red zone, and I didn’t want to find out. I forced myself to draw in a deep breath and search once again for center.
I don’t know how long I actually stood there with the handset to my ear, staring off into space, completely mute. What I do know is that the pause was long enough for my choice of greetings to become inconsequential. As a fleeting moment of calm passed before me, I reached out for it and made a desperate grab.
My shoulders involuntarily relaxed as the person on the other end of the line spoke.
“Hello?” A confused, feminine voice flowed into my ear. “Anyone there? Rowan? Felicity?”
“Yeah, Cally,” I answered with a slow sigh. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine, Cally,” I told her. “Listen…”
“Do you have the TV on?” She began her excited query before I could finish. “They’ve got someone trapped in a warehouse. It’s on all the stations. Is that him?”
“Calm down, Cally,” I told her. “I know. We’ve been watching. And yes, it’s him. So, listen…”
“I knew it!” she exclaimed, barreling over me once again. “I could feel it. I told everyone here that it had to be him.”
“Cally…” I started again.
She didn’t allow me to get more than a single word in. “He’s got a hostage. Do they know who it is? What are they going to do?”
“CALLY!” I stated her name with a closely guarded firmness. “Slow down. Now be quiet and listen to me.”
She fell silent for a fleeting moment and then spoke again in a meek tone that carried with it an overtone of worry, “Rowan, what’s wrong?”
“Rowan, that was the field office,” Mandalay’s voice came at me.
I looked at her, and she gave a curt nod to the phone in my hand. “Porter is on Sullivan’s cell, and he’s trying to get through on this line right now.”
“Rowan? Rowan? What’s wrong?” Cally’s voice insisted in my ear.
I nodded back to Mandalay and then spoke quickly into the phone. “Cally, listen, I have to go.”
“Rowan,” her voice took on a desperate whine. “What’s wrong? Oh Gods! He doesn’t have Felicity, does he? He called her today…”
“CALLY!” I barked again, all at once struggling with impatience at the situation and sympathy for her turmoil. “Listen to me. He DOES NOT have Felicity. She’s okay, but I have to go. I’ll explain later.”
I could hear her crying my name as I dropped the handset back into the cradle.
I shot a quick glance over to Felicity, and she gave me an understanding nod. “Aye, I’ll call her on my cell.”
The telephone on the wall had pipped out a half ring the moment it hit the base and was already jangling its first full measure as my wife spoke. I closed my eyes and dropped my chin to my chest, drawing in a cleansing breath and forcing myself to blow it out slowly through my mouth.
“Rowan…” Mandalay appealed as the phone gave a second full ring.
I opened my eyes and looked up, giving her a shallow nod of acknowledgement as our eyes met. I could literally feel Eldon Porter on the other end of the phone even though I had not yet answered it; even the sound of the ring was different, angry and more urgent. This time it was the real thing, and I knew I had no choice but to play this out on his terms even though I had no idea what they were.
My hand had never left the telephone, so I slipped it back out of the base in one smooth motion. As the mouthpiece came near my lips, I spoke in the calmest voice I could evoke, “Hello, Eldon.”
“You haven’t won, Gant, you know that, don’t you?” He spat the question tersely.
I could hear rustling noises coming over the phone as he apparently moved about within the confines of the building. I could only imagine what it was like-dark, cold, and no visible escape. Even for someone as insane as he, desperation had to be oozing from every pore.