M Sellars: Harm none

“Fine.” Still unflinching, I held her contemptuous stare. “All I want to do is save the little girl.”

She all but ignored my comment and turned her attention to the uniformed officers who had been observing our sharp exchange. “It looks like we’re in the middle of a residential area. How big is this park anyway?”

“We are, ma’am, and it’s pretty small,” a sergeant replied. “Just a few acres. It used to be the grounds of a seminary.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very secluded place for a ritual murder.” She directed her sarcasm toward me.

“Actually, it is fairly obscured. The idea was to leave it as natural as possible,” he offered. “With the exception of the trail, it’s pretty heavily wooded on the opposite side of the lake.”

He began stumbling over his words near the end of the sentence. I could tell by his expression that if looks could kill, she had just stared him into an early grave.

“All right, Mister Gant.” She turned back to face me once again. “Any suggestions as to WHERE in the park we’ll find him?”

The details of my vision had become clearer and more precise with each painful recurrence. They were now so sharply in focus as to seem almost unreal.

“About thirty yards up the hill on the other side of the lake.” I described in words what my mind was replaying in overblown, pixilated color. “There’s a small clearing. It’s surrounded on all sides by trees and bushes. There’s an indirect entrance from the back.”

She looked back to the uniformed officers and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Yeah, he’s right,” one of the patrolmen spoke up. “There’s a clearing there. We’ve caught a few teenagers hiding out in there, partying in the middle of the night.”

“Deckert,” she dictated as she unbuttoned her jacket and slipped her sidearm from its holster. “You’re with me. You four,” she directed herself to the uniformed officers. “Spread out and flank the clearing. Storm, you stay here with Mister Gant and his wife, and keep an eye on the entrance.”

“But…” I started to protest.

“Save it!” she shot back. “You’re staying here.”

Ben grabbed my arm and shook his head as I started forward. I could feel Felicity’s hand resting on my other shoulder, leaching her own mixture of fear, anger, and desperation into me.

“Look, Mandalay,” Ben lashed out. “If you want my badge then come and get it. But until it’s in your hot little hand, get off your power pony and give it a rest. I’m goin’ in and Rowan’s comin’ with me.”

“Suit yourself,” she remarked flatly. “But be aware that you’re kissing what’s left of your career goodbye and getting your friend charged with interfering in a federal investigation in the process.”

“O’Brien. That’s spelled capital O apostrophe capital B, r-i-e-n,” Felicity broke her self-imposed muteness.

“Excuse me?” Agent Mandalay demanded.

“I just wanted to make sure you spelled my name right when you filed the charges,” my wife told her flatly. “I’m going in too.”

Special Agent Mandalay simply turned and stalked off into the night, waving for the others to follow. Ben, Felicity, and I brought up the rear, quickly and quietly covering the forty odd yards along the shoulder to the park entrance. As a group, we advanced across the small paved parking area to the trailhead and proceeded up the short path to the starting marker. There, low to the ground, a white metal rectangle was bolted securely to an earthbound wooden post. PLEASE DO NOT FEED GEESE was embossed on its surface in bold black letters.

The group fanned out, following the trail in opposite directions, skirting around the lake on both sides. Everyone moved as quietly as possible, and I was fighting to contain several pained groans that threatened to seek release as the white-hot intensity of Roger’s presence burned up my spinal cord and into my brain.

A bright stripe of cold moonlight traced a ribbon of white across the rippling surface of the dark water. The night was silent save for the occasional light breeze through the upper reaches of the trees. Even the crickets were refusing to sing their songs. We continued to creep along the path, moving as hastily as discretion would allow.

Ahead of me were Agent Mandalay and Detective Deckert; to my left, Felicity; and behind, Ben. The other officers were no longer visible, having slipped around to the other end of the lake and into the thickening woods. I cast a quick glance to my right and captured an instant flash of movement near the rocky shoreline. There immediately followed a loud plop as something hit the water.

Like sharply honed combat veterans, Mandalay and Deckert dropped to one knee, pistols directed at the fading sound. Ben did the same, dragging Felicity and I downward with him. Taking aim, he instantly snapped on a small but powerful flashlight, sighting it alongside his weapon. A muted glow diffused eerily through the water from the tightly focused beam.

The forced hush was thick around us, and I swallowed hard to evict my heart from my throat. The five of us stared almost unblinking into the murky water seeking out any and all movement. More than a few of our precious seconds expired before we pinpointed the source of the sound. Centered in the ribbon of moonlight, a rounded stub protruded upward from the water, followed by an ovalish dark hump, roughly the size of a dinner plate. Slowly, the large turtle began to paddle away.

After releasing soft relieved sighs, we regained our upright stances and proceeded deeper into the park. As we rounded the easternmost end of the shallow lake and made our way around to the backside, Ben quietly solicited Felicity’s and my attention and motioned for us to stop.

“I want you two ta’ wait right here,” he whispered.

“But Ben,” I objected, “what about…”

He didn’t let me finish. “Right here!” he insisted, whispering through clenched teeth.

I had no choice but to stand silently watching as he moved past us along the path with Agent Mandalay and Detective Deckert. In mere moments, the three of them shrank to small blue-black silhouettes on the dimly washed landscape then disappeared as they seemed to melt and join with the shadows.

The antimony-veined disk of the moon jeered down at me when I allowed my gaze to drift upward. Though imperceptible to the naked eye, I knew only a thin thread-like arc of darkness remained along its edge. Looking back down, I pressed the side of my watch, and a dim blue-green glow illuminated its face. In less than twelve minutes, even that dark wisp of a thread would be gone.

We stood alone in the uneven shadows, mutely straining to glean whatever details we could from the silent landscape. I kept watch on the opposite end of the lake, expecting to catch a glimpse of the uniformed officers through some of the thinner sections of the trees. They had a slightly farther distance to travel, as the trailhead had started closer to our end. However, our momentary diversion, courtesy of the lake inhabitant, should have evened out the time.

Should have, but for some reason the four patrolmen still hadn’t appeared, and a gnawing worry was starting to brew deep in my stomach.

“Something’s wrong,” I whispered to Felicity.

“You feel it too?” she half asked. “I’m freezing.”

Felicity always sensed ethereal presences as coldness, no matter what the temperature truly was. The less pleasant the energy she sensed, the colder she got. She was shivering as she leaned against me.

“The other cops. They should have come around the end of the lake by now, but I don’t see them.”

“What do you think happened?” she questioned through chattering teeth. “Where are they?”