M Sellars - Perfect Trust

The sound of the stylus clacking against the touch sensitive plate reached my ears, and I realized my hand was moving completely of its own accord. As I rotated my head and looked down at the PDA in my hand, the out of phase tones of a voice echoed quietly in the back of my head.

“There. Is this better?”

Unconsciously, I had switched the handheld computer into a notepad mode and even traded it off to my right hand. My left was now rapidly scratching the stylus against the surface of the screen.

A quick glance at the LCD showed a digitized string of handwriting that repeatedly scrawled, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM…

“Dammit!” I exclaimed as I immediately forced my hand to stop moving. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!”

“Whoa,” Ben raised his voice to compete with mine. “What the hell?”

“Schaeffer!” I exclaimed, dropping the PDA and stylus onto the table then shaking my hands as if trying to rid them of something disgusting. “She won’t leave me alone!”

“What? Like she’s here now?”

“Yes, dammit!” I was angry, and I spun in place looking for any indication of the girl’s spirit around me. “Go away, Debbie! I can’t help you right now!”

In my head I could hear her chanting at an ever-quickening pace, “DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEAD I AM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAM, DEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAMDEADIAM…”

I seized on the welling anger within me and thrust it outward in a violent rush, attempting to sweep away anything ethereal in my path. The energy exploded outward, only to reach unanticipated limits and return in force. A shockwave of pain backlashed through my head as the energy ricocheted around the room. I saw Helen turn her head then squint, which told me that she had felt it as well, a fact that for some reason I didn’t find all that surprising. Fortunately for her, she was only a spectator; I was the target.

A pinpoint of agony drilled into my skull directly between my eyes and sent me physically staggering backward. I felt my heel thump against something, and I started to fall, then a tight grip latched on to my arm as someone guided me into a chair.

“Rowan? Rowan?” Ben’s words were thick as they flowed into my ears. “Are ya’ okay? What’s goin’ on? Answer me.”

I leaned forward in the seat, dropping my face into my hands, and heaved hard against the pain. I’m sure that to him it looked like I was having a seizure.

“ROWAN?!” he demanded again, his voice loud.

I held up a hand as a signal to him as I grimaced through the onslaught of agony. I’d brought this upon myself. My own anger was bouncing around inside the ethereal barriers Felicity and I had placed around the house, and it now came back to me threefold if not more. I was simply paying for my own lack of control.

While my presence within had acted as a doorway for Debbie Schaeffer to enter, it hadn’t been terribly effective as an exit for the burst of energy. On top of that, I hadn’t been the least bit grounded when it returned.

I mutely cursed myself for the stupidity of the action as the pain slowly began to subside. After a moment, misery faded into something resembling a severe sinus headache, and I sighed heavily.

I remained motionless as I opened my eyes and allowed them to focus on the object I’d tripped over.

There on the floor was a sealed cardboard box, roughly eight-by-ten by maybe twelve inches tall. I stared at it as the image clarified, then slowly allowed my eyes to come to rest on the label. It was upside down from my point of view, but I could still read it without difficulty.

It was addressed to Felicity O’Brien and Emerald Photographic Services, which was her company name. What really drew my attention, however, was the return address: Arch Color Labs, 3754 Ash Bend Avenue.

There is an old adage that most everyone has heard, about snakes, nearness to them, and getting bit by same because of said close proximity. This is where I now found myself, and the fangs of this particular serpent were, to say the least, firmly embedded in my carotid artery, and the venom was now reaching my brain.

Bits and pieces of information, snippets of conversations, and channeled vices began coalescing in my frontal lobes to form a mental picture that should have been crystal clear all along. How I’d managed to avoid putting this all together, I had no idea, but there was no stopping it now. Whatever mental block had been shielding the overtly obvious from my sight had now been obliterated, and it was all making sense.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered just loud enough to be heard.

“Do what?” Ben asked. “Rowan, what’s goin’ on? What the hell was that all about?”

“Harold,” I said a bit louder. “It’s Harold.”

“Harold who?”

“Harold…the sorry sonofabitch that owns Arch Color Labs,” I announced, ignoring the throb in my skull and looking up at my friend. “That’s Harold who.”

“You’re gonna hafta elaborate, Row.”

“This box,” I explained as I pointed to the offending container. “It wasn’t here when I left this morning.”

“Yeah, so maybe it got delivered while you were with me and Chuck. Ya’ haven’t been home all day ya’know.”

“No. Wouldn’t happen. Arch is less than a mile from here. He never ships orders to Felicity. She picks them up.”

“Okay, so just playin’ devil’s advocate here…are you sure she didn’t?” he asked.

“She didn’t have time. Not today of all days. And before you ask, he’s closed on weekends so it wasn’t riding around in her Jeep for the past few days either.”

“Okay, good, we’re maybe onta’ somethin’ here. So what makes ya’ think it’s this Harold guy and not an employee?”

“Because it’s a one man operation. Besides, he smokes like a fiend and that’s why he’s been dressing them up.”

“He dresses ‘em up ‘cause he smokes? What?”

“No!” I snapped. “Listen to me. The bastard smokes! And Felicity is why he’s dressing them up!”

“Whoa, back up,” my friend said. “Which case are we talkin’ about here?”

“All of it, Ben,” I said in exasperation. “All of it. He’s the one who killed Debbie Schaeffer and Paige Lawson. He’s the one who’s been raping all these women, and he’s the one who took Felicity. Now can we go?”

“Whoa, slow down, white man,” he instructed. “I think maybe you’re gettin’ some stuff crossed up here.”

“No, no I’m not.” I shook my head, incredulous that he wasn’t understanding, and then I realized that he had no reason to. Thus far I’d told him next to nothing by way of the facts as I saw them. I was simply spouting random observations and my own fevered conclusions.

I forced myself to stay in my seat and tried to explain what I was talking about. “Okay, here it is. Did you by any chance notice the resemblance between Felicity and Heather Burke?”

“Heather Burke is a blue-eyed blonde, Row.”

“I know,” I returned. “But try to follow me here. I’m talking about her other physical attributes. Size, shape of face, skin tone. That’s why he uses the wig and the tinted contacts. Try to imagine Heather Burke with long red hair.”

“Okay.” He nodded slightly after a thoughtful pause. “I guess maybe I can see that.”

“Now, what about Miranda Hodges and Paige Lawson?” I urged.

“Yeah, they all kinda resemble one another, but don’t ya’ think you’re pushin’ it a bit?”

“No, I don’t.” I shook my head hard. I wanted to get moving but I knew it was never going to happen unless I could convince him I was correct. “He has been dressing them up to look like Felicity and then taking pictures of them. He’s been living out his fantasy about my wife through them.”