Read Online The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars - Free Book Online Page B

matter,” Felicity said
from behind me. “She succeeded in exactly what she set out to do.
Look at yourself, then. I’ve never seen you lose your temper like
this.”
    “Yes you have,” I shot back as I turned in my
seat to face her. “You just don’t remember it because a sick
sonofabitch had you drugged up on Rophynol.”
    “Aye,” she answered with an uncharacteristic
hardness in her voice. “He did at that, but I remember more than
you know, Rowan Linden Gant. More than you know.”
    As she slumped back in her seat, she
continued to stare at me with a cold fire in her jade green eyes. I
knew at that moment that I had flipped the wrong switch.
    I hoped my chosen deities were listening.
     
    * * * * *
     
    In keeping with the theme set forth by
Lieutenant Albright, the security guard at the Saint Louis City
Medical Examiner’s office had been phoned about our impending
arrival. He let us in while on his way out the door to grab a
smoke. He had been instructed to tell us to wait in the lobby until
she arrived. Another tactic on her part, obviously, but there was
nothing we could do. The door that led farther into the building
was locked. I knew, because I succeeded in raising Ben’s anger a
notch by ignoring his vehement instructions not to check it.
    Remnants of the recent holiday season still
visibly occupied the reception area of the office. Customarily, the
room was bland and functional, so the ornamentation was quick to
conjure a “what’s wrong with this picture” feeling.
    Intertwined silver and gold garland still
hung in shallow swags along the edge of the counter with a dozen or
so holiday cards folded over them and on display. The screen saver
on the computer behind the desk offered a snowy scene, complete
with an inviting-looking log cabin and a twinkling Christmas tree.
Here and there, other decorous attentions to detail could be picked
out—a coffee mug emblazoned with a picture of Santa Claus; a wreath
on the door leading back to the offices, also locked; and even a
half-depleted bowl of festively-wrapped candies. All of them came
together to form the whole: an unlikely clutch of cheer in the
midst of a place that seemed overwhelmed by depression. I didn’t
know about anyone else, but it just wasn’t working for me.
    I’d seen the inside of this building too many
times, not only in my waking hours but in nightmares as well. I had
grown to despise its plain façade over the past couple of years.
Still, as much as I hated it, I couldn’t escape. If it was nothing
more than morbid fascination that brought me here, at least I could
seek help, but I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a sickness to
blame. I had become a permanent satellite inextricably gripped by
the gravity of circumstance; my erratic orbit inevitably
intersecting with an occupied autopsy suite. As often as not, I
felt compelled to bring about the collision myself, and right now,
I was at ground zero of yet another impact. Even though I was not
at fault this time around, the ever-associated migraine was looming
like a dark shadow over me.
    This place was always a seething well of pain
for me, and this morning was no different; of course, my
irascibility factor being off the scale as it was didn’t help
matters at all. I had started hearing the voices of the
dead—screams mostly—the moment we turned onto Clark Avenue. Staving
them off became a somewhat violent internal struggle as soon as we
entered the building.
    I sought refuge from the ethereal by
embracing the mundane. I occupied my mind with trivial tasks in
order to erect a mental barrier—anything from mutely reciting the
alphabet in reverse to intensely pondering a shadow on the wall. At
one point, I even found myself wondering about the holiday cards.
Considering that the clientele of a morgue are normally beyond any
need for celebration, they seemed out of place to me. I reached
down and flipped one of the greetings partially open to reveal the
inscription, which