Call Of The Witch (14 page)

“
Where’d she
go?”

“
She didn’t say. Left
about an hour ago.”

I covered the phone and said to Carlos and
Spinelli, “Amanda left the house an hour ago.”

Carlos said, “That’s convenient.”

I put the phone back to my ear. “Brit, let me
talk to Lionel.”

She gave the phone to Brewbaker. “Yes,
Detective?”

“
Mr. Brewbaker. I’m sorry
you had to see that photo of your daughter. But you must agree with
me now that we have to call in the FBI. These people are serious
and dangerous.”

“
No, Detective,” he said.
His voice sounded hoarse, but defiant. “I don’t want the FBI or any
other agency getting involved. If you call them in, I’ll shut you
and them out. I mean it. The kidnappers aren’t asking for much. I
can pay their demands. And if I can do that and get my daughter
back without incident, then that’s what I’m going to
do.”

“
But Mr. Brewbaker, I
don’t––”

“
I mean it, Detective.
Nobody.”

He handed the phone back to Detective Olson.
“Tony?” she said.

“
Yes, Brit.”

“
What do you want to
do?”

“
I don’t know. Have the
kidnappers tried to set up a drop time and place yet?”

“
No. That photo is all the
contact we’ve had with them since they made their initial
demand.”

“
I don’t get it,” I said.
“Why are they dragging this out? If they know Brewbaker’s got the
ransom money there, why not take it and run?”

“
Maybe that’s not their
plan.”

“
How do you
mean?”

I could almost see her shaking her head. “I
don’t know, but I get the feeling there’s another shoe waiting to
drop.”

“
Yeah, me too,” I said.
“By the way, how are you holding up? Have you eaten anything
yet?”

“
Yes. Mr. Brewbaker’s been
kind enough to fix us some sandwiches.”

“
Good.” I checked my
watch. “Listen, think you can hold up till midnight? One of us can
relieve you then.”

“
Sure. No
problem.”

“
I’ll get back to
you.”

I ended the call and handed the phone to
Carlos. “Brit’s going to hang out there till midnight. Maybe one of
us can relieve her after that. We can take turns throughout the
night, say three hour shifts.”

“
I’ll take first shift,”
said Dominic. “That is if I can go home for a couple of hours now
to make sure Ursula gets to bed all right.”

“
Of course, go
ahead.”

“
Thanks. In the meantime,
Carlos, can you forward that picture to me? I’ll upload it onto my
computer; maybe blow it up enough to gather a clue or two as to
where it was taken.”

“
Good idea,” he said, and
I echoed his response.

Dominic left after that. Carlos and I stayed
in the room another hour or so poring over the rest of the
documents and photos left on the table. Neither of us expected to
find anything significant. Anything worth mentioning, Dominic would
have mentioned it. I suspect the only reason I stayed was because I
wanted to avoid going home to face Lilith. I knew I pissed her off
by turning down her advances, something I’ve never done before;
probably something no one has ever done before.

Carlos, I imagined, stayed because he had
nowhere else to go. After Dominic explained to me where the name
Lauri Shullit came from, I began feeling badly for him. I waited
until our conversation all but ran dry, when I said to him, “I know
about Lauri.”

He looked at me and blinked. “What?”

“
Your girlfriend. I know
about her.”

“
You know what about
her?”

“
Carlos, come on. It’s
me.”

“
Yeah?”

“
You can tell
me.”

“
Tell you
what?”

“
You made her
up.”

Again he blinked. “What?”

“
It’s all right. Dominic
told me. He explained everything.”

“
And what did Dominic
explain to you?”

“
Really? Are you going to
play this game with me, your best friend?”

“
Tony, what are you
saying?”

“
I’m saying I know about
Lauri. I know she’s not real. You made her up.”

He laughed. “I didn’t make her up. Lauri is
real. We met three months ago.”

“
Sure, right after Dominic
and I got married.”

“
That’s right.”

“
And that’s not a
coincidence?”

“
No.”

“
And that the letters in
her name, when rearranged, spell out Lilith and Ursula, that’s also
not a coincidence?”

“
Does it?”

“
You know it
does.”

“
I hadn’t
noticed.”

“
You hadn’t noticed. Tell
me, why haven’t you introduced her to me and Dominic
yet.”

“
Why?”

“
Yes. Why?”

“
Guess I haven’t had the
chance.”

“
In three
months?”

“
Yes in three months. The
world doesn’t evolve around you and Dominic, you know.”

“
Revolve.”

“
What?”

“
The world doesn’t revolve
around me and Dominic.”

“
That’s what I’m
saying.”

“
No. I’m correcting
you.”

“
How can you correct me
when you’re agreeing with me?”

“
I’m not agreeing. I’m…
You know what? Forget it.” I stood up and put my coat on. “I hope
you and Lauri without the E continue to enjoy each other’s company
for many years.”

He seemed to take that as a genuine
compliment. “Thank you.”

“
I’m going home to Lilith.
At least there an argument has the potential to end in make-up
sex.” I checked my watch. “Dominic’s going to the Brewbaker’s at
midnight to relieve Brit. Will you take the three-to-six A.M.
shift?”

“
Sure. I’ll give Lauri a
call, see if she wants to do a nightcap with me and then I’ll head
over there.” He smiled at me.

I smiled back. “Great. You do that.”

I got home around ten o’clock and found
Lilith sitting Indian-style on the floor in the middle of the
living room. She had surrounded herself with candles, all of them
white and within arm’s reach. Except for those, and the microwave
light over the range in the kitchen, the house was set in darkness.
Her nature sounds CD was playing on the stereo. That and the
jasmine incenses told me she was meditating.

I kicked my shoes off at the door and
tipped-toed passed her. Her eyes were closed, but I knew she knew I
was there. As quietly as I could, I grabbed a beer from the fridge,
opened it, carried it to the sofa and took a seat directly in front
of her. I sipped it quietly, my feet up on the ottoman, my head
pitched back on a couch pillow, my thoughts cradled in the sounds
of forest whispers; frogs croaking, crickets chirping and the hush
of water chattering over pebbles in an icy stream.

I closed my eyes and followed the stream
through the bluff it carved in the wooded hollows of my mind. A
carpet of moss covered the rocks along its banks. It glistened in
speckled winks of sunlight spilling down through finger-sized holes
in the silver canopy above. Ahead, the shadows of dusk lay
expectant, behind me the echoes of dawn. I crossed a bridge of
fallen trees and ran barefoot in the sand. A piper cried. A gull
laughed. I imagined nothing more perfect in life could exist until
I opened my eyes again and saw Lilith sitting there.

The candlelight danced in a nervous twitch
upon her face. It warmed her skin and soothed the shades of grey
with the feathered touch of an artist’s brush. She was naked I
know, but for a jersey of mine that draped her shoulders loosely,
hung in layered folds and gathered in her lap. Her feet were
shoeless and dirty on the bottom from walking barefoot around the
house, but in the dim light, it looked like only more shadows
fading into the mocha highlights of her skin.

I noticed how her hair lay soft against her
cheeks, across her parted lips and down her shirt upon her breasts;
the gentle rise and fall of each breath was too innocent to stir a
single hair. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her,
and though this time she was not trying, she made me want her more
than she could know.

As I sat admiring her beauty, I noticed
something strange and amazing. The fire from one of the candles,
which had been burning a yellowish-red, began burning a mix of blue
and green. Stranger still, was the smoke it emitted. It rose from
the candle not in thin whiffs, but in a thick lazy stream like a
cobra spiraling in a vertical climb up an invisible rope.

Before I knew it, a second candle changed its
color, and soon all were burning the same blue-green flame,
quivering on blackened wicks and spewing smoke that seemed to both
cool and excite the air. I watched the smoke from all eight candles
rise in similar fashion, forming columns six feet high and then
leveling out in a shallow pool just above Lilith’s head. The pool
quickly filled, blanketing the spaces between the columns with
layers of smoke twelve inches thick. At fifteen inches it seemed to
top off and began spilling over the edge. A slow-motion cloud
cascaded down in ribbons, showering Lilith in a cobalt veil as fine
as spider silk.

She gasped, as if shocked by the wave washing
over her body. I dropped my feet from the ottoman and lurched
forward. I almost went to her, thinking she needed me, but I
quickly realized her gasp wasn’t an involuntary impulse, like when
I sneak up on her from behind and scare her. Instead, it seemed
controlled, like when she wades into the lake and the ice-cold
water steals her breath away. I had seen it before; a gasp
undeniably real, yet not necessarily bad. She makes the same gasp
during sex, at that moment of ecstasy when we climax together
and….

I shook my head and fell back against the
cushion of the couch. She was not in danger. I could see that. Her
smile told me so. She maintained concentration; her eyes remained
closed, her hands lay flat on her lap, palms up. She took another
breath, deep and slow, designed to steady her pulse and ground her
nerves.

Down at the floor, the rolling tide of smoke
gathered at her feet, split into tentacles like tree roots and
began crawling toward me. I pulled my legs in, but did not lift my
feet off the floor. Instead, I let it find me, intrigued by its
apparent state of consciousness. I felt its cool embrace wrap
around my ankles and slither up my pant legs. My body stiffened in
anticipation of the unknown. I stretched my legs out, presenting an
easier climb for the smoke to travel, though I suspected it needed
no help from me at all.

Soon, my skin began to tingle, and the
sensation that I was being mildly shocked only added to the
excitement. I closed my eyes when a rush of cold air swept over me.
I gasped lightly. A million tiny fingers began massaging my body,
head to toe, front and back. When I exhaled, I could feel the smoke
leaving my lungs. It left in its wake a wave of dizziness, making
me feel incredibly small and conspicuously numb. It carried me off
on a meandering cloud like a fallen leaf floating downstream. I
could feel it taking away my worries and my pains, and leaving
instead, a sense of serenity. And something else.

With its cool embrace, the massaging fingers
had found the most sensitive parts of my body––erogenous zones that
even I had never known existed. I found myself tensing and relaxing
in rhythmic intervals, resisting and yielding involuntarily to the
flow of electric energy carpeting my body. I soon realized that I
was about to lose control of the moment. I opened my eyes, patted
the smoke from the folds in my clothing and sprang from the
couch.

At once, it retreated, long thick feelers of
smoke snatched back in sharp recoiled as if tethered by rubber
bands. I looked at Lilith. She seemed serene, perhaps satisfied by
the pleasures of the smoke.

I got down on my hands and knees and crept
between the candles towards Lilith. Then I planted a kiss upon her
cheek.

SMACK!

“
What the hell are you
doing?” she said

“
Nothin`,” I held my hand
to my cheek. “I wanted to kiss you.

“
I was
meditating!”

“
I could see that, but you
looked so beautiful.”

“
So what else is new? You
didn’t have to kiss me.”

“
You didn’t have to slap
me.”

“
It’s a reflex thing.
Lucky I didn’t kill you.”

“
Kill me.” I laughed. “You
wouldn’t kill me.” I backed away and reclaimed my seat on the
couch. “Would you?”

She didn’t answer.

“
Hey,” I said. “What was
that anyway? The smoke, I mean. I felt it doing something to
me––something sensual.”

“
Well, duh! Why do you
think I like to meditate so much?”

With that, she stood, turned sideways and
stretched. Her hands went over her head. Her heels lifted. Her
shirttail rode up the back of her legs, exposing the bottom curve
of her clenched butt cheeks. I smiled, and when she came back down
on her heels and faced me again, I noticed her smiling back.

“
Do you want to go to
bed?” she asked.