"So, what's this hard evidence?" I pressed, returning to my original query. "Tell me."

"I've already said more than I should."

"d.a.m.n you, Ben," I growled.

He sucked in a quick breath and pulled his hand from his shoulder, stiffly jabbing his index finger toward me. His eyes glowered as his face hardened once again, and his mouth opened in preparation to deliver some manner of angry ripost. However, no sound issued from him even though his jaw slowly worked at forming the words.

After a tense exhale he lowered his hand and shook his head. With a sad note underscoring his words, he mumbled, "Yeah, Row. d.a.m.n me. That's fine. If it makes ya' feel better, go ahead an' d.a.m.n me all ya' want."

We stared at one another in almost total silence for a handful of heartbeats. I couldn't think of anything else to say. I wanted answers I wasn't going to get, even from my friend. With that avenue closed to me, I was suddenly feeling very fl.u.s.tered. I suspected the only thing keeping me from losing any semblance of rationality I still maintained was the seething anger that filled my very being.

For that very reason, I clung to the outrage like a lifeline.

Ben turned and glanced out the fogged door once again, pushing it open for a moment to get a better view. When he looked back to me, he broke the silence. "The guys from the CSU just pulled up. They're gonna hafta search the house."

"I pretty much got that from the handful of papers. What are they looking for?"

"Look at the warrant. It's all listed."

"I did and it's pretty G.o.dd.a.m.ned ambiguous, Ben."

"Yeah, well that's how they write 'em."

"Obviously. So what are they really looking for?"

"I can't tell ya'. You should know that."

"Uh-huh, that seems to be your answer for everything right now."

He shook his head. "They're lookin' for evidence, Row. Evidence."

"Dammit, Ben. This is wrong and you know it."

"Call your lawyer," he said. "And light a candle...or burn some incense...or whatever the h.e.l.l you Witches do. 'Cause I'm tellin' ya' now, Felicity's gonna need it."

"This isn't over, Ben."

"Jeezus, Row, believe me...I hope like h.e.l.l you're right."

"I want to talk to her before you go," I demanded.

"She's already in custody."

"Yeah. No s.h.i.t."

"What I'm sayin' is that means I can't let ya' talk to 'er. Not now. Not yet."

"Bulls.h.i.t! Get out of my way. I'm talking to her."

"I just told ya', you can't," he replied in a far more stern tone, punctuating it with a shake of his head. "Don't make this any harder than it already is."

"The h.e.l.l I can't!" I shot back as I started forward.

I didn't get very far.

I was stopped cold as the palm of Ben's hand thudded hard in the center of my chest. I wasn't surprised that he would do something of the sort, but I also had no intention of letting it stop me for very long. I instantly lashed out, swinging my right arm wide in a roundhouse punch.

Of course, I should have realized that he would be expecting it. As turbulent as the past few minutes had been, he had probably been waiting for me to do something stupid all along. And, stupid was putting it mildly.

My friend's left arm shot upward out of trained reflex, sliding against mine and deflecting my angry fist harmlessly away. With a quick thrust of his right, he pushed me hard. Since my wildly careening punch already had me off balance, it didn't take much for him to launch me backward across the room.

I stumbled a pair of steps before completely losing my footing, and a split second later sharp pain shot through my b.u.t.tocks as they impacted the floor. That sensation was almost instantly followed by a stab of agony lancing into my left elbow when it came down against the hardwood, and finally there was a dull thunk on the back of my head from striking the arm of the chair. That last blow didn't exactly do wonders for my already throbbing grey matter.

I heard myself yelp, and then I started to scramble upward but only came a few inches off the floor before dropping back down with a heavy thud. Dull pain was radiating from my tailbone up through my lower back, and my nerves were more than just a little jangled.

"Jeezus! f.u.c.k me! G.o.ddammit, Rowan!" Ben sputtered with more than enough anger to fill the room to capacity. "G.o.d DAMMIT! G.o.d DAMMIT!"

I was definitely stunned from the fall, and my ears were now ringing, so his tirade came at me as a muted string of syllables. Fortunately, I didn't feel any queasiness or a blackout coming on, so I didn't think I was truly injured.

However, I just kept sitting there, motionless, letting my rage work as an anesthetic for all the pain, emotional as well as physical.

Ben's tone ratcheted down the scale from anger to remorse in the span of a single sentence. "Awww, Jeez, Row...Man...What'd ya' hafta f.u.c.kin' go an' do that for?!"

I a.s.sumed the question was rhetorical, not that I had really intended to answer him if it wasn't. Still, I couldn't help but throw one of his earlier comments back in his face.

"I think you know," I spat.

"Jeezus...Are ya' okay?" He stepped forward as he spoke, extending his arm and offering me a hand up.

I simply shrugged away from him.

"Row..."

"f.u.c.k you, Ben," I told him.

"Dammit, Row, this..."

"Get out of my house," I ordered, my voice a low growl, fully devoid of any compa.s.sion. "Just...Just get out of my house."

He stood there, looking down at me with abject sadness welling behind his eyes. What just happened was something neither one of us was going to be able to fix, at least, not right at this moment. And, the way I was feeling, I wasn't sure if I ever wanted it fixed. I had a sickening notion that I was going to need every bit of my anger just to get through what was coming, and that was a.s.suming that I was going to make it through at all.

The silent pause continued with us both staring at one another, him pained, me incensed. I allowed it to continue for what seemed a full minute but was in reality probably no more than a scant few seconds.

"You heard me you sonofab.i.t.c.h!" I finally screamed. "Get the f.u.c.k out of my house!"

With a dazed shake of his head and one last look of sadness, he turned and headed for the door.

CSU technicians were already coming into the house as Ben was lumbering out. One of them shot me a concerned look, glanced over his shoulder at Ben's back as he disappeared down the front steps, and then returned his gaze to me.

"Are you okay, sir?" he asked.

"No," I snipped.

He reached his hand toward me and started to ask, "Do you need..."

"No!" I cut him off, my tone still livid. "Just leave me alone!"

He shook his head and muttered a sarcastic "Excuse me" as he took a step back then turned away and joined up with the other techs as they began fanning out through my home.

I didn't bother to drag myself up from the floor until I heard Ben's vehicle back out of the driveway then speed away, taking my entire reason for living with it.

CHAPTER 5:.

"This isn't good," Jackie's voice hummed from the earpiece of the phone.

Our attorney had patiently listened to me as I relayed to her the story of Felicity's arrest, interrupting me only when necessary to ask for clarification on particular facts. Then, following a proverbial pregnant pause at the end of my diatribe, those three words were all she said. Unfortunately, they were far from what I wanted to hear.

Jackie had a habit of thinking out loud, and I'm certain that the comment was nothing more than her rhetorically voicing her thoughts. However, I was still at least five notches beyond p.i.s.sed off, not to mention the fact that a handful of crime scene technicians were turning my house into a disaster area all around me as I stood there. Therefore, I was really in no mood for listening to someone tell me something I already knew. Especially when it wasn't helping to fix the problem.

"No f.u.c.king s.h.i.t," I spat into the handset. "Are you billing me for that? Because I already had it figured out on my own."

"Okay," she returned, far more calmly than I expected. "The first thing you need to do, Rowan, is settle down. Biting people's heads off isn't going to help the situation. Especially when the head you're biting off is mine. I'm on your side, remember?"

"Yeah, well you'll have to excuse me. I'm still trying to pry a knife out of my back that was put there by someone else who was supposed to be on my side."

"Your friend the cop? The one who arrested Felicity?"

"I wouldn't exactly call him my friend. Not now. Not after this."

"You might need to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective, Rowan."

"I'm not so sure that there is another perspective on this."

"Oh, I don't know about that," she replied. "Think about this. You're in a big city where they usually frown on having police officers arresting their friends. You aren't in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and there's no choice in the matter. It would be better for the department to avoid a conflict of interest like this."

"Yeah, so what's your point?"

"My point is that your friend probably had to pull some major strings to be allowed to make the arrest rather than allowing someone else to take her in. He most likely saw what he was doing as a favor."

My reply was so sharply edged with sarcasm I'm surprised I didn't cut my own tongue. "Yeah, some favor."

"I suspect he was trying to spare you from the anguish of having strangers show up and haul Felicity away."

I stayed silent for a moment and thought about what she had just said. I finally replied, "Well, I guess he did make it a point to repeatedly tell her not to say a word. The other cop with him wasn't real excited about that at all."

"You need to give your friend some credit, Rowan. I'm sure he was only doing what he thought was best for his friends, given the situation," Her statement was punctuated by an electromechanical "ding" in the background then the hollow quality that had surrounded her voice disappeared. I could hear a droning background noise and a.s.sumed she must have just stepped from the elevator in her office building and was on her way past the decorative waterfall in the lobby.

"Maybe," I replied. "But, this is wrong and he knows it."

"Yes, I'm sure that he does. But, obviously she was going to be arrested anyway given the fact that a warrant was issued. So, who would you rather have had do it?"

I didn't think she really wanted an answer to the question so I just grunted.

"Now, the reason I said this isn't good is the fact that they even had a warrant to begin with and that they came and got her on a Friday."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Well, first off arrest warrants aren't typically issued on felony cases if there is probable cause. Especially where violent crime is concerned. The arrest is simply made and the charges get filed. The warrant is just paperwork that happens during the process as a matter of course.

"Someone is definitely dotting I's and crossing T's on this one. Being very cautious and official about it. So, that tells me one of two things. One, they don't have much of a case so they are playing it by the book..."

"That's a good thing, right?" I interrupted hopefully, a sudden brightness in my voice.

"If that's the case, yes," she answered then proceeded to extinguish my momentary glow. "However, it could also mean that they are pretty certain they have a smoking gun, and they're just being careful because of their long time affiliation with you as a consultant.

"Either way, one thing is perfectly clear. She is no longer simply under investigation. She's been moved up from person of interest to prime suspect."

"d.a.m.n."

"Of course, we won't know for sure what is going on until I can get there and get a read on the situation."

"Whatever it is, the one behind it has got to be Albright," I mumbled. "She's a bureaucrat with a badge and she hates both of us. She's tried to pull stunts before, and I can just about guarantee you she'll do whatever it takes to make this stick."

"Well, whoever it is, they're playing for keeps. Warrants aren't issued on whims. They've got something they think is damaging, or she wouldn't be in custody right now."

"Okay, so what about it being Friday? What's up with that?"

"The courts are closed over the weekend, Rowan, and it's..." she paused for a moment. "...It's already after two in the afternoon. Given the nature of the arrest, I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to do much in the way of getting an emergency bail hearing. Unless there was a bail amount on the arrest warrant already."

"I don't remember seeing one."

"I'm not surprised. It would be pretty much unheard of in a homicide case, and with this being a high profile double murder charge...so, anyway, what it all means is that I'm afraid Felicity is going to be spending the weekend, at the very least, in jail. To be honest, Rowan, probably longer. Bail in a homicide case like this is going to be unlikely, and even on the off chance we can get it set, it will be exorbitant."

"I don't care. I've got money."

"We could be talking millions, Rowan, and even though you'll only need ten percent in cash, it could mount up."

"I can cash in our IRA's if I have to."

"I understand, but remember it could all be a moot point. Like I said, bail might not even be an option depending on what they have."

"Dammit!" I spat. "You aren't telling me what I need to hear."