“Then I suppose I’ll just have to hope you can dredge me up and put me back together when the time comes.”

“I believe we will both be hoping for that,” she offered and then paused. I could hear her let out a small sigh before continuing, “You are a very stubborn man, Rowan. I hope you realize that I did not call to argue with you.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. For the first time in the past few hours, the motion didn’t cause me excruciating pain. My headache had mellowed down to a dull thud for the moment, but I wasn’t expecting it to stay that way for long.

“I know, Helen,” I told her. “I’m just not in a very good place right now.”

“I know. And trust me, Benjamin is truly concerned for your well being right now. As am I.”

“Join the club. That seems to be the order of the day.”

“Did you have the nightmare again?” she asked, momentarily switching the subject.

“Yeah. Three times last night.”

“And, how did you feel?”

“Scared.”

“Yes, but what about the other issue. The one involving your wife.”

“It’s a non-issue.”

“Good. Your faith in Felicity is going to be monumentally important in the coming days, Rowan.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Tell me about it.”

I happened to look up toward the stairs as I made the comment and noticed a crime scene technician on his way down, arms filled with books.

He called past me to another tech in the living room, “Looks like we’ve got something here.”

I could see that the “something here” he had in hand was every text on Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Mysticism I had purchased, or checked out from the library, in the past week.

“Those are mine,” I called out to him.

He continued down the stairs, ignoring me completely.

“I said, those are mine,” I stressed. “I just bought them.”

Helen was calling to me from the earpiece, “Rowan? Rowan, what is wrong?”