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K ate woke the next morning with a deep sense of unease. She reached for her phone and called the hospital. Reassured that her mother was still alive but frustration that her mother was still unconscious, Kate laid back down on the bed, wondering what had caused her to wake up with that sense of wrongness. She frowned as she glanced around. Seeing no sign of Simon, she bolted out of bed and walked out to the living room.

He was sitting on the couch, but his gaze was off in the distance.

She stepped up quietly and stared at him, but, when he didn’t respond, she whispered, “Simon, are you there?”

No answer came.

Frowning, she walked around so she could get a full visual on his face. His eyes were super wide open, and she wasn’t sure what to make of that. She crouched in front of him. “Simon, I’m here,” she murmured. “It’s okay.” He gave half a snort and muttered something intelligible, and she frowned, stepping back ever-so-slightly. Then she realized it wasn’t even necessarily his voice. “Who is this?” she snapped.

Simon jolted, surprised into movement, and then he gave his head a hard shake and woke up. He stared at her, frowning.

“Hey,” she greeted him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure,” he conceded. “By the look on your face, you don’t seem to think I am.”

She winced. “I’m not sure either. I came out here, and you were staring off into the distance. I spoke to you, and you gave a snort and mumbled something.” She then added, “Honestly, I got the impression it wasn’t you.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he just stared at her.

“I know. I know,” she agreed, backing away, holding up her hands. “I don’t even believe I said that either.”

“It’s interesting that you did,” he noted, “because I’ve certainly had a feeling the last few days of something else going on.”

“ Uh-oh ,” she muttered. “Going on how?”

He winced. “That I can’t really answer. Just… not normal.”

“Nothing about you is normal,” she pointed out.

He gave her a small smile. “No, but you seem to be okay with the fact that I’m not normal .”

“Sometimes I’m okay with it,” she conceded, “and other times? Well,… it’s a little bit harder.”

“And yet you’re doing so well,” he stated solemnly.

She groaned and sat down on the couch beside him. He looked over at her and the oversized shirt that she’d pulled on the previous night when she got cold. She kept several very unsexy outfits here, and, up until now, he’d been okay with it. She wasn’t one to worry about how she looked.

Simon sighed. “We really need to get you some better nightclothes.”

“Do we?” she asked, with a wave of her hand. “I’m more concerned about you.”

“Of course you are,” he said, with a sigh. “I’m not even sure when I came out here.”

She frowned at him. “I figured you just couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m not sure what I figured,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Honestly, I don’t remember coming out here.”

She nodded as he scrubbed at his face. She asked, “What do you remember?”

“I remember somebody laughing.”

“Yeah, and that would go along with the snort and the mumbling that I heard.”

He sighed. “The trouble is, I’m really not getting much in the way of answers, no matter what I do.”

“Are you looking for answers?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I was hoping to find some… on your brother.”

She stiffened, then sighed. “That would be nice, if there were answers to get,” she noted. “I certainly won’t hold that against you.”

“Of course not,” he agreed, with a wave of his hand. “That would be very un-Kate-like .”

She glared at him. “I’m getting a lot of comments lately about how I’m not the normal Kate anymore,” she shared, “and I really don’t appreciate it.”

He cocked his head at her and then laughed. “So, are you worse or better?”

“According to Rodney,… both.”

Simon’s eyebrows shot up, and he asked, “How does that work?”

“I don’t know, something about… he preferred the old Kate, but this new Kate is nicer,” she explained, “and that I really can’t have.” Simon snickered and she nodded. “I don’t want people thinking I’m getting soft and am some nice person now,” she muttered. She glared at him, got up, and moved to the kitchen. “So, as long as you’re okay, I’m putting on coffee.”

“Coffee would be good,” he murmured, as he got up and stretched. She watched him warily. “I won’t explode, Kate.”

“That’s good,” she muttered. “I never really quite know what you’ll do.”

He smiled at her. “I know. I’m a bit of a trial.”

“We’re all a bit of a trial,” she agreed, with a weary smile. “I’m not exactly my normal self at present either.”

“With your brother’s case up front and center again, that’s true and understandable.… How is your mom?”

“You tell me.”

“She’s fine, no change,” he replied automatically and then frowned, staring at her as if she had horns. “I don’t know how I know that.”

“You’re right. She is fine, with no change,” she confirmed. “So, I’m not sure where your information came from, but it’s all good.” She spoke with a straight face, but she kept a wary eye on him.

He glared at her. “Kate, I really don’t know where that information came from.”

“Some of the research I find myself doing says that, because I apparently now have a psychic in my world, all this information is out there in the energy field, and you can access it whenever you want.”

“In the energy field?” he asked.

“Yeah, don’t ask me what that is,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I was kind of hoping you would know.”

“God only knows,” he muttered, glaring at her. “It’s not as if I have any experience in this shit.”

“Nope, you sure don’t, and, at the rate you’re going, you may not get any more,” she declared cheerfully.

He shook his head. “You’re awfully cheerful.”

“No, I’m not really,” she admitted. “I’m just trying to start with a good mood, so maybe I can get through today.”

“I’m sorry. It’s a rough time for you right now.”

She just nodded and didn’t say anything. When the coffee was done, she poured two cups and brought one over to him and sat down on the couch.

“Plans for today?” he asked her.

“Get a lift from you to go to work as my car is still there,” she replied, quirking an eyebrow at him more in question if he remembered, but he nodded. “Try and find who’s behind this bloody note and see what the hell is going on with my mother,” she muttered. “So, no end of crappy things to think about today. And then, of course, I have a current case with a young boy whose parents have absolutely no interest in confessing to abusing him.”

“Aah.” Simon groaned. “Those are always the worst. And he’s dead?”

“Yes, he’s dead.”

“It will be the end of the poor mother.”

“Of course, and the father apparently let his brother look after the child, while dear old dad went out for a bit, while the mom was away at a conference.”

“And the child died on the brother’s watch?”

She nodded. “Yes, apparently.”

“Great, that’ll cause all kinds of family drama, won’t it?”

“I think it’s too late for that,” she stated. “According to the interviews, the brother says he had nothing to do with it. But the fact remains, the child is dead, and I’m waiting on Smidge for the autopsy report. I know he wasn’t looking forward to it. As far as he was concerned, he already saw clear signs of long-term abuse.”

“Suspect?”

“The father has been in counseling and treatment for anger management and has done time for child abuse and domestic violence.”

“Jesus,” Simon muttered, staring at her.

“Yeah, and now we have a dead child, and we’re not exactly sure who to blame.”

“And, of course, the law wants to blame somebody.”

“We do have a dead child,” she repeated, looking over at him. “Somebody did that, so somebody has to pay the price.”

“It still won’t bring back the child.”

“No, it sure won’t,” she admitted. “For the mother’s sake, we will do everything we can.”

“And yet she’s still with the abuser.”

Kate nodded. “As far as I can tell from the reports, it was his child as well.”

“Christ,” Simon muttered, rubbing his forehead. “How about you just lock up the whole family?”

“I would love to,” she declared, shrugging her body as if to shake off an unpleasant feeling. “If it were clear-cut, it would be my absolute pleasure to toss all three of them in jail and to throw away the key,” she added, “but I don’t get that choice.”

“Aren’t you officially off all cases right now?”

“No, I’m on limited duty due to personal concerns.”

“Of course,” he replied, “your mother.”

“They’ll come up with any number of things to keep me away from active duty,” she noted, with a look in his direction. “My mother is one of them, and the fact is, somebody is sending me notes that make no sense but are telling me to rethink everything about my brother’s disappearance. As if I haven’t already spent a lifetime doing that.”

“That’s the worst part, isn’t it?” Simon asked. “No answers just lead you to question what did everybody miss all those years ago?”

She gave him a wry look. “I’ve spent lifetimes reconsidering everything I know about my brother’s disappearance.… Once I hit adulthood, almost every year on the anniversary of Timmy’s disappearance, I talked to every person I could remember from that time. It always came back as useless. Nobody knows anything. Now here we are, going on twenty-one years later,” she muttered. “And now somebody seems to think he knows something.”

“But the real trick,” Simon pointed out, his hand covering hers, “is the fact that somebody does know something, or they wouldn’t have tried to silence your mother. Now you must figure out who that is.” She waited in silence, as he drank his coffee. He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I did try to contact your brother.”

“But no luck?”

“Nope.”

“Do you…” She closed her eyes and sighed.

Simon knew right away what she wanted to ask. “Do I know if he’s dead or alive? No,” he stated. “I don’t. Apparently, some people from the other side can talk to people on this side, but not everyone can. Even if they can, not everyone wants to.” Her shoulders sagged, and he nodded. “I’m sorry because I would love nothing more than to give you what you need.”

“Of course you would,” she agreed, “but that apparently won’t happen.”

“It will one day,” he stated, “but it may not be anytime soon. At least not from my corner of the world.”

She smiled. “Anything that happens in that psychic world is good, and, as long as you’re learning to control it, that’s also good.”

“My grandmother spent a lifetime without a community, without support, and I don’t think she resented it. However, during several low points in her life, she could have used a friend. And I don’t think she had any.”

“Was it that nobody really believed her or…”

He shrugged. “I think everybody just wanted something from her.”

She winced at that. “I can see that too,” she murmured. “And I’m definitely guilty of that myself.” When he looked at her in surprise, she shrugged. “How many times does my office want me to get information that you might have?”

He snorted. “If I had more, I would give more, and I sure don’t blame you guys. I just look at the cases you’re dealing with all the time and realize how traumatizing it is to do this work and to struggle to find answers. I have enough connections to that shady world myself that I can see it. And I’ve been involved in enough cases with you that I understand it better.”

“Maybe,” she conceded, “but sometimes I still feel bad asking.”

He smiled and gave her a hug. “And that is what makes you you .”

“Bullshit,” she said succinctly. He burst out laughing and was still grinning when her phone rang. She sighed, picked it up, and asked, “Hey, Rodney. What’s up?”

“Another case.”

“Damn.” She listened for a few minutes, got the address from him, and replied, “I’ll get the details when I see you.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t like them,” Rodney replied.

Kate noted something unsettling in his tone. “In that case,” she declared, “I’m definitely the one who needs to come.”

“I would just as soon you didn’t,” he stated, “as I have this really horrible feeling that it’s connected to yesterday’s mess.”

“The dead child?” she asked.

“Yes,” he confirmed, his tone pitched higher. “We have another dead child, older this time, and injured multiple times by the family.”

“What the hell?”

“Yeah, in this case we don’t have very much in the way of information, but he’s dead, potentially from a drug overdose.”

“Good God.” Kate swore. “So did you mean connected to my mother or connected to the younger child?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. For all I know, it’s connected to both, or possibly neither.” And, with that, he ended the call.

She stared down at the phone. “Dead teen,” she murmured to Simon. “I’m not too sure of the details, but Rodney seems to think it might be connected to another current case.” She got up, tossed back the rest of her coffee. “One thing I do know is that it’s time for me to go to work.”

On the way there, she called the hospital to check on her mother’s status. Selene remained unconscious but the staff were still optimistic that she would make it.

Kate arrived at this newest crime scene in just under thirty minutes. Rodney stood there, a morose expression on his face. “Hey,” she muttered, “dead kids are always an issue.”

“Dead kids,… yeah, this one is sixteen,” he said.

She walked over to the body and froze because he was lying in the same position her mother had been, with a needle sticking out of his arm. She shook her head at that. “Well, hell.”

Smidge looked up at her and glared.

She nodded. “This is too much reminiscing for me.”

“Ya think?” he snapped, nearly biting off her head. And then he did a double-take. “Wait, what did you say?”

“This is how my mother was found.”

“Your mother? I don’t have your mother on my docket.”

She looked over at him and nodded. “We got there just in time. She’s in ICU at the hospital.”

He frowned and nodded. “That’s something at least.” He eyed her sideways.

She knew that look. “We’ve been estranged since I was a child,” she murmured.

“Of course,” he replied. “I can’t imagine you having much to do with a junkie for a family member.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed, her tone hardening. “I have a pretty-low tolerance when it comes to that. Not to mention I was raised with her constantly shooting up.”

He winced. “That’s not anybody’s ideal circumstance.”

“No, it sure isn’t,” she declared bitterly. “What does bother me though is that this scene looks very much the same. Needle still hanging out and everything.”

“Honest to God,” Smidge noted, “we see that all the time.”

“Right,” she murmured, “so maybe this isn’t all that unusual and not necessarily connected to my mother’s close call.”

He frowned as he looked at the needle in the teen’s arm and then shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but, now that you’ve brought it up, I’ll wonder.”

“Good,” she said, as she studied the teen. “Keep wondering. I’ve got another child who just passed away.”

“I know,” Smidge confirmed. “He’s on my docket.”

“Which is again good because I also wonder if there aren’t similarities between these two.”

He frowned at her, glanced back at the dead teen, and asked, “What could possibly be the similarities?”

“I’ll let you know when I talk to the family,” she replied, “but keep an open mind when you get there.”

“Always,” he muttered. “You do bring me the most interesting puzzles.” And, with that, he ordered the body to be moved.

She straightened and looked around, finding the mother sitting off to the side, chain-smoking.

Rodney nodded toward the woman. “Her name’s Edna.”

Kate walked over and sat down beside her. “Was that your son?”

Hearing Kate’s question sent a jolt to Edna’s system, then came a jerking nod. “Yes,” she whispered, pinching the cigarette butt between her fingers. “God, I can’t believe it.”

“Did you know that he did drugs?”

“Yes, I did know he did drugs. I was hoping he was being smart about it.”

Kate didn’t even know what to say to that. Was there any way to be smart about taking drugs, particularly when you were a teenager? “I’m sorry,” Kate replied. “This is never easy.”

“No, it isn’t.” The mother groaned. “I told him so many times not to do any of the hard ones. It was one thing to smoke a little weed, but something like this? Hell no,” Edna muttered. Her cigarette burned down, and she immediately lit another one off the end of the first.

Kate watched her and realized this was also a long-term habit, not just stress. “Where were you last night?” she asked, “and when did you last see him?”

Edna glanced at her sideways, then back at her son again. “I work night shift at the pub,” she began, “and I got in around three this morning. We were open late last night, and I had a crap load of cleaning to do.”

“And when did you find your son?”

“This morning,” she said. “The door was a little bit open when I got up, so I pushed it wide and told him to rise and shine, that I had to go out again.”

“And he didn’t answer?”

“No, he didn’t answer,” she confirmed. “I went down and made coffee, came back up to get changed, called out to him again, realized I still hadn’t heard from him, which is really no different than any other time,” she muttered. “He was never easy to get out of bed. I went in there, dragged the covers off of him, and saw him like that.”

Kate looked around and frowned. “But his body is out here.”

Edna faced her and nodded. “Yeah, I called my girlfriend, screaming, and she told me to get him some air, and he would probably be fine. She suggested it was just an overdose and to call for help. And… I didn’t even think about it, I just opened up his French doors and dragged him outside.” She started to sob, great big ugly sobs just then. “Please tell me that I didn’t kill him.”

“No, I don’t think you killed him,” Kate stated, as she looked around at the layout. Edna just continued to cry. Kate hated this part and winced.

“That’s not what”—she cried, making horrible sounds—“The fresh air… I should have just left him in the bed. Dear God,… I raced inside, grabbed my phone, and, when I came back out, I thought he’d moved,” she added, “so I started screaming at him and shaking him.”

“What do you mean, you thought he’d moved?”

“He was slightly in a different position than I had him,” Edna explained, “or at least I think so. The trouble is, I can’t be sure of anything anymore.”

“Right,” Kate murmured, looking around. “Is anybody else here?”

“No,… yet the neighbors and whatnot, I’m sure they all heard me screaming. Maybe a couple of them ran over to help. I don’t know.” She stared down at her feet.

“You didn’t see anybody?” Kate asked.

“I saw everybody,” Edna stated, “but I didn’t ask if they moved the body. At that point in time, I didn’t think it mattered, didn’t think any of it mattered. He was gone. It was so obvious he was gone, and I just couldn’t imagine my life any longer,” she muttered.

Edna stared down at the cigarette in her hand and swore to herself. “You go through all those years raising them. You think everything is good. You think it’s all fine. You just don’t realize that it’s these last few years, the teen years, that are really the worst.”

“The worst?”

“Yeah,” she added, turning to look at her. “The most dangerous. They’re off on their own. They’re thinking for themselves and making real shit decisions.” And, with that, she dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

*

Simon listened to Kate on the phone, explaining her latest case with a dead teenager. He winced, as he muttered, “God, that’s got to be hard.”

“Sounds absolutely horrible,” she murmured.

“Sounds?”

“Yeah, sounds.… Why? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, but it was interesting phrasing.”

“I don’t know about phrasing,” she muttered. “I’m not trying to be cynical or anything, but, Jesus,… the job does get to you after a while.”

“No,” he countered. “It gets to you every day, and that’s what makes you human. That’s what makes you so very special for this job.”

“ Right ,” she muttered. “You’re just trying to keep me positive, while I track all these down.”

“I would say death is an anathema, and this is what you do, but do you really think anything sinister is here?”

“You mean, since this is my department, is it murder? I don’t know,” she admitted. “The one thing that has me a little concerned is that the body was moved.”

“I think a lot of family members would move a body in the act of trying to save their child,” he noted.

“You’re right. The mother admitted to dragging him outside, trying to get some fresh air in him.”

“She did what?” When Kate repeated that, Simon shook his head. “Okay, so that’s not the reaction I would have expected.”

“No, but somebody told her to get him some fresh air. I guess the kid’s room was kind of smelly too.”

“Drugs?”

“That’s what it appears to be. He’s got a needle in his arm.”

“Aah, so an overdose is likely.”

“Likely, but the problem with likely ,” she pointed out, “is that it’s not always self-induced.”

“And, of course, you want things all tied up with a bow.”

“Which never happens,” she muttered.

He sensed the strain in her tone. “Will you be home anytime soon?”

“No, probably not.” Then somebody spoke to her in the background. “I’ve got to go,” she snapped. “I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

He stared down at his phone. Whatever had just happened at the end there had definitely upset her. It was just a matter of what and why. She played her cards close to the vest a lot, but she’d also become a little bit better at loosening up and letting some of the issues go before she exploded from the pressure of trying to keep it all inside. The fact that something was bothering her about the case just meant that she would worry away at it for a long time. Yet it was a second recent case with a child. Then he wondered if this child had also been abused.

She hadn’t mentioned anything about it, so, with any luck, they were not connected in that way. But Simon didn’t work in law enforcement, so, two dead kids showing up back-to-back, his mind automatically thinks they are bound to be connected. However, Kate did work in law enforcement, and unfortunately two dead kids might just be a normal night for them. Yet, had it been sixteen dead kids, some of them might be connected.

Simon shook his head at the thought. God, just to go through life as a parent and then to get this far, only to realize the child would not survive and would never be anything more was crippling. After so many years and all the effort of raising him, that had to be devastating.

He didn’t know what kind of therapy was available for people in that situation, but he highly suspected it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough. Losing a child was just too heartbreaking, just too much damage. And that made it easy to understand why so many grieving parents committed suicide, choosing to be with their child who died, rather than be with those left behind.

Simon hoped that wasn’t the case here, but it could just as easily have been Kate’s mother committing suicide, when Timmy first went missing. Apparently she’d gone to pieces when her little boy had disappeared, but she hadn’t turned to Kate for comfort, which was interesting. Instead of turning to Kate, Selene had used it as a way to push Kate even farther away, leaving a single hollow spot left for the missing boy.

It was kind of sad because, when Kate really needed her mother, Kate appeared to be the last person her mother wanted anything to do with, ultimately causing more damage to Kate herself. It just brought back how messed-up all this was, and yet there was nothing more on Timmy. Which meant maybe it was nothing?

And yet Simon couldn’t really see it. How could losing a child end up being nothing? Why would someone even send Kate a note like that, or pay somebody to take it to the police station anyway? It made no sense to him, but then, as much as he might have known a lot of criminals, and he might understand the criminal mind, what he didn’t really understand was the sick mind. Yet he’d gained way-too-much personal knowledge on that recently.

He couldn’t deal with his office paperwork at the moment. He really needed to just get up and get out for a little bit. And, with that on his mind, he grabbed his keys and headed to his nearest rehab job. His foreman saw him as he walked in, and a surprised expression came on his face.

Simon shrugged. “I decided to come out anyway and get some fresh air.”

“Hey, anytime you want fresh air, feel free,” Steven replied, with a smile.

“Ha, you would say that anyway.”

“Nope,” he countered. “If I didn’t want to see your sorry ass around here, I would tell you.”

Simon burst out laughing at that because the two of them had worked together long enough that Simon believed him. And, if Simon would be in somebody’s way or could cause an interruption onsite, this guy definitely wouldn’t hold back. “How are things going here?”

“They kind of suck, but when did that ever stop us?”

“I like the sound of that last part,” Simon quipped.

“Of course you do.” Steven gave him a smile. “You’re all about saving these guys.”

“I didn’t think so at first,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t have thought saving anybody was part of my thought process on these rehabs.”

“That’s just because you’re not really consciously thinking along those lines. It’s just an inherent part of who you are—saving these buildings and saving these guys.”

“I’m not even sure what you’re talking about now. Maybe you need some fresh air,” Simon teased, eyeing him.

His foreman snorted. “You just don’t want to acknowledge being one of the good guys.”

“Hell no, I don’t,” he declared, with a laugh. “You know what they say, how good guys end up last.”

“With some of these jobs you’ve taken on, I wonder if that may not be true as well.”

“Right, and, every once in a while, we get one that’s a fight every step of the way.”

“Seems we always have one,” the foreman agreed. “We’ve just gotta have the one that completely blows up in order to make the others work,” he muttered, with a sigh. “And today, this is the one.”

“What’s up?”

“Two guys didn’t show up. We’ve got a leak in the plumbing, and the city came in, saying some of our permits aren’t correct.”

“Now that’s just bull,” Simon argued, yet with a smile. “We know our permits are accurate. It’s not as if we don’t do this every damn day of the year.”

“I know,” Steven muttered, “but it’s not as if I have the permit documentation here in my hands, so that took a bit to get sorted out.”

“It’s just bullshit, that’s what it is.”

“I agree with you there, but that doesn’t make any of the city people any happier. They just don’t like the fact that we’re here, fixing up old buildings,” he muttered.

“No, they sure don’t like it,” Simon confirmed, with a laugh. “Anytime you want to straighten them away on that whole issue and get it cleared up, that’ll be good.”

“Not happening,” he shared. “It’s a situation where we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

“Honestly, it seems as if life is just damned in general at the moment,” Simon shared, “so I would take anything good today.”

“What? Now you sound like some of these guys on the crew who always have girlfriend problems. Trouble in paradise?”

“Nah, but her job’s pretty rough. And I want to help, and yet there’s just nothing I can do.”

“Probably better for me to stay single then,” Steven noted. “I’m more on the side of needing help, than giving it,” he joked.

“Is that because you’re always stepping a little too close to the wrong side of things yourself?” Simon asked, with a laugh.

At that, his foreman rolled his eyes. “Yeah, maybe when I was sixteen and stupid,” he muttered, “but not since then. Now it’s way-too-much headache to even want to get involved in that crap—especially where the law is concerned.”

“Right, I don’t even know why anybody would volunteer for that,” Simon added. “Knowing people like her would be hounding me, I think it’s a lost cause.”

His foreman laughed. “And yet here you are, running straight to her, with your arms wide open.”

Simon grinned. “Never thought I would see the day either, but don’t you worry. The good outweighs the struggle, 100 percent.”

“Good to hear,” Steven replied. “Now I’ve got to check on one of the guys up top. I told him that I would be back in about twenty minutes. What will you do?”

“I’ll just keep walking around and checking on shit,” Simon said. “You know me. You never know when I’ll pop up.”

“Just as long as you’re keeping track of where you’re going and who you’re going with,” Steven pointed out. “Otherwise having you around tends to make the guys nervous.”

“Good,” Simon stated, his tone serious. “Maybe they’ll stop fooling around and take the job seriously.”

“Most of our guys do,” his foreman replied, “but I would just as soon they weren’t nervous because you’re here.”

“What? You want me to take off then?”

“No, I don’t want you to take off. I just don’t want you standing here, hounding them.”

Simon laughed. “Not to worry. I’ll head into the trailer and get some of that paperwork done.”

“Oh, fly at it then,” his foreman stated. “Please get that shit taken care of so I don’t have to.”

Still laughing, Simon turned and headed for the small trailer they kept onsite. As soon as he got inside, he sat down at the desk and started working. It didn’t take long to get through the worst of it. As was typical of most paperwork, he hated it. So he tended to put it off, until he just couldn’t anymore. Yet, once he buckled down, it wasn’t all that bad. At least that was the theory, one he always kept hoping for. However, his world was complex enough that it didn’t necessarily work out that way.

As he got up to leave, he felt a weird sensation in his stomach. “Oh no, you don’t,” he muttered. “That shit ain’t happening.” Just as he went to take a step, there was that punch in the gut again, and he sat back down, hard. “Okay, fine,” he muttered. “You’ve got my attention. I’m listening, but, if you don’t have anything to tell me or anything to say, you need to knock it off.”

Expecting nothing, he was surprised when instead he heard a tiny voice in his head.

Help me. Please help me.

Simon closed his eyes, and sensing it was a child just because of the fear and the tone of the voice, Simon whispered, “Where are you, and what’s wrong?”

Help me ,” the child repeated. Please, God, help me .”

And, with that, he was gone.

But just as he faded away there was the faintest of echoes. Think.