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T he next morning Kate walked into the currently empty office. She called the hospital for an update and got the usual response. Selene’s still unconscious, but we are hopeful she will wake up soon .

As soon as everybody else had arrived, she announced, “One thing has occurred to me, and I’m tossing this out as something that someone else will need to pick up and investigate.” At their confused expressions, she took a deep breath. “Simon brought up the fact that I hadn’t considered my stepfather in all this. Last I knew, he was in jail for domestic violence,” she shared. Then informed them about the messages she’d received.

Lilliana stared at her, both eyebrows raising. “That’s just lovely.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if he’s out by now or not. Honestly, I put him out of my mind and never thought about him again.”

“Do you know if he went after your brother?”

“I don’t know that for sure,” she replied, and then she took an even deeper breath and winced. “And… this is damn hard for me to say, but I can confirm that he went after me.”

A couple whistles rang throughout the office, as everybody realized the implication of that.

“That’s just the shits,” Rodney declared. “I was willing to give your mom a pass, but now?… No way.”

“She was a victim too,” Kate noted, with difficulty. “And that’s hard for me to release her from the guilt of that as well.”

“Of course,” Lilliana muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Kate murmured. “Somebody, one of you,” she suggested, “if you come up with some questions, I’m trying to write up some memories I have about him,” she murmured. “I am very sorry for not having considered it.”

“Honestly,” Lilliana noted, frowning at her, “we didn’t consider it either. But why the hell is that a thing?”

Rodney looked over at her and shrugged. “Probably because it’s Kate, and we thought that, if anything was there, she would have mentioned it.”

“As we already know,” Lilliana stated, “when there is trauma, we do everything we can to block it out.”

“Yes,” Kate agreed, “and apparently I’ve been really good at doing that.”

“And you’re not to blame either,” Rodney said briskly. “Give me a few minutes to reorient myself on this one, and we’ll go from there.”

She nodded. “I’ll get to work on the two kids.”

“And do you…” Rodney stopped. “This just adds to the kids, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes, and yet I don’t know how.”

“Or why,” Lilliana added. “There still needs to be a why.”

“There’s always a why,” Kate declared. “We’re never really sure what that is until the end.”

With that, Kate went to her desk, sat down, and buried her face in her hands for a moment. Then, after a hard mental tug to get her ass back together, she lifted her head and got to work. There had to be something that connected all these cases, and, until she got into this… She froze, as the thought kept hitting her.

She spoke to her team again. “Due to the fact that I am as scattered as I am, damn it, these other two cases are really not coming together because I can’t get a grasp on it.”

Rodney slowly turned and asked her, “You’re thinking that’s what it is?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I have to consider it. Which means I’ll really dig deep into this one.”

“Better you than me,” Rodney muttered. “I can’t imagine why anybody would kill these kids.”

“And yet I’m not sure if that was the intent, or something else,” she muttered.

He frowned at her and asked, “They’re dead. What else is there?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, with a hard smile. “Yet definitely something is going on.”

He shook his head. “I’ll work on your stepfather. You work on dead kids.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “We might end up finding they’re all connected.”

On that note she got back down to going through the witness statements. She picked up the written statements from the beat cops, who’d gone to all the neighbors, asking if they’d heard anything and if they had any relationship with the victims’ families. Unfortunately, there was this litany of reports of it being a good family. The neighbors hadn’t heard anything wrong, didn’t understand what was going on, and the drugs were a surprise, and they’d never seen any evidence of them.

She always wondered about that because she heard it so frequently. As if there was never any evidence of drugs in this world? Or was it just a question the cops asked blindly, hoping that somebody would say, Hey, yeah, I saw him shooting up last week , because who the hell ever told the cops that?

She stared down at her witness statements but pushed them aside. She then got to searching for other similar cases. Yet there wasn’t really anything she could drill down on to narrow her search. She had typed in dead kids and teens in the last six months and came up with sixty-two hits. She winced because that number was way too high. And it didn’t matter that she had gone for the entire Lower Mainland. It was just a number that would never sit well for her.

Biting back her own responses, she kept digging, looking to see if anything else popped. A couple things did, and she wrote down notes to check them out. Just when she was about ready to pick up the phone to call some of the neighbors—who had apparently seen nothing —Dr. Smidge contacted her.

“Hey,” she greeted him. “Find anything?”

“Too much,” he lambasted her through the phone. “You need to stop bringing these cases to me. They’re upsetting.”

She winced. “Yeah, they’re upsetting for us too.”

That calmed him somewhat, and he added, “The same drug was used in both cases.”

She stared down at the phone. “So, the little boy was definitely drugged?”

“Yes, he was drugged, no doubt a new designer version.”

“What the hell?” she murmured.

“Yeah, both of them. This is over to you in a big way now. Good luck with that.” Then he slammed down his phone.

Kate called out to her team in the bullpen, “For those keeping track on the two dead kids’ cases I’m working on, Dr. Smidge just confirmed that both the little boy, who was left in the care of the deadbeat uncle, and the teenager, home alone with the needle in his arm, died from overdoses of the same drug.”

“The same drug? Really?” Lilliana asked, startled.

“Yeah, worse yet, it’s one of these new designer drugs,” Kate murmured.

“You’re kidding.” Lilliana could only stare.

“I know, and that fact is pissing Smidge right off.”

“Better you than me talking to him then,” Lilliana said, with a smile.

“Yeah, he’s pretty pissed, but then again so am I.” She stared around the room. “I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, but you can bet it’s a whole different story.” She got up, grabbing her wallet and keys. “I’ll head over and talk to the teenager’s mother again, now that we have that confirmation.”

“And then to the five-year-old’s parents?”

Kate nodded.

“What about the uncle?” Rodney asked.

“He should be available to talk to by now, and, if he’s not, we’ll get him picked up,” she stated. “This isn’t something we can ignore. That little boy didn’t do this to himself.”

“He might have,” Colby suggested, from the far corner where his office was. “I know it’s a long shot, but just remember that kids imitate what they’ve seen.”

Kate stopped to consider that. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first time where a little kid injected himself because he saw his parents do it.”

“ Great ,” she muttered, “and here I was thinking we were safe from that avenue on this one.”

“I’m not saying that’s what happened, just that you cannot ignore the possibility.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, as she stormed past him. “Because that’s really not one I want to consider.” But Colby was right, and, if anything needed to be considered on that angle, she would deal with it somehow.

She strode to her vehicle and got inside, when her phone rang. It was Rodney.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.

“No,” she responded. “I can do this. I would rather you stay on the research into my stepfather.”

“Actually that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come with you.”

She hesitated, then groaned. “Fine, get your ass out here fast.”

He snorted. “I’m standing right beside you.”

She looked up, surprised, and there he was. She ended the call, unlocked the car door, and let him in. “You could have mentioned something as I walked out.”

“You didn’t really give anybody a chance,” he pointed out. “You took off really fast.”

“Yeah,… I like nothing about this one.”

“I don’t think we ever like anything about these cases,” he muttered. “However, as long as we keep searching for information, we’ll get to the truth at some point.”

As soon as they arrived at the teenager’s family home, Kate knocked on the door, but she got no answer.

“Did you call ahead?” Rodney asked.

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.” She knocked again and nothing. Frowning, she looked over at him. “Now I’m wondering if something is wrong.”

He nodded and pounded hard on the door.

One of the neighbors stepped out and shared, “I haven’t seen her all day.” Then he shrugged and shook his head. “Honestly, I haven’t seen her for longer than that.”

Kate immediately turned back to the door and tested the knob. It was unlocked. She pushed it open and called out, “Police. Edna? Are you in here?” Still no answer. “Keep the neighbor back,” she told Rodney. The neighbor was already on his way over, and Kate had an increasingly bad feeling.

She stepped inside and called out several more times. With that sense of wrongness building, she raced through the lower part of the house, and then up to the bedrooms. As she reached the master, she felt that sense of urgency as she dove into the main bedroom, finding Edna curled up on her bed, not moving. Kate immediately raced to her side to check. She found a pulse. She tried to wake her up. When she got no response, she immediately called for an ambulance. Rodney joined her few minutes later.

She looked over at him. “I’m not sure,” she began, “but it looks as if life got to be a little too much.”

He nodded. “He was her only child.”

“I know,” she replied, “but I was really hoping she had a support system.”

“Lots of people don’t,” he murmured, “and when they don’t…”

Kate didn’t need to be told because she already knew what happened. While Rodney went back downstairs to wait for the ambulance, she checked over Edna, looking for needle marks and, indeed, found a few. Frowning at that, she looked for anything close by that would indicate what she had done, whether there was any connection to her son’s death.

Kate noted a little paraphernalia around, but more than that were other drugs that she didn’t recognize just from the packaging. With a heavy heart, she waited for the paramedics, not sure whether Edna would make it or not. Kate knew she surely wouldn’t get thanked for saving Edna. However, this was definitely not a suicide. Yet, given the circumstances she was living with right now, it certainly made sense.

The paramedics raced upstairs and immediately took over Kate’s position. As she stepped back, Rodney stood in the doorway. He looked over at her and said, “I’ll go talk to the neighbors.”

He quickly disappeared, but she stayed and watched the paramedics work on the poor woman. Edna was stabilized and taken away very quickly, but, as one of the paramedics faced her, he gave her a headshake.

She winced at that. “Please save her,” she said, “if there’s anything at all you can do. Her son just died of an overdose.”

He winced and nodded.

They’d all seen it, the reactionary grief where someone just didn’t want to live anymore, not seeing the point. Kate knew the feeling herself and had been there at one point in time. It was always so sad to see this happen, and it would also be incredibly difficult to get answers from a corpse. But that was her cop brain speaking, and she knew nobody would appreciate her bringing that up.

She slowly walked through the house and noted barely any food was in the fridge, and the kitchen itself looked as if nobody had been there to cook, just to toss stuff—largely an accumulation of coffee cups and cigarette butts everywhere. She remembered Edna smoking at the crime scene. Seemed she’d gone into overdrive. It was hard to blame her. She’d been through one of the worst scenarios that anybody could endure, and right now Edna obviously had no will to live.

Yet considering the larger circumstances, it was also presumptuous of Kate to assume that, so she focused on her due diligence, looking to see if anything beyond the ordinary stood out here, very aware that she hadn’t been on her game. She needed to be alert and to maintain a little more wariness in this case.

Just because it seemed to be a suicide didn’t mean it was one, and, if somebody had taken out the son, maybe the same person came back to take out the mother. Frowning, Kate searched through the bedroom, looking for anything to indicate something was off. The fact that drugs were in the night table spoke volumes, but she hadn’t seen long-term signs on the woman’s body. So, maybe it was just a case of drugs to get through the worst of the aftermath of her son’s death. As Kate checked out the bathroom, it seemed that only a single woman lived here. Kate found no signs of other visitors staying overnight. It looked as if a lonely woman had decided on a lonely pathway.

Trying to keep her brain open and functioning in terms of possibilities, Kate walked through everything, and, when Rodney finally returned, he looked at her, and she shrugged. “It looks as if she did this herself,” she shared, “but I’ll leave it open for the moment.”

“Of course,” he agreed, “I just feel for her. Her only son dies of an overdose.” He looked around and noted, “If this was an overdose, I wonder if she thought that would work for her too.”

“Or if she thought she needed to experience it because he had gone that way,” Kate offered. “I don’t know.”

“Do we ever know?”

“Or maybe it was just the easiest way for her to get some relief, any avenue to buy some time and to not deal with this pain.”

“Quite possibly,” Rodney agreed. “Nothing is sadder than a life gone to waste, but even more so when one tragedy leads to another.”

She looked around and asked, “Did you talk to the neighbors?”

“I talked to three of them. They’re all out there now, upset and worried. Of course, nobody had talked to her very much during the last few days. One woman did mention how she’d come over to talk to her and told her, if she needed anything, to let her know.”

“But, of course, she didn’t let her know.”

“No, she didn’t,” Rodney confirmed, “and I presume the stats will probably show that’s fairly typical. For anybody who doesn’t have a support system, this might not be an unusual outcome.”

“It might not be an unusual outcome,” Kate conceded, “but it sure is something we don’t want to see.” With a heavy heart, she locked up and headed back to her car, where she sat for a long moment.

When Rodney joined her, he asked her, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I’m just trying to think of what to do next.”

He frowned. “Maybe you should go home.”

“I’m fine,” she muttered, looking at him. “I could go to the hospital and wait to see if my mother regains consciousness, if they can save her, that is. Or I can carry on to the next family.”

“I suggest we do that. We’ll follow up with the five-year-old boy’s family next,” Rodney stated. “At least then you’ll feel as if you were doing something to help.”

And, with that, she headed over to see Andrew’s family. When Kate got there, the mother, Alana, opened the door and stared at her.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

Kate heard almost a note of fear in her tone. “We’re still investigating,” she replied, “but I do need to talk to your husband.”

The woman winced. “Sorry, but you won’t find him here. I kicked his ass out.” When Kate silently stared at her, she went on. “He left my boy in the charge of that man,” she snapped. “I’m not doing this again.”

“Again?” Kate asked, puzzled.

“Yes, I had another child who died when he was two.”

Kate winced. “I’m so sorry for your loss. What happened?”

“He was left in my husband’s care, and, unfortunately, he had drugs on the counter. My little boy saw them, got into them, and ended up dying.”

“Good God.” It hit her like a ton of bricks.

Alama started to tear up. “And I know you’re wondering what I was even doing with my husband after that, but you don’t know what it’s like. He was the only one who could understand that loss, and, like it or not, you are bound together in a way that you wouldn’t expect.”

Kate remained silent, watching tears slowly run down Alana’s face as she continued.

“And even though you think that you would never do something like that again, over time, this man slowly becomes a lifeline because you just can’t deal on your own. When I got pregnant the second time, we both felt as if it was a new day, a whole new beginning, something that we could move on with,” she explained, tears streaming down her face now.

“And I was so careful. I was so good. My husband did time, and he came home. He was good, and it seemed as if he was good. He got into a bit of trouble, but again he seemed to pull back out of it, went to classes, and I kept giving him chances,” she shared. “And I know that this time it wasn’t his fault, yet it was,” she snapped, regaining some of her earlier ferocity.

“And his brother?”

“Sammy’s a loser,” she declared. “I didn’t want him around the house at all, and they knew that. It’s one of my rules.”

“Why is that?”

“Drugs,” she stated. “That takes him down a really bad pathway, and I didn’t want that influence around our home, around my child. My husband knew that, but he obviously thought that the one time would be okay.”

Kate couldn’t imagine. Taking a breath to steady her own voice, she asked, “Where can I go to speak with either or both of them now?”

“I don’t know,” she said, raising her hands. “When I say that I kicked him out,… I really kicked him out, and I haven’t spoken to him since.” She wiped away her tears. “And honest to God, if I saw him right now, I might kill him.” She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at Kate. “So, if and when you do find them, it might be best if you don’t tell me where they are.”

Kate nodded. “Do you have any idea where your husband would go?”

“Probably to his mother,” she snapped, “and that woman’s just brilliant too.”

“And where is the mother?”

Alana provided a phone number and an address that wasn’t too far away.

Kate nodded. “We’ll go check it out.”

“Good.” The tears still ran down Alana’s cheeks. “In the meantime, I’m arranging a funeral.”

Kate hesitated and then nodded. “You do realize that until the body is released…”

She nodded. “I know, but honestly, it gives me something to do. One last thing to do for my son, you know? It’s really all I can do. This should never have happened, and I should not be in this position,” she murmured. Kate hesitated for a moment, and Alana eyed her. “What?”

“The abuse on your son’s body, the bruising.”

Alana winced and nodded. “That was my husband,” she stated. “We had another huge row, and I did call the police about it. I ended up not pressing charges because he was going back through anger management.” She shook her head. “God, I’ve been such a fool. Once an asshole, always an asshole. They don’t change, do they?” She shot Rodney a hard look. “Or maybe it’s just all men,” she snapped. “Maybe they’re just no good, through and through.”

Kate ignored the comment, unwilling to engage in the woman’s attempt to tag Rodney with the same brush as Alana’s husband. “Some of those bruises were more recent,” Kate clarified, unwilling to be deterred.

Alana frowned and asked, “How recent?”

“I don’t have a full autopsy report yet that will tell us that,” Kate explained. “However, the other thing I do know is that drugs were in Andrew’s body.”

Alana stared at her, a cry escaping as she collapsed to the ground. Rodney caught her before she hit the floor and eased her down gently.

Kate shuffled in the hallway beside her. “I gather you didn’t know.”

“No, of course I didn’t know,” she exclaimed, staring at her in so much pain. “When you say drugs…”

“Yes, hard drugs. It was a modern designer drug. I’m wondering who would have had access to that and who would have given the little boy drugs?”

“Are you saying that someone…” She hesitated. “I’m thinking of my first toddler.”

“I can’t speak to that, but, as to Andrew, again I’m waiting on the autopsy report.” It was a good question because now there was that doubt about this woman’s previous child too.

The crying woman just stared at her. “I can’t do this right now,” Alana murmured. “Please leave.”

Kate and Rodney stepped outside, turning to look at Alana when she closed the door on the two of them.

Kate looked over at Rodney. “We need to go find those two men.”

“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” Rodney agreed. “Imagine losing a toddler, then going back to the same man.”

“And that is something she’ll have to live with.”

“Also, how was the child given the drugs?” Rodney asked. “We need to know whether he was injected or—”

“I know,” she murmured. Kate picked up her phone and dialed Dr. Smidge. When he answered, she asked, “Delivery of drug to the first child?”

“Oral,” he replied, “and needle for the second one.”

“Right, but the same drug?”

“Yes, a variation of a new designer heroine for both of them.”

“Do we have other cases of overdoses with this same drug?”

“Way too many of them,” he noted. “It’s hitting the streets hard and not quite providing the experience that people wanted.”

“What’s the point of selling these drugs when you kill off your customer base?” she asked.

“Exactly,” Dr. Smidge agreed. “So, we’ve got a dealer out there who’s giving these drugs to the users but not caring about the business side of it.”

“Maybe they’re trying to clean up the streets.”

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” the coroner admitted, “but the fact is, it’s now had fatal consequences for children twice. I don’t understand how and why these children are getting involved.”

“No, I don’t know either,” she added, “but I intend to find out.”

*

Simon went to work, his mind preoccupied to the extent that even his foreman asked if he needed to take a break and to do something else for a while. He gave his head a shake and said, “Sorry, I’ve got other things on my mind.”

“Oh, I get it, and, for what it’s worth, no problems are here. So you might as well take off and do something else.” Simon stared at his foreman, who repeated, “Yeah, I mean it.”

“You can’t mean it. All kinds of shit is happening.”

He laughed. “Sure, but when isn’t there? At the moment, everything is on schedule, and we’re okay. So, if you’ve got other places to go and things to do, have at it.”

He suggested it in such a good-natured tone that Simon considered it. “It might be a good thing to do,” he admitted.

“Seems like it. Go on. I’m not sure what is bugging you, but, if you’ve got something to deal with, you know you’re better off getting it resolved.”

“It’s not quite so easy as that though.”

“Those are the ones you really need to deal with then,” he added, “before they turn around and bite you in the ass, and you end up with bigger problems.”

Simon laughed. “The good news is, it’s got nothing to do with business.”

“That is good news,” he confirmed. “I never quite know what’s going on in your world,” he shared, “whether you’re strung up buying something new or you’re dealing with finances or whatever.”

“Finances are solid,” Simon stated immediately. “I mean, the rehab delays aren’t good, and none of the rest of the usual mess that we deal with helps, but I’m not going broke, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Good, because I do still want to get paid.”

“You’ll get paid,” Simon declared. It was kind of an old joke between them, but it had validity.

Simon took the hint and headed away from the job. He still had another site to check in on, and it would be remiss of him to avoid it. He headed over there next, and, almost as soon as he reached it, his phone rang. He looked down to see a call coming in from his stalker realtor who had made it her mission to continually pester him, with mixed results.

She tended to get in his way more than anything. When he answered, she said, “They dropped it another hundred and fifty.”

He frowned, considering it. “That’s interesting. How did you manage that?”

“Nothing that concerns you. You should be excited. You said you wanted them at the table with a serious price, and here they are.”

“That might be what I said, but the fact that they’ve dropped it again so soon makes me a little worried as to what’s wrong.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” she snapped.

He laughed. “You do know this is business, right? This isn’t personal. This is all about business. Yes, I’m interested in the property, and, yes, at some point in time the price may be low enough to make me smile and sign on the dotted line, but am I there yet? No. Frankly I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.”

“So, what do you want me to tell them then?” she asked, her tone snippy.

“I don’t care if you tell them anything,” Simon replied. “When I’m ready, I’m ready. Until I’m ready, I’m not.” And, with that, he ended the call, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He would do some number crunching. A reduction of one hundred fifty was minor when the cost of the repairs would go up exponentially. With the cost of materials, cost of labor, trouble finding labor, not to mention the seemingly inevitable supply delays, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to invest right now.

His stalker realtor wouldn’t like that answer, but it was a whole different story dealing with people who got it, versus dealing with people who didn’t. She seemed to be constantly going from one extreme to the other on that point, something that drove him a bit crazy because she should get it by now. This wasn’t exactly rocket science.

Vowing to put her out of his mind again, he walked deeper into this rehab and spoke to his foreman. This one ended up requiring more attention than his previous rehab project, so he was here for a good couple hours. By the time he was done, he’d eaten into the window of time he had allotted to deal with some of Kate’s stuff.

Still, he walked over to one of his favorite coffee shops, grabbed a coffee, and sat down at one of the outdoor tables. It was a newer business for him to frequent, looking more like a little bistro, but it was a bustling space, with people coming and going on a regular basis. It was good news for them, and an enterprise he’d never really considered getting into. The thought of running a coffee shop and dealing with the staffing issues and everything that went along with that business had never appealed. Yet he drank enough coffee that maybe he should.

A couple people had mentioned that idea to him, and he’d just smiled and shaken his head. The last thing he wanted to get involved with was a customer-centric coffee house. And really, to be honest, nothing had changed. He still didn’t want to get involved.

As he settled in his seat and drank his coffee, he considered the small series of benches and tables. They could be pulled inside if the weather got ugly. Considering this was Vancouver, the weather did get ugly, but luckily for him it was dry right now. He inhaled and relaxed, got inundated with a few phone calls right away, including one from Bartlett’s estate, which he was pretty well done with, but not quite because of probate. When it came to business accounts, that was a whole different story.

When he was finally done with that, he realized his coffee had gone cold. Swearing, he got up and ordered himself a fresh cup, this time determined to put his phone on Silent, even though it was a damn hard thing to do. He settled down to destress a bit. He wanted to open his mind and figure out what the hell was happening with Kate’s cases and whether Simon could do anything there to help her.

Almost as soon as he had taken several long, slow breaths, that same child’s voice slammed into his head. Only this time it was petulant and half angry.

You haven’t helped.

Simon looked around and sighed. “No, not yet.”

Why not?

“Because you haven’t given me enough information to help with.”

First came silence, then a response. Oh .

“Can you tell me where you are?”

No , he replied.

“Okay, can you tell me what happened to you?”

No.

Simon winced at that. “Okay.”

I guess you can’t help then, can you? the boy asked.

“I’m not saying that,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “Can you tell me something about your mom?”

She loved me , he responded immediately.

“Past tense?”

Yes . There was an odd tone to his voice.

“Okay.” Again not sure if the child was alive or dead, Simon asked, “Do you know what happened to you?”

No .

“Okay.” He kept asking questions, just trying to get somewhere. “What’s your name?”

Peter.

At that Simon felt his own gut clench down deep. Now he was getting somewhere, even enough for Kate. “Did you have a father?”

No.

After that, Simon went through a series of more questions, writing down the answers as they came. Part of him still felt as if he was just making this all up. How could he possibly be talking to somebody this way? He didn’t know, but he kept working his way through it. He asked, “Do you know where you lived?”

In a house.

“In a house,” he repeated, with a laugh.

Finally the voice in his head went silent, and Simon checked his list. He asked one more question, “How old are you?”

Five . And then, with fatigue in his tone, the little boy disappeared.

Simon frowned at that, thinking about a five-year-old boy lost out in the ethers. Simon texted what he had to Kate.

Meanwhile, Peter’s being lost in the ethers was just terrifying for Simon. As he sat here pondering what the odds were of this even coming up in his world, he realized that, as long as he was open to it, more of this would likely happen. Whether he really wanted to acknowledge it or not, he was giving himself the leeway to do it. A little shaken up at that understanding—and realizing that this is exactly where he had put himself—he finished his coffee, also cold, then got up and headed back to his penthouse apartment.

As he approached his building, his phone rang. When he looked down at the phone to see a work call coming through, everything around him changed and swirled. He sank to his knees, catching himself and blindly following his way to a set of stairs, where he collapsed, not sure what he heard around him, but definitely hearing something. It came through, and he recognized the voice of Harry, his doorman. Somehow Simon got close to home, yet not close enough to get himself inside his own apartment.

Pissed off at being in this compromising position in public, he pulled himself back out into his consciousness and sat up, staying here for a long moment.

His doorman asked him, “Do you need a hand?”

“I don’t think so,” Simon muttered, “but I’ll just sit here for a minute.”

“It’s a nice day for it,” Harry noted in that same offhand tone.

Simon snorted. “Maybe, but I can’t say that I’m a big fan of this happening in public.”

Harry smiled at him. “Yet whatever is going on in your world seems to be something you don’t have a whole lot of control over.”

“Yeah, you noticed that, huh ?”

“I did, and, in case you’re worried about it,” Harry shared, shaking his head, “my gran had the sight. So you don’t need to be afraid of my saying anything.”

“That’s good,” Simon replied, “because I’m not sure just what the hell I’ve got.”

“Oh, I would say it’s the same thing,” Harry muttered. “Not terribly comfortable to have either, at least that’s what she would say.”

“Is she still alive?”

“She is.… Are you looking to talk to her?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m not exactly sure what I am right now. Just a little confused.”

“Confused is not the worst thing you could be,” he murmured. “Sometimes this comes to us for a reason.”

“Maybe, but trying to deal with it? Now that’s a different story.”

“That is much harder,” he acknowledged. “Sorry about that. Let’s get you up to your place.” And, with that, Harry helped Simon up the front steps, into the main lobby, and even assisted him right up to his apartment. He hesitated before leaving him there alone, asking, “Will you be okay?”

Simon nodded. “I should be okay from here.” Harry still hesitated, but Simon waved him off. “If nothing else, I can go collapse in bed.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Is that what your grandmother would do?”

“No, she spent a lifetime helping people, not that anybody ever appreciated it.”

“Right,” he muttered, “and I think that’s part of the problem. My grandmother also had the sight,” he murmured. “And it’s not the easiest thing, knowing that everybody out there is scared of you, yet at the same time wanting something from you.”

“Agreed.” Harry remained, obviously torn about leaving Simon alone at this time. Yet, at Simon’s continued urging, Harry went back downstairs.

Simon crashed onto the couch, swearing.

He looked at his phone, reviewing the notes he had taken when he spoke to the little boy. Frowning, he realized something else had been added there. Had he added it? He didn’t think so, or at least he didn’t remember doing it. He had an address, at least part of an address. Sure enough, it was local. He immediately called Kate.

When she answered, her voice was distracted, “Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes, but I have an odd thing to request.”

“Of course, as if anything isn’t ever odd with you.”

He gave her a short version by way of explanation, then added, “The thing is, I now have in front of me what appears to be an address.”

“And you wrote it?” she asked, her tone deepening.

“Maybe,” he suggested, having trouble trying to explain it to himself.

She went quiet for a minute. “Give me the address.” As soon as he gave it to her, her breath sucked in deep and hard.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“That… is the house where I was raised. That’s my old home.”