by G. R. Lyons
Any minute now, Saira would step around the partition behind the receptionist's desk and look for him, meeting his eyes with a glowing smile on her face, a basket of freshly baked homemade muffins on her arm.
Any minute…
Charlie held his breath and waited.
“Hey, Crawford.”
Charlie startled and whipped his head around to his right. The office manager stood by his desk, a file in one hand and a store-bought blueberry muffin in the other.
His heart plummeted.
He half listened as the manager gave him instructions on the file and turned to leave. Charlie dropped the folder on top of a stack and leaned back in his chair, the scent of blueberries slowly fading as the minutes ticked by.
Of course. Stupid of him. He knew perfectly well that Saira was never coming back.
He ducked into the washroom at the start of his lunch break, leaning on the sink with one hand while he splashed cold water on his face with the other.
“Get it together, Crawford,” he muttered to himself.
He splashed more water, reached to shut off the tap, and froze at the sight of the water pooling in the sink basin rather than draining away.
Charlie stumbled back and crashed into a stall, the door swinging away behind him and slamming against the partition. The bang of it echoed around the tiled space as Charlie groped for the stall frame to keep himself upright while he stared at the sink, praying for that image to get out of his head.
Standing water. A flooded basement. Blood. So much blood…
Charlie bolted from the washroom.
He was outside and across the street before he realized what he was doing. He stopped at the door to the discrete forensics lab, dying to go in but knowing it was probably pointless.
Still, his body had automatically brought him there. Gods damn it all, he just wanted some answers.
Charlie took a deep breath and let himself inside.
The stark space was cool and quiet, and so very sterile. He looked around and only found one lab technician still present during the lunch hour.
Without looking up from his work, the tech held up a gloved hand and called out, “I'll be right with–” The man glanced up, narrowed his eyes, and straightened. “No.”
Charlie held out his hands. “You don't even know what I'm here for,” he said, though he should have known better. He could have been there for any case, but considering the only times he'd set foot in that facility over the past four years was for Saira…
“Yes, I do,” the tech said with extreme patience. “Crawford, there's nothing more to find.”
“But what if–”
“No, Detective, I'm sorry. We went over every inch of that basement, tested and retested every instrument and surface we found. The only DNA we found in the entire place belonged to Saira and Saira alone.” He paused and sighed. “Look, man, I'm sorry, but there's nothing more we can do.”
“But how could there be no other DNA?” Charlie asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
The man shook his head. “I don't know, but there wasn't. If there was anything more we could do, trust me…But there isn't. I'm sorry.”
Charlie opened his mouth, but all that came out was a sigh. He knew better. He really did. But he just couldn't give up like everyone seemed to expect him to do.
“Thank you,” he mumbled as he turned for the door while the lab tech went back to his work.
The rest of the day went by in a blur, and Charlie went home wondering if he'd actually done any good, if he'd actually gotten any work done. No one had said anything—at least, not that he could remember—so he supposed he'd been normal and productive the rest of the day.
It was hard to tell with so many unanswered questions bombarding his mind.
His car pulled into the driveway and powered down. Charlie shut it off, grabbed his things, and let himself inside. He leaned back against the front door, looking around at the dark, quiet, empty house.
“That's it,” he spat. “Enough. Enough of this waiting.”
Charlie ran upstairs and called the local airport while he stuffed any clothes he could reach into a suitcase. He ordered a ticket to New Haven, a city clear on the other side of Agoran, determined to get his way for once and make the nightmares disappear.
No matter what the boss said.
Chapter 2
“SAY IT.”
Asenna looked up at Dr. Galvin and resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“I can't,” she said.
“Why not?”
She threw her hands up. “Because it's not true!”
“Asenna.” The doctor whipped off his glasses and gave her a stern look. “It's more true than the identity you took on in your vision. I need you to show me that you can separate the two.”
She slumped down in her chair with a huff. “I'm not Lesa Wakler. I'm perfectly aware of that.”
The doctor looked at her for a long moment before saying, “Go on.”
Asenna glared back at him, crossing her arms over her flat chest. Finally, she gave a sigh, rolled her eyes, and muttered, “My name is Asenna Shyth.” False.
Let me out!
She winced against the memory of that voice, thankful the doctor had taken that moment to look down at his notes.
“And the rest,” the doctor said as he looked back up, gesturing toward her.
She shook her head, rolling her eyes again. “I work for Hawkeye Insurance and Personal Defense Agency in the city of New Haven. I'm five feet, ten inches tall; I have short brown hair and green eyes. I look to be in my late twenties or maybe early thirties but can't get more precise than that because I have no fucking clue when I was born.”
“Asenna, language, please.”
Ignoring him, she added petulantly, “I'm not a forty-three-year-old blonde woman who just got murdered.” She paused while the doctor typed something into his notepad. “You know, you've made me say this so many times that now it's just coming out by rote.”
The doctor stopped typing and looked up at her. “There is the risk of that,” he conceded, “but considering your amnesia, and your recurring visions, we need to make sure we keep what identity you do have separate from that of the victims you divine.”
“Divine.” She snorted. “Right, because what I do is so godly.”
The doctor shrugged. “That was your word for it, not mine, remember?”
Asenna slumped down farther in the chair.
“Now,” the doctor said, settling back into his chair and holding his notescreen ready. “Tell me again what you saw in the vision.”
“I know perfectly well who I am,” Asenna snapped, shooting him a dark look.
The doctor raised his eyebrows, calmly set his notescreen aside, and folded his hands in his lap.
“Very well. We'll do it your way. What's your real name?”
Asenna blinked at him, but couldn't answer.
“Who are your parents?” the doctor tried again.
Still she had no answer.
“Where were you born? What was your profession before your incident? What was the extent of your education? Do you have a lover? Children? Siblings?” He paused, and Asenna felt her cheeks heat up as she curled in on herself.
“I don't know,” she whispered, holding back tears of frustration.
“Why did you pick the name Asenna?”
Asenna clenched her jaw, trying to steady her breathing, and finally answered, “I don't know. It was just the first thing that came to me.”
Across from her, the doctor nodded once and reached for his notescreen.
“Now, let's try this again, shall we?”
* * *
WHEN DR. Galvin finally released her, Asenna went to the door, paused with her hand on the doorknob while she took a deep breath, then slipped out of the room, keeping her head down while she scooted along the edge of the main office and hurried up the stairs to the second level balcony.
The L-shaped balcony was the
only internal structure that remained of the refurbished warehouse that now housed the New Haven branch of Hawkeye Agency. All the rest of the interior had been gutted and repaired, brought back to life as a stunning, modern office after its brief stint as a small assembly plant for a product that had failed miserably on the market. Now, instead of power tools and assembly lines, the main floor was filled with partitioned-off workstations for the insurance agents, mediators, and detectives, with a wide reception area at the front and a few private rooms in the back: Dr. Galvin's office, the washrooms, the employee break room, the interview room, and the conference room.
Below ground, and requiring special permission for access, was the storage vault for records and evidence, as well as the training room, where detectives and officers could practice different fighting styles or simply work off some steam. The training room was also used for teaching self-defense classes to agency clients, but the shooting range was reserved exclusively for agency employees. As Asenna hurried up to her room on the second level, she thought a session with a gun and a dummy target might be in order—in the evening, of course, after most everyone had gone.
There were only two rooms on the upper level, one along either length of the L-shaped balcony. One room held the chief's private office, and the other held a large office space that had been converted into a two-room apartment when Chief had brought Asenna to the agency roughly three years before.
Asenna dashed into her room and shut the door onto the balcony, putting her back to it and closing her eyes. She took a few deep breaths and slowly managed to let go of the doorknob.
“Alright,” she told herself. “One thing at a time.”
She took one more deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly as she opened her eyes, taking in the sight of the room.
Couch, chairs, and coffee table to the right were all neat and straight, the kitchenette in the back was sparkling and organized, and the private washroom, partly visible through the open door, was so tidy and clean, one could have eaten off the floors.
The bed on the left side of the room, however, was a different story.
Asenna took another breath, held it, and rapidly stripped the bloody and twisted sheets, gathering them up in a ball and heading straight for the washroom. She stuffed the sheets into the small washing machine, set it running, and darted across to the small closet, where she extracted a fresh set of linens and hurried back to the bed.
She made quick work of the sheets, tucking them in and smoothing them out until all the lines were straight and the layers free of wrinkles. With the finishing touches of pillows fluffed and placed just so, and a blanket folded and arranged at the foot of the bed, Asenna was finally able to breathe a little easier.
While the sheets finished washing, Asenna fixed herself a late breakfast, standing over the sink as she ate it, then washed the dishes, dried them, put them back in their proper places, wiped down the counter and sink, and went straight to the washroom to retrieve the sheets from the dryer. With rapid precision, she folded the sheets, stacked them, and returned them to the shelf in the closet.
Shutting the closet door, she put her back to it and sighed with relief.
She went to the couch, scooped up a magazine, and sat down to wait for Detective Malrin to return with the chief for a post-vision debriefing. Asenna flipped open the magazine on her lap, but she couldn't get her eyes off a throw pillow beside her.
Leave it. Just leave it. It's fine.
But it's not–
Just leave it–
She reached out, shifted the pillow half an inch to the right, let out a sigh, and settled in to wait.
* * *
CHIEF ROTHBUR sat at his desk, holding his breath as he stared at the tablet resting on the surface between his hands. The file he wanted to review was highlighted on the screen, but he couldn't quite bring himself to open it.
One more time, he thought. One more time and I'll find some answers.
He lifted his right hand, his fingers hovering just above the screen, and had to close his eyes and take a deep breath before he could make his finger touch the icon that would open the file.
The first page of the document filled the screen, but immediately turned faded and blurry as his secondary encryption warning popped up, keeping the file secure and accessible only to him and no one else in the company. Chief Rothbur input his password, the box flashed green and disappeared, and the file became clear and legible on the screen.
Alright, he thought, taking another deep breath, just one more–
“Hey, Chief?”
Chief swiped his hand across the tablet, activating the screen lock and turning it black before he looked up to see Malrin standing in his doorway.
“Yes, Detective?” he replied, trying to keep his voice even. “Back for debriefing?”
“What? Oh, no. I mean, yeah, but–”
“The point, Detective.”
“Right, sir. We've got the evidence from the Wakler site, but there's someone downstairs wants to talk to you.”
“Regarding?”
Malrin shrugged, his suit jacket bunching around his shoulders as he did so. “Guy was talking to Lani at the front desk when Lehinis and I got back. Said he needed to be locked up.”
Chief blinked at him.
“Locked up?”
Malrin nodded. “That's what he said. We took him to the interview room just to see what he'd say. He insisted on being cuffed to the chair. Says he needs to talk to someone about his crimes. Weird dude, if you ask me.”
The chief let out a sigh, glanced down at the blank screen on his desk, then pushed back his chair.
“Alright, let's get this over with so we can get to debriefing,” he said, buttoning his suit jacket and taking up his coffee mug.
Malrin nodded and stood aside, waiting for Chief to go ahead of him as they headed downstairs and went to the interview room.
The room was fully soundproofed, with a wide window in one wall and a narrow hallway beyond it for viewing—a throwback to the interrogation rooms of old, but now mostly used for clients who wanted to discuss private security matters without others in the office being able to overhear. On rare occasion, the room actually was used for securing dangerous persons, so the door could only be opened from the outside, and the furniture was bolted to the floor, while one chair was equipped with restraints in case they were ever necessary.
The chief nodded to Detective Lehinis, who stood watch in the hallway, and Malrin took up a stance beside the man as the chief continued on into the interview room alone.
Chief Rothbur closed the door and looked up just in time to see the visitor give a start before making a quick recovery.
The visitor sat back calmly in the chair, his hands relaxed on the armrests despite the cuffs chaining him in place. The chief looked him over, trying to assess him just by appearance, but saw nothing remarkable: The man looked to be in his early thirties, with a face that bordered on handsome but would be easily forgettable in a crowd. He was dressed neatly, showing signs of neither poverty nor riches, and looked to be in good health.
His face spoke of utter calm and control.
“I'm told you wish to be locked up,” the chief said by way of introduction.
The man smiled, the look almost too friendly. “I've committed a crime.”
“What crime?”
“Ah.” The man chuckled. “Now that's your job to find out. Not mine to tell.”
Chief sighed and rolled his eyes. “I don't have time for silly games. If you have a legitimate crime that needs investigating–”
“Oh, but I do.”
“Well, out with it, then.”
The man shook his head. “Consider it a challenge, Mr. Rothbur. Think of it: Normally, you know the crime and must discover the criminal, but in this case, you know the criminal. What fun for you to now discover the crime! Does that not pique your interest even a little?”
Chief Rothbur narrowed his eyes, studying the man again. H
e certainly didn't look the type to commit a crime, but he had seen stranger things in his years.
“Very well. Arson?”
“No.” The man shook his head.
“Fraud.”
“In a sense.”
“Assault?”
“Depends on how you define assault.”
“Theft,” the chief barked, growing irritated at the game.
“Oh, I've stolen a great many things,” the man said with an easy smile.
“Alright. Tell me what you've stolen, and who your victims were, and we'll run the case through mediation to determine the value you owe–”
“Ah, but some things stolen are difficult to evaluate.”
The chief paused. “Such as?”
“Family heirlooms, for example,” the man said with a shrug. “Time. There's something one can steal. Difficult to place a value on time, now, isn't it?”
The chief narrowed his eyes.
“Yes, I think you've stolen quite enough of my time,” he said, turning for the door. “Good day.”
“You're not even the least bit curious, Mr. Rothbur?”
The chief stopped, and slowly turned back to face the man, who merely smiled at him.
“You've used my name twice now,” the chief thought aloud, “yet I never gave it to you.”
“Ah, now you're catching on.”
The chief gave a quick glance at the one-way mirror, hoping the detectives were still waiting on the other side, and strode toward the table, pressing his hands down on it as he renewed his scrutiny of the man.
“Am I supposed to know who you are?” he asked.
The man shrugged. “Do I look familiar to you?”
Chief Rothbur examined the face, thinking there was something vaguely recognizable about the visitor, but he couldn't place it.
“A child I arrested for vandalism?” the chief asked.
“Not quite.”
“Theft?”
“Perhaps.”
The chief slammed his hand down on the table. “Stop playing games. You recognized me when I walked into this room. Tell me how.”
