Version 1.24.0

  Scott

  Wednesday, December 28th

  I was too late.

  The coffee shop parking lot looked like a war zone. Three police cruisers, two unmarked federal vehicles, an ambulance with its lights still spinning. Yellow tape was already going up around the entrance, and a crowd of onlookers had gathered on the sidewalk, phones raised like they were documenting a celebrity sighting instead of whatever nightmare had just unfolded inside.

  I threw my car into park at an angle that would definitely get me towed and didn't care. My legs were moving before my brain caught up, carrying me toward the chaos while my heart hammered out a rhythm that sounded a lot like please no please no please no.

  I'd woken up at 7:30 AM to an empty apartment and a missing journal. Not misplaced. Not fallen behind the nightstand. Gone. Someone had been in my room while I slept. Someone had taken the only evidence of what Sam could do.

  The only evidence of what she'd confessed to me.

  I'd called her seventeen times on the drive over. Seventeen times straight to voicemail. I'd texted, Please answer. Something's wrong. I'm coming to you. No response. I'd broken at least four traffic laws and probably a few laws of physics trying to get here in time.

  I wasn't in time.

  Two agents shoved a limp woman into the back seat of a black SUV. Government plates. Tinted windows. Her face was blank. Empty. Like someone had reached inside her and scooped out everything that made her her. There was blood on her face, dried brown around her nose and at her temple, and even from this distance I could see that something was wrong with her arm- it was cuffed behind her at an odd angle and looked dislocated.

  Sam.

  They closed the doors behind her and the SUV pulled away from the curb. It rolled forward slowly, being let through the police blockade. Then the SUV completed its turn, and she was gone.

  "Sam!" The word tore out of me, useless and too late. "SAM!"

  I started running toward the vehicle, some insane part of my brain thinking I could catch it, stop it, explain everything… A hand caught my arm. Grip like iron.

  "Mitchell."

  I knew that voice. I'd been dreading that voice for three days.

  Christopher Dyer stood behind me, his expensive suit slightly rumpled, his expression a complicated mix of triumph and barely-contained fury. He looked like a man who'd just won a battle but suspected he might be losing the war.

  "Let go of me." I tried to pull free. His grip tightened. "Christopher, I need to...she didn’t do anything. What happened here? This is the amount of force required to bring in a graphic designer? This is incredible overkill. Sam isn’t dangerous.”

  "A local cop is dead, Scott."

  The words hit like a physical blow. I stopped struggling. Stared at him.

  "What?"

  Christopher's jaw tightened. He released my arm and gestured toward the coffee shop, toward the controlled chaos of agents and officers and...

  And a body.

  I could see it through the window. A shape on the ground, covered by someone's jacket. Too still. Too wrong. Around it, agents were taking photographs, marking evidence, doing all the things we did when someone died and we needed to understand why.

  "Officer James Reilly," Christopher said. "Thirty-four years old. Wife and two kids. He was assisting with the arrest when he just... dropped. Heart attack, maybe. Aneurysm. Medical examiner will figure it out." He shook his head. "Bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time. But it doesn't change what your girlfriend did, Mitchell. The fraud, the hacking, all of it."

  I wasn’t here. I left Sam alone and now she was gone, someone was dead and the journal was gone too.

  The woman who'd cried over accidentally turning her plants weird colors. The woman who'd spent an entire dinner date agonizing over whether she'd been too harsh to a fictional faerie king. The woman who'd handed me her journal full of fears and hopes and desperate loneliness and asked me to understand. She was gone. Arrested. If Dyer had the journal she would think I’d given it to her.

  "You're compromised." Christopher's voice cut through my spiral. "Go home, Mitchell. There's nothing for you here."

  "I need to talk to her. I need to explain..."

  "Explain what? That you fell for a suspect? That you compromised an eight-year career for a con artist who somehow convinced you she has magic powers?" He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “A particular piece of evidence is full of delusional ramblings about reality manipulation and seeing 'code' underneath everything. Your girlfriend is either mentally ill or running the most elaborate fraud scheme I've ever seen. Either way, a man is dead, she's in federal custody, and you want to explain?"

  “You stole it." The words sounded hollow even to me. “You were in my apartment last night weren’t you?”

  “You’re a federal agent, Scott. That apartment is government property. That evidence is government property. Everything you say and do belongs to the government. I thought you understood that. Listen, Scott. I’m trying to protect you. Deputy Director Holt doesn’t know about your indiscretions. But, we’ve all been there man. Fine piece of you know what, a few months from home things start looking good. People have needs.”

  Rage flashed through me darkening the edges of my vision. Through gritted teeth I hissed, “It’s not like that. Sam isn’t…”

  "Sam isn't what? A criminal? A con artist?” Christopher laughed, and there was no humor in it. "Maybe she's just the unluckiest woman alive. But I don't believe in coincidences, Mitchell. And neither do you. And while that journal reads like bad fiction, it’s probably enough to put enough pressure on her to find the truth.”

  Movement near the ambulance caught my attention. Paramedics were loading someone onto a stretcher...not a body bag, someone alive, someone...

  Kate.

  Sam's friend. The one from the case file. She was conscious but barely, her face pale and streaked with tears and blood. Blood running from her nose, just like Sam had described in her journal. Just like what happened when you pushed too hard against the code.

  "What happened to her?" I started toward the ambulance. "Is she..."

  "Witness." Christopher grabbed my arm again. "She was there when it happened. Started screaming, then collapsed. Nosebleed, some kind of seizure. Paramedics think it's shock." He studied my face. “We believe she’s connected to the Samantha Marion case. Care to elaborate?”

  I watched them load Kate into the ambulance. Agents and officers moved around us both unnervingly quiet and overly loud. Tens of feet crunched over broken glass and gravel. The sound of photographs being taken, hushed whispers speculating on what happened to Reilly. What happened to the lights. And why in the world so many men were called in to handle one seemingly harmless woman.

  Kate’s eyes were open but unfocused, staring at something no one else could see. Her lips were moving, forming words I couldn't hear but, if my lip reading was right she was repeating the words over and over again. Level up

  The nosebleed. The unfocused stare. The way she seemed to be seeing something that wasn't there. It was exactly what Sam had described in her journal...the symptoms of whatever had happened to Samantha was happening to Kate right now.

  If the journal was true. If any of it was true. God, what if it's all true?

  "I know she's Sam's friend," I said carefully. “I’ve gotten to know her. I’m just worried. That’s all.”

  Christopher's eyes narrowed. He didn't believe me. But he also had bigger problems right now than my relationship to a witness.

  "Go home," he repeated. "That's not a suggestion. You're looking sick. I recommend taking a leave of absence. I’ll let Holt know you’re out and will return when you’re up to it.”

  "Christopher..."

  "Go home, Mitchell." He turned away, already moving toward the coffee shop, toward the body, toward the aftermath of whatever had just happened in there. "There's nothing you can do here."

  He was right. I knew he was right. But, I didn’t go home.

  * * *

  The police station had never felt so hostile.

  It was a squat brick building downtown, the kind of municipal architecture that screamed "built in the seventies, never updated." I'd been here a few times over the past weeks, coordinating with local law enforcement on the bank fraud case. The desk sergeant knew my face, if not my name.

  Now I was persona non grata.

  "I'm sorry, Agent Mitchell." The desk sergeant... a tired-looking woman in her fifties... wouldn't meet my eyes. "I've been told you're not authorized to access the detainee."

  "I just need to check on her status. Samantha Marion. She was brought in a little while ago.”

  "I can't help you with that." Her voice was firm but not unkind. "You'll need to speak with your own people. The FBI took over the interrogation. We have no authority in there.”

  "Then get me the chief. I’ll confirm with Deputy Director Holt myself.”

  She studied me for a moment, something like pity in her eyes. "I'll see what I can do. But maybe you should go back to your apartment, Scott. Get some rest. Whatever's happening upstairs, sitting in my lobby won't change it. "

  I didn't leave. I sat in the lobby like a suspect waiting to be interviewed and watched the clock tick away the hours.

  11:00 AM. No word. The security guard by the door kept glancing at me like he wasn't sure whether to offer coffee or call for backup.

  11:30 AM. I called the hospital, trying to get information about Kate. They wouldn't tell me anything. HIPAA, privacy laws, all the barriers that existed to protect people from exactly the kind of intrusion I was attempting. I hung up feeling like a failure.

  12:30 PM. The desk sergeant brought me a cup of coffee. "You look like you haven't slept in days," she said, setting it on the chair next to me. I couldn't drink it. My stomach was too knotted with anxiety to accept anything. I set it aside, watching the stairs like they might suddenly reveal the meaning of life.

  1:15 PM. A group of FBI agents came down the stairs, talking in low voices. One of them saw me and elbowed his companion. They both stared for a moment, then looked away. The compromised agent. The cautionary tale. I could practically hear them thinking it.

  1:30 PM I called Kate’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. I did text her though

  Me: Hey, checking in on you. Let me know how you are. If you need anything.

  2:15 PM. I tried calling Sam's phone again. Still voicemail. Her voice, recorded months ago, cheerful and unaware of everything that was coming: "Hey, you've reached Sam. Leave a message or don't, I'm not your mom." I listened to it three times before hanging up.

  2:45 PM. The desk sergeant approached again, this time looking worried. "Agent Mitchell, you really should go back to your apartment. Get some rest."

  "I know." I didn't move.

  She sighed, the sigh of a woman who'd seen too many cops self-destruct over the years. "When they release her... if they release her... you can't be here. It'll only make things worse."

  She was right. I knew she was right. But leaving felt like abandoning Sam to whatever was happening on the floors above me. As long as I was here, in this building, I was at least close to her. It was stupid. It was irrational. It was the only thing I could do.

  3:30 PM. Footsteps on the stairs. I looked up, heart racing, but it was just a couple of uniformed officers heading out for their shift. They didn't even glance in my direction.

  3:47 PM. An agent I didn't recognize walked past me, then stopped and walked back. Young guy, probably only a year or two on the job. He had that eager look that new agents got when they thought they were about to witness something interesting.

  "You're Mitchell, right? The one who was dating the Marion woman?"

  "I need to know if she's okay. If she's been processed, if she has a lawyer..."

  "She's in interrogation." The agent shrugged, clearly enjoying being the one with information. "That's all I know. Dyer's handling it personally."

  The thought of Christopher interrogating Sam made my stomach turn. He'd read the journal. He thought it was proof of mental illness...or worse, evidence of some elaborate con. Either way, he'd use it against her. Read her own words back to her, twist them, make her sound delusional or dangerous or both.

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  And he was doing it alone with her. No witnesses. No lawyers. Just Christopher with his smug certainty that he had her figured out, and Sam... she must be feeling so betrayed and alone.

  4:30 PM. Deputy Director Thomas Holt's assistant finally came down the stairs. "Agent Mitchell? The Deputy Director will see you now."

  “Holt is here?”

  She sighed and turned wordlessly walking back from where she had come. I followed her up to the third floor, where the FBI had commandeered a conference room and an office for the duration of the investigation. Officers I'd worked with over the past few weeks suddenly found their paperwork very interesting when I approached. Word had spread. It seems that sitting in the lobby had not done my reputation any favors.

  Holt had taken over the captain's office at the end of the hall. It wasn't much... cramped, with a view of the parking lot... but it served his purposes. I'd been in here once before, when I'd first been assigned to coordinate with local law enforcement. That meeting had felt like an opportunity. This one felt like a funeral.

  The assistant opened the door and stepped aside. I walked in alone.

  Thomas Holt was a tall man in his sixties, silver-haired and sharp-eyed, with the kind of quiet authority that came from decades of service. He'd built a reputation as fair but uncompromising, the kind of leader who would go to bat for his agents when they deserved it and cut them loose without hesitation when they didn't.

  He didn't stand when I entered. Didn't offer me a seat.

  "Mitchell." He folded his hands on his desk. "You've had quite a day."

  "Sir, I need to explain..."

  "Explain what?" His voice was calm, measured...somehow more devastating than anger would have been. "That you developed a romantic relationship with a target of an active investigation? That you failed to disclose this relationship to your supervising agent?” He raised an eyebrow. "Or that despite all of this, you still showed up at the arrest site and attempted to interfere with federal agents doing their jobs?"

  Each accusation landed like a blow. Because they were all true. Every single one.

  "I told Christopher I was falling for Samantha," I said. "He insisted I keep the investigation going in spite of me asking him to take me off of it. Additionally, a journal was stolen out of my room. Which, I'm sure as you're aware, without a warrant makes it illegally obtained and any lawyer worth half his salt would have this case thrown out so fast."

  “I see.” Holt's expression didn't change. “Well I don’t know anything about a journal, but if something comes up I’m sure that you’ll cooperate and ensure that the proper chain of command is followed for all evidence pertaining to a case that you’re leading.”

  “Sir.”

  "I've read your file, Mitchell. Eight years with the Bureau. Solid career. Good instincts, strong work ethic, clean record." He shook his head slowly. "And now this. A woman with no technical background, no criminal history, somehow pulls off financial crimes sophisticated enough to baffle our forensic analysts. And the one agent who gets close to her happens to, what, fall in love with her? Or is it worse than that? Is she paying you? Threatening you?”

  "It's not what it looks like."

  "Then what is it? Help me understand, because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you were played. At best." He paused meaningfully. "At worst, it looks like conspiracy."

  The word hung in the air between us. Conspiracy. The kind of charge that ended careers, destroyed lives, sent people to federal prison.

  "I'm not conspiring with anyone," I said, keeping my voice level. “I investigated Samantha Marion. I detailed reports over the last three months indicating zero evidence about this woman. I requested we close the case and when Agent Dyer refused I requested to be removed from the case. Agent Dyer refused my request. It’s all available per internal email. I’m confident the paper trail of this case will allow you to draw the same conclusions.”

  “Agent Mitchell. I want you to think very carefully before you make any official requests. What do you think would happen to your career if you threw a superior under the bus and the suspect you were investigating happened to be guilty. If in that case, it appeared as though you were covering things up and trying to frame a superior for negligence?”

  "It would not be a good look, sir. I do not change my previous statements.”

  Holt studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "You're on administrative leave. Effective immediately. You'll surrender your badge before leaving the building. There will be a formal review of your investigation, and depending on the outcome, potential disciplinary action up to and including termination and jail time."

  "Sir..."

  “Let’s hope, for your sake Agent Mitchell, that things aren’t as bad for you as they look in this moment.”

  Before I could say another word, two officers escorted me out of the building.

  * * *

  By 10 PM, I'd worn a path in the carpet of my living room from pacing. I’d texted Kate 5 more times and Sam at least a dozen.

  The news was useless...nothing about the arrest, nothing about a death at a local coffee shop. The Bureau had clamped down on the story, probably. Or maybe there just wasn't enough to report. Woman arrested for bank fraud, coffee shop implodes, officer dies of natural causes, nothing to see here, move along.

  I couldn't eat. The protein bars in my cupboard looked as appetizing as the cardboard boxes they came in. I couldn't sleep...every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sam's face through that SUV window. Empty. Hollow. Gone.

  I tried to distract myself with work, which was laughable considering I'd just been put on leave and surrendered my credentials. I still had my personal laptop, though, and old habits died hard. I pulled up case files I shouldn't have access to anymore, looking for anything that might explain what was happening.

  The Holloway situation was still a mess. Greg Harrison's lawyers were fighting the leaked documents, claiming they'd been fabricated. Daniel Park was apparently unable to be reached. The company itself was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, hemorrhaging clients who didn't want to be associated with the scandal.

  I knew Sam had done this. However, after having had talked to Harrison myself could I blame her? The thought crept in uninvited. Greg Harrison had been a predator... the documents proved it. Daniel had stolen her work and gotten her fired. She'd been pushed out of her own life by people who deserved to face consequences.

  Did that justify what she'd done? What had she done, really? Technically she hadn't broken any laws. Technically, no fraud was committed as the money that appeared in her account hadn't been stolen from anywhere.

  But what had happened to Officer Reilly? Could Sam be responsible for hurting him? Sam, the same woman who cried over wilting plants? I slammed the laptop shut. Pushed away from the desk. Resumed pacing.

  Kate. I should check on Kate. I pulled out my phone and decided to call her again. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Voicemail. I tried again. Same result. The third time, someone answered. But it wasn't Kate.

  "Hello?" The voice was older, wary. "Who is this?"

  "My name is Scott Mitchell. I'm Kate's friend’s Sam's boyfriend… I saw Kate at the coffee shop this morning, before..." I stopped, unsure how to explain. "Is she okay? Is Kate okay?"

  A long pause. "She's in the hospital. Up at Memorial. Are you the FBI agent?"

  "Yes. I mean, I was. It's complicated."

  "Everything is complicated today." The woman sighed heavily. "I'm May, Kate's aunt. She had some kind of seizure at the coffee shop. They've sedated her now, but she was... she was saying things. Seeing things that weren't there."

  My blood ran cold. “Seeing things?"

  "Yes. She kept talking about static. And patterns. And her friend Sam, over and over." May's voice cracked slightly. "The doctors think it's trauma-induced psychosis. They want to keep her for observation overnight."

  “Is she going to be okay?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.

  "They don't know. They're running tests." May paused. "Why are you calling? What happened to Kate's friend? The police won't tell me anything."

  "Sam is... she's being held for questioning. I'm trying to help her, but..." I trailed off. What could I possibly say? Your niece is awakening to the true nature of reality because her best friend can see the code that underlies existence? "It's complicated."

  "You keep saying that." May's voice hardened. "If you're really her friend, you'll figure out how to uncomplicate it. Kate needs answers. We all do.”

  “In the meantime, I need someone to go take care of Kate’s cat, Chaos. I don’t feel comfortable leaving her here by herself and I don’t know anyone else in the city who can do this for me. So, mister FBI. I’ll send you Kate’s address, you go get the cat, the key is under the mat. I’ll have Kate call you when she’s being released.”

  She hung up before I could respond.

  I stared at the phone for a long moment, then threw it on the bed. After a few moments it buzzed, I assumed it was Kate’s address coming in from May. Kate was in the hospital. Sam was in custody. Christopher had the journal. And I was apparently about to be the proud foster parent of a cat… named Chaos.

  Kate's apartment was a fifteen-minute drive from mine. I found the key under the mat, exactly where May said it would be, and let myself into a space that smelled like cinnamon candles and cat litter.

  Chaos lived up to his name. The moment I stepped inside, a black blur shot out from under the couch, knocked over a stack of books, and disappeared into the bedroom. It took me twenty minutes, a can of tuna from Kate's pantry, and three scratches on my forearm to get him into the carrier I found in the closet. The whole time, Chaos stared at me with the profound disgust of a creature who knew exactly how badly I'd screwed everything up.

  "Yeah," I told him, snapping the carrier door shut. "I know. Your mom will be back soon.”

  Taking Chaos back to my apartment was the least I could do, but I had never had a cat before and wasn’t super thrilled to start tonight. But there was nothing else that I could do. Not tonight anyway.

  After I got Chaos settled in with his freshly moved food, water and litter box. I lay down on my bed without undressing. I stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about Sam in an interrogation room, alone, facing questions she couldn't answer without sounding insane. I tried not to think about what would happen if she were found guilty. As I very well could be found guilty of conspiring and trying to cover things up. I tried not to think about Kate in a hospital bed, sedated, and also being able to see and touch the underlying ‘code of the universe’ as Sam had called it in her journal.

  I desperately tried not to think about the code of the universe in general. Why could two women see it. Was it spreading? Would I be next? I tried not to think about Officer James Reilly, thirty-four years old, wife and two kids, dead on the floor of a coffee shop surrounded by glass.

  Sleep came eventually, dragging me under like a riptide.

  * * *

  The dream started in the coffee shop.

  I was standing at the counter, ordering coffee, everything perfectly normal. The barista smiled and handed me a cup. The smell of espresso filled the air. Sunlight streamed through the windows.

  Then I turned around, and Sam was there.

  But it wasn't Sam. Not really. Her face was her face, but her eyes were wrong... too bright, too knowing, like something ancient was looking out through them. She smiled, and her teeth were too sharp, and when she spoke, her voice echoed like it was coming from very far away.

  "You should have run," she said. "When you had the chance."

  "Sam, I..."

  "You read my journal." She stepped closer, and the coffee shop flickered around us, the walls dissolving into static. "You saw what I am. What I'm becoming. And you stayed anyway."

  "I stayed because I love you."

  She laughed. It was not a kind laugh. "Love. Such a small word for such a complicated thing." She reached out and touched my chest, right over my heart, and her fingers were cold. So cold. "Do you want to see what I see?"

  The cup I was holding became sharp in my hands and I looked down to see I was holding a broken lightbulb. It flickered and changed back to coffee.

  "Do you want to see the code, Scott?” Not-Sam said.

  The world shattered. The cup/bulb I was holding became a string of letters and numbers. I began falling through layers of reality, each one peeling away like dead skin. Numbers and symbols and patterns I couldn't comprehend, all of it rushing past too fast to process. I tried to scream but I had no mouth. Tried to close my eyes but I had no eyelids. There was only the code, endless and vast and utterly indifferent to my existence.

  And at the bottom of it all, something was waiting. It turned its attention toward me, and I felt myself dissolving, my pattern unraveling, everything that made me me coming apart at the seams...

  * * *

  I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth. Chaos stood on my chest cold wet nose pressed to mine. His eyes open and unblinking. I tried to move him but somehow the cat who was 6 lbs in the carrier seemed to be heavier and made of a non-Newtonian fluid. The more I struggled to move him the harder it seemed to become. Finally, he got bored, or irritated enough and jumped down tearing off into the darkness.

  The clock on the nightstand read 3:47 AM. Just a dream. Just a nightmare. Nothing real.

  But my hands were shaking, and I couldn't get the image out of my head. Sam's face with something else looking through it. The code rushing past. The thing at the bottom, waiting.

  I sat up, fumbling for the lamp. Light flooded the room, harsh and reassuring. I was still here. Still solid. Still myself. But sleep was a lost cause now. I got up, splashed water on my face, and tried to convince myself that everything was going to be okay.

  My phone was on the nightstand, battery at eight percent because I'd forgotten to charge it. Again. I plugged it in and noticed the audiobook app notification still on my lock screen: Continue listening to Thorns of the Hidden Court?

  The ridiculous faerie romance I'd downloaded as "research" and ended up actually enjoying. I'd just started the second one when things fell apart. Without really deciding to, I put in my earbuds and hit play.

  The narrator's voice filled the darkness, warm and familiar. Aurora was still trapped in the Dawn Court, still fighting to reach Allister, still refusing to give up even when everyone told her it was hopeless.

  "You'll die," Aurora's mentor had warned. "The Dawn Court will tear you apart."

  "Then I'll die trying. Better than living with the knowledge that I abandoned him."

  I thought about Sam. About the walls she'd built. About the way she'd finally let me in, only to have everything collapse around her.

  "Why?" Allister had asked, when Aurora finally reached him. "Why would you risk everything for me?"

  "Because I see you. The real you, underneath all of it. And I'm not leaving him behind."

  The words hit differently now. Not just fiction anymore. Not just a story about faeries and magic and impossible love. A story about choosing someone. Even when it was hard. Even when it didn't make sense. Even when everyone else thought you were crazy.

  I listened until the batteries in my earbuds died again, somewhere around 5 AM. Then I lay in the dark and waited for morning.

  * * *

  The call came at 7:15 AM.

  I was on my third cup of terrible coffee, still wired from the nightmare, staring at my phone like it might explode. When it finally rang, I nearly dropped it.

  "Mitchell." Holt's voice was clipped, professional. "We need to talk."

  "Sir, I can explain..."

  "Save it. The Marion case is closed."

  I blinked. "Closed?"

  “You were right. There’s no case here. Agent Dyer had some kind of breakdown in the interrogation room last night. Started ranting about journals that erase themselves, evidence that disappears. He's on psychiatric leave pending evaluation." Holt paused meaningfully. "The journal he recovered from your apartment? Blank. Every page. The digital copies, the photographs, the scans... all blank. He admitted that you asked to be taken off the case. That he thought he could get something more out of your 'relationship'."

  She did it. The thought hit me like a thunderbolt. Sam erased everything. All of it. Even the copies.

  "What about Sam... what about Marion?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

  "Being released this morning. No evidence, no charges. Hopefully, she doesn’t sue us.”

  “Sir?”

  “It appears as though she had a head injury and was not given proper medical care. Protocol was not followed in her interrogation and she has grounds for unlawful detainment.”

  “And the officer who died?”

  “Officer Reilly's death has been ruled a medical event... some kind of brain aneurysm. No one knew it was there. Probably for years. The whole thing is being written off as an investigation zebra."

  "A zebra, sir?"

  "You know what they teach in medical school? When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Occam's Razor... the simplest explanation is usually the best one." Holt's voice was dry, almost amused. "Dyer had a breakdown. He wanted this to be his big break. Catch an impossible cyber criminal. Looks like he fabricated evidence, put you in a bad position and the nail in the coffin was a big blank journal that he claimed was proof of super powers. And to top it all off he was trying to spin officer Reilly's unfortunate medical tragedy into it too. Horses, Mitchell. Not zebras."

  "And if the simplest explanation isn't the right one?"

  "Then that's above both our pay grades." His tone made it clear he wasn't interested in exploring that possibility.

  "And me?"

  "That depends." A long pause. "Are you ready to come back to work? Put this behind you?"

  I thought about Sam. About the journal I'd read. About the things I'd seen and the things I'd felt and the woman who'd trusted me with her impossible secrets.

  I thought about the nightmare. The thing at the bottom of the code. The way Sam's face had looked, with something else looking through her eyes.

  "I need some time," I heard myself say. "Personal leave. To figure things out."

  "That's not what I wanted to hear, Mitchell."

  "I know, sir."

  Another pause, longer this time. "Your leave is approved. Thirty days. After that, we'll revisit." His voice softened slightly. "Whatever's going on with you... whatever happened with this case... I hope that you won't hold the actions of one man against all of the good you've done and will continue to do."

  "Thank you, sir," I said, not at all feeling it considering he had literally done that to me yesterday.

  "And Mitchell? Be careful. Some doors, once you close them, you can't open them again."

  He hung up before I could ask what he meant.

  * * *

  I was parked outside the police station by 8:30 AM.

  The morning was gray and cold, frost still clinging to the windshield despite the heater running full blast. I'd gotten there early, not wanting to miss her, not sure what I'd say when I saw her.

  If she'd even talk to me.

  She had every reason to hate me. I'd been investigating her. I'd taken her journal. And even though I hadn't given it to Christopher... even though it had been stolen... the result was the same. She'd been arrested. A man was dead. Her best friend was in the hospital.

  All because of me.

  9:15 AM. Officers coming and going, but no sign of Sam. I checked my phone compulsively, scrolling through the seventeen missed calls and the texts I'd sent. Please answer. Something's wrong. I'm coming to you. Evidence that I'd tried to warn her. Evidence that I'd chosen her.

  Would it be enough?

  9:47 AM. The front door opened.