A couple weeks flew by as I focused on trying to help my clients in every “normal” way possible.
Kate had come in for a couple more sessions, and she seemed to be doing a lot better. During the last session, I was able to get her to say five whole sentences. I took the little victories whenever I could. She didn’t seem shaken up at all when she had gotten news of Tyler’s death. In fact, the best word I could think of to describe her reaction was relieved. She told me herself that she had been feeling a lot less paranoid since his passing, like a massive boulder had been lifted off of her shoulders.
Still, I would be lying if said that the whole experience didn’t have a toll on me. Even though it wasn’t her fault, being around Kate still made me a little uneasy, but I would get over it. It was all in the past—I never wanted to put myself in any danger like that again. For what it's worth, I was happy I could bring her some peace of mind, even if it was just a little bit.
At my desk I flipped open my notebook and stared at the passage which I had written down. It was the words that were said to me when I was in the Dreamscape.
“He, whose name is the west… The power of gathering…?”
I had scoured every corner of the internet to figure out what this meant. I found nothing except old unrelated references to ancient texts.
I couldn’t help but feel somewhat intrigued by the words. I remembered the way the whispers echoed in my head.
“Thou who desires the power of gathering… I shall heed thy declaration… I shall give thou strength…”
Power? Power for what? What is it for, and how could I use it?
I shut my notebook and shook my head, not allowing any more of those thoughts to form in my mind. Whether the words were just me hallucinating, or something else, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to go back. I had more important things to worry about. I had just finished my last appointment for the day, and I needed to head home and make dinner.
I filed my notes away into their designated folders, and started packing up all my belongings to head out for the night.
Then, the telephone on my desk rang.
I grunted, “Right at the end of the day too.”
I picked it up and held the speaker to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Miller, your presence is requested down at the main desk.”
“I’m off right now. Could you ask them to come back tomorrow?”
I heard unintelligible mumbling coming from the other end. After a minute passed, the woman picked up the phone again.
“They say it's urgent. They’re from the San Luna Police Department, they want to speak with you about an ongoing case.”
…
Heading down to the first floor, I was greeted by a couple of police officers standing behind a man with light brown hair. The man wore a peach button up shirt and dark aviator glasses. He had on tan slacks and dark brown loafers. His shirt was unbuttoned a couple buttons too short, showing off a puff of his brown and silver chest hair.
“Daymond Miller, it’s nice to finally meetcha. I’m Detective Garza.” He extended his hand towards me, a half-grin sprawled across his lips.
I quickly eyed him up and down and greeted him with a handshake, “Well you seem to know my full name, Mr. Garza. So why don’t you tell me yours?”
“Sure thing, my name’s James, James Garza.”
“Are you the one whose calls I’ve been ignoring for the past week and a half?” I asked flatly.
The man cocked his eyebrow and chuckled, “That would be me.”
I glared at the two officers standing docile behind him, and let out a fresh huff of air through my nose.
The detective adjusted his sunglasses, “You aren’t in any sort of trouble, we’re only here to ask you a few questions. We’d like to speak with you back at the station if that’s alright, Mr. Miller.”
I turned my back and began walking over to the staircase. “Come to my office.”
The detective did a double take, “I’m sorry?”
“You came to my job and made a scene in front of everyone. If you want to show up at my workplace unannounced and have a conversation with me, then we will have it in my office.”
The detective grumbled, “That isn’t how this works, Mr. Miller.”
“Then since I’m not being detained I’ll be on my way…”
The officers stepped in front of the front door, blocking the exit. The detective slid his aviators down his nose and peeked over his sunglasses “Unfortunately, you’re not free to leave.”
“I want to see you stop me.”
Me and Detective Garza exchanged stares as the room was swallowed in silence. For a few moments, he searched my face, studying my features, before cutting the tension with a warm smile.
“Alright! Your office it is then!”
…
Once in my counsel room, Detective Garza sat in the chair opposite me—the one which I usually reserve for my clients. The two officers followed close behind him, and shut the door once we entered.
“Tell them to leave,” I said, gesturing to the two officers.
“It’s for my own safety—”
“And what about my safety?”
The detective slapped his hands against the armrest, “You really like to make things difficult, don’t you?”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He motioned for the men to leave, and the door clicked shut behind them as they exited.
“Never come to my work like this again,” I demanded.
Detective Garza huffed in a deep breath, “Well, maybe if you returned any of my calls, we could have arranged something different—”
“Well, maybe you shouldn't put me on blast in front of all my coworkers like that, James.”
I slumped back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, “Can you go ahead and tell me what this is about?”
“Of course,” Detective Garza unfolded a picture which he had stashed away in his shirt pocket, and placed it on the table before me. It was a picture of Tyler Baskins. “I was assigned to investigate the sudden death of this man. Do you recognize this man at all?”
I leaned forward and studied the picture, “Yes,” I said, “I believe his name is Tyler, correct?”
He raised his eyebrows, “Exactly. He was found dead in his room two weeks ago.”
“Yeah, I heard about that… How tragic.”
“And how did you hear about this information?”
“One of his former girlfriends is a client of mine, she had told me the news herself a few days after he had passed.”
The detective rubbed his chin tenderly. “I see… Did you happen to come in contact with Mr. Baskins at all anytime within the last month or so?”
“Yes, I visited him during his shift at Axion Insurance.”
He scrunched his eyebrows as I opened my notebook and began flipping through the pages.
I continued, “You said you are investigating his death? I heard he had died of natural causes.”
“So it seems,” he whispered reflexively. “The reason I’m here is because key witnesses have stated that you paid Mr. Baskins a bizarre visit right before his death. We have security footage of you bringing in chocolates to Axion Insurance and requesting to speak to Mr. Baskins about an insurance claim that doesn’t exist.” He pushed up his sunglasses and leaned in towards me. “You have no association with Axion Insurance. What business did you have there?”
I carefully tilted my head to look down the hallway and shifted in my chair to scan the rest of the office floor, ensuring that nobody else could listen in.
In a low voice, I muttered, “Truthfully, I admit, I overstepped my boundaries and did something inappropriate in my line of work. As I’m sure you are aware, on that same day I had a counseling session with his former girlfriend, Miss Kate. Kate had informed me of ongoing troubles she was having with Tyler, troubles which I could relate to on a personal level. I took it upon myself to try and remedy the situation with kindness, and ask him to please stop harassing my client. But he denied my request—”
“And then coincidentally ended up dead just hours later, right?” he interrupted. “Do you know the cause of death, Mr. Miller?”
“No.”
“He went to sleep, and his brain ceased all electrical activity,” he rose from his chair and perched himself up on the table with his hands. “He had no prior history of seizures, stroke, TBI… nothing. So, how does a 23-year-old man like that randomly go brain dead overnight?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. Are you trying to accuse me of something as horrible as murder?”
“I’m just exploring my options. Maybe you laced the chocolates with something.”
“You mean the chocolates he didn’t take?”
“Maybe you laced the box.”
“You mean the box I gave to my sister?”
“You can’t prove that…”
“What do you mean? The burden of proof lies on you. You couldn’t disprove that because it's true AND I have a witness.”
“What witness?”
“My sister, dumbass!”
Detective Garza pounded his fist on the table and grunted as he straightened to stretch his back.
Any prior encounter I ever had with my targets was only circumstantial, and I knew that well. In a court of law, there would never be any way for them to convict somebody who met with the victim for a few minutes and left right after without incident. Garza knew this, and I knew this. Subtlety was great when needed, but in this case, it really didn’t matter much. There was no trace of any external cause of death in the man’s body. As I said before, completely unprovable. As far as I and any other doctor was concerned, Tyler conclusively died of natural causes—an act of god. Apart from that, Garza could think whatever the hell he wanted. In the eyes of the law I was innocent, and would always remain so. I got up from my chair and calmly walked to the door, twisting the doorknob.
“Please, kindly leave me alone, Detective Garza. I have no part in this case you are working on.”
I took his silence as confirmation that he had nothing left to throw at me. I brushed past the police men surrounding the room and went to my desk to gather my things. Once my satchel was sealed, I nodded to the man in uniform standing at the door as a courtesy before finally leaving the building.
—break—
“You’re home!” Kiana greeted me at the front door with a big, warm hug.
I glanced down at my watch. 5:30 PM. I was a bit late thanks to that visit back at the office.
Kiana looked up at me, a vague look of concern flickered across her face, “Is everything alright?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”
“A police guy came by earlier looking for you. He asked me where you were, and I told him at work.”
I forced my expression to remain calm, but my brain flooded with annoyance. I couldn’t believe that douche would pry my nine-year-old little sister for information.
“Yeah, everything is fine,” I smiled. “You know you’re not supposed to open the door for strangers.”
“He said he was from the police, so I thought it was okay. He was a very nice man, he said he liked my shirt!” She held out her shirt pridefully, it had a picture from her favorite TV show, Princess Daisy. “He asked why I was alone and I told him that Clayton ran to the store for a few minutes.”
I looked around the apartment, “Is Clayton not here?”
“Nope. He hasn’t been home all day.”
I shook my head and gently rubbed my hand down my face, “That boy…”
Clayton knew perfectly well that Kiana wasn’t supposed to be home alone for long periods of time. After school, Clayton was supposed to stay with her until I got back, but recently he hasn’t even been coming home until late at night.
“You have any idea where he is?”
“No. I tried calling him but he won’t pick up the phone.”
“Alright, when he gets back I’m gonna have to have another talk with him…”
First he left his little sister all alone and now he wouldn’t even pick up the phone. A faint whisper of fear began to creep its way into my stomach. I didn’t know why that boy would want to leave me worried like that. But I corrected myself and started to think logically, it was only five o’clock, so I still had hope that he would turn up once it started to get dark. When he came back, I planned to give him a piece of my mind.
…
Hours went by. The sun had fallen and the moon stood high in the sky. Clayton still hadn’t returned home.
Kiana was becoming anxious, she had tried calling his cell phone at least a dozen more times, only to be met with the same lifeless phrase from the voicemail machine.
Whatever he was out there doing, it was seriously not okay. It was 10 PM and we still had not heard a single word from him. Needless to say this was very unusual, even for Clayton. A full state of panic had set in on me by this point.
I picked up my cell phone and dialed Clayton’s number. The voicemail played in my ear and beeped for me to leave a message.
“Clayton, I am not playing around. You better pick up this phone right now. You have me and Kiana freaking out. Call back as soon as you get this.”
Kiana came into my room, visibly shaking as she pulled and twisted the ends of her hair.
“Sh–Should we call the police?”
“Don’t worry, Kiana. I bet he went goofing off with his friends and got drunk or something stupid like that. If he isn’t back by tomorrow, I’ll call them. You’ve got school in the morning, you should try to get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” she said flatly.
I already knew she wasn’t gonna be able to—I was no different. I had work early in the morning and I knew I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep until Clayton was home safe.
“Come lay beside me and try. Worrying yourself to death isn’t gonna be any better.”
She gazed back down the hallway at the phone sitting on the kitchen counter, “But… what if Clayton calls?”
“I’ll answer it and tell you first thing in the morning.”
Kiana let out a deep sigh and nodded. She climbed in the bed beside me and I tenderly rubbed her head.
It took a couple more hours for Kiana to finally lose all of her energy and drift off to sleep. Into the late hours of the night, I listened attentively, begging for the phone in the living room to ring…
It never did.