

The Yellowjacket

Book 3 of The Next Series

Mike Miracle

Copyright ©2019 by Mike Miracle All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1

Jenny Thompkins didn't know why everything looked sideways. She could feel herself running out of oxygen, she kept telling herself to take a breath. Come on, open your damn mouth and take a breath. Her mouth didn't obey. She tried to breathe through her nose, but that didn't work either.

Something was preventing her from taking a breath. Her face hurt like it was on fire, but she could feel something wet pouring down her face. Like someone was standing over top of her dumping a bucket of... blood? She recognized the metallic sticky substance as blood. With last week's bloody root canal still fresh in her memory, it was definitely blood.

As she laid on the ground in the parking lot of the grocery store, she watched her cart full of groceries slowly roll away. She tried to get a glimpse of the rest of her surroundings, but she was limited to the things directly in front of her. Was that the backside of a tire? A muffler? Why was she under the car? Then she heard voices. Someone shouting, couldn't tell what. Everything was muffled, she heard voices but not what they were saying. They sounded panicked.

"Call 911," yelled Sandra Lopez at her husband. Jerry Lopez was already on his phone and connected to an emergency services operator. "Yes, send an ambulance." Jerry listened to the operator then spoke in a louder voice "I don't know what happened. I saw a car speed through the parking lot, then when my wife and I got around the corner this lady was lying on the ground under her car." He paused again. "My wife is looking at her, she's a nurse. I mean my wife is a nurse, I don't know what the other lady does for a living."

"Jerry, tell them to hurry up. I don't think she's breathing," yelled Sandra Lopez.

She had gotten down on her knees, then on her stomach and got as close to the fallen form of Jenny Thompkins as she could. Sandra had been an emergency room nurse for five years and had seen her fair share of car accidents. They were usually after the paramedics had done some basic triage. The bleeding was somewhat controlled, the wounds were cleaned up. But this, this was something brand new for the emergency room nurse. She had never been a first responder to the scene of an accident.

She couldn't tell for sure, but it didn't look like the woman was breathing. She didn't know what kinds of injuries she may have sustained, it might be dangerous to move her. The way the woman was positioned, Sandra could only get so close to her. Two and a half to three feet was a long distance for an evaluation. Made even more difficult considering that they were in the darkened space underneath a parked car.

Sandra knew that she needed to make sure the woman could breath, but to do that she'd have to move her and risk creating new injuries or making some of the current ones worse. Screw it, she thought to herself. If she's not breathing those other injuries won't matter too much in a minute or so. She needs oxygen.

Sandra used her elbows and knees to push herself backward and out from under the car. Once she was clear of the back bumper, she rolled over and found her husband among the growing crowd of spectators. "Jerry, I need your help." Jerry jumped and took two steps closer to the car, angst and apprehension was written on his face in anticipation as to what kind of help he would be called upon to deliver in this situation.

"We need to get her out from under this car," said Sandra in a panicked tone. Jerry looked at her quizzically and said, "How bad is she hurt? Are you sure we should move her?" Sandra responded, "Yes, we have to get her out from under the car. She's not breathing. I can't get close enough to her under the car to check her airway. We have to move her."

Jerry appraised the situation, she was nearly all the way under the car. Only from the top of her knees down was visible from his vantage point while still standing at the back of the car. This would be possible if the woman weren't injured, thought Jerry to himself. If they grabbed her by the legs and pulled her out, that could cause even further complications. And what if they couldn't pull her out? He hadn't got down on his hands and knees to see if they could pull her out from under this newer model BMW. She could get stuck. He looked around the parking lot and got another idea.

"Sandra, let's not try to get her out from under the car. Find out who's car it is and move it."

"Hey, look over there on the ground!" came an excited voice from one of the onlookers. "There's a set of keys over by the curb." An onlooker made her way through the crowd to snatch the keys from the ground.

She picked up the keys and quickly inspected what she had. She wasn't sure what kind of car the lady was lying underneath, it was a dark SUV like so many others. The key fob had a little blue and white BMW logo on it. Scanning the buttons, she recognized the half open padlock symbol as the unlock button. She turned toward the vehicle and pushed the button. Chirp. That was the sound coming from the now unlocked luxury SUV.

Shortly after the echo of the chirps had faded, she felt the keys being taken from her lose grip by the man of this husband and wife team that had stepped up to help out the fallen woman.

Jerry Lopez opened the door and yelled to his wife, "Sandra, hold onto her. Don't let her roll. She's pretty close to the back tire, I just need to pull it up a couple of feet but you have to keep her still while I move the car."

Sandra was at the left rear bumper with her right hand trying to hold the fallen woman's feet while she labored to stretch her left hand to the small of the woman's back. She was putting herself in a dangerous position, she was partially under the car and her left arm was up against the inside of the left rear tire.

An older gentleman stepped forward out of the growing crowd. He knelt down to Sandra's left, to be between her and the open driver's door. Sandra saw him out of the corner of her eye and was surprised at first, but then relieved as she realized the man was offering to help. "What can I do?" asked the man kneeling by her side.

"I'll hold her lower legs steady, you try to put just enough pressure on what you can reach to keep her from moving," said Sandra, as she moved out from under the car to and into a better position to hold her feet and legs. The older gentleman nodded his head and quickly decided to sit on the ground and hold the fallen woman's frame away from the car with his feet.

Sandra was preparing to tell him to hold her with his hands instead, but then realized that his idea made more sense. He could reach further back under the car with his legs, and also keep his own head away from the back tire.

Jerry sat in the driver's seat trying to figure out how to start this beast. There wasn't an actual key or a place in the steering column to insert one. He started to panic, he needed to move this freaking car. He scanned the dash from left to right and back again. "What the hell are all these buttons and how the hell do I start you?" Asking the car for advice, hoping to get some.

Just then the sound of a woman's voice yelling into his ear. "Push the button on the dash that says start." Jerry, startled, jerked his head to the left toward the voice. The instructions were from the woman that had found the keys. Jerry nodded his head and turned his attention back toward the dashboard. There it was, "Start."

He pushed the start button, and nothing happened. He turned toward the woman with a 'what now' expression on his face. She yelled, "Push in on the brake then push the start button." Jerry followed those instructions, and this time the beast came to life.

He stuck his head out of the open door and yelled over the noise of the engine, back where he hoped his wife was ready. "Sandra, are you ready for me to move the car?" Sandra and the older gentleman looked at each other, nodded their heads at each other in agreement that they were indeed ready. "Yes, we're ready. But move it slow." Sandra shouted back in response.

Fortune seemed to be on their side now. Fortunate they found the keys, fortunate someone stepped forward to help Sandra, and fortunate that the parking space across from the BMW was empty.

Jerry stepped on the brake, moved the strange looking shift lever to 'D,' and let off the brake to let the car roll forward by its idle throttle. He let it roll what he thought was three feet when he heard a voice from the back of the car yell "That's far enough Jerry." Yelled his wife as she moved around to the front of the now accessible Jenny Thompkins.

Sandra knew that the first priority was to make sure that she was breathing. It didn't look like she was breathing. Her face was a bloody mess. She must have faceplanted hard to the asphalt thought Sandra.

As she worked on getting the woman to breathe, sirens could be heard in the distance. Thank god, thought Sandra. She was a nurse, but she wasn't a first responder. This situation was overwhelming her. She kept looking at the woman, trying to figure out what to do other than will her to breathe. She hoped that ambulance would get here soon, for her sake and the fallen woman.
Chapter 2

She watched the short dumpy man move the BMW forward, revealing the bloody crumpled form of Jenny Thompkins. It was hard to tell if she was still breathing or alive at all. She knew that her opportunity to directly be a part of her contract fulfillment had passed.

She shouldn't have let him take the keys. She shouldn't have picked them up in the first place. Kicking them into the storm drain in the curb should have been her first decision. But she had already been seen going after the keys. Some putz in the crowd spotted the keys right before she did. If they hadn't yelled out the location this would have already been over with.

That was just one in a series of unfortunate happenings. After she had retrieved the keys, she hatched a quick plan that would have her sitting in the driver's seat. She could have accidentally run over Jenny Thompkins and have fled the scene before anyone knew what had happened.

But her grip on the key fob was lose after she had unlocked the doors, and that pudgy man's fat little fingers were surprisingly fast and strong. What she couldn't figure out was why she told him how to start the luxury automobile. He surely wasn't going to figure it out on his own. He probably owned a pickup truck with a novelty bottle opener on the key chain. That dashboard probably looked like a spaceship to him. He would have never put it together.

Maybe she thought the odds were good that he'd run her over before emergency services arrived. Some subconscious decision to yell out the instructions of how to start the car would increase the odds of Jenny Thompkins demise? Unfortunately, he hadn't run her over. And his wife that had taken charge of the situation was now kneeling over the fallen Jenny Thompkins.

There was nothing else she could do. She took a few steps backward, turned toward the crowd and blended back into the group of onlookers. While everyone was distracted by the attempts to save the injured woman, she took the opportunity to change her looks.

Everyone at the scene would remember the soccer mom of average height and weight of a soccer mom that found the keys. They may remember the red cap and the long blonde ponytail. The pink reading glasses, they may not have been necessary. But it was always important for something to stand out in your disguise. If there was a crowd, it was always better to give them more than one distinctive thing to remember. The glasses, the cap, the oversized watch with lime green band—those would be the things the crowd at the scene would tell the police about.

While everyone was distracted, she removed the red cap with blonde ponytail extension. She slid that into the oversized purse that was slung over her left shoulder. Now she had a short cropped black pixie cut. The glasses and watch were the next things to be placed into the purse. She pulled out an oversized pair of dark sunglasses before anyone noticed. She pulled the drawstring to close the purse, then grabbed the loose strap and pulled it over her right shoulder turning it into a backpack.

From middle aged helpful soccer mom to average looking twenty something college student in under ten seconds. To the best of her knowledge, nobody saw a thing. She shouldn't linger too long though, just long enough not to look suspicious. She'd wait until the ambulance came in and everybody had to disperse.

She heard the sirens getting closer. Hard to tell if it was police, emergency services, or both. She watched as the short dumpy man and his wife hovered over the fallen woman. It appeared at first as if she knew exactly what to do in this situation. That first impression of her was deceiving. She was able to manage the situation up until the point of actually helping the woman.

This was good news. Another minute or so of not breathing while blood poured out onto the asphalt should finish the job.

As the sirens grew closer, she kept her busy mind occupied by running through the incident again. Forever the perfectionist, she wondered if there was anything she could have done differently to have insured her contract was fulfilled. She ran through a mental checklist. Three cars, one to do the hit-and-run, two others positioned as getaway vehicles. All three provided by the client. She had specific instructions as to what make, model and color. She even specified how much gas there should be in the tank. Where to park them, which direction they should be going in and when to park them.

She had watched Jenny Thompkins for nearly two weeks. She knew the exact time she'd be at the store and a good idea when she'd be leaving. Following her around in the store was risky, but nobody gave a second glance to another soccer mom walking around the store.

It was worth the risk to get the timing down. She had to leave the store exactly two minutes ahead of Jenny Thompkins so she could be in position to run her over with the borrowed car.

She had gone over the specs and history of the three cars before deciding what to do with each. The BMW and Chevy would be better suited as getaway cars. Two dark colored sedans that nobody would look twice at. That left the off-white Mercedes SUV. A big vehicle with adequate enough acceleration to suit her needs.

It too would blend into most suburbia settings. That was before the dent and cracked windshield from the impact of hitting Jenny Thompkins. By looking at the flat front of the vehicle, she thought that Jenny would just fall backward after the initial collision, giving her a chance to not only hit her, but run her over after the initial impact. It was quite a surprise when the SUV hit Jenny just to the right of the iconic Mercedes emblem, to see her defy gravity and end up smashing into the windshield.

It appeared that Jenny broke the windshield with her head. Then when she flew off the Mercedes, she fell face-first into the back of her own BMW sedan. Not sure how she ended up underneath it. It was fortunate because it hid the body for a minute or so, and it kept anyone from getting to the injured woman to administer any first aid.

During her recap, the emergency vehicles had made their way into the parking lot. They were at the end of the isle with maybe twenty parking slots between them and the fallen woman. The ambulance was first, lights flashing and siren chirping to clear a path through the small crowd that had gathered. The two police cruisers were next. They'd make sure emergency services could do their job, then they'd lock down the parking lot so they could interview witnesses.

She looked around for a chance to nonchalantly make her way out of the parking lot and to one of her escape vehicles. She looked to the south toward the store, didn't really expect any opportunity there with law enforcement getting organized. She looked toward the north at the sidewalk. Bingo, a small group of college age girls approaching. She had maybe a minute to find a way to make it 30 feet to the sidewalk to blend in with them.

The crowd of onlookers was either fixated on the fallen form of Jenny Thompkins or at the bright lights and noise of the approaching ambulance. Neither police car trailing the ambulance could see her yet. She ducked down a bit so she was the shortest of the onlookers, therefore even less visible to the approaching vehicles.

She carefully watched those near to her as she slowly took two steps backward. No reaction to her movement. She took a cautious look around her to make sure there was no one between her and the approaching students on the sidewalk. She took two more cautious steps backward, still no reaction. One more look around, the coast was clear so she turned and quickly walked toward the sidewalk.
Chapter 3

Timing was everything. She didn't move so quickly that she got to the sidewalk too soon. She let the group of what she presumed to be college aged girls pass before she stepped onto the sidewalk behind them a pace or two. She quickly caught up and positioned herself in the middle of the pack nearest to the road side of the sidewalk.

The girls paid her no attention as they continued to walk out of sight of the grocery store and chaotic scene she'd caused. She stayed with the pack for another two blocks, never saying a word, just listening to the constant chatter about boys and failing this or that subject. They kept on their straight path as she took a sharp right at a corner and crossed the street. They never noticed her join the group, and they never noticed that she had left them.

Taking off on her own across the street was a risk. She was safer and less noticeable while walking in the group of college girls, but one of her getaway vehicles was two blocks to the west of where they were going. The streets were quiet with traffic; most of the cars were held up at the grocery store. Rubberneckers were holding up traffic in both directions. Everybody seemed to love a good accident, she thought to herself.

The early afternoon was still cool, and the sun was giving way to dark cloud cover. As she was halfway down the first block she thought to herself that rain would be good for her. Not that she had left anything behind, but water always made crime scene investigation tougher.

Fire was the best for removing evidence, but that wasn't really an option if you wanted to make it look like an accident. She imagined by now they had the scene taped off, maybe they had loaded Jenny Thompkins into the ambulance. If she were lucky, they would just pronounce her dead on the scene and the ambulance could go on its way. Jenny would catch a ride in the morgue van. She couldn't help but chuckle.

She got to the corner, it was a nearly vacant residential area but she still looked both ways before crossing. She imagined the police would have seen the clouds too, and setup a tent or two around the scene to protect any evidence from the impending shower. She saw a few big rain drops hit the road as she crossed the street.

The sidewalk on the opposite side of the road would provide her no shelter from the rain. But as she looked ahead she saw something that would. Halfway down the block was one of her getaway cars. The dark Chevy sedan. Then she heard it behind her, by the sound she knew that it was coming fast. She knew that she might not be able to reach the car before it got to her.

She reached into her right pants pocket and grabbed the key fob for the Chevy. The BMW was in the left. Everything was planned this way; situations came up where fumbling for the correct key fob could spell disaster.

With the correct key fob in hand, a quick walk became a jog then a sprint to make it to the car. The sound behind her got louder, the smell of the rain led the sheet of water behind it. Ten feet away she pushed the unlock button twice to unlock all the doors. The car was on the same side of the street that she was on, but it was pointing away from her. There was no time to run into the street and open the driver's side front door.

She reached the passenger side front door and yanked the door open, pulled the handle and door with the same hurried motion. She heard the rain begin to pelt the back of the car and knew that she would get soaked soon. With no time to make a graceful entry, she dove head first into the car, landing head in the driver's side seat. She sat up with her butt in the passenger seat and reached out to her right to quickly close the door. Just in time, as the deluge engulfed the car. She didn't realize that she had been holding her breath since she started her sprint for the car.

She let out the breath that she had been holding and took in a deep breath of that recently cleaned rental car smell. Looking out the front windshield from the passenger side at the sheets of water she was relieved, and said to the rain outside, "The Yellowjacket stayed dry."

She was now on a tight schedule and didn't want to risk missing a flight because she had to stop and dry off. New clothes and a shower would have been necessary too. Staying invisible doesn't just mean keeping a low visual profile. People remember how something smelled more often that how something looked. She could—and did—change her appearance regularly when on a job. It would be impossible to remove that wet dog smell of getting caught out in the rain. Then the soccer mom, the college student, and the business woman would all have that distinctive odor of having been caught out in the rain.

Smelling like that would stand out even more in her next destination of San Antonio. It hadn't rained in weeks. She was planning on blending in like one of the locals. That meant looking and smelling like the area, not someone that had just gotten off a plane from the rainy northwest town where the police were on the lookout for a woman in a hit-and-run accident.

She pulled a pair of leather driving gloves out of her backpack and climbed across the center console into the driver's seat. She reached over and wiped down the shiny chrome surface of the door release latch with her gloved hand. She made a mental note to wipe down the outside of the passenger door handle too. Those pesky fingerprint forensic technicians. She inserted the key and fired up the rental. The heavy downpour had come and gone, making it safe for her to start her twenty-minute drive to the airport.

Now was a dangerous time for her. Law enforcement wouldn't be well organized yet and would be still looking for the driver of the Mercedes SUV that had been abandoned a block away from the scene. Right now, it looked like the driver may have lost control and had another accident. They would approach it as if the driver were injured and needed medical attention. They wouldn't be aware that a crime had been committed. But once they'd exhausted the search for the driver wandering around the neighborhood with a head injury, the next logical conclusion would be that a crime had occurred.

She estimated that she had two hours before they gave up on a sweep of the neighborhood where the SUV had been abandoned after it had struck a tree. She would be on a plane in an hour and a half on her way to San Antonio.
Chapter 4

The Yellowjacket had made it to the airport in under the estimated twenty-five minutes. She located the correct rental car lot and pulled into an empty spot. She grabbed her backpack, opened the door, and stepped out into the rain-soaked parking lot. She left the keys in the car per the rental car companies' instructions. She hoped the rain would stay away at least until she made it off the rental car bus and into the airport's main terminal.

Before that though, she walked around to the passenger side of the Chevy and wiped off the passenger side door handle with a tissue. She put that tissue in her pocket and made her way toward the shuttle bus pickup spot.

After the short bumpy ride was over, she exited the shuttle bus, but instead of going to the ticket counter, she headed for the baggage claim area. She walked toward the end of the row of baggage turnstiles, ten of them in all. The bags are ejected from the middle, then they slide down a ramp and spin around until someone on an arriving flight claims it.

All the bags from all the flights don't always get claimed. Sometimes the wrong bag gets put on the wrong plane. Sometimes people walk out of the airport and forget that they even brought luggage with them.

The reason they got abandoned didn't really matter to her. She knew that it was less suspicious for someone to be traveling with luggage than without. At the end of the turnstiles sat an assortment of large to small pieces of luggage. All shapes and sizes, all different colors. She knew the size she'd pick, a small rolling bag. And she knew what colors to look for.

Men almost always had blue or black luggage. Sometimes they chose red. But what they never chose was something that remotely resembled pink or if it had any animal print to it. Fake leopard spots were the most common, followed by zebra. Zebra tended to be little kids or adolescents that needed to grow up.

From ten feet away, she had narrowed her choice from fifty bags down to three. All three had dark leopard spots and the bags were made with different colored material. Dark tan, teal green, and a dark brown. Her objective was to blend in, so the teal green was out. She gravitated toward the middle of the pile where the tan and brown bags were. Since either color would work, it came down to which was easier to get. The light tan bag was three bags back and, upon a quick inspection, had a backpack strap woven into its handle. "No need for that," she said to the audience of stranger's luggage. The dark brown bag was the winner. It was easier to get to anyway. It wasn't buried by any other suitcases and didn't have anything else tied to it.

It was out close enough to where she grabbed the retractable handle in stride Pushed the button common on all bags of this style to extend the handle, she was off and rolling with a new bag. She turned and walked to the nearest restroom. Upon entering she was relieved to find the handicap stall vacant. She knew that they often contained a baby changing station, perfect location to inspect her new luggage.

The clothes inside the bag were a bit big, and the style of an older woman. She was more concerned with anything that would set off any alarm bells with the TSA, and that there was no identification for the bag's previous owner. The only thing that identified this bag as someone else's was the strip of tape the airline used to scan a printed barcode. She removed the tape, folded it in half, and flushed it down the toilet.

She took three of the bags meant for dirty diaper disposal, placed the blonde wig in one, the oversized sunglasses in one, and the hat she'd worn at the accident scene in the last bag.

She didn't want to throw all three items away in the same restroom. The hat was the bulkiest of the items and the most difficult to conceal, so it was thrown away in the current restroom. She could carry the other two items around until she found suitable refuse containers.

She exited the restroom with her new rolling suitcase and wore the backpack as a purse again. She found another suitable refuse container in the ticketing area for another airline—the diaper bag containing the wig was disposed of there. The other was in the restroom of a fast food restaurant. Her timing was perfect as they were just about to empty all the containers.

The Yellowjacket had two tickets and two ID's to choose from. She looked at the flight departures, and then at the current time. If she took the earlier flight, she might not have enough time to check her new bag at the ticket counter and make it to the gate on time. If she decided not to check the bag, it would be a risk to take this unknown bag through the boarding line. She might be unlucky and get pulled aside by the TSA during one of their random searches.

That was too big of a risk. The next flight to San Antonio left thirty minutes, plenty of time to check the bag and make it to the departure gate.

She checked the later ticket, then made her way to the airline counter. There were only three people in front of her. A quick scan of the surrounding area revealed no police presence. It was good to be a little paranoid in her line of work. The key was to not look suspicious while you were secretly scanning the surroundings and evaluating the people in the general vicinity.

The line was moving fast, she was next. Her turn led her to a middle aged, bored, pissed-off looking woman that leaned against the ticket counter as if she was preparing to take a nap. That didn't stop the airline employee from checking her identification, and there were also the standard small talk questions that were really meant to catch terrorist and other shady criminals.

"I need to see your ticket and a photo ID," said the uninterested ticket agent.

She slid her ticket with a driver's license across the narrow ledge separating them. The agent looked at the ticket, typed in a few things on her keyboard. She rattled off the flight number and when it departed. Now onto the ID. She looked at it, then at the Yellowjacket.

"So, Ms. Cross, you are going to Texas today?"

"Yes ma'am, going back home," she answered in her best southern Texas voice. The address on her ID was San Marcos, TX, a town in between Austin and San Antonio. She knew where it was, had probably flown over it a few times. San Marcos was one of ten other locations close to San Antonio she could have chosen. It seemed obscure enough, and not very memorable.

"Are you from Texas?"

"Yes ma'am."

The agent looked at her ID one last time and slid it back across the ledge. She was then directed to place her bag on the scale, that prompted another round of routine questions.

"Did you pack this bag?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Has it been in your possession the whole time while at the airport?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Has anyone approached you to carry anything onboard the flight today?"

"No ma'am."

The agent seemed to be satisfied. She printed out a long label, looped it through the handle of the bag, and secured the two-exposed tape ends together. She picked up the bag and turned to place it on the belt that would get it on the same flight that she was on. But if it didn't make it, there was no great loss. She told Ms. Cross to have a wonderful flight as she looked around her to wave in the next passenger.

The Yellowjacket stepped aside and took the hint that the ticket agent was ready for her to move on.

There were no problems making it through the TSA checkpoint. Show an ID with the plane ticket, step through the metal detector, and off to the departure gate. These checkpoints had gotten more difficult in recent years. They paid closer attention to the identification, that just meant that she had to spend more money for better phony documents.

The flight was on time and she was in the air on her way to San Antonio less than two hours after the "accident" involving Jenny Thompkins had occurred. She had spent the first hour going over what she needed to do once the plane touched down in San Antonio. She couldn't write anything down. "A paper trail will put you in jail," Was one of the lessons her mentor had taught her. So, she used a mental checklist instead. Two car rentals had been arranged, she had to obtain a weapon. Preferably a knife or a short staff. Then she went through her mental database about the intended target, when they frequented the kill zone, and how long they were usually there.

To the point of obsessiveness, she continued to go over the details of the job.
Chapter 5

Jenny Thompkins was lying on her back, caught in a vortex of sound and color. The deep, low humming sounds were like a car speeding down the highway. The colors all faded, then swirled back into view, only to disappear again, like a colorful school of fish. She thought that the colors were moving so fast that they may be generating the humming sounds.

She tried to concentrate on the colors and their movements. At first, she thought that she was moving through this tunnel of sound and color. When she tried to focus on the vortex walls and not the colors darting in and out, it looked like she was staying put and the vortex was moving over her. "Is this an illusion?" she asked vortex.

Her voice seemed to speed up the tunnel. The colors were no longer distinguishable, it was only a blur of movement within the cylinder. The noise grew from a hum to a low constant rumble.

She wasn't scared of her current situation. She was quite calm. She closed her eyes and the noise of the vortex grew faint. The sense of something moving around her began to dissipate.

She awoke after the sound of her name "Thompkins, you're up," said a male voice that she didn't recognize. She was on the rifle range in Virginia, or was this the obstacle course? She felt herself lying on her stomach, head up in the air looking through a long-range scope. Rifle range it was then, that was a good thing.

Growing up, Jenny's father was a sniper in the Marine Corps. Before he showed Jenny how to shoot, he showed her how to take care of her weapon. "Treat it with respect. Always treat it like it's loaded. Always point it in a safe direction." Said her father. He always emphasized these three things. And sometimes added, "A safe direction for everything except your intended target."

Something was weird about this rifle, it was smaller than it should be. She raised herself up to a kneeling position and picked up the rifle with ease. Must be a prop gun for one of the simulations or something? She thought to herself. Then she was jolted from her gun inspection by, "Thompkins, you're up." Said in the same authoritative voice.

This time she was standing, someone had just placed an object in her right hand. She was standing at the entrance of a small town as the sun had started to set. She could see down the street clearly but the edges were fuzzy and out of focus. There was a brick building on the corner. Down the street she saw more one-story buildings. She squinted her eyes to read the letters at the top of each in the dimming light: Allmed Drugs, Post Office, Bank of Hogan.

"Oh," she said to herself. "I'm at Hogan's Alley." She knew what was going to happen. She'd been through this training scenario before, twenty times from what she could recall. The first nineteen times were successful training simulations at the FBI's Hogan's Alley Training Center.

She remembered sessions with various partners. Sometimes another female trainee, but usually it was with a gung-ho twenty-something testosterone-junkie male trainee. They would go through buildings to clear them while searching for a suspect. They sometimes had actors or other agents playing the bad guy, informant, or bystanders. And sometimes they used the random pop up targets that scared the crap out of her.

The corny target with the bad guy in black stocking cap and giant revolver was always the intended target. There were some bad days when she shot the mom holding a grocery bag. She was never sure if it was accidental, of if she just thought the woman looked suspicious.

Nineteen times she had gone through successful training simulations. Hot summer days, cold winter nights. The simulations that started when they knew it was about to rain were always complex. Rain and fire washed away all evidence.

It had started to rain just as her twentieth training session had begun. Thunder storms were approaching, but that didn't matter. This wasn't baseball, the bank robbery didn't get called off because it was raining.

The scenario was that the robbery was in progress with an unknown number of perpetrators and bank patrons inside the building. A negotiator would be positioned at a vehicle in front of the bank, while Jenny and her partner took up positions on the sidewalk outside the bank.

The negotiator had less than five minutes to convince the perpetrators to give up. If that failed, then they would need to gain entry into the bank building to subdue the perpetrators. Jenny took up a position behind a lamp post at the drug store, while her male counterpart was standing in the doorway of the post office, which was closer to the bank.

As it started to sprinkle, the thunder claps grew louder and the interval between them grew shorter. A sure sign that the storm would soon be upon them. The lightning strikes became more frequent as well, the dazzling display of sound and lights made the trainees nervous. The male trainee by the post office said into his radio "Sir, this is Smith," followed by a short pause waiting for a response, but he didn't get one. The commander had given an order for radio silence while the negotiator was working on the perpetrators.

Trainee Smith tried again. "Sir, this storm looks like it's going to be a big one." Still no response. "Sir, can we take shelter in the buildings until it blows over?" The commander finally responded, "Smith, I ordered radio silence. Shut the hell up." Smith wouldn't let it go, "I know sir, but this is just a simulation. Nothing worth standing out in a thunderstorm."

The negotiator continued to communicate with the agent inside the bank that was posing as a bank robber. The commander had enough and decided to unload on Smith, "That's right Smith, this is a simulation. A simulation is supposed to be as real as we can get. Sometimes people rob banks in the rain, sleet, and snow. They don't check the weather forecast for fu..."

That last word was cut off by an earth-rattling thunder crack, that was followed by a bolt of lightning that filled Hogan's Alley with bright-white light. It killed the power, took out the radios, and it took out trainee Thompkins, who was leaning against the metal lamp post at the time of the strike. She was thrown nearly twelve feet away from the lamp post into the street.

The negotiator was the first to notice that trainee Thompkins was down. She first tried to yell into her radio, then, realizing that it was dead, she yelled at the direction of the commander who was watching from inside the drug store. "Agent down, agent down!"

Then rain had started to turn into a downpour. The commander ran out of the drug store and got to Thompkins the same time as the trainee negotiator. Weighing their options, knowing they could be risking further injuries, they decided to pick her up and move her into the drug store.

She was the first new agent trainee to die during a simulation at Hogan's Alley, until she wasn't.
Chapter 6

Jenny Thompkins was no stranger to having the dream about that fateful day at Hogan's Alley. She had relived it many times in the years since it happened. No matter how hard she concentrated, no matter how hard she tried to change the events of the dream while she was reliving it, it always ended the same way.

She couldn't even make herself get away from the lamp post. She screamed at herself to move. But she leaned against the lamp post in a thunderstorm like a twenty-five-year-old FBI trainee that thought she knew better than anyone else.

The bright-white light, the hot searing pain, then the impact as she hit the ground. She didn't really remember the ground part. She was no longer conscious. By then, she was no longer alive.

Something was different this time. The sky was darker, lower, more menacing. And then as quickly as she realized that she was on the street at Hogan's Alley, the landscape suddenly shifted. Things became blurry and out of focus. She no longer felt the weight of the weapon in her right hand.

Then she heard a familiar noise, the sound of an automobile engine. The darkness didn't go away, but things came back into focus. She was now sitting, driving a vehicle. Not just any vehicle, her BMW X3. It wasn't completely dark outside, but the headlights were on and lighting a path through some strange streets she had never seen before. She wasn't in control of the vehicle, she was in the driver's seat, but it was like she was watching someone else drive. She was driving these strange streets at full throttle, only slowing to take the sharpest curves. The softer curves she just power-slid through them. Did she learn to drive like this in Quantico? she asked herself as the vehicle slid sideways past a group of parked cars.

Her time in the X3 ended before she had a chance to figure out that part of the dream. As she slid past the parked cars, she was hit in the face with a blinding white light from the direction of the cars. She squinted her eyes to focus on the road, but that became impossible as the light only got brighter. It got so bright and it seemed to be erasing everything else. She put her head down into her arm to shield her eyes form the blinding light.

The X3 had stopped. After a moment, the intensity of the light had gone down. She chanced a look up to identify the source of the light. But now the light was everywhere. She shook her head and tried to blink her eyes into focus. There wasn't anything to focus on. She was now standing, which made it easier for her to turn and look at her surroundings. But there was nothing to look at.

She looked to her left, nothing but an endless bright-white expanse. She looked to her right, same endless bright-white expanse. She turned in a circle, tilted her head back to search the ceiling. But there wasn't one. More endless bright-white expanse. She looked down at the floor, it was also bright white. But it seemed to be a solid mass that shimmered in and out of focus. She felt dizzy and looked around for a place to sit. Then she heard a voice behind her. "Hello, my name is Nigel."

She was startled; she turned around to see a man in his late fifties with salt-and-pepper hair sitting behind a desk that shimmered in and out of focus. He wore what could only be described as an outfit from a '70s sci-fi movie—a bad white leisure suit bought off the rack when disco ruled the airwaves.

His fingers were interlocked in front of him, resting on the translucent desk. He raised his right hand and made a gesture toward a chair that she hadn't noticed until now. "Please, have a seat and we'll get started."

Normally new clients reacted in many different ways. They were scared, angry, or confused, and sometimes all three. Jenny wasn't alarmed by the sudden appearance of the man behind her, she also anticipated the appearance of the luminous chair thereafter. She calmly turned and sat down on the chair. Jenny Thompkins wasn't a new client. She had seen this great white expanse before. She had seen the translucent furniture and the man in the bad '70s leisure suit.

Nigel scrolled through some pages on a tablet that lay flat on the desk. He looked up in to the anticipating eyes of one of his former clients. In The Next, it was customary for returning clients to get the same representative. Data had shown that familiarity with the representative helped ease the client's transition between their prior life and their current situation.

Nigel spoke, "Jenny Thompkins, it is a pleasure to see you again." He said this with a pleasant smile and a slight bow of his head toward his client. Jenny didn't respond immediately, instead she took a moment to evaluate her physical status. She looked down to see she was wearing the same outfit that she had worn to the grocery store. Black stretchy pants, cross training athletic shoes, tee shirt, and a light windbreaking jacket.

She vaguely remembered leaving the grocery store, then something happened when she got to her vehicle. Her hands came up off her lap to inspect her face, she rubbed her cheeks and neck checking for damage, but she found none. Her tongue went meticulously through the upper and lower teeth, checking for lost or damaged teeth. Everything seemed to be fine. She still remembered pain and the sensation of drowning. Those were fading memories that she couldn't focus on no matter how hard she concentrated.

She took a deep breath, looked up at her representative, and said, "Hello Nigel." She didn't reply with the same polite greeting. She didn't make any other gestures. This wasn't a time for polite greetings and the customary, "Hi, how have you been?" bullshit that you would normally exchange with an old acquaintance. Jenny knew the only reason she was seated before Nigel was because something bad had happened to her. He was not a long-lost friend, he was a gate keeper.

"Why am I here, Nigel?" asked Jenny. Nigel heard this question from every client, regardless if this was their first visit or not. They all wanted to know what happened, what happens now?, were a few of the common questions. The answer was always the same.

"I don't know the circumstances or events that led you to The Next. We are not aware of anything to do with your prior existence, other than the fact that in your prior existence, you died," Nigel said in a matter of fact tone.

Jenny figured that would be the answer, but the quest for knowledge about what happened was to powerful not to have asked. "Ok Nigel, same answer as always," replied Jenny, in the same matter of fact tone with a little infused disappointment. She sat for just a moment before saying, "If that's all you can tell me Nigel, I guess I'm ready to begin. Bring on the buttons."

Nigel nodded his head in agreement. He made a sweeping gesture from left to right across the top of the translucent desk. In the wake of his hand, there appeared three equally translucent but colored buttons. They were the same shape and size, oversized heads made them look more like mushrooms than normal buttons. They all seemed to flicker like the rest of the furniture, but they were different colors. The button on the right was red, the button on the left was blue, and the button in the middle changed rapidly from red to blue and back to red again, making it appear purple.

Nigel went into his explanation of each of the buttons before Jenny could stop him; she had seen them enough times to remember what each of them did. "The buttons you see before you represent your choices. The red button will return you to your prior life. The blue button will allow you to move on. And the button in the middle that appears to be purple represents Chance." Nigel said all this with a sense of relief. Getting to this point was sometimes a challenge, it was one step closer to the client making their decision.

Jenny smiled and thanked Nigel for the presentation. It was unnecessary, but she knew that he would do it regardless of what she said. Jenny had known all along what her choice was going to be. She took a few deep breaths, considered things, deliberated a bit. Then she said her farewell to Nigel as she made her choice by pressing one of the three translucent buttons.
Chapter 7

After an hour, exhaustion got the better of the Yellowjacket and she closed her eyes to sleep for the remaining two hours of the flight. Sleep came quickly, as it always did after the adrenaline had died down.

The dreams were strange. They were not her usual dreams of sandy beaches with crystal blue water, or kids and dogs running, playing on a freshly cut spring lawn. She didn't know if it was due to the violent nature of her chosen profession, but things were usually at peace in her dreams. This wasn't a dream, it was more of a nightmare. She was walking, no, limping down the center of a street. The houses were close together, and there was no center line going down the street. Her subconscious couldn't stop analyzing her surroundings, these were skills that kept her alive. She must be in a residential area, maybe a subdivision? She felt pain, she tasted blood.

The dream seemed to take place late in the evening, the sun was going down. Dusk? That's what it is called, she told her dream self. She had the feeling that the sky was about to erupt with a massive thunder storm. What appeared to be clouds were very low, dark and menacing. It felt like a storm. She couldn't see any lightning bolts, but she could see flickers of light within the dense darkness of cloud cover. She couldn't hear any thunder, but she felt it. Her skin crawled each time she felt the air vibrate. The ground shook with an unearthly presence as the storm came closer and grew stronger.

Her vision of the dreamscape changed randomly between being able to see what was in front of her from her own eyes, to watching herself from a distance. Like she was on some grainy black and white subdivision surveillance video.

She wasn't sure what her purpose was in this dream. Am I just walking down a deserted street? Should I go into one of the houses? She asked herself.

Where the hell am I? Some of this almost looked familiar.

Noise off in the distance. An approaching car. She stood in the middle of the road, knowing that the car will not hit her. She knew that this was just a dream, and she knew the car could not hurt her. She could still hear the car as she walked. The sounds of it changed. It at first sounded like it was getting closer, then it would go further away. Then it would get closer, and then it would sound more distant.

Maybe it was going through the streets of the subdivision? Was it searching for something, or someone? The Yellowjacket continued to walk until the street ended in a circle with houses surrounding it. She tried to think what this was called. She furrowed her brow and scowled at it, expecting the road to answer her question out of fear. She was the Yellowjacket after all. That name stuck fear into the hearts of people in her line of work. If you knew she had been contracted to kill you, it was already too late. She was cold, calculating, deadly... and she was just brought out of this heartwarming advertisement of her services by the sound of the approaching car getting closer.

She was outside of her body again, looking at her back from about fifteen feet in the air toward the row of houses surrounding the concrete circle. She saw herself staring at the house to the far left of the...wait, cul-de-sac. That's what it was called.

Her congratulations were cut short when she saw the headlights of the car burst through the middle of two of the cul-de-sac houses. The car bolted through the yard, crushing shrubs and blasting through fountains and swing sets straight for her.

The vehicle somehow came to an abrupt halt right in front of her. She felt this energy hit her, and instinctively took a few steps backward in anticipation of impact. The engine was still running, but the headlights that had been blinding a moment ago turned off.

She was back in her body again, seeing the vehicle from a normal perspective. The dreamscape had gotten darker, the lightning flashes and rumbling continued. As she stood in front of the car she didn't know what to expect next. Then an especially bright lightning strike made it possible for her to tell what kind of car it was. Dark BMW SUV. It looked like part of a fountain was stuck under it, and it was dragging a swing set.

Then another, even brighter lightning strike revealed the driver of the dark BMW SUV. Jenny Thompkins. The sight of the woman she had run down just a few hours earlier definitely took her by surprise. It may have even scared the legendary Yellowjacket a bit.

She stood in front of the BMW through two more lightning strikes. She didn't see Jenny Thompkins' face through the BMW's front glass during either of the strikes. She turned and walked down the passenger side of the SUV. The passenger's window rolled down as she approached. It began to rain, hard.

As she approached the door she heard something click that sounded like the door being unlocked. A voice from inside the BMW said, in a conversational tone, "Get in." Her perspective changed again, she was watching from the back seat as she climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. The window had started to come up slowly as she closed the door, and when it finally closed, the interior of the luxury SUV became perfectly still and silent.
Chapter 8

Her perspective changed again, and she was in the front seat, looking out the front windshield as the rain poured down. She had some weird dreams from time to time, but this was beyond weird. Something felt almost real about this dream.

She shook her head a few times to clear the cobwebs. She was a little freaked out, but she needed to think about this logically. This was a dream. This had to be a dream. Jenny Thompkins was dead. She saw her lying under a vehicle just like... oh, that was it. This was the vehicle Jenny Thompkins bounced off of before she died beneath it. Was this dream about guilt, or symbolism?

What happened to Jenny Thompkins was part of her job. She had never felt guilty afterwards. She kept staring forward, for some unknown reason she was terrified to look anywhere but straight ahead. Her terror was made worse by a bone chilling, mechanical sounding voice coming from the driver's seat.

"Hello," said Jenny Thompkins. The air in the vehicle seemed to fill with electricity, the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up. No, not electricity, it seemed like sound waves. The waves hit her like a tidal wave that forced her to instinctively take a breath and hold it. Jenny continued, "There isn't much time, so I'll get right to it. Tell me your name and why you tried to kill me." The Yellowjacket was frozen with fear. The voice scared the hell out of her, she was still holding her breath and her spine was tingling. She tried to reach for the latch to open the door, but she couldn't find it. She had to get the hell out of this car. The rain didn't matter, she had to get away from this. That creepy voice and those questions. She had never experienced anything like this.

She still couldn't look at her. She blew out the breath she had been holding and mustered the strength to finally speak. "What do you mean, tried to kill you?" She felt the car begin to shake, an unsettling experience followed by a more unsettling experience. "Do I look dead to you?" asked the dark mechanical voice. "How could I be sitting here in my car asking you questions if I were dead?"

She tried to swallow, but there wasn't any saliva in her dry mouth. She still couldn't bring herself to look at Jenny Thompkins. "I watched you die under this very car," said the Yellowjacket, in a faint trembling voice.

Jenny Thompkins' face was impassive. Her deep, mechanical voice filled the BMW when she spoke. It shook the seat and the door handle the Yellowjacket was clutching onto like it was a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. The Yellowjacket always assumed the role of apex predator, but now she was a scuba diver cowering in the shark cage as the great white bore down upon her.

She had to figure a way out of this car. She had to wake up; that would fix everything if she could just force herself to wake up. She gripped the door handle harder, it began to shake more violently. The entire car began to shake, it started with a tremor then built into a bone-jarring crescendo of sound.

"Tell me your name!" Jenny roared, as a torrent of sound pushed the Yellowjacket hard against the door. She endured the brute force of the wave, then it subsided. Thoughts ran through her mind about how she could end this. Then an answer, could it be that simple? she asked herself. Will I wake up if I tell her my name? Will this nightmare end if I simply give her my name? As irrational as it sounded, she really had no other ideas. And what did she have to fear from this dream?

The Yellowjacket finally spoke in a hushed tone. "Amy. My name is Amy."

The soundwaves bashed her once again. "Is it? Is that your name?"

She closed her eyes and gripped the door as hard as she could. It felt like she was going to be pushed through the door. She raised her head and tried to yell above the noise "No, it's Amelia. My name is Amelia. Friends call me Amy."

"That's good," said Jenny in a praising tone. She continued, "Amelia, quickly now, what is the rest of your name?" Now she wanted to breathe, but the sound was pushing so hard against her body her lungs couldn't expand. "Borden." She yelled above the noise.

"Amelia Borden," said Jenny Thompson. The wave of sound crashed against her as she heard her name riding that wave. Jenny continued, "That's good. Now tell me your full name." The Yellowjacket thought about it amid the storm of sound. She didn't know why she wanted her full name and had no idea how it would cause her anymore pain than she was already experiencing. So, she yelled that out too. Each name, as loud as she could. She was short of breath and wasn't sure that she could do it twice. "Amelia. Elizabeth. Borden."

This must have pleased Jenny. The torrent of sound subsided, her body could now relax. She could once again breathe, but she could no longer hold onto the door. Her body fell forward in a heap and her head was smashed in an uncomfortable position against the dashboard.

"Amelia Elizabeth Borden." The name flowed from the driver's side of the car on a wave of sound that was more of a light drizzle, as opposed to the hurricane forces a moment ago. "Now." The low bone-jarring voice returned. The Yellowjacket jolted out of her prone position against the dashboard, back into the seat. Her head was slumped against her right shoulder as she looked out the passenger side window.

"Tell me who hired you Amelia Elizabeth Borden."

Amelia Borden was rescued from her nightmare by a flight attendant shaking her shoulder as gently as she could to wake her. The flight attendant had to prepare the passengers for landing, and was only doing her job by shaking the sleeping passenger to let her know that her seat needed to be put back into the upright position during the landing.

Amelia Borden was startled awake by the young female flight attendant. Amelia grabbed the top of the flight attendants left arm with her right hand and pulled her in close. The collision of heads would have looked like an unfortunate accident by any of the other passengers who had seen it.

Amelia had used this same move to break the nose of a much larger opponent on more than one occasion. That dream, no that nightmare she had just gone through shook her down to her core. And now she had broken one of her mentor's cardinal rules, don't draw attention to yourself.

It wasn't necessarily careless to fall asleep on the plane, she had to rest whenever possible when she was working. The flight attendant fell backward and put her hands to her nose attempting to stem the flow of blood that was gushing from it. She turned and quickly walked toward the back of the plane yelping, "Oh my god, oh my god!" until she was out of earshot. Amelia assumed she would need a few towels and some ice.

She raised her hand to inspect her forehead for any damage that she might have received from the contact with the flight attendant's face. She was relieved to find no apparent cuts or swelling. There was a slick, sticky substance—blood most likely. She took the napkin they always give you with your drink, and dipped it in the water in the bottom of the cup. She wiped her forehead until she could no longer find any trace of the flight attendant's blood.

Nothing she could do about it now. She'd have to quickly get off the plane and disappear once it landed. The airline would want to speak with her to make sure she was alright. And more importantly that she wasn't going to sue.
Chapter 9

Jenny Thompkins. Thirty-two years of age. Five feet nine inches tall and 135 pounds of lean athletic muscle, was pronounced dead at 11:37 a.m. by paramedic Sam Pfister. He and his partner, Jill Steinburg, had worked on her for only a couple of minutes. It would have been an uphill battle if they had gotten there within five minutes of the accident.

Because of traffic, road construction, and how far away the were after their last call, it was nearly 13 minutes before they could start working on the patient. Despite multiple attempts at chest compressions and shocking her twice in route with the portable defibrillator, Pfister was unable to get a pulse out of the patient.

After realizing that there was too much damage to the patient's mouth and nose, he knew that he had to find a way for the patient to get some air into her lungs. He had a trach started and was pumping air, but he still couldn't get a pulse. Being the senior paramedic, he made the call. "Pronouncing at 11:37 a.m.," said Sam Pfister in a somber voice.

Local budget issues had forced some of the governmental jobs to occasionally take on dual roles. The city garbage man was sometimes the city dog catcher. If the job title of meter maid wasn't bad enough, how about meter maid and lawn care engineer? And the county ambulance service carried on the duties of the county morgue.

Good news was that at least they wouldn't have to wait with the body until the morgue wagon arrived. They were the morgue wagon.

Morgue Transportation Specialist Jill Steinburg drove, while Morgue Transportation Specialist Supervisor Sam Pfister somberly covered the body from head to toe with a sheet.

Steinburg drove to the county hospital. It was only one block south of the grocery store parking lot. This was their normal route, regardless if they had a patient or a body. The county morgue was in the basement of the county hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital, Steinburg drove past the ambulance entrance. She drove around to the east wing of the building where they would use the freight elevator to deliver the body to the morgue.

After unloading the body out of the Ambulance/Morgue wagon, they made their way down a poorly lit hallway to the freight elevator. The county hospital was a fifty-year-old building. So they waited a few minutes for the fifty-year-old elevator to arrive at the ground level.

The old elevator never stopped where it was supposed to. Sometimes it was a few inches above the floor, sometimes six inches below. This time it was two inches above the floor where the gurney carrying the body of Jenny Thompkins sat. The gurney was placed between Sam Pfister and the elevator that seemed to hate him. He looked at the elevator with disgust as he took a firm grip on the gurney and shoved it as hard as he could.

The gurney hit hard, the front bounced into the air and came down with a bang in the elevator. The body of Jenny Thompkins also bounced and hit hard. "Jesus Sam!" yelled Jill Steinburg. "I could have helped you with that," she continued. "There's no reason to be pissed off at the elevator. If the gurney were empty that would be different. You've got a body on there. What would have happened if you dumped her?"

The conversation continued as they stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. Sam Pfister turned and pressed the button to take the ancient elevator to the basement level. "I hate this fucking elevator," growled Sam Pfister. "Don't worry, she wouldn't have come off of there with the hand rails up." Jill Steinburg looked at her partner and shook her head and said, "It's still pretty damned disrespectful of the patient, or body, or whatever you want to call her."

The elevator continued its slow descent, as the argument of handling a patient compared to a body continued between the two. Then, during a lull in the argument and above the squeaking and creaking of the elevator, they heard a sound. Pfister and Steinburg lost interest in arguing with each other, they looked at each other as if to say, "Shut the hell up, I think I just heard something impossible."

As soon as the unspoken "shut the hell up" between them, they both stopped looking at each other. Both their eyes, as big as saucers, looked down at the gurney. The gurney that up until a moment ago was the mode of transportation to the morgue for the body of Jenny Thompkins. But now it seemed that there was a change in the squeaky, creaky cargo elevator.

The cargo elevator slowly descended into the bowels of the building, to the morgue that held noting but death and discovery. Another lurch of the elevator that shook its passengers had brought one of the flickering fluorescent bulbs back to its full brightness. Before that last quake of the ancient elevator they could only see shadows in the partially lit rectangular box. Now they could see something that they had never seen in a body that they were transporting down to the morgue.

Movement.

Sam Pfister and Jill Steinburg looked at the gurney and the lump under the sheet that rode upon it. At first Sam Pfister thought it had moved due to the sometimes-violent shakes and jerks of the ancient mechanical beast. As they neared the end of their descent the ride always smoothed out. The sheet twitched again, and Jill jumped back. "There it was again," said Jill, a bit hesitantly. She jumped back as she said this. She couldn't believe that she had blurted out the words, she was having a hard time believing anything that was happening.

Sam Pfister looked up, distracted from his task of watching for movement under the sheet by the sudden movement of his coworker. As the cargo elevator came to a smooth stop, he turned his attention back to the body on the gurney.

At first, he saw nothing. Then suddenly, a small tremor in the middle of the form. He looked up and asked Jill, "Did you see that?" Jill looked back into Sam's bewildered eyes and softly said, "Yes."

Then all hell broke loose in the old cargo elevator. First there was a clearly audible gasp. Sam suddenly remembered the tracheotomy he had started at the scene. Then a loud cough as the whole body on the gurney shook with the cough.

Sam really didn't know what to do. This was all unchartered territory for him and his partner. Sam took a step toward the top of the gurney. As he did, he reached out with his right hand to grasp the top of the sheet covering the body. He took a firm grip on the sheet, looked at his partner, then rapidly pulled the sheet down to the waist. The body that was about to become a patient again.

Jenny Thompkins shuttered, coughed, and then projectile vomited a torrent of blood-red horror that looked as bad as it smelled. Still holding the sheet, Sam used it as a shield to avoid most of the new-found terror in his life.

They both wasted no time in acting. Jill was closer to the doors, therefore closer to the button panel to choose a floor. Sam yelled, "Push four, we've got to get her to the emergency room now! Give me your radio. I need to have someone meet us at the doors when we get to four!"
Chapter 10

The landing was rough, due to high winds creating wind shears that twisted the plane from side to side on approach. The trail of blood that the flight attendant had left and her cries of agony didn't make the situation any better.

One of her coworkers tried to slow the flow of blood with towels, while another coworker tried to hold a bag of ice on the injured flight attendant's broken, bloody nose. Fortunately for the Yellowjacket, the flight attendants were gathered in the rear galley, while she was in the middle of coach section. Twenty rows of seats between them was a good enough cushion for her to walk calmly and unnoticed off the plane.

The Yellowjacket followed the flow of the other departing passengers toward the baggage claim area. She walked past the many rows of baggage carousels toward an exit door that would get her out of the airport. The airline would have someone looking for the female passenger that had been involved in an incident with one of their flight attendants, so the Yellowjacket needed to put some distance between herself and any scenario that would have her tangled up at the airport.

She had work to do; today was setup to be a double. Two jobs in two different towns. Her mentor had spoken often of a few triples he had pulled off. She never doubted his achievements, but sometimes they did sound like tall tales.

She exited the airport and was greeted with a welcoming sight, a long line of yellow and black taxi cabs waiting at the curb. Some of the drivers were mingling around, some sat on the hood or the trunk reading. "These jackasses will take too long, they'll need a couple of minutes to get their fat asses back behind the wheel," she mumbled to herself. Speed and efficiency were what she needed right now. Then she saw the fourth cab in the line, driver behind the wheel, and he was waving at her to get in.

She quickly walked past the protest of the three cab drivers in front of the winner of the cab contest. Shouts of, "Come on lady I'm first in line here!" followed her from a large man eating a sub sandwich as he rolled off the hood attempting to snag the fare. Other cries of protest were in different languages, whistles and cabbies slapping the tops of their rides as she passed by.

Cab number four started up as she grabbed the rear passenger door handle. She pulled on the door, but it didn't budge. The cabbie, a young curly haired man, assumed his fare had entered the cab as he said, "Where to lady." When he didn't get a response, he looked back through the closed window and saw the woman mouth the words, "Unlock the door." He did so, and apologized profusely four times before asking about the destination again.

"The Riverwalk area please," said the Yellowjacket. What she really wanted to do was scream profanities at him until she was satisfied, but that would be something the cab driver might remember. She had to bite her tongue and be covert as possible.

The driver nodded his head and pulled out into the light traffic leading out of the airport. She had made this trip three times already. On two occasions she was driving a rental car, and once in a taxi like the one she was in now. She had determined that paying cash for a taxi was going to be the quickest way to travel to her destination. It also wouldn't leave the paper trail of a rental car that would force her to burn through a fake identity.

The cab ride was an average of twenty-one minutes, that would give her plenty of time to walk to the destination of her double. The Riverwalk was one of Texas' most popular tourist attractions. Her destination was the most popular, The Alamo.

She was going over her plan once she entered The Alamo, when the driver interrupted her. "Lady, we're approaching the Riverwalk area. Where do you want me to drop you off?" She saw that they had gotten off of highway thirty-seven. She was dressed like a tourist with nothing but a backpack in tow. One of the nearby convention centers would require a business casual look to blend into the crowd. She decided to go with something touristy. "Can you drop me at the corner of Presa Street and East Commerce Street?"

She asked the cab driver. "Sure, at the Whataburger?" asked the cab driver.

"Yes, the Whataburger will be fine." Said the Yellowjacket.

She thought to herself that a quick burger would be a good idea. She hadn't eaten since her usual light breakfast. The cab came to a stop and she looked to her left to see the Whataburger. She handed forty dollars to the cab driver to cover the fair and an average tip before she exited the vehicle.

While inside the Whataburger, she greedily ate her burger and fries as if she hadn't eaten in days. She certainly hadn't eaten anything this far off her diet regimen in a long time, and it tasted wonderful. She had a clear view of the street from her corner table, and she watched the people go by, all in such a hurry. Business men, married couples, power moms out with their weird looking jogging strollers. Everyone had somewhere to be. As did she.

From her current location it would be a little over a half-mile walk. The streets were crowded, and it was hot and humid. South Texas gets that way. She decided to cross the street outside the Whataburger and go north on Presa Street. Backpack slung over one shoulder, she mingled into the drove of people. When she made right on West Crocket, it seemed that most of tide of strangers followed along. Must be a popular route to the number one tourist destination in the state.

Two blocks later, most of the group turned north on Alamo Plaza. There were a few attractions to the left, but her target would be across the street. The sun was setting, and it would be dark in thirty minutes. That gave her an hour before The Alamo grounds closed at 8 p.m. to conclude her business.

While walking within the crowds of tourists, she had reached into her backpack to retrieve a short blue scarf. She put the scarf over her head and tied it tight under her chin. She put on a pair of glasses that were only clear lenses, and finally some dark brown lipstick.

She entered The Alamo Church at sundown; she read the signs that discouraged taking pictures inside the church. That was fine with her. Once in, she walked toward the exit in the back of the church. There were a few people mingling around, looking at plaques and reading historical markers. Light attendance this time of the evening was one of the reasons her target chose this time of day. His clandestine meeting wasn't for another fifteen minutes, but he was always early.

Her destination was the patio behind the Living History Encampment. She walked out of the dimly lit church and onto the pathway lit partially by street lamps and the setting sun. She decided to walk to the north of the Encampment and approach the patio from the west. The vantage point would be better, and she could stay shrouded in shadows on the dimly lit path.

As she approached the pathway to the patio, she could see her target sitting by himself. Chilton Harper occupied one side of a bench while he enjoyed the last few puffs of a cigarette. She knew what Chilton Harper did not know, his time on this earth was coming to an end. It was almost a shame that his final breaths would be full of carcinogens.

She walked past the patio's path entrance and paused by a lamp post that wasn't yet fully illuminated. She would use this dark space to survey the area a final time, gather her thoughts, and let the events play out as she had planned them.

The plan was simple. She would approach Chilton Harper before his date arrived at 8:15, ask him for a cigarette, then when he was distracted with fulfilling that request from a lovely young lady, she would slip the scarf around his neck and strangle him until he was dead. Simple, but effective.

She took one last look around; nobody to witness a thing. Then she smelled something different, something almost familiar in the air that gave her pause. But that pause was all that it took for her assailant. A large hand covered her mouth as she was pulled back off the path by the grasp of some unknown assailant. As she was pulled backward, she also felt a sharp pain in her left side. She knew right away that she had been stabbed. The warm blood flowed down her side until she felt herself beginning to fall.

She couldn't breathe or scream with the hand over her mouth. The Yellowjacket thought she must have been thrown hard to the ground, or she may have hit a tree before she ended up in the bushes. It all happened so fast. The hand, the pain, and now she was on the ground trying desperately to take a breath. She could feel herself fading, the lifeforce was being drained from her body. The dim lights became smaller and smaller, until they were gone.
Chapter 11

"Thompkins, you're up!" said a male voice that she didn't recognize. The booming voice jolted her awake. She couldn't tell if the voice was real or part of a dream. It took Jenny Thompkins a moment to realize where she was. The heft of the object in her hand meant that it wasn't a training weapon this time. "Holster your weapon Thompkins, it's almost time!" shouted that same unknown voice. She did as she was ordered. Jenny then tried to figure out her current circumstances.

She was sitting, her hands were palm down resting on the tops of her thighs. Her clothing felt heavy and restricting. The floor was rough against her boots, and the air smelled of sweat and old tobacco. It became harder to breathe as her pulse raced when she realized what was going on. She was in an FBI SWAT van. The van was dimly lit, she could see other shapes in the van. She could register some movement, but she didn't know who or what occupied the other jump seats inside the van.

She heard the rustling of metal against metal and the sounds of Velcro straps being adjusted and tightened. That must have been why she had the gun in her hand. The commander had given the order to check their weapons. Since it was now holstered, she'd have to assume that she did.

No more noise from the passengers, just the creaky springs and the overworked engine. Jenny tried to concentrate on the other occupants. She took part in a couple of raids in her time with the Bureau, knowing her teammates would narrow down the incident. She tried as hard as she could to focus on the faces of the three directly across from her.

On the left was a white male, large, pig eyes and no chin. That was Shrake.

In the middle was a black female, with a pissed-off look in her eyes. That's Simmons.

On the right must have been a deep cover guy. Full face mask to conceal his identity. His codename was Putty.

"Oh shit," she mumbled to herself. Now she knew where she was. This was the counterfeit bust in Oregon. It was during her second year on the job. This was the same situation as her Hogan's Alley nightmare. She'd had it before, she knew what was going to happen—frame by dreaded frame until the inevitable occurred. And there was not a damn thing she could do to change the outcome.

The change in the engine noise drew her attention back into the moment. They'd reached the destination and the driver was slowing down. They'd be parking just off the side of the road in front of the entrance to Pico Ranch. There were two vans, she was in the second. From what she could remember, there were six agents in each van. Twelve agents that left the safety of their vans to enter the Pico Ranch. They got up that morning, had a cup of coffee, said goodbye to their loved ones. Went to work in anticipation of doing the right thing, a chance to make a difference. None of them would get back into either of the SWAT vans that evening.

Ray Crocket had owned the Pico Ranch for ten years. From aerial surveillance, they knew that it was a working ranch. There were a few cattle and sheep. They had orchards, but they sold no fruit at the end of the driveway or to local markets. They had horses too, three of them, according to the registration papers that Ray had filed. He also had nearly one hundred acres that were rotated yearly between soy beans and yellow corn. Ray had a barn that housed three used green pieces of very expensive farm equipment.

None of those things would cause law enforcement to become especially suspicious. Farms were profitable if they were diverse and ran well. Checkmark for Ray Crocket. He also had two late-model pickup trucks and a foreign sedan that his wife drove. These things were all purchased used, and with cash. That is not what made local and federal law enforcement take notice of Ray Crocket. It was the cash that he had used to purchase these things.

The serial numbers on some of the cash he had used for two of his purchases matched the serial numbers of money reported stolen in a bank robbery.

Ray wasn't the first member of the gang to be caught. The first one caught was willing to give up the rest of the gang for a shorter jail sentence. The snitch's testimony alone had been enough to put Ray Crocket behind federal bars for twenty years. The raid had been planned based on the testimony alone, the cash discovery just added another ten years to Ray's already long sentence.

The informant had told them that the money was kept in a thirty-foot square barn behind the main residence. The first six agents were to approach the residence and apprehend Ray Crocket and detain anyone else in the house for further questioning. The second set—Jenny's group—would enter the barn and secure the equipment used in the washing. They would wait for the crime scene people to do their job of documenting and counting, then they would supervise the transport of the contents of the barn to the local FBI field office.

Under the cover of darkness, the twelve agents made their way over the short barrier wall beside the front gate to avoid the cameras. They knew there were surveillance cameras at the gate, house, and barn. What they didn't know from their informant was that Ray Crocket also had infrared motion sensing night vision cameras positioned at various points around the property. And they had just walked in front of two cameras, alerting the occupants of the house that they had visitors.

Jenny tried to concentrate, she screamed at herself to turn around. Go back to the truck, she told her unresponsive dream self. But it didn't matter; she continued to follow the lead agent. The group of twelve agents split. Six of them approaching the residence, and Jenny's group of six headed around back to secure and enter the building behind the residence house.

As Jenny's group was forming up on opposite sides of the building's entrance, they heard gunfire erupt from the house. The agent in charge instructed Jenny and two other agents to secure the back of the residence and the remining three would go to the front. After she got her orders, she turned and took one big stride toward the house. Then an explosion as bright as a supernova drove the six agents into the side of the building. Three of them went through the wall, they were the lucky ones. The three that remained outside of the structure weren't killed immediately, they burned.

Ray Crocket had always been prepared for a visit from law enforcement. He had heightened his security since one of his gang members had gone missing. It was common for people in his line of work to go off the grid for a while until heat from a job died down. But protocol dictated that you inform someone that you were going dark. Since the guy hadn't done that, the assumption was made that he got busted. To answer the question, "Did he talk to the feds?" all Ray had to do was look at the heat signatures approaching his house from the infrared camera.

Ray and the gang members present had enough firepower to defend the front of the house from a small ground attack. Six agents taken by surprise could be dispatched quickly, then he and the gang could make a quick getaway. He'd have to go to the building behind the house to retrieve his go-bags. The six agents that approached the building behind the house made that plan more difficult. Ray had no choice but to blow the propane tank at the back of the house after they had taken out the six agents in the front.

Jenny's dream usually ended at sight of the supernova explosion. Sometimes it continued as she's thrown through the sheet metal wall and onto the structure's concrete floor. This was one of those dreams, but different. As she turned toward the house, she saw the outline of a figure in the trees to the left of the house. It looked to be female and small. A child? she asked herself. Was a young girl running from the house to escape before the shootout?

In all the times that she had this dream over the years, that was the first time she could remember seeing that figure in the trees beside the house. It disappeared just before the bright light of the explosion, followed by the deafening sound, then the blast of heat and force that propelled her backward through the sheet metal side of the building.

In prior dreams, she never remembered hitting the concrete floor. She read in a report that was where the fire crew found her. This dream was different. She still saw a bright light, but it wasn't the same blinding blast as it was when the propane tank exploded. She heard beeping sounds and it felt like someone was trying to restrain her.

"Jenny, calm down Jenny," said a voice that she recognized. It was her partner, Gerald Butler. Now she was more confused, he wasn't her partner at the Pico Ranch explosion. What the hell was he doing here?

Gerald saw that she started to stir, and he contacted the floor nurse. But then she began to move around in a way that suggested she was going to pull out an IV, or possibly injure herself. The nurse was on the way, but he thought the situation warranted more immediate intervention. Gerald tried to calm her down, but he was also restraining her by the wrist, which just pissed her off.

Gerald Butler was a large, solidly built man. A linebacker in college that decided another concussion wasn't worth the money he'd make in the pros. He chose law enforcement as a job, then one day the FBI approached him with a career opportunity. Ten years later he was partnered up with Jenny Thompkins, quietly referred to as the unkillable agent.

Two years into their partnership, Gerald had seen Jenny shot, stabbed, and now run over. He even heard a tale that she had once been blown up. Each time she had been left for dead, her body somehow refused to accept death as an option.

His keen sense told him that someone else had entered the room, but he was still a little startled when the nurse told him to step back. "We'll handle it from here Mr. Butler. Please step back and give us some room to work."

Gerald watched skeptically at first as the two nurses attended to Jenny. He was suspicious by nature, and maybe a little protective over his partner. The nurse that entered first had ordered the other nurse to increase the dose on one of the IV's. This, along with the comforting tone of the first nurse seemed to calm Jenny down.

Her eyes were open, and she took in her surroundings in a calmer manner. Gerald saw this too. He stepped to the head of the bed and said in his soft baritone voice, "Welcome back Jenny. I thought they got you that time." He chuckled a little and the nurse pushed him back and gave him a stern warning. "Mr. Butler, please stay back or I'll boot you from the room."

Gerald felt much better about things now. His partner was awake and somewhat alert. He had a hard time concealing his laughter as he saw Jenny had curled three of the fingers on her right hand, leaving the middle one sticking up for him in a silent gesture that meant she was going to be just fine.
Chapter 12

Amelia Borden opened her eyes and gazed at her surroundings. Her vision was blurry, but that always happened when you awoke from a midday nap. Especially if you have one of those good long naps where you wake up confused, not really knowing where you were. Her surroundings looked somewhat familiar. She remembered the creaky white metal day bed.

She sat up, letting her feet dangle over the side of the bed. As the room and the objects in it became clearer, she realized that she was at summer camp. Well, that's what her father had called it. Growing up, she and Papa Joe Borden never really had a place that they called home for long. It seemed like his work always kept them on the move, and she had to become an expert at making new friends wherever they landed.

The summer camp was different, they had stayed at the camp multiple times. So much that she considered Uncle Ray's daughter Christine a sister. They were the same age and had similar experiences with being moved around all over hell's half-acre. But Christine wasn't really her sister, and Uncle Ray really wasn't her uncle. It just felt good to pretend that you had family sometimes.

She shared the room in the basement with Christine. Most of the world outside didn't matter when they were down there, they could pretend they were rock stars or bank robbers with little or no adult supervision.

Her trip down memory lane was interrupted by noises upstairs—shuffling feet and raised voices. Then Christine burst through the door. "Amy, there you are!" said an out of breath Christine. Amelia was startled, but not by her suddenly bursting through the door. It was when she realized what this day was. Or was this a dream? A nightmare? Considering what happened to Christine and the rest of her world that day, it was definitely a nightmare.

Christine darted across the room to the shared closet, opened the door, and grabbed two backpacks. Their go-bags. She tossed one to Amelia and said in a frantic voice "Get up and get your shit Amy, we've got to get out of here now." Amelia had been through this before and knew better than to ask any questions. It was just better to grab what you could and get the hell out as soon as possible.

As Amy looked around at the things she thought she might want to take with her, Christine grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of the room and into the chaotic scene unfolding around them. Men she had never seen were running around in the basement, all shouting and barking out orders. Christine seemed to disregard them all as she headed for the door that led to the back yard. Amelia kept pace with the taller girl as they weaved around furniture and the shouting men.

Christine reached the door first and grabbed the knob with her free hand so they could get out of this chaos. She twisted the knob, pulled as hard as she could, but the door wouldn't budge. In a panic she just kept twisting and now cursing at the door to will it open. Amy reached around with her free hand and twisted the deadbolt leaver and the door finally opened.

As they both fought to get through the open door, they saw that a once sunny day had been replace by gloomy darkness. The door brought them out at the back of the house and Christine drug Amelia by the hand toward the woods to the east. Amelia thought she heard what sounded like gunfire. But it sounded weird, like it was an echo of gunfire.

They stayed close to the house as they made a break for it. "Ray said we should get into the woods and keep going," Christine said in a hushed hurried tone. There was twenty feet between the back corner of the house and the woods, and Christine seemed hesitant to cross the open expanse. She stood there for just a few seconds, but in the end that's what cost her.

Amelia did not hesitate when they reached the corner of the house; she pulled he hand free from Christine's and started running toward the woods. She was out of breath, her heart was racing, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins wouldn't let her stop. Fifteen feet away from her destination, she thought she heard Christine yell, "Amy, stop. Amy!" Her arms were pumping, her feet started to lose traction on the slippery dew-covered grass. Ten feet now. "Amy, wait for me!" came a voice from behind her, but she couldn't stop to wait. She had to get out of the open and into the woods.

Five feet. She heard voices shouting. She only heard partial sentences that sounded like gibberish to her panicked mind.

"You, stop!"

"I need help over here."

"FBI, don't move."

Amelia didn't care if it was directed at them or the trees she was running toward, they had their plan. Get into the woods and don't stop running. She ran face-first through the wispy limbs of a small evergreen tree as she reached her goal.

Suddenly it was no longer nighttime. The woods in front of her lit up like it was the middle of the day. Then she heard the sound. Then she felt the burning hot wall of flames throw her onto the ground. The clarity of that dream was fading. She tried to remember what happened to Christine that night, but it was no use. She tried to hold onto those memories. Poor Christine was her final thought. The world started to go out of focus, the sounds became distant. The smell of charred wood and the taste of blood in her mouth were the last things she could remember before everything went black.

Amelia's next conscious moment came when she opened her eyes expecting to see the burning forest floor at the summer camp. She was lying face down on the ground but, to her surprise, all the noise was gone. Total silence. The smell of charred wood that had filled her nose in the dream was gone. The blood, her own blood, that she tasted was gone too.

Her eyes were fully open now, but it was too bright to bring anything into focus. She blinked her eyes slowly and squinted at her immediate surroundings. But there was nothing in her immediate surroundings. She pulled her hands under her body and placed them palm down, she pushed herself up and twisted around into a sitting position. She sat there on her butt, legs straight out in front of her, with her upper body braced against her arms.

She looked to the left, then the right. It seemed the same as looking forward. There was nothing. Nothing but an endless bright-white expanse. She twisted her body to get a look behind her, she wasn't expecting anything different, but she had to look anyway. Nothingness in all four directions.
Chapter 13

Jenny Thompkins sat in her hospital bed, staring off into the distance. There were beeps and pings of various machines attached to her body. Her door was closed but she could still hear foot traffic outside her door. She was sometimes startled by a loud voice or something banging against the wall outside her room.

She was in recovery mode. Recovering from a hit-and-run. Mentally, she replaced accident with assassination attempt. She was also recovering from multiple surgeries. Her jaw was wired shut and her swollen lips were bulging around the stiches that went from the side of her upper lip and halfway to her right ear. Enough pondering, she thought to herself. Jenny had the largest database in the country just waiting for her to type in Amelia Elizabeth Borden.

Gerald had left Jenny a tablet to pass the time while she recovered. The doctor wasn't happy about the electronic distraction, but he allowed her to use it on a limited basis. Gerald had also left her with a stylus pen for the tablet. She used the hospital's Wi-Fi for an internet connection and a secure virtual private network to access the FBI database.

Jenny didn't start her hospital bed investigation by immediately searching for the name of her attacker. She instead fell back on her investigative skills to guide her through that morning. The attack had to have been planned, there had to be some signs of that. What was scary to her is that there were signs that she had missed. She had made some enemies over the years in her FBI career. Some of them were still alive. As exhausting as it was, she had to be on guard always.

She realized that she was drifting off into unproductive thoughts. Just as she was about to do a perfectly normal thing like shaking your head back and forth to clear the cobwebs, she remembered the multiple head injuries and thought better of that plan. Instead, the potential pain of that action brought her back to a clear frame of mind.

She needed to make a list of things important to the incident. The first would be the vehicle used in the accident/assassination attempt. The vehicle didn't drive itself, so she moved on to the vehicle's owner.

Jenny did a search for the owner and decided quickly that it wasn't her behind the wheel. She did get a glimpse at the driver before her lights went out that day. Gloria Stefano was the registered owner of the big Mercedes SUV. Current address was in Portland, she was in her mid-sixties and a grandmother of four. That wasn't the person she remembered getting a glance of that day, nor was she the unknown female in the passenger side of Jenny's BMW X3. Gloria Stefano was under five feet tall, gray haired and needed giant coke-bottle glasses to drive.

From their meeting in the X3, she had an idea of the unsubs profile. She could remember her in the seat and could guess height and weight. Age was tough because of the lack of real clarity. Gloria Stefano was not the unsub, but that was ok. She had a name for the unsub, Amelia Elizabeth Borden.

A search of that name in the FBI database brought back three individuals. One was deceased from Pittsburgh. The second lived in southern Florida and was in her late sixties. The third looked promising.

A twenty-six-year-old substitute elementary school teacher, never married, current address was in Springwater, Oregon. Jenny laid her head back and asked, "Who in the hell was this person?" and got no response from the cold florescent lighting or the beeping equipment at her back.

Jenny tried to wrap her head around what had happened. A twenty-six-year-old substitute school teacher drives forty-five minutes from home, steals a car, and run down an FBI agent? The SUV was found half a block away, keys in the center console and the driver's side thoroughly wiped down. No prints or DNA for anyone other than the registered owner.

"Why did a substitute school teacher run me down in a grocery store parking lot? And where did she disappear to?" Still no response from the lights or equipment. One positive out of this exploration into Amelia Elizabeth Borden—she had an address.

Jenny needed to contact Gerald with this new information. She turned her head toward the bedside table—no room telephone. Not that she could get out of the bed, but she scanned the rest of the room for her cell phone. No luck there either. One last option was the FBI conferencing software. She scanned the tablet's apps until she found what she was looking for. She opened the conferencing software and setup a meeting for herself and Gerald to begin in two minutes. The software would alert Gerald that he had a meeting, and it would continue to alert him until he responded to the alerts.

With any luck he would have, as usual, left the phone charging on the nightstand beside his bed. It was three in the morning, but Gerald had gotten used to Jenny's late-night/early-morning phone calls. Meeting invites were a new twist, but not a big surprise.

Two minutes and thirty seconds passed. Jenny watched the meeting attendees and saw that Gerald had indeed joined the impromptu late-night meeting. She had forgotten to check the tablet's volume level, and Gerald's voice boomed from the device. "Dammit Jenny. Shouted a groggy sounding special agent Butler. "I took your cell phone, the room phone, and you still figured out a way to wake my tired ass up at three in the morning."

Jenny's left hand searched around the tablet until she found the volume controls. After that adjustment, she also activated the video for the meeting. A sleepy-eyed face lit by a bed side lamp stared back at her. He appraised her for a moment and said, "Looks like some of the swelling went down. Are you eating anything yet? Or are we still on a liquid diet?" Jenny's jaw was wired shut and she was afraid if she got into a lengthy conversation it would pop some of her facial stitches.

She spoke in a low whisper, "I have a name and address I need you to check out." Gerald looked back quizzically and asked, "A name and address for what?" Jenny thought for a moment how to get this across to him in the least amount of words. "Unsub in SUV. I think she was the driver." Jenny had typed the information on Amelia Elizabeth Borden into the meeting chat window and sent it to Gerald.

Surprised by the message ding, Gerald opened it and spoke. "Dammit, you're supposed to be resting Jenny." Jenny's eyebrows went up in a "what are you going to do" shrug at that scolding from her partner. When Gerald thought about it, he knew that he would have been almost disappointed if she hadn't been working. It was a good sign she was alert and in recovery mode.

Jenny typed out a message in the meeting's text box, hit send, and watched for Gerald's response. Gerald heard the ding and read the message out loud. "How soon can you get to Springwater?" Gerald looked back at his partner, raised an eyebrow, cocked his head to the side, and asked, "Springwater, Oregon?" Jenny nodded her head slightly in response. "Hold on a minute." Was Gerald's response.

Gerald got out of bed and walked the short distance to the hotel's desk where he had his laptop setup. He opened the screen and waited not so patiently for the screen to come to life. She could hear him mumbling to himself, "You slow ass, piece of shit government laptop." Gerald pulled the desktop lamp closer to his laptop and leaned his cell phone against it. It took a few tries, but he finally got it to where he could see his partner's battered face clearly.

Jenny could see his face and hear him pecking away on the keyboard. "Looks like Springwater is forty-five minutes away. Let me get an aerial shot of this place on the map." She then heard him clicking and humming something from an 80s funk band.

After a minute Gerald said, "Can't see shit from the sky on that address, too many trees. It's back off the main street through town and there's no street view available." More clicks, different tune. Gerald had a habit of humming and whistling when he was working. "I'm not sure what this place looks like, Jenny. Records show a single-family residence currently titled to an Amelia Elizabeth Borden," he said, right before he began to whistle out something that sounded like a show tune.

"Nothing else of interest on this place that I can find. What is our interest in this, partner?" Jenny stopped herself from responding verbally—she could still feel the pain from the last time she spoke. Instead she responded in the text box. "Possible unsub that ran me down." Gerald read the message, then looked into his phone with a quizzical look on his face and asked. "You sure?" Jenny responded with a very slow and small nod of her head.

Gerald had been skeptical of his partner's hunches when they first began working together. He quickly learned that they were always spot-on. "I'll check it out first thing in the morning," said Gerald. As he looked into the phone screen, he could see his partner's eyes narrow and a slight side to side head shake. "Aw, come on Jenny, it's three in the fucking morning. This can wait until daylight." Now her eyes were daggers, and her head shaking continued to tell him no to waiting.

She typed into the message box. "Time is passing. This lead needs to be followed NOW!" Gerald knew there was no arguing with her. He responded. "Alright, I'll get my shit together and head down there." She typed her reply. "Thank you partner."
Chapter 14

At 3:15 a.m., Gerald Butler got his shit together and left his hotel room. The halls were quiet, the elevator ride down three floors was quiet. There was nobody at the front desk in the lobby this time of the morning to wish him a good day. Hell, the continental breakfast and coffee weren't even out yet.

As Gerald left the air-conditioned hotel lobby, the hot, humid night air hit him. He immediately regretted not wearing his work-out shorts and tee shirt. For official FBI business, he had to dress the part complete with shirt and tie. The jacket could stay off for now. He normally wore the jacket to cover the shoulder rig that held his Glock Model 22. He was a large athletic dark-skinned man, which was intimidating enough for most folks. A man that large openly carrying a pistol was downright frightening.

The walk to the government issued Ford Taurus was a short one. He threw his suit jacket onto the back seat and climbed into the driver's seat. He started up the five-year-old car and turned the air conditioning up to high. He accessed the address on his phone and pushed the icon that would give him the turn by turn directions. Gerald let out a sigh, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and looked at the digital clock on the dashboard, seeing 3:19 in glowing green numbers.

His cell phone was sitting in a cradle on the dashboard. He powered it up and hit the start button on the navigation app. A friendly robotic voice said, "Proceed to the nearest exit, then turn right." Gerald put the car in gear and proceeded to follow the directions.

The forty-five-minute drive to Springwater took fifty minutes. Gerald stopped at a convenience store for a cup of old coffee and an even older glazed doughnut. He rolled down the darkened, deserted streets of Springwater until he found Main Street. He glanced his phone to gage how close he was to his next turn. "In 500 feet, turn left onto Sycamore. Your destination will be on the right," said the mechanical voice.

Gerald made the turn, then started reading the numbers off mailboxes. He was looking for 1500 Sycamore. The 1400 block was short, only two houses. They were poorly lit structures, it was the middle of the night. But these houses looked like they had been abandoned, with sagging roofs and old broken-down automobiles littering the yards. Then he saw 1500 Sycamore at the corner of the next block. It was in worse condition. Its roof was missing. Tornado? Fire? Hard to say. It was an easy deduction that nobody was currently living there.

Gerald pulled the car over into the driveway of the uninhabitable house, turned off the headlights, and grabbed his phone from the cradle. He was getting ready to call Jenny, but then he remembered the trouble she had talking during their earlier meeting. Gerald composed a text to his partner. "Jenny, 1500 Sycamore is an abandoned partially destroyed shack. Nobody is living here or in any of the nearby houses. Please advise on next steps."

Gerald sat his phone down on the passenger seat, grabbed the lukewarm coffee, and waited for a response. At or around the five-minute mark, he got a notification from his phone that he had a new text message.

"Check with Springwater Elementary office. Amelia is a sub second grade teacher. If she isn't there, they should have a new home address."

"Copy that. I'll check with them first thing in the morning. Go to sleep partner."

Gerald looked at the car's digital clock, 4:32 in glowing green numbers. Might as well go back to that twenty-four-hour truck stop, he thought to himself. So he did, he got a booth and ordered a big breakfast plate that was sure to make him regret the decision. After two cups of decent coffee, eggs, hash browns, and sausage he was ready for a nap. He checked the time on his phone, 5:18.

Gerald slid back into the corner of the booth, laid his head back, and closed his eyes. Just for a minute, he told himself, even though he knew it was a lie. Twenty minutes later, the waitress startled him while she was removing his empty plates. He sat up quickly and banged his knee against a bar under the booth. "Sorry hun, I was just trying to clean up a bit. Didn't mean to startle you," said the waitress in a rough, too many years of smoking, voice. "That's ok," replied Gerald. "I'll take the check now."

To that the waitress replied. "Sure thing hun."

It was nearly six after Gerald paid his bill and walked out to his agency car. The sun was coming up but morning was at that dim phase. Gerald unlocked the door with the key fob, got in, and put all four of the windows down half way. He just wanted to sit in the semi quiet cool air of the morning. Quiet was tough to experience with the increase of the morning commuters. He just wanted a few moments to listen and observe his surroundings. Maybe he was just being paranoid. But he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. He didn't see anyone close by, he just had a feeling.

He started up the car and headed toward the truck stop air pump. He parked beside it and casually checked the air pressure in all four tires. While down at tire level, he also looked underneath each of the wheel wells. The third tire wheel well is where he found what he was looking for—a small electronic tracking device about the size of a stick of gum. He had seen these before, they were magnetically stuck to the underside of the wheel well or frame. Easy and quick to install. Pretend to drop something beside a car, reach under the wheel well, and walk away.

Gerald got back in the car and thought about the tracking device. It didn't look like anything the FBI would put on the car. He couldn't be sure when someone would have put it on his car, or why. After what had just happened to his partner, he didn't want anyone knowing exactly where he was. He didn't want to just throw it away in the trash. If it sat there all day, whoever placed it on his car would know they'd been caught. So, Gerald hatched another plan. He pulled the car behind a row of semitrucks and parked in a space between a cattle hauler and an enclosed box trailer. Not knowing where either truck was headed, or when they would be leaving. He chose the cattle hauler and placed the device behind the back bumper of the cattle hauler's trailer. The magnetic bond felt tight, so he quickly returned to his car and drove out of the truck stop.

At 7:15, he pulled into the parking lot of Springwater Elementary. He flashed his badge at the front door and he was let in. A visit from the FBI wasn't a normal thing at the quiet elementary school. Vice Principal Sarah Punder quickly left her office and met Gerald at the front entrance.

When asked if Mrs. Borden was teaching today, Vice Principal Punder became very concerned. "Please, let's get out of the hallway and go into my office. It's a little more private there." Said Vice Principal Punder.

Gerald walked into the small office behind the vice principal and closed the door. "May I ask why you want to talk to Amy?" asked the vice principal. Gerald thought for a second and decided to use the old standard line of bullshit. "It's an FBI matter that I can't get into. I really just want to ask Mrs. Borden a few questions." Sarah Punder looked at the giant sitting across her desk. He seemed legit. The school was a little concerned with Amy's well-being after her fiancé had called. She'd had the day off from the school yesterday, her fiancé didn't know where she was, and she wasn't answering her cell phone.

Vice Principal Sara Punder told all of this to the FBI agent, as well as the name and address of the fiancé. Gerald thanked her for the information, left her a business card, and said would get back to her if he learned any news about Ms. Borden.
Chapter 15

Back in his car, Gerald exchanged several text messages with Jenny. He told her about the information he'd gotten from the elementary school vice principal. He gave her the fiancé's name and address and told her about the tracking device he'd found at the truck stop.

Jenny had been turning down pain medication for the past four hours, she needed to be alert and that shit made her sleepy. Her whole body was either aching or throbbing, but that didn't matter. The adrenaline was flowing, this case was starting to get interesting. The curious case of Amelia Borden, she thought to herself. She processed what Gerald had sent her and broke the issues down into separate matters.

She slowly pecked away at the screen to create her response. "Great info from the V Principal. Find and question the fiancé, its probably a dead end though."

Gerald quickly responded, "Why do you think it's a dead end?"

"I think she's running."

Gerald let that sink in for a moment. It made sense for someone involved in a hit-and-run on an FBI agent to get out of town. That still didn't explain the other matter. He thought about it and responded. "Makes sense that she'd run. You don't think she'd tell her fiancé where she was going? And what about the tracking device?"

Jenny thought for a minute before she responded. "Maybe she told him something, but I doubt he knows everything. Interview him anyway. Are you sure the tracking device is new? Could have been there since the McGuire case. Remember those techie bastards with their toys?" Gerald did remember them. The McGuire's used drones, hidden cameras, and tracking devices to keep tabs on law enforcement officers before, during, and after their crimes.

"Couldn't tell about the device. It was still dark outside. I didn't know if I was being watched so I didn't take time to inspect it." Then he added, "why is she running?" Jenny wasn't exactly sure if she was running, it was just a hunch. And that was her response. "Just a hunch. Find the fiancé."

Somewhere in Oregon, a burner phone received a call from another burner phone in the San Antonio area. The Oregon burner answered the call but didn't say anything. "Where's Chocolate Thunder?" asked the caller from San Antonio. That was their codename for Gerald Butler. "He left the truck stop and is headed back toward Portland." Said a raspy voice from the Oregon phone.

"Keep an eye on him. Let me know if he leaves the city again or goes to the airport," said the San Antonio burner.

"Will do," said the Oregon burner, and the call ended.

Jenny Thompkins sat upright in her hospital bed. After some encouragement from the nurse on duty, she agreed to take half of the recommended dose of pain killers. Jenny had to admit the relief of the drug was welcomed. The grogginess was minimal, and she was still riding the adrenaline high from the information that Gerald had given her.

What did Amelia Borden do after she ran her down in the grocery store parking lot? She was able to access the police report on her tablet. The information wasn't necessarily useful to Jenny. The report outlined the hit-and-run. No witnesses to the initial accident, no cameras in the parking lot, or around the area where the Mercedes was abandoned.

She read the police interview with Sandra Lopez and her husband, Jerry Lopez. They didn't save her life, but they were willing to make an effort for a complete stranger. She made a mental note to send them a gift and to use her FBI status to help them out if they ever needed it.

None of this information was helping her find Amelia Borden.

Amelia Borden was a pro. A pro always plans the way in, the execution, and the way out. Jenny wasn't sure how she got in, and that knowledge wouldn't help her right now. Her execution was good, but she didn't finish the job. The third part—and what Jenny needed to figure out—was her way out. Amelia Borden was a pro, but she also had a day job. Gerald told her that Amelia had the day off from the school yesterday but hadn't been heard from since the day before. "Where did Amelia Borden go?" she mumbled to herself through swollen lips.

Jenny was able to access the department of motor vehicles records and found no car registered to Amelia Borden. "She had a driver's license, but no car." Mumbling to herself again. Public transportation was out. Can't see an assassin catching a bus after a hit. "That would be edgy though," she muttered to herself. A cab ride could leave a witness, car rentals leave paper trails. "Could she have made it to the airport?" Amelia Borden had the day off yesterday. Does the little psychopath need to use vacation days to do hits? If so, does she try to squeeze in more than one?

The airport, she must have made it to the airport. How she got there was irrelevant at this point, the assumption Jenny was working with was that she made it to the airport. Where would she go? Portland International Airport had more than three thousand people a day traveling on more than fifteen different airlines. She had to just assume she stuck with a bigger airline; more people around made it easier to blend in. It didn't look like Amelia Borden would be easy to find today, maybe never.

Sometimes criminals made mistakes after they completed their missions. They're fueled up on adrenaline, they're more likely to snap at a passing motorist or someone in the mall. If she was going to do a second job, she would have been really keyed up, or maybe she was the opposite. Jenny knew how she reacted after the adrenaline high faded, she almost always passed out. Jenny knew that airlines post daily incident reports. Of the sixteen airlines, she felt confident that she'd find something from the three biggest: Delta, United, or Southwest.

First, she checked Delta, and then United. Nothing interesting, a few drunks kicked off flights, one or two passenger arguments that warranted reports from the flight attendants. As she checked Southwest, it looked like the same as the prior two at first. She then saw an incident report on the flight to San Antonio. 'Flight attendant injured waking passenger during landing preparations.' Jenny checked the passenger name. Kacey Cross. The name sounded fake. The report also said Ms. Cross left the airport before she could be interviewed about the incident and she left her luggage behind. The flight took off from Portland International two hours after Jenny was hit by the Mercedes. That gave her plenty of time to make it to the airport and get on that flight. That plane landed in San Antonio a couple of hours before the sun set.

Jenny thought that if Amelia was going to do another job, it would be soon after the plane landed. She probably had a return flight, so she could make it back in time for a good night's rest to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to teach some second grade... whatever it was they taught in second grade. This chick was a psychopath for sure. She checked police reports in San Antonio for the hours that followed the Southwest plane landing.

She scanned through the car accidents, armed robberies weren't her thing, breaking and entering, domestic disputes. She was looking for assaults. Not simple assaults, assault with a deadly weapon and any murders after the plane had landed. She saw a few bar fights, one with a weapon. The subjects were all male. Shots fired between two vehicles, gang related. Then she saw a report of a Jane Doe stabbed at The Alamo.

The Jane Doe was found without a purse or any form of identification. It looked like an armed robbery, but it also might be an assassination attempt gone wrong. Could be Amelia's second incomplete job of the day. They were going to take away her psychotic killer union card.

Jenny scanned the hospital's record of the patient. It may be illegal, but that could be sorted out later if she got caught. Jane Doe was at the University Hospital in the intensive care unit. She was listed in critical but stable condition. There were no pictures of the patient, but the height, weight, and age estimates sounded close to the passenger she had in the X3. The patient hadn't regained consciousness. She suffered a single knife wound in the back. Presently an undetermined amount of blood lost. And a concussion. Must have been from falling. Hit her head on a tree or sidewalk, Jenny thought to herself.
Chapter 16

Amelia had rolled off her butt and onto her knees. She looked around the space again—emptiness. White endless emptiness. From her knees she stood up and reached around her lower back with her right hand, probing for the sharp pain that she had felt at The Alamo. There was nothing there, no pain or tenderness. "What the hell had happened?" she asked herself and whatever else may be in the great white expanse. She got no answer. She didn't know, and the expanse wasn't talking.

The white expanse had a calming effect on the normally cagy and always on alert Amelia. She felt like she was in a good place mentally and there seemed to be no immediate danger. Danger, that word made her think about where she had been before she woke up here. She remembered being at The Alamo. "Bad shit always happens at The Alamo," she said to the expanse, as a warning if it ever thought of going there.

Just then she heard a noise, very faint but coming closer. "Footsteps?" She asked the expanse. It didn't respond to that either. The footsteps got a little louder, but it didn't worry her. She was still calm, just a little curious about who or what was approaching.

At first the sound seemed to be coming from all around her. Like the light, the sound surrounded her. As the footsteps got closer, they seemed to be louder from one direction. She turned to face that direction, but she didn't tense up like she was ready for a fight. Her arms were loose and her hands weren't clinched into a fist. She scanned the area where the sound originated from, then she saw it. A figure, coming closer.

Although the distance seemed vast, the figure closed in on her quickly. It appeared to be moving slowly, but somehow it shifted in and out of focus for a moment. When it came back into focus, she could see that it was a man.

The man was dressed in what she thought was a retro suit from an old sci-fi movie. He was tall with close-cut silver hair that was a similar shade to the outfit he wore. Matching silver loafers on his feet completed the sci-fi ensemble. He had gotten to about ten feet away and stopped.

They both stared at each other. She couldn't tell if he was sizing her up, but that was exactly what she was doing to him; she couldn't help it. In her line of work she had to evaluate potential threats. As a hitman, not second grade substitute teacher. It was a given that all those little second grade monsters were threats.

Her lips creased into a slight smile at that thought, which prodded the other occupant of the expanse to speak. "Hello Amelia, my name is Nigel." His voice was pleasant and smooth, she was having a hard time trying to place the accent with a region of the globe when he spoke again. "Please, have a seat and we'll begin." As he spoke, he looked past her and raised his right hand palm-up as a gesture that she should step back.

She reflexively stepped back and started to ask, "Where do you want me to...?" But she didn't finish her question. As she spoke, she turned her head to look behind her where Nigel was gesturing, then she saw what he was looking at. It was a chair, at least it was the outline of a chair. Translucent was the only word she could think of to describe it. It shimmered, then faded in and out of clarity. A chair like so many others she'd seen in office settings, something like the chairs that sat opposite the principal's desk.

Out of curiosity, she turned toward the chair and reached out to touch one of the shimmering arms. She grabbed the arm and it felt solid, but she could still see through it. She turned her head back to ask Nigel what the hell was up with this chair. She expected to see the sci-fi character still standing behind her but he wasn't. He was seated behind a large desk.

This was all a weird dream. One minute she was by herself in an endless white expanse, the next there's office furniture. Oh, and the guy. Can't forget the sci-fi guy, Nigel. I must be losing my mind, she thought to herself. She still had a tight grip on the chair arm; with her free hand she pressed her open hand against the seat of the chair. It was translucent but quite solid to the touch.

She suddenly felt weak and thought it was a good idea to have a seat. She swiveled around and slowly sat down in the shimmering chair. She rested her arms on the sides of the chair, took a few deep breaths, and raised her head up to look at Nigel.

Nigel appeared to be engrossed in reading something from what looked like a tablet. Amelia watched, waited. What else did she have to do? After some time, Nigel pulled himself away from the device and said, "Amelia Borden, my name is Nigel. I'll be your representative, welcome to The Next." No reaction from his new client. Still the same look of confusion.

Nigel was used to this. Over time he had tried to hone his opening greeting to something that would elicit a positive response. He tried for a simple message that would explain everything. But despite his many variations of greetings, he always got the same response out of new clients. A blank, confused look back at him across the desk. Sometimes a head tilt to one side or the other.

Amelia sat stock still and her body felt as if it were made of stone. Her legs felt like they weighed thousands of pounds. Her arms might as well have been glued to the chair; she couldn't move. She licked her lips. That was good, she thought. Since her mouth seemed to work, why not ask Nigel a few questions? "Sir," she started, but was quickly interrupted. "Oh please, don't call me sir. My name is Nigel. There's no need for such formalities in this place." She stared at him for a moment in disbelief of his social awkwardness. Don't call me sir, this dude was weird.

She read somewhere that you don't always make up the characters in your dreams. They are usually a manifestation of someone you know. So, who is this guy? she thought to herself. Milkman, congressman, pederast? She laughed at the last two when she thought those would be one and the same. No, this guy isn't anyone I've ever met. Maybe a movie character? Couldn't have been Logan's Run, everybody died at thirty. This guy is way past thirty.
Chapter 17

It was 10 a.m. when Gerald arrived at the address given to him by Springwater Elementary School Vice Principal Sarah Punder. Eric Jones was the name of the live-in fiancé of Amy Borden. The home was a modest brick ranch at the end of a cul-de-sac. Gerald thought the homes in the subdivision to be at least thirty years old, judging by the number of mid-entries and single-story ranch homes.

Gerald parked in the driveway beside a ten-year-old Honda Civic. It looked like a school teacher's car, maybe Amy had made it back home? Gerald wasn't expecting anyone to be home, but his doorbell ring was answered quickly. Someone inside the residence shouted "Coming, I'll be there in a second." The person that arrived at the door was a gaunt disheveled man in his mid- to late-thirties. He was bare foot, wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt that looked like they'd been slept in.

Eric Jones looked straight ahead and into the chest of a very large man. He tilted his head upward to see the rest of the giant man that filled up most of the doorway of his suburban ranch home. "Who are you?" he timidly asked. Gerald pulled out his identification and introduced himself. "Good morning Mr. Jones. I'm Special Agent Gerald Butler with the FBI. I'd like to speak with you concerning the whereabouts of Amy Borden."

Eric Jones had taken a step back and looked at the man quizzically. "I'm sorry, did you say that you were with the FBI?"

"Yes sir."

"I couldn't get the Springwater police department to take me seriously when I reported Amy missing. They said I needed to wait twenty-four hours before filing a missing person report. Now I have special agent."

"Sir, my visit this morning has nothing to do with any local law enforcement matter. I'm here representing the FBI and we are interested in the current whereabouts of Amy, also known as Amelia Borden. May I come in to ask you a few questions?" Eric Jones stepped back and said, "Come on in. Would you like a cup of coffee?" Gerald usually didn't accept anything that was offered from a person he was preparing to question, but he'd been up a long time and a cup of hot coffee sounded sublime right now.

The morning outside was sunny and getting warm. When Gerald entered the house with all its shades drawn tight, it was gloomy and difficult to tell what time of day it was outside. His host led him into a small dimly lit living room and motioned for him to have a seat. Gerald chose to sit in an armchair that would support his bulk. The sofa would be adequate as well, but he was afraid that if he got too comfortable, he might fall asleep. He pulled out a notepad and prepared to question Mr. Jones.

Gerald had gotten bored waiting for Eric to return with the coffee and pulled his phone out to check for any recent messages. After a few minutes, Eric Jones returned with two steamy cups of coffee. "It's just coffee," announced Eric, after handing the cup to his guest. "If you want milk or sugar I can get that too," Eric said politely.

"No, that's ok Mr. Jones. Black coffee will be fine. If you'll have a seat, I just have a few questions for you," said Gerald. He sat his cup of coffee on an end table so he could take notes. "When was the last time you saw or spoke to Amelia?"

Eric thought for a moment, took a sip of the hot coffee and, after swallowing said, "First off, everybody calls her Amy. Yes, her name is Amelia, but nobody calls her that." Gerald made the name change on his notes and asked Mr. Jones to continue. Eric brought the cup of coffee up to his lips and blew gently into the mug to cool it down. Gerald was very good at reading people. He didn't want to jump to any judgment; this man may be going through a very traumatizing experience. But it seemed like he was stalling. The answers he gave were either scripted, lies, or maybe both.

Eric continued, "The last time I saw her or spoke to her was yesterday morning around seven thirty. I was going to work and she had the day off. She said something about going shopping in the city." Gerald looked up from taking notes and asked, "What city?" Eric answered quickly, "Portland, of course." Gerald wrote down that information and was preparing another question when his cell phone started to ring. A few lines from House of Pain's song "Jump Around" played.

Gerald's blood pressure shot up as he fumbled around on the couch for a solid grip on the phone. He was able to silence the ringing by pressing the down volume button. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten to turn off or silence the phone. He looked at the screen and excused himself from the conversation with Eric Jones. "Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Jones, I need to take this," Gerald said, as he got up and headed toward the front door.

The caller ID on his phone showed that it was his partner calling. Knowing her condition and how hard it was for her to talk, this call must be urgent. Gerald slid his finger across the screen to answer the call and placed the phone against his ear. "Jenny, what's up?" A faint raspy voice responded, "Where are you?" Gerald turned away from Mr. Jones and whispered into his phone, "I'm at the fiancé's place. I just started the interview. Can I call you back after it's over?"

"No," came Jenny's faint response. She continued, "Forget about the fiancé." Gerald peered over his shoulder to see if Eric Jones was still watching him. He was. Jenny's labored voice broke his stare-down with Mr. Jones. "I need you to fly to San Antonio." Gerald was confused by this request; he looked down at the phone screen, willing it to tell him more. Jenny's speech was quiet and quick with long pauses, like the pain of speaking forced her to take breaks in between sentences.

Gerald broke the silence, "Why do you want me to go there?" Eric Jones stood up after hearing Gerald's question. Eric tried to join in on the conversation, "Agent Butler? Is there some news about Amy?" Gerald turned and held up his index finger in a "Just one moment please" gesture.

"I think Amelia is there," Jenny said. Gerald was surprised by this declaration and he turned to Eric Jones and began to relay the news. "Mr. Jones, I have..." The rest of his sentence never made it out of his mouth. "No!" A faint but forceful no came out of his phone. He was caught off guard and awkwardly ended his response to Mr. Jones. "Don't tell the boyfriend," said Jenny.

"Why not?" asked Gerald.

"Just a gut feeling." Said Jenny.

Gerald thought for a moment, then gave his response, "All right partner, let's do it your way. Don't talk anymore. Just text me the details."

Gerald ended the call and walked back into the living room area to retrieve his notepad and begin his departure. "I'm sorry to cut this short Mr. Jones. I have an urgent matter that I need to attend to."

Eric looked confused. "What could be more urgent than my fiancée missing?"

Asked Mr. Jones. "I do apologize, and I will follow up with you as soon as I can," Gerald said, as he walked out and closed the front door behind him.
Chapter 18

Nigel interrupted Amelia's train of thought by asking, "Did you have a question, Amelia?" She shook off the unproductive thoughts of where this character may have come from and continued asking her question. "Nigel." He nodded his head toward her as if he was pleased that she was able to follow instructions. She continued, "Where am I? Who are you, and how the hell do I get out of here?"

All questions that Nigel had heard before. Not to worry, he had answers for all. Then she blurted out one more before he could respond. "And what the hell is up with this office furniture? Why can I see through it? I hope this is just a dream, if not I'm going out of my freaking mind." These too were not new questions for Nigel.

"I'll answer your questions in the order that they were received," stated Nigel. "You are in The Next. You may think of it as an afterlife realm, someplace you go after your existence on your prior realm has ended." He paused. "No wait, that was out of order. I apologize." He paused again to gather his thoughts and start over. "Let's see, I told you where you were. Now, I am Nigel and I'll be your representative. The way you 'get the hell out of here' is to make a choice." He made air quotes around her words. He wasn't exactly sure why. He continued. "Ah, yes. The furniture. It is not really furniture, it is a memory of something that you've seen before. You have conjured up this memory of what you think would be present at a situation like this. If you're seeing through the furniture, or it shimmers in and out of focus, it means that it's not a very strong memory."

She was stuck on the office furniture answer. It seemed confusing and interesting at the same time. Then she rewound back to his answer about how to get out of here. Make a choice? she thought. What the hell does that mean? They stared at each other for a little while longer before she broke the silence. "What do you do here Nigel? You said that you're my representative, but what does that mean? Do I need legal representation?" She tried to stop before she said anything else, but then she couldn't help herself. "Oh shit. Are you a court appointed lawyer? Have I been arrested for something?"

She was making hand gestures when she began her tirade of questions to Nigel. Palms up in the air, arms above her head. Her hands had made it to her face as she was preparing to scream into her hands in frustration, then they fell limp. Her arms fell into her lap and they stayed there regardless of how badly she wanted them to move. Amelia sat there, staring at her hands, not sure why they wouldn't move. She did remember not being able to move a few minutes ago, but that hadn't lasted long. "What the hell is going on Nigel?" she asked.

Nigel responded, "By the tone of your voice, it sounds like you're asking me a question. But what you said doesn't sound like a question. Can you rephrase it please?" Amelia tried to remain calm, but she was getting pissed at Nigel and this whole weird dream. She took a deep breath and asked, "I'm referring to not being able to move my arms. Why can't I move my freaking arms Nigel?"

Nigel responded, "Ah yes, your arms. The reason you can't move your arms is a difficult concept for most to comprehend, but I'll try to explain it." Amelia sat in her seat and shot daggers at Nigel with her eyes. He continued, "In your prior existence or realm, whichever you prefer, your life ended. Now you are here in a realm known as The Next. Like the desk and chairs, your body is only a memory. These things that were once physical parts of your other realm can be difficult to control."

She interrupted, "So, I'm not under arrest?" Nigel looked at her quizzically. He had just told her that her life had ended, and her question was about being under something called arrest. These humans confused him sometimes. He responded, "I'm not sure what an arrest is, or how you would get under it. If your looking for a yes or no answer to that question, I would have to say no." His new client looked pleased with this information. He continued, "Moving on then. You have a limited amount of control in this realm. If you are focusing all your resources on being angry or becoming violent, your form will be rendered immobile. Do you understand that explanation?"

She did understand that explanation. She was also glad to hear that the second-grade substitute teacher didn't get arrested. She responded with a nod of her head that she understood that part at least. "Nigel, I don't understand what you mean when you say my life ended."

Nigel responded, "Yes, your life ended." She couldn't remember having a weirder dream.

"Ok, my life ended. How did my life end?"

This was a very common question. It didn't matter if the client was young or old, they wanted to know how they died. For Nigel, the answer was simple and it was always the same. "I don't know how your life ended. I only know that you are here, and you have a choice to make."

"You keep referencing this choice I need to make. Can you please explain?" she asked in a calm voice. She had been doing her relaxation breathing exercises to calm down. She would test Nigel's explanation about being able to move, then get up and walk the hell out of, well, that might not be possible. There didn't look like there was anywhere to walk to.

Nigel liked when they finally got to talking about the choice. It meant that they were making progress. "Amelia, The Next is meant to be a temporary stopping point on your journey. From here you have three choices. Move on, Return, or Chance." Nigel then waited for a response. He rarely got one that truly understood the first time it was explained.

Amelia raised her right hand to her forehead and brushed her hair out of her face. She smiled when she realized that her relaxation exercises had worked. She lowered her arm down to her lap, and was able to move her left arm to meet it. She knotted her fingers together and watched in amazement before she asked anymore questions.

Nigel waited. And waited some more. Then he finally broke the silence, "Amelia, do you have any questions about what I've just told you?"

She nodded her head. "Yes, I have questions. I have no idea what you're talking about. It sounds crazy. Move on, Return, Chance. What the hell do those mean?" Nigel was always hopeful that they would understand the explanation; he was always fond of returning clients because they already knew what to expect. Nigel thought about it for a moment, then decided it was time to show Amelia the buttons.

Amelia was still staring at Nigel as if he weren't finished with his explanation. She also thought it was great that she was able to move again. What a weird fucking dream." She thought to herself. She was watching Nigel as he reached toward the left side of his desk with his right hand. He turned his hand palm down and slowly swept his hand back toward the right side of the desk. As his hand moved across the desk, it left a disturbance in the translucent shape of the desktop.

When his right hand completed its journey, she watched in awe at the shapes appearing in the wake. Not just one shape but three. Three plunger-type buttons faded in and out just like the translucent office furniture. One red, one blue, and it was difficult to tell the color of the third, as it seemed to rapidly shift between colors. Nigel just turned up the weird a few more notches, she thought to herself.

Nigel gave her a moment to look at the buttons. "Amelia, before you there are three buttons. Listen carefully to what each button does." Amelia sat stock still for a moment, then nodded her head in acknowledgment of Nigel said. He continued, "These three buttons represent your choices. You have three buttons; therefore you have three possible choices." She nodded her head again. Nigel was pleased thus far; they were making progress.

"The red button on the left represents going back. Returning to your former existence. The blue button on the right represents moving on. And finally, the button in the middle represents Chance. That is for the individual that cannot decide between the other two, but they have to make a choice." Nigel finished and awaited a response.

Amelia was trying to drink in this weird dream world. The endless room. The translucent furniture. This weird old guy in his costume. And now, these three buttons. The buttons were interesting. "Buttons to choose my direction," she said to herself. She looked at Nigel and said, "I believe I understand Chance. It picks one or the other based on when I push it." Nigel nodded his head in agreement. She continued, "I just need clarification on the meaning of the other two buttons. What does move on mean?"

That was a question Nigel heard from every client. Unfortunately, he had no answer other than you move on. "A common question, Amelia. Just as I had no answer to the events that brought you to The Next, I don't know what happens when you choose to move on. We are only here to facilitate you making your choice. I don't know what would happen if you go back, and I don't know what would happen if you moved on."

Amelia blew out the deep breath that she had been holding. She asked, "You can't tell me how I died to get here?"

Nigel nodded and said, "That is correct." Another held breath blown out and she asked, "And you can't tell me where I'll go if I choose to move on?" Nigel again nodded his head, "That is also correct, Amelia."

"The only certainty is if I choose the uncertainty of Chance." Nigel thought for a moment and answered, "Yes, I suppose you are correct."

"Give me just a moment," she said to Nigel.

"There really isn't a concept of time in The Next, Amelia. You may take as long as you need to make your decision."

She pondered that last statement about time for a moment, then shrugged it off. Amelia stared at the three buttons and gave them each the consideration they deserved. "Chance. That one is out. It sounds like gambling, I don't like to gamble," she said aloud. "Moving on? While the great unknown does sound interesting, something bad happened to me. That's why I'm here. I think going back and figuring out what that was and who did it will dictate my choice."

She raised her head to look Nigel in the eyes and asked, "Do I just push down on the button?"

Nigel responded, "Yes Amelia, when you have made your choice, simply press down on the corresponding button." She nodded her head and said, "Thank you, Nigel." Amelia reached out with her left hand and pressed down on the red button.
Chapter 19

It took Gerald nearly eight hours to complete his journey to the University Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. He was exhausted. Awakened by his partner in the middle of the night for an early morning investigation into rural Oregon that yielded nothing. He was able to sleep an hour or so on the flight, despite being wedged in the middle seat between two people that constantly talked around him. They wouldn't switch seats. One wanted the isle and the other insisted on the window seat. Then there were screaming children and the asshole that kept kicking the back of his seat. He later found out that ass hole was an eight-year-old named Freddie. He made a mental note to find and arrest Freddie for something one day.

Gerald parked his rental car in the visitor's lot of the hospital's emergency department. He had wanted a medium to large size SUV, but what he got was a compact Ford hatchback. He was getting tired of being crammed into small spaces today.

He flashed his FBI identification to the nurse at the emergency department's front desk. When he enquired about the Jane Doe that Jenny found, he was informed that she was no longer in the emergency department. The nurse read from her computer screen, "It looks like her condition was stabilized enough to move her into a room. We don't have that many beds down here and we need to move them out as soon as possible." Gerald nodded his head as the nurse spoke. She gave him the floor, room number, and directions to a nearby cafeteria that sold coffee.

In Gerald's experience, hospital coffee was barely better than gas station coffee. He had made it to his destination and didn't feel rushed to visit the room of an unconscious Jane Doe until he'd had a cup of the tar-like substance passed off as coffee. He sat in the hospital cafeteria, sipped his hot coffee, and checked his phone for new messages. Of course, there were five from his partner. Address of the hospital, directions to the hospital, where to park, phone numbers of the emergency department, and finally a "where the hell are you" text.

That was motivation enough for Gerald to empty his cup and head toward the bank of elevators. The elevators were slow in arriving at the ground floor, so a small crowd had gathered. Gerald rode up to the fourth floor with six other people. The small elevator was cramped, and Gerald noticed at least one person reading the weight limit warning just before making eye contact with him. It was tough being a big guy.

Two nurses and a Catholic Priest got off on the fourth floor with Gerald. They made a left when they got off the elevator, Gerald made a right toward the nurse's station. Gerald flashed his credentials and informed the nurse who he wanted to see. She glanced at the computer monitor for a moment and said, "That patient is in room 418. She hasn't regained consciousness yet, but she appears to be improving." Gerald thanked her and began to walk toward room 418, when he decided that he should get his check-in phone call with Jenny out of the way. He turned back toward the nurse, holding up his cell phone with a questioning look that the nurse had seen before. The nurse said, "Back down the hall in the elevator alcove is the only place on this floor that you can use your cell phone."

Gerald thanked her and headed back toward the elevators. When he made it into the alcove, he already had Jenny's contact queued up. He pushed the phone icon to place the call. Jenny answered on the second ring and said in a quiet but firm voice, "Where the fuck have you been and why haven't you responded to my messages?" Gerald reflexively took a step back, although there was no danger that she was going to punch him through the phone. Well, if anyone could figure out how to do that, it would be his partner. Gerald said in a pleading tone, "Whoa, whoa, whoa there partner. Settle down, I just got here." She cut him off, "Bullshit Gerald. The intensive care nurse said you got there twenty minutes ago." Got em, he thought to himself.

"Yes Jenny, I've been here long enough to take a piss, get a cup of coffee, and track down your Jane Doe." Once his partner was fired up, she was relentless. She said, "I need you to get to the room and lay eyes on Jane Doe. No, I need you to send me a picture of Jane Doe, and I need it right fucking now."

Gerald was taken aback a bit by the aggressiveness of his hospitalized partner. The anger seemed to improve her ability to speak. He heard a nurse ask Jenny if everything was alright. He could imagine her waving the nurse away with an "I'm on the fucking phone" gesture. Gerald responded, "Dammit Jenny." Then he stopped talking as the priest walked past the alcove just as he said dammit. The priest gave him a look that said he needed to do a Hail Mary or two. Gerald pulled the phone away from his ear and said, "Sorry about that, Father." The priest nodded and walked on. Gerald put the phone back to his ear and said, "Ok Jenny, you'll have your pic in a few minutes." Gerald ended the call and walked toward room 418.

When Gerald made it to the room, the door was closed and the lights were dim. The nurse had told him that the low light was better for the patient's rest. What was good for the patient was bad for his government issued cell phone. He slowly opened the door to the quiet, nearly dark room. In the light provided by the open door he was able to see the bed and patient that was resting in it.

Gerald decided that if he left the door cracked open it may provide enough light to get a halfway decent cell phone picture. The flash would be better, but he didn't want to disturb the patient or get an ass chewing from one of the nurses. He came to a stop standing directly at the foot of the bed before he opened the camera app on the phone.

There was just enough light to make out the short dark hair poking out of the bandages wrapped around her head. Her face was clear enough; that should make it possible for Jenny to determine if this was her suspect. It did look a little like the female in the pictures in Eric Jones's house. He clicked the button to take the picture. Gerald reviewed his handy work and thought it was good enough to send to his partner. He emailed the picture as an attachment to Jenny and felt he could relax for a few minutes.

Just as Gerald was putting his phone away, the room that had been illuminated by the slightly cracked door went dark.
Chapter 20

Amy's vision was blurry, and she was a little more than disoriented. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, attempting to make her eyes water enough to clear up her sight. She was startled by a familiar voice that said, "Come on slow poke." It was Christine's voice.

Amy stopped rubbing her eyes. She blinked them a few times and was then able to focus on the person walking next to her. It was Christine, and they were walking in the City Center Mall. No better place for two teenage girls to be.

It had been a few years since her last visit to this mall. It was laid out like most malls, with a few big department stores, smaller chain and local retailers, a food court, and an arcade, which for some reason was where they were standing. Amy had never been one for video games. Pinball was interesting for about three minutes, then it just became noise.

The arcade sign above the entryway was blinking on and off like it was broken. The rest of the mall had suddenly become dark, like there was a dark cloud blocking all the natural light into the building. She turned from the darkening expanse of the mall to explore the arcade. It was dark as well. Only one game in the center of the room seemed to be working, one game functioning in a room full of darkened screens.

She couldn't read the title of the game from where she stood, she could only see the light from the monitor. She made her mind up to go into the arcade to see what game had survived after all the others had gone dark. She took one more look around the dim mall and noticed that Christine was no longer with her. Amy couldn't see anyone else in the mall either. "Maybe there was a tornado warning, and everybody took shelter?" She asked out loud. But she never heard a warning over the mall intercom, no tornado sirens either.

Suddenly she felt alone. Just her in an abandoned mall with darkening skies outside and it was making her skin crawl. The only escape from the darkness was the lone surviving video game in the arcade. She turned and started walking toward it. The arcade didn't seem that big from the outside, but it took her at least two minutes to reach the lit screen of the game. Bigger on the inside, she thought to herself.

The game was a typical arcade game, housed in a tall cabinet. It had a joystick and a few red and black buttons. Amy wondered what would happen if she pushed them. "Why did I think that?" she said aloud to herself. The game screen grew brighter as she stepped closer, to reveal a giant blue revolver crudely holstered to the front of the cabinet. It was attached to the cabinet by a thick cable and small chain. Intrigued, she reached out and grasped the revolver. Inspecting it in the dim light, it clearly looked like a kid's plastic toy. It did feel heavy enough to be a real revolver though.

She didn't like to play video games, but she was interested in guns. She pointed the big blue revolver at the screen and pulled the trigger. A faint electronic "bang" that was supposed to simulate gunfire came from the cabinet. "Choose a character to continue" was displayed below the crude images of three characters. A police officer, a soccer mom, and what was clearly a criminal, complete with black and white prison stripes. "Criminal it is," she said to the game as she pulled the trigger while pointing at the gad guy.

"Bang." The screen went off and she was surrounded by darkness. She looked around her while holding the big blue revolver in a Weaver stance. Amy wasn't certain if the electronic bang would protect her in the event something did attack her. She took a step back, so the side of the game would at least give her cover. She couldn't go too far because the gun was still attached to the cabinet.

A little blip of light came from the front of the game. She risked a step forward to see what was being displayed. The little blip had gone out. Then the screen slowly became brighter. But this time it wasn't displaying the video game, it was more like an old home movie. The sounds were different as well. She could hear people moving around, murmurs of a conversation that she couldn't make out. Then a loud voice yelled "Thompkins, you're up."

The voice seemed to be coming from behind her. It was a loud authoritative voice that startled her. She turned into the darkness behind her, blue revolver raised as she closed her eyes and fired three shots into the darkness. There was no faint electronic sound from the gun this time. It was the loud cracking concussive sounds from an actual revolver.

She exhaled the breath that she had been holding and opened her eyes. The room was still dim, but now she was seeing things from a different perspective. "Did I fall?" She asked herself. She was looking up at a ceiling and it felt like she was lying flat on her back. "In a bed?" she wondered. She raised her head a little to view the room's source of light. The light was dim, and she heard voices again. She checked her hands for the big blue revolver, no luck.

"Oh, hello Father. I didn't hear you coming in," said Gerald in a surprised voice. "Sorry to have startled you, my son," responded the priest.

"I was just checking on the patient when you came in," said Gerald.

"Oh, that's fine my son. Are you the young lady's doctor, or a family member perhaps?" Questioned the Priest.

Gerald was suddenly nervous and struggled to respond. "No sir, I'm neither. I'm an FBI agent on a case, and I needed to check on this young lady." The priest stepped further into the room and said, "Oh that's fine, my son. I hope everything is ok with her." The room became brighter as the hallway light gently flooded the room.

Amy saw the two figures better as the light increased. The one nearest to her was what appeared to be a giant. The other was a shorter slimmer man that the other referred to as Father. Must be a priest, she thought to herself. The giant had a deep baritone voice that filled the room when he spoke, while the priest's voice was calm and smooth and somewhat familiar. She knew that voice. It had been a while, but she knew the second man in the room.
Chapter 21

While she was waiting on her partner to send the picture of Jane Doe, Jenny contacted an FBI tech friend for a favor. She wanted access to the security camera feeds for the fourth floor at the University Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. The tech told her that such things were difficult to get through official channels and were rarely ever granted. "Good thing this isn't official, Jenny," was Burt Fleming's response. "Give me a few minutes and I'll email you a link. Fourth floor of which building? It's a pretty big place. Usual payment?" No currency was ever exchanged between the two. Payment was always a six-pack of beer.

"I'm not sure of the building. It would be close to the emergency room. I'll have the package delivered as soon as I get my link, Burt. And thanks." Jenny responded.

A few minutes passed and her tablet finally alerted her that she had a new message. It wasn't her partner yet, but Burt had come through. The email read, "Here's the link, make it something imported this time. No more local river water please." Then a link with random numbers and letters. She clicked on the link. A video app opened on her screen that displayed twelve different color video feeds in one larger window.

The individual windows were tiny. She could make out the nurse's station and the elevator alcove. If she clicked on the individual windows, they opened into a larger window. She could use her sore and battered fingers to zoom in on a feed. She was trying to find the hallway for room 418. The room numbers were flat against the wall by the doors and the cameras only shot straight down the middle of the hallway. She had just about given up when she caught a glimpse of a large athletic man striding down the hallway with confidence. It was Gerald. She followed him on the various cameras until she saw him disappear into one of the rooms. "That must be 418," she said to herself.

The hospital floor wasn't very busy. It was late and visiting hours must be over. She noticed another man walking the halls. She followed the man down the same path through the department that her partner had just traveled. As he turned down the final hallway, she was able to take a few pictures of him before he went to the room that Gerald just went entered. Looking back at the live video, she watched the man stop just outside room 418.

She could only see the back of the man as he stood in the doorway. She decided to look at the pictures she took. They weren't high definition, but they were decent. In the color photo she saw an older man with short gray hair and a close trimmed equally gray beard. The man was also wearing a priest's collar. She couldn't put her finger on it right away, but something kept niggling at her about the priest. It was the eyes, something about the eyes looked very familiar.

Her tablet chimed again to alert her that she had another email. She opened the email from her partner. She then clicked on the attached photo to open it up. The picture wasn't great. She zoomed in and back out again. The face was a bit swollen and the bandages kept her from getting a full accurate head shot of the woman. She was sure that this was the woman she had seen in her in-between dream world. That's what she had started calling it.

She began to type out the response to Gerald that this was their suspect, when it hit her. "Oh shit, I know who that is!" she mumbled loudly to the empty hospital room. She decided to call her partner instead. She had to warn him about who that priest really was.
Chapter 22

Amy heard music playing, and thought it must be the ringtone from a cell phone. Was that House of Pain? she wondered to herself. She saw the giant reach into his pocket for the ringing phone as he held up his free hand in an apologetic "one moment please" gesture to the second man.

The second man used the opportunity to move closer to the hospital bed, and it hit her. That smell. Now she knew. She knew who attacked her at The Alamo, and she knew who this son of a bitch was that was walking toward her. "Ray," said Amy in a quiet raspy voice.

Gerald had answered his phone and said hello to his partner when he heard the injured woman say something. Gerald asked his partner to hold on for a minute as he pulled the phone away from his head. He bent over to get closer to the woman and said, "Ma'am, what did you say? I didn't understand you." At the same time Amy Borden and his partner on the phone said, "Ray Crocket." The injured woman was silent after that, but his partner kept going. "Ray Crocket, the priest is Ray Crocket!"

Ray Crocket was a name every FBI agent for the past twenty years was familiar with. It took Gerald a second to register what his partner and the injured woman were saying. Ray Crocket. Bank robber. Killer. Pico Ranch FBI massacre. He was presumed dead and taken off the FBI most wanted list. He remembered a picture of Crocket from a story, but it was at least fifteen years old. He compared that image to the face of the priest. Maybe, he thought to himself. What happens if I draw down on this man and he's just a Catholic Priest that has the misfortune of looking like Ray Crocket? That'll be a lot of paperwork. Then again, what if it is Ray Crocket disguised as a Catholic Priest? Crocket is a stone-cold killer.

It only took a second or two for Gerald to process this information. He was trained to make impossible decisions quickly. Gerald reached with his right hand for the firearm under his left arm in the shoulder holster. He did this while turning toward the priest. The priest hadn't heard what Amy Borden had said either time she spoke, but he was close enough to hear someone on a cell phone blow his cover by shouting his name.

"Ray Crocket, the Priest is Ray Crocket." Came from the cell phone the FBI agent was carrying. "Well shit, the priest thought to himself. I guess the jig is up. Time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Ray was old but still quick as a barn cat and just as mean. As Gerald turned, he exposed the one thing Ray knew that would incapacitate the big man. Ray punched him twice in the throat before Gerald could say 'Freeze, scumbag.' Ray turned and ran out of the room toward the nearest stairwell. They were on the fourth floor, and by the time Ray had made it down to the second-floor landing he knew something was wrong. He wasn't in shape so any amount of running at his age would have left him breathless. But this was different. He wasn't just out of breath—he was having trouble breathing.

"No, not right now," he pleaded, as he struggled against the hand railing on the second-floor landing. Ray was no stranger to what a heart attack felt like. He knew that he didn't have much time before the FBI agent recovered enough to begin his pursuit. He needed to get to his car, parked out on the street. Ray forced himself to go down a few steps. There, that wasn't so bad. He was shaking, sweating, and his vision started to get blurry. He quickly took three more steps, and then three more. He made it to the landing in between floors. He had no time to rest, but he needed to catch his breath.

He made it down two more steps and stumbled when he tried one more. He fell backward on his ass and slid down to the first-floor landing. He pulled himself up using the hand railing. He didn't know how he could go on without being able to take something other than a shallow painful breath. Then he heard the motivation he needed. From three floors above him came two loud bangs. One must have been the agent blasting the door open, the other was the door crashing into the wall. Oh shit. Here comes chocolate thunder, he thought to himself.

Ray's fight or flight instincts kicked in. Everyone has them. That ancient part of the brain known as the lizard brain. Primitive survival instincts, giving the option to fight or get the hell out of Dodge? Ray heard the old Clash song playing in his head. "If I go there will be trouble. But if I stay it will be double." A wonderful bit of rock and roll poetry, he thought to himself.

He took the remaining steps two at a time. When he finally reached the bottom, he stumbled into the handle of the exit door and burst out onto the sidewalk. That was as far as Ray Crocket would go. The lack of oxygen had finally taken its toll. Notorious bank robber Ray Crocket lay facedown on the concrete sidewalk—no longer worrying about taking a deep breath, and no longer able to, either.
Chapter 23

"Ladies and gentlemen. I don't think I should need to remind you that this is a fucking bank robbery!" screamed a very young and angry Ray Crocket. He was just doing his part of the job. A three-man team. Jackie Fitzroy waited outside in the getaway car. Jackie had great instincts on planning for a job and he could drive circles around the cops. Terry McCabe was the biggest of the three, so he got to carry the money out of the bank. And Ray, he was doing what he did best. He managed the room. He kept everybody calm, he kept them all in line. He was a master at working the room. Always on the lookout for trouble. It never failed though, somebody always wanted to be a hero. It was his job to talk them out if it, and if that didn't work, he would have to shoot them.

Shooting was the last resort. First, there was a stern warning and threat of violence. Second, was some form of violence. Sometimes a shove to the ground with a pistol in their mouth got the point across. Firing a gun inside a bank was freaking loud. People that saw it freaked the hell out, and somebody always got a healthy dose of somebody else's blood on them, causing screaming and in general a widespread panic. It was no way to control a room.

"Lay back down on the floor, sir. Nobody needs to be a hero today. And no fucking talking." Ray's voice bellowed in the open marble-covered space. Ray looked around and was satisfied with all the other bank patrons, lying facedown on the floor just as he had asked them. "Where the hell is Terry?" he mumbled to himself. He'd been gone too long. Something wasn't right. It was at that moment the glass front door of the bank burst open. Ray had locked it on his way in, but apparently glass wasn't much of a deterrent to a police battering ram.

"Time to go." He said to himself. Cops were coming in now and the front door was no longer an option. Or was it? He shoved the pistol in his pocket, pulled the stocking off his face and threw his unbuttoned flannel shirt into the nearest trash can. Ray got on the ground as fast as he could to make it appear that he was just another bank patron victimized by the robbery.

Some people had seen the police come in and they were getting up and moving toward the front door. Some people were still on the ground screaming, crying or both. Ray decided to stay on the ground and wait to be told that it was ok to get up. When an officer grabbed him by the arm and told him to get up, Ray looked up at him with tears in his eyes and couldn't stop thanking the young man. No bank patron had seen his face—that had been covered by the stocking. That's what they would remember, the stocking over his face and that red flannel shirt. "Always give them something to remember" was one of Ray's rules.

Of the fifteen people in the bank, Ray was the eighth to walk out the front door with his hands raised and tears in his eyes. They were being ushered into a makeshift holding area in the parking lot of a bakery down the street. Probably want everyone's account of the robbery, Ray thought to himself, as he walked behind a woman in stretchy pants. Great ass, but now it was time to go. He didn't really want to give them his version of the things that transpired in the bank this morning. As they rounded the corner of a police van, a loud crash came from behind them near the bank. Everyone stopped and turned to look back. Ray stopped too, he was as slippery as a minnow's dick as he slid between two of the parked vans.

He walked through the vans and made it into the crowd of onlookers in a matter of seconds. He stood there with the rest of the onlookers while they waited to see the source of the crash. Ten seconds went by without an answer and the crowd resumed their prior conversations.

Ray slowly walked down the block. He knew Jackie wasn't gone, he just moved to a safe distance. Self-preservation was a necessity, a key factor to longevity in the business. He was getting a little nervous as he approached the second block and didn't yet see the car Jackie was driving. He was about to figure out his next steps, when he finally saw the car parked at the next corner. He quickened his pace as he tried not to look around for anyone tailing him.

As he approached the car he heard Jackie start the engine. Ray felt a certain level of relief when he opened the door and got in. He told Jackie to go. Ray felt more relieved when the car started rolling away from the bank and the failed robbery attempt. "Where's Terry?" asked Jackie in a concerned tone.

Ray replied, "He didn't make it out."

Jackie mauled that response over for a moment then said, "What the fuck do you mean he didn't make it out?"

Ray didn't like the tone of his voice; he wasn't happy about how things went down either. "You saw the cops, that's why you high-tailed it down the street. He went into the back to the vault and I never saw him again." He paused, as if trying to clear something distasteful out of his mouth. "I was doing ok managing the room when the fucking door exploded. I had to do what I had to do, man." Another longer pause this time. "Terry knew the reward, he also knew the risks. I didn't want to leave him behind, I didn't want to go to jail either. I saw an opportunity to get out and I took it."

Jackie couldn't fault Ray for saving himself; he did the same thing by moving down the street and away from the bank. He thought of a complication of Terry going to jail and asked, "What about his kid?" Ray's eyebrows went up then down, and he shook his head a couple of times and said, "Not my fucking problem."

The ride was silent after that. The car started to get brighter inside as they cleared all the tall city buildings. It was so bright that Ray thought they must be traveling straight into the sun. He lowered the sun visor on his side of the car to help shade his face, but that didn't work. The car continued to get brighter until it was so bright that he couldn't see anything except a bright endless white expanse.

The car had faded away, but he felt like he was still in a seated position. He looked down to see both of his arms resting on a pair of arm rests. They weren't easy to focus on though—they kept phasing in and out of focus. The seat of the chair was the same. He raised his head to chance a look at the rest of his surroundings, but he knew what to expect.

"Raymond, welcome back! It's good to see you," came the friendly voice of his longtime representative, Sharon. She spoke to him from behind that familiar translucent desk with a big smile on her face that was contagious. Ray said, "Hello Sharon. I would say that it's good to see you, but the only time I see you is after something tragic has happened." Sharon just smiled back at him, not knowing how to respond to his statement.

Sharon let the awkward pause go on for a moment, then spoke, "If you don't have any questions, Raymond, I'll display the buttons and you can make your choice." Ray responded, "No, I don't have any questions this time." Sharon reached to the side of the desk and prepared to sweep her hand across to display the buttons, when she thought of something and asked, "Only the red button, as we've done in the past? It's no trouble to display all three. I just remember your preference from the last few visits."

Ray thought about this. He went over the pros and cons of each decision. Move on, Return, or Chance? He had survived a few car wrecks, being shot, stabbed, and multiple heart attacks. Right now Ray was just tired of it all. He felt like he had done all that he had set out to do in life. He had been on the run for a long time. That had gotten better once the feds thought he had died. Hell, he did die. Multiple times. "Only the blue button this time Sharon. I believe I'm done. I'm tired of running and I'm tired of fighting. It's time to see what happens when I press the blue button," he said, with conviction in his voice.

Sharon nodded and swept her hand across the desk. In its shimmering wake, a single blue button appeared. She raised her head, smiled, and said, "Good luck to you, Raymond." Ray returned the smile and said, "To you as well, Sharon. Thank you for all your help." Ray stood up, took a bow, then reached out and pressed the singular blue button.
Chapter 24

FBI Special Agent Gerald Butler should have felt exhausted, but this had been the biggest arrest of his career and he was still riding high from the thrill of it. At the University Hospital in San Antonio, he had made it down the steps to the first floor just in time to see Ray Crocket collapse to the ground.

Gerald wasn't sure what to do at first. Should he handcuff a guy that looked like he was having a heart attack, or should he leave the slippery sun of a bitch to go get some medical help? He supposed a third option would have been to do nothing and watch the old criminal die, and Gerald was ready to do that too. Especially after being punched in the throat twice by the old bastard.

In the end, he decided to loop his handcuffs around Ray's ankles. It was tight, but it would keep him from running away while Gerald went for help. He might try to hop away, but Gerald didn't think he'd get far.

When a team from the emergency department arrived on scene, Gerald did get chastised for binding the legs of an apparent heart attack victim. That was ok, he'd take that scolding and move on. It was borderline out of bounds to do that, but Gerald was trained to make impossible decisions quickly after all.

Ray Crocket did eventually pass away, but he was still alive when Gerald cuffed him. He couldn't remember if he had read him his rights, but that didn't matter. He had officially arrested someone that at one time was on the FBI's most wanted list. The only reason he was off the list was that they thought he had died. Ray Crocket had made it to number four after the Pico Ranch massacre and stayed on the list for years after that. Technically, in Gerald's opinion, he had arrested someone on the FBI's most wanted list.

Gerald was back in his FBI issued non-descript sedan on the way to see his partner, who was still recovering from her accident. He had made it back to Portland and the county hospital as quick as he could. The phone call with Jenny when he told her the news of what had transpired with Ray Crocket was good. He couldn't wait to see the look on her face when he debriefed her in person. He would also update her on the status of Jane Doe. She had been moved to a secure room with a guard posted at her room day and night. When she was able to travel, she would be transported to an FBI facility in Portland for questioning. Things were looking good.

Gerald parked the non-descript sedan and headed toward the doors of the emergency department—it was the only route that he knew up to Jenny's room. Just as the sliding doors started to open, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. The door on the right suddenly became red, while the glass on the left-hand door shattered and sprayed what looked like red paint against the second set of entry way doors. Then he registered the sonic report of the weapon. He had spent some time on the army rifle range and he thought it might be a .308.

Everything was in slow motion. He watched the glass bounce off the other door, then the ground. He saw the second set of sliding doors opening as his large frame falling forward into the alcove triggered the sensor. People on the other side of the door had seen what was happening and they were screaming in terror. He waited to hear another shot. As he fell to the ground, he told his body to put his arms out to cushion the fall. He didn't want to hit face-first on the hard floor covered in broken glass, but his body wouldn't obey. He hit the ground hard; the impact nearly knocked him out.

A second shot never came. In Gerald's experience he knew what that meant. It was a pro. One of those "one shot, one kill" guys. He didn't want to close his eyes, but he couldn't keep them open either.

Over four hundred yards away on a roof top, a man had already put his rifle away—a .308 caliber that Gerald had successfully identified. He was on his way down the stairs almost before Gerald had closed his eyes. Eric Jones, at least that's the alias he had been using lately. He'd pick another name out of a hat to use now. Eric had made longer shots in his military career, but it was still a tough shot in a city setting. The ambulance arrival in front of the emergency department had altered the timing of his shot. He was only able to get him in the shoulder. That was fine though, the hole should be big enough for him to bleed out. So often he had no personal connection with the target. He just pointed and pulled the trigger. This felt better to him, more satisfying to watch that big bastard hit the ground.

He had tried to poison Gerald with a cup of coffee, but a phone call before he could take a sip had kept him alive for a little longer. Not much longer, Eric thought to himself. With that job done, it was time for him to make his exit. Start over somewhere else where it wasn't so hot and gloomy.

Gerald was jolted awake by a vaguely familiar voice "Butler, you're up." Gerald shook his head to clear the fogginess. He looked around and saw that it was getting dark and gloomy, like it was about to storm. After he was finished playing amateur weatherman, he looked at his immediate ground level situation. Post office, drug store, and a bank. Holy shit. Hogan's Alley, he thought to himself. Just then, a crack of thunder bludgeoned the land with strong sonic waves. Gerald reflexively flinched at the sound.

This must be a dream. After the loud thunder crack, he found himself behind the lamp post in front of the drug store. In front of him, standing in the doorway to the post office, was another trainee. Odd, he thought. He'd never been anything but the point man at the post office. It was getting darker and the wind had picked up speed.

The sodium vapor lights that surrounded Hogan's Alley had been turned on. It was still impossible to see, and the lights didn't seem to cut through the gloom. The only thing that did keep the encroaching darkness at bay were the massive lightening strikes. There were a lot of them. There wasn't a moment when the sky was vacant of one. Their bright tendrils spread quickly across the sky and they were gone in an instant, only to be replaced by another one.

Through his earpiece, Gerald heard one of the trainees pleading with the commander to call off the training. "Sir, this storm looks like it's going to be a big one." Still no response. "Sir, can we take shelter in the buildings until it blows over?" The commander finally responded, "Smith, I ordered radio silence. Shut the hell up." Smith wouldn't let it go, "I know sir, but this is just a simulation. Nothing worth standing out in a thunderstorm."

Gerald found himself cracking a smile when the commander told Smith that sometimes bank robbers work in the rain. Then the mother of all thunderclaps shook Hogan's Alley. Gerald flinched and turned toward the glass front of the drug store. As the lightning strike hit the lamp post he was leaning against, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the darkened glass. It wasn't the reflection of Special Agent Gerald Butler that stared back at him.

Then the illumination of the lightning strike consumed everything. Bright, hot white light. Gerald reflexively tucked his face into his bicep to shield his eyes against the light. He was blinded by the light and apparently rendered momentarily deaf by the thunderclap. He couldn't hear anything, and he couldn't see anything but a vast bright-white expanse. Gerald looked around and came to a couple of conclusions. He couldn't hear anything because there wasn't anything to make any sounds. He also couldn't see anything because the area he was in was devoid of everything. Except for himself.
Chapter 25

He found himself in a seated position with his knees tucked into his chest. He rolled smoothly to his knees and up to a standing position as easily as an athlete should. He looked in all directions and saw nothing different. He yelled, "Hello?" No sound bounced back his way in an echo, the white expanse seemed to have consumed the sound. Gerald wasn't sure what to do. He decided to sit down and wait for something to happen.

He wasn't sure if this was a dream. He thought about that possibility for a while. He thought about his parents. He knew that if he were dead that he would certainly miss them. Not sure how much they'd miss him. He thought about god and how his religion had shaped his childhood. He thought about his grandmother making him get dressed up to go to Sunday school. He thought about a girl named Angela that he'd gone out with a couple of weeks ago. She was nice. She was intrigued by going out with an FBI special agent, but she was a little wigged out by him always carrying his firearm. "Part of the job," he'd told her.

Then something caught Gerald's attention; it was the sound of someone walking. It sounded like quick short steps, the sound of something solid striking the floor. Not a man in a pair of running shoes, and as the figure came closer, he could see that it was a woman in a pair of clogs. She came to within five feet of Gerald and stopped. She looked to be around five and a half feet tall with a small build, weird outfit, and straight black hair. She was attractive without being pretty. The silver jumpsuit from the nineteen seventies wouldn't win her any fashion awards, but it was an interesting retro look, in Gerald's opinion.

Then she spoke, "Hello Gerald Butler. My name is Sharon, I'll be your representative." Gerald didn't move and he didn't respond to what the woman had just said. He was utterly confused as to what was going on. She raised her left hand to the side like she was pointing at something behind him and said, "Please, have a seat and we'll get started." Now it was more interesting, he knew there was nothing in this big ass white room to sit on. Was she trying to trick him? Turn around to look for a seat and she pulls out an anvil with 'ACME' painted on the side? "Wham." Out go Gerald's lights again.

She just kept standing there with her hand up. She seemed harmless enough, so he decided to chance a look. To his surprise, there was something behind him that resembled a chair. It looked like an artist's black and white pencil sketch of a chair. Some old music video came to mind. The name of the band was a-ha. Crap, am I stuck in an 80's music video dream? Couldn't it at least be ZZ Top? Cars and chicks are better than pencil drawings any day of the week, he thought to himself.

Intrigued, he reached out, touched the chair, and it felt solid. The lines of the thing kept fading in and out. He wasn't sure if he could sit on something that he couldn't comprehend. He turned back around to face Sharon. She was seated in a chair with a big desk in front of her. She must have been to an a-ha yard sale of something. The lines of the desk and chair jumped around and faded in and out of focus too. He let out a breath that he didn't realize that he'd been holding, turned to face the a-ha chair, and thought, Why the hell not? He turned around and gingerly sat down into the chair. Surprisingly, it held. He was a big guy and had broken a few chairs in his day. It was a valid concern.

Now they sat across from each other, client and representative. Sharon had gone through this process many times with new clients. Shock, amazement, anger, but usually it was the same bewildered look that her current client displayed. Gerald was beyond confused; this whole scenario defied any sort of logic. The endless room, the furniture, a lady walking in from the endless white space dressed up in a 70s science fiction outfit. He asked, "Sharon, what is this place?"

A question she heard from every new client, and some of the returning ones too. Protocol dictated that she get to this part of the process first. A place and a situation that's impossible to describe based on a client's past experiences. "Gerald, you are in a place known as The Next." As she expected, and had experienced many times before, this got no reaction from the client.

Gerald sat with this new information—it didn't help. He surmised that Sharon was a very literal being; ask a question and she will answer it. No elaboration necessary, like asking a computerized personal assistant. He would need to tailor his questions differently. "Sharon, why am I here?"

She answered, "You are here because in your prior existence your life ended."

He started to chew on his bottom lip after that answer. "Excuse me, did you just say my life ended?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I said. Your life ended."

"Sharon, how did my life end?"

"I do not know. We are not privy to the details of how you got here. Or what will happen to you when you leave The Next," she answered.

Interrogating a drug dealer was easier, he thought to himself. "Ok. Let's sum things up." Sharon just stared at him, waiting for a question. Gerald continued, "My life ended. You don't know how, nor do you know what will happen to me when I leave here." Sharon nodded her head in agreement to each of his statements, then said nothing.

Gerald's investigative brain had eliminated the questions that the witness could not or refused to answer. He was unsure at this point if she was just refusing to answer the questions or really didn't know the answer. There was, however, one question that he hadn't asked, "Sharon, how do I leave The Next?"

And there it is, the beginning of the end, Sharon thought to herself as the smile on her face grew. Progress was always pleasing.

"In The Next, you have to make a choice." Gerald was intrigued now; he scooted to the edge of his a-ha chair in anticipation of what she was saying. She continued, "You can choose to move on, go back, or let Chance decide."

Gerald slid back into his chair. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked in frustration. She thought for a second, then responded, "I'll go into more detail. You can move on, that's as detailed as I can be with that choice. We don't know where you go, only that you move on from your prior existence. That leads us to your next choice of going back to your prior existence. The third and final choice is to let Chance decide. That is for clients that can't decide between moving on or going back. It's a completely random choice between the two." She paused, continued to stare at Gerald and asked, "Have I answered your question, Gerald?"

She answered the question, but Gerald was still having trouble wrapping his head around the answer. Sharon saw the confused look on his face and decided it was time for her to move this encounter along. "Gerald, let me give you a more visual representation of how you will make your choice." Then, with her right hand, she made a sweeping motion across the desk from left to right. Her palm was facing downward, and it created a shimmering effect where her hand had been. When the shimmering subsided, Gerald could see the formation of something. No, there were three somethings.

He looked up from the desk at Sharon and asked, "What are those?"

Sharon smiled and responded, "Those are the buttons that represent your choices. You will press one of them when you have decided what you will do." Gerald thought about the three choices. Move on, on to what? He never made it to Chance. Once he thought about going back, it hit him. What his partner Jenny Thompkins had done. That thought made him smile, that smile turned into a chuckle, and then full-blown laughter.

Sharon was confused by this outburst of laughter. She didn't think she had said anything humorous. Her client continued to get louder and laugh harder.

Gerald spoke in short choked-off sentences between laughs, "That's how she did it. We all thought she was just the luckiest person alive. That's how she did it." His laughter continued for another moment and he eventually calmed down and was able to somewhat compose himself. Then started up again. "Look out Jenny, here comes Gerald Butler. Unkillable agent number two."

The End.

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BOOKS BY MIKE MIRACLE

THE NEXT SERIES

Revenge

Fractured

The Yellowjacket

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