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I break out in a cold sweat every time that thought passes over me.
So, there’s a crowd of voices in my brain, and needless to say I don’t sleep well.
When dawn breaks through the high transom windows in my bedroom, I get up and take this body out for a run around the lake.
Might as well enjoy it while I can.
The run airs out my brain too, and I’m not quite so edgy as I climb up the three flights and enter my newly cleaned apartment.
Listen, I mutter to myself. No one died yesterday.
And no one is going to die today.
And as long as I save Danny and Asher, and manage not to get myself killed, everything will be just fine.
My machine is blinking and I retrieve my messages as I strip off my shirt and stick my head in my fridge, searching for sustenance.
Two cans of beer and a piece of moldy cheese sit forlornly in my fridge. I hadn’t realized that I had such serious issues with eating healthy.
“Rembrandt, this is Mom.”
Oh, boy. I throw out the beers and the cheese and close the fridge. I haven’t talked to Mom—well, maybe I have, but you know what I mean—since the police found my brother’s body a month ago. I left this time almost immediately after solving the cold case last time—and that realization hits me. Timing.
What if I save Danny and Asher’s life and never find Gretta’s killer?
“Aunt Joann and Uncle Bert have stopped by, and we’re all having brunch this morning,” my mother says from the machine.
My mother’s sister and her husband. Nice, God-fearing folks from Brainerd. I have a couple fond memories of ice-fishing with Uncle Bert. I check the freezer and find a burrito. It’s icy around the edges, having had a long quiet life behind the ice trays.
“We’re hoping you can stop by and join us. I haven’t seen you in weeks, not since the hospital…” She pauses, and I still.
They must have come to the hospital to visit me after the stabbing. Or maybe…what if, despite all I did, she still had her stroke? I can’t remember now, my memory foggy and I close the freezer door in a rush of fear.
“I hope you’re feeling better. I…we miss you.”
The message ends and I stare at the machine.
They miss me? This is new. After Mikey vanished, life simply halted while my parents searched, grieved, searched, grieved more…an endless cycle that I eventually stepped out of and watched.
They never really noticed my absence.
Not that I blamed them. No one actually pointed any fingers at me, at the fact that we were out biking together, me, the older brother, and Mikey, three years younger, struggling to catch up to me.
Then he was gone, and you know the rest.
Probably I need to check in with my family and see what damage I’ve done to them. See what I can do to fix it.
You can’t win against time.
Yeah, yeah I heard you.
I shower and dress, pulling on a pair of clean jeans—thank you fresh laundry—my favorite band t-shirt, a relic I picked up while attending a Journey concert, slip on my Cons and I’m out the door.
I’ve forgotten, really, the ebullient sense of youth, how it fills your pores and makes you believe you’re invincible. Maybe the young me is in here somewhere, because my panic from Eve’s words last night has d
issolved.
Journey reminds me to keep the faith as I crank Don’t Stop Believin’ and I take Highway 7 out to Waconia, a small town about thirty minutes from the city. My parents live on a small hobby farm, with a barn my father uses for his vintage car repair. My 1988 Porsche sits under a tarp, waiting for a rebuilt carburetor and a number of other problems, and I suddenly miss it.
