I stopped and gazed mindlessly at the nonstop traffic. Pulling out my cell phone, I pressed the audio record app and spoke over the din of tire rubber swishing through the layers of Autumn's rotting leaves. Holding the phone close, I said, "Note to self. Get these damn shoes resoled and do it soon. You have no idea what kind of parasites are lurking in those little gifts left by overfed dogs. Do you really want that foul stuff leeching into your socks?"

She was eight years old, shivering, her thin sweater no match for the breeze hinting at the winter on its heels.

Things were getting strange and out of hand.

I found the nearest bar. It was low rent but that was fine with me.

I ordered a bourbon and a beer chaser.

"Rough day," the barkeep observed.

"Like you wouldn't believe," I replied.

He regarded me, searchingly. "You're ex military."

"Oohra. Now I do private work. You?"

He rolled up his sleeve and showed me his USMC tattoo. "Twenty four years."

I saluted him.

"So what's it about?" he asked. "This trouble."

"It's about a girl. But then it's always about a girl."

He nodded, then looked over my shoulder.

"Like that one," he said.

I turned and she was there.

"Another round for me and the lady will have a glass of pinot gris," I said.

She sat. I waited for our drinks.

"Look, I will work this out. Just in my own time", I said.

She sipped her wine. "I know your process."

"So why are you here?" I asked.

"As if you need to ask."

The room was stuffy but she brought a chill to it. That was one of her powers.

"Because you're lonely," I replied.

"Don't," she said. "Just don't." She looked away.

I had known her for a long time. I'd just realised I was working her out. Or maybe she was working me out. Or maybe both.

"It's about a dead girl," she said finally. "You find her killer and you find her ghost. It's a recovery mission."

"Copy that," I said.

I turned. She was there.

"What now?" I asked.

She shrugged. "The usual."

"I do have other things to do, you know," I said.

"No, you don't. Because this is what you do."

She brushed my hand and was gone.

The sound of the voice stopped me in my tracks, even more than the horrific content of the whispers. I had heard the voice before, in my dreams. Had it been only last night that this paradoxically sweet and innocent sounding voice spewed its terrible messages? Or was it from long ago and I only found it familiar because the dream recurred? Either way, I suddenly worried that my mind was lost. Hearing voices is a sign of insanity. That much I knew.

At first the voice seemed to be coming from a number of places,,,the trees that the leaves had fallen from,the trash and recycle containers that lined the streets like fake clean police.The fence that surounded the buil......wait,had that building been there 16 seconds earlier?