Jackson and I pant heavily. There are footsteps behind us, fast clacks on the jetty. "Run!" I yell to him. Tides crash on either side of this wooden thrust into the blue. Stars in the distorted surface shimmer with excitement. They're chasing us. And worse, they're catching up.

His face is alive with panic. "The jetty ends here! Tess! What are we doing?!" They say when you die your life flashed before your eyes. Well, I don't know what they're talking about, because all I see is the turbulent ocean, and the jagged edges of an ended jetty. Jacksons azure eyes look into mine. Fear takes hold. A fire churns in my stomach.

The world slows down, "Grab my hand!" His clammy palm embraces mine and in high heel boots and a multilayered dress, I make the worst decision of my life... and jump.

Two weeks Earlier:

The night was cold. Deliciously so. Rain pelted my windows like a distraught suitor and the couch curled a little closer to the fire. This was my kind of night, where everything is magical. I write now to you with numbly warm fingers and my innards coiling around each other for warmth. My brain keeps reminding me to fall asleep, but all I do bask in the orange heat. Sinking deeply into the brown leather, my muscles relax.

My ears prick. A knock awakes me from my roasting stasis, distinguished faintly from the precipitation's hammering. Hurried knocks repeat themselves on my bedroom door. I realise now I am still writing and need to attend to matters in a dimension other than 2-D. Apprehension tingles in my stomach. Here I was thinking I was alone tonight in this giant house, yet someone is on the other side. Nothing to loose but sanity itself and nothing to gain but knowledge. Armed with a pencil, sharpened I might add, I open the door.

Jackson stands in the doorway sopping wet like a sad little puppy dog. I almost forgot he was here. That gorgeous moment of absent mindedness. A break from him straining American voice, his Adam's apple that he strokes as a second chin. He's doing that. Right now. It's frustrating.

"I need your help."

I cross my arms and return to the chair. "Of course you do."

He shuffles uncomfortably sending farting noises from his wet pants. "So are you going to help me?"

"Really Jackson? A please would suffice."

"Please."

I sigh. "What?"

"I found a dead body in the woods," he blurts at an alarmingly fast pace. Thunder bellows through the rain splats, like a terribly timed sound affect.

"Jesus Jackson! Have you called the police?" Lighting flashes like a furious photographer.

A bloated silence follows. He tightens his lips.

I massage my brow. "Jackson, I don't know what backward law system you have in America, but here we like to notify people when we freaking find a dead body in the woods."

"You don't get it, the body is just dead."

I'm slowly nodding. "That's usually what dead bodies do."

Jackson gives me a exasperated look. "I mean no wounds, poison, signs of a heart attack, or any emotion on him."

"And how would you know that?"

He looks down at his ringing finger, "I can smell- I mean feel it." Leaning in with agitation and patting down his dripping wet hair still crusted with gel, he asks, "You're into that detective stuff and shit?"

"Language! And yes."

"Well do you know anything that could have an effect like that?"

"No. Nothing."

"Really?"

"Trust me, everything leaves a trace."

"Are you sure?"

"Did I not just-?

"Positive?"

"Oh my giddy aunt! Stop questioning me, I've told you all I know." Deeply sighing, I remember this morning's paper. "It's not the first."

"What?"

"Two guys were found dead in the forest with no found cause of death. Just last week."

"You didn't mention this earlier?"

I jump off the couch, "Come with me."

"Where?"

"You idiot! I want to see the body. See what we're dealing with."

...

A rain drop through weaves of the umbrella and lands on my nose. And all around me is the plops and plips continue leaving the heavens in tears. The forest shimmers in it's bead curtain of down pour. "How do you forget where a dead body is?"

Blinking wildly outside the dry pocket of my umbrella, I can barely see the silhouette of my cousin. "It's hard to smell with all the rain."

I must have misheard him. My feet stumble on something soft, unlike a tree root. I yell over the rain, "Found it!"

Humid air thick with earthly magic pounds through my nostrils. Jackson leans in. "What are we looking for?"

"There's nothing about the body, so look around and see if the killer left any clues."

Ruffling the brown sodden leaves, feeling for something unnatural. Where my eyes don't work, feeling does. Soil, wet muddy and cold cover my arms like shivering gloves, quickly washing away in the rain. I feel something colder than the surrounding earth, a thin metal chain with a pendant attached.

Jackson gets up and I shove it in my pocket. "Nothing on this side," he says.

"Think I got something, but lets go home. I'm freezing."

Jackson is saying something. Can I really be bothered listening over the rain? I sigh. Probably not. I'm cold and tired and just want the slow release of sleep. He's heading back to the yellow lights in the distance of the house. He has the same idea. And though the forest is thick with wonder, I follow. He turns around. "I know an expert in this field, so after the police, I'll call him."

...

The telephone shrilly wails in it's cradle. I turn in the blankets, my warm feet screaming in protest. Cold gales fly between my toes. Three a.m.? You have got to be kidding me. I gingerly pick up the phone.

"What?"

"Um... hello." An American. God I hate the time difference.

"You must be the expert my cousin talks of."

"You could say that..."

"I'll see if Jack's up."

I tip-toe slowly through the hallway in the darkness fumbling for his door handle. Thunder drums on outside the house and flashes of lighting assist me in my shadow journey. The door squeals on its hinges.

And I thought the thunder was bad. Jackson's snores quiver in my eardrums. In the dim moonlight I spot fluro earplugs. I take my finger off the speakers. "He's not waking up anytime soon. Can I pass on a message?"

There is a sigh on the other end. "Just tell him to call me, Scott, back."
"Sure."

"One last thing, have you noticed anything weird about Jackson."

"Sure."

"Like what?"

"Where do I begin? His bathroom cleanliness matches that of a caveman, has an annoying accent, his snores can be heard in the 18th century by a deaf man, he smells constantly like a wet-"

"Anything unnatural?"

I twirl my red hair delicately with my finger. "Now that you mention it..."

I can no longer hear Scott's breathing. "Yes?"

"His hair. It's far too perfect."

I feel his disappointment through the line. "Oh. Just tell Jackson to call me back, okay?"

"Sure. And next time you call, don't forget the time difference." The line is already dead. My words of wisdom fall on a dial tone.

I push my hands into my dressing gown. They are greeted with something cold. How could I have forgotten? Still caked in mud, the necklace I found next to the body. I run to the bathroom sink and delicately wash of the dirt, making sure not to drop it down the drain.

It was a fish pendant. Worse, it was my fish pendant. How does a necklace, I wore only last week and thought was in my dresser arrive at the scene of a crime? I've been writing all night. This is my alibi.

I return it to my dresser and then toss and turn my way back to sleep.