*Note: I wrote this episode before all the stuff came out about the Colorado Kid in Season 3. In light of this, I made several assumptions that we know now are not true. Picture this as sort of an "alternate" storyline.-KM

Dorothy Ritter set the pot of water on the stove and turned to get the salt. When she faced the pot again, it was already boiling.

Confused, the grey-haired, matronly woman bent down and checked the stove. She had not even turned the burner on, and even if she had, there was no way cold tap water could boil that fast.

As she stood, a pleased expression came over her face. Dorothy Ritter sighed in contentment and seized the pot with her bare hands. Slowly, she lifted the pot and poured the scalding water over her head in a short, brutally-hot waterfall.

Audrey Parker and Nathan Wuornos, partners on the Haven Police force, stepped into the Ritter house at six-thirty.

Joe Ritter sat, frozen in horror, in an easy-chair in his front room, like he didn't want to be in the kitchen at all. The phone he'd used to call them was still clutched in his hands. Audrey mused wryly that she didn't want to be there, either, especially when they saw the body on the floor.

The boiling water had seared Dorothy's skin and the rapid swelling and shrinking of her scalp had caused a lot of her already-thin hair to fall out. The medical examiner was pointing out the second-degree burns on her hands, signs that she had not even used hot-pads at all when she lifted the pot and—

"What?" Audrey mused aloud, "She just poured it over her head?"

"This week just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" Nathan remarked sarcastically.

He looked up from the boiled woman just in time to see Audrey absently lay her hand on the recently-occupied burner. Nathan lunged.

"Audrey, no—"

She didn't flinch. "Nathan," she said, "It's stone cold."

"What?"

Audrey felt all four burners. They were all exactly the same. She shook her head. "The stove wasn't on when that water boiled."

"And it didn't stop when it hit the floor, either," Nathan added, peering closely at the linoleum. There were several smooth dips where the still-boiling liquid melted the plastic. "That's weird."

Audrey shook her head, "Not weird," she corrected. "If there's anything I've learned about Haven, it's that weird means a Trouble is behind it."

Nathan shook his head, "But what Trouble could do this?" he objected.

Audrey shook her head, "What Trouble could do any of it? Come on, let's go back to the station. We've seen all we can here."

They walked past Joe again to get to the front door. The silver-haired man stopped them.

"So was it suicide?" he asked. "That's what everybody is saying," tears sprang into his eyes, "but I just can't believe that of my Dorothy!"

Nathan and Audrey glanced at each other.

"We don't think it was suicide," Audrey began, and immediately Joe cut in.

"Then one of our neighbors is Troubled, ain't they? Oh, I knew it would be them! It's always their fault, and us normal folk have to suffer for it! Maybe the Rev was right, maybe they ought to have—"

"We'll look into it, Joe," Audrey interrupted the man, as much to cut off his angry torrent as to check her own rising anger. "And I promise you, whatever or whoever's causing this, we will find out how to stop it and bring them to justice."

Joe scowled bitterly, "Justice ain't gonna bring Dottie back."

Audrey sighed and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"There's a lot of people who won't be coming back from this," she said softly, "But I can't do anything about them. All I can do is make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else, and this I will do with all I have."

Joe nodded, and Audrey and Nathan returned to the station.

Audrey sighed and sank into her desk chair as Nathan pinned a picture of Dottie Ritter next to the other two victims of the week: Joshua Dare, who had burned to death in a fire that seemed to start and end with his kitchen table, and Amelia Fitch, a typically soft-spoken gardening enthusiast who had suddenly gone berserk Monday afternoon, chopping up her beloved flowers and then stabbing herself in the stomach with long-bladed hedge-trimmers.

"What could be causing it?" she asked aloud. "I mean, what kind of Trouble could make people do such horrible things to themselves?"

Nathan shook his head, "There's no way we can figure this out tonight. Let's sleep on it, start fresh in the morning."

Audrey sighed, "Three people have died, and it's only Wednesday," she murmured. "Do you really think either of us will get any sleep tonight?"

Nathan was already on his way out the door. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to try," he said.

Audrey remained, unconvinced. She stared at the photos, and thought of Lucy—the real Lucy. If all she ever had were someone else's memories, what was her purpose? She could help Troubled people, that was certain, but what was the point of that? Outside of Haven she was nothing more than a carbon copy of another person; was this it then? The whole object of her existence was to come to Haven, then disappear somehow when the Troubles were over? And even with her "immunity", what could she do if they couldn't find the real killer? Surely these people did not kill themselves!

Audrey thought back to Lucy—the Lucy she had been, the one who most likely knew all the answers; what would she do in this situation? What could Audrey do now?

Audrey returned to the Grey Gull and headed straight up to her apartment. She slept, but she dreamed all night of the various ways she could possibly kill herself just with the things she had in the room. Strangely enough, every attempt was preceded by something melting or catching fire.

Audrey was in the middle of jumping out the window into the bay as her bed exploded into flames when a popping sound like gunfire or fireworks caused her to return to the present. She was on her bed, tangled in unsinged sheets, and the popping sound was Nathan rapping on the French doors.