He had no idea where to go. But he couldn't have stayed. The air was getting too thick, he hadn't been able to breathe, he-

They dealt with death every day. It was their forte, their calling, their occupation- whatever you wanted to call it. And here he was. An utter fool. A coward. Running away from everything. Running away from her .

He didn't know why he was here. Not really. He'd convinced himself, somehow, that it was to stop Madeline. That if he just saved one person then it would be worth it. That he had to do it by himself because if Red got herself tangled up in all this again, if she got hurt, if she- God, he couldn't even think it.

If anything happened to her he could never forgive himself.

He had to pick up the loose threads. Go back to the beginning. How all the nonsense started. And it started with George Ostin. The man who'd been murdered in front of them.

Retracing their footsteps to George's apartment came easily enough to him- they'd gone a handful of times in order to solve that last case. The case in which every thread led back to Madeline. This time around, he was counting on it.

Fancy as ever, he mused, subconsciously straightening his suit as he entered the apartment lobby. Luckily for him, clothes didn't seem to get any more wrinkled when you're dead.

The doorman looked up as he walked in, eyes narrowing slightly. Hopefully from lack of recognition rather than from a disheveled appearance. "Can I help you, sir?"

Joey smoothed down the old tie one more time before responding. "Yeah, I was looking for a George Ostin. Do you know if he's in at the moment?"

The doorman tactfully dipped his head. "He is. Would you like me to call him down?"

Jackpot. Joey nodded. "Tell him my name's Joey Mallone, and that if he's trying to look for the Bestower, that I might know a thing or two."

The doorman relayed the information, albeit not without a skeptical glare, and after a moment, a man stepped out of the elevator. Ostin.

His eyes were wide, bloodshot, face white as a sheet. The man was nicely dressed, but his clothes were rumpled, as if he hadn't bothered changing them in a few days. He walked up to Joey as if he was approaching some kind of wild animal, like he would jump up and bite him. "You're the Bestower? I thought the Bestower was..."

"Was?" Joey prompted.

"I thought she was a woman."

"Ah." Well, this was a tad awkward. He thought back to his last interaction with Red, shrinking a bit internally from guilt. He'd really walked out on her like that, hadn't he? He'd have to make up for that later. "I'm... not her. But if you want to talk more, it'd be better a little further from..." He snuck a glance back at the doorman, still watching him like a hawk. "...other ears."

Rosa really wished she hadn't said anything. Everything had been fine, almost normal, even, and she had to go and mess it up. She always just had a way with words, didn't she?

Ugh. There was only one thing she knew for certain. She had to get to the bottom of this. Joey rarely looked so bothered about anything. Whatever this was, it had to be something big. And now, for the first time in nearly four years, she had absolutely no idea where he was. It felt like the equivalent of losing an arm.

There had to be a clue somewhere. Sure, a dead man didn't tend to leave clues around, but a living one sure could. She grabbed the bagel bag, pulling the crumpled remains of a receipt out from the bottom. Bagel Stop. She was familiar with the place. It wasn't far from her apartment, only a few blocks away, really. And the time of purchase printed on the receipt was only a few minutes before Joey had come back. And yet she'd been alone in the apartment for hours. He'd left for something else. And she wouldn't be surprised if it was for the same reason he'd just run out the door.

"I guess I'm going to the bagel shop, then," she said, to no one in particular. "I hope they have good coffee."

Snow was starting to fall when she left the apartment, making her second-guess what she'd decided to wear out. Too late now , she supposed. At least the shop wasn't far. She supposed the coffee she'd inevitably buy would keep her warm.

The cashier didn't seem very interested in her presence. Or anything, really. He was half-slumped in front of the register, fiddling with a permanent marker.

"Hi," she greeted, scanning the menu. Hm. Nothing but regular drip coffee. It'd have to do.

"Welcome to Bagel Stop," the cashier droned, his tone suggesting anything but. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for a friend," Rosa explained. "He was here maybe an hour ago? He was wearing a suit and tie."

"Uh huh."

"I was wondering if you've seen him?" she tried again. Hopefully, not everyone would be so unhelpful, but that wasn't exactly new for her, either. Barging into places uninvited and asking unwanted questions was something she was doing on a daily basis, after all.

"Heh. Yeah. I saw him. He was sitting in the corner mumbling to himself for nearly an hour before he bought anything. Seemed pretty upset."

Upset? He'd been smiling when he'd walked in. That didn't add up. "Do you know what about?" It was worth a shot.

The cashier frowned. "No. Why would I?"

Alright. So that wasn't going to work. "Thanks anyway." She paused for a moment. "Could I get a medium coffee? Cream and sugar?"

"Mhm. That'll be $2.50."

"My girlfriend is missing," George finally said, after making himself a cup of tea.

A stupid move, Joey surmised, considering the man's hands were shaking so much he could hardly hold the cup without spilling hot liquid all over himself. He supposed it was still an improvement over the last time he'd seen him, though. Shot and killed only to have his spirit torn apart.

"Her little daughter, too," Ostin continued, voice trembling like the rest of him. "It's been three days now."

Kendra. It'd only been three days? When he first met Kendra's ghost, it had been weeks after their disappearance. That meant... Joey's eyes widened. Maybe it wasn't too late to save her. If he left now, there was a chance that she was still alive.

"I've told the police everything I know, but they haven't helped at all," George continued, voice cracking. "I think they're completely in the dark. Michael told me someone was looking for us. That we weren't safe. That we had to find the Bestower or we'd-" He looked back at Joey, eyes shining with unshed tears. "You said you knew her?"

If the disappearance was recent, there was a good chance that Kendra's father, Emil, wasn't working. Which meant that he could grab the key to the Pierro house from his office, get inside, and-

"Mr. Mallone?"

"Huh?" Joey blinked, having completely stopped listening to the other man.

"The Bestower," George repeated. "Do you know her?"

Huh. Red wasn't much of a Bestower, anymore. As much as he was a spirit guide. Or a spirit at all. "Yeah. I do. But she can't help you anymore."

George dropped the cup, the porcelain shattering to pieces on the floor. " What ? Is that why you're here? To tell us there's no hope?"

"No. That's not why I'm here." Joey stood up, mind still reeling. "Don't leave this apartment, alright? I'm gonna try and sort some things out."

"What are you talking about?" George demanded. "You just told me that the one person who could've helped us can't anymore, and now you're trying to give me orders?"

"Look, George," he said, making eye contact. "I don't really know you. And you don't really know me. But I've got a pretty good idea of how to stop this, and you've got no other options. So I'm asking you to trust me."

The man hesitated for a moment, probably contemplating whether or not to call the cops. Joey seriously considered for a moment whether he could get himself arrested faster than Red had, but Ostin eventually sighed, shaking his head. "Fine. Do whatever you have to do. I'll be here."

Faced with no viable leads, Rosa found herself in a nearby cafe after the outdoors had proven to be too cold, looking things up on the internet. Like a true detective. There wasn't much online about resurrection, just the usual religious references, a thing or two about phony psychics and mediums. Something that was probably a cult website- she swiped that one away pretty quickly. And since she was pretty sure that Joey wasn't Jesus...

Nothing. She had nothing. He clearly knew something she didn't, but she had no idea how. They had always been together. They'd had no choice but to always be together.

Even despite the obvious, she had no idea what to do with her own life, now that she was normal. Find another job? Her resume was a cobbled-together mess. The Village Eye had stopped publishing their papers years ago, and since it had been her last actual job, it would've been an awful reference as well. They'd only really been paid a few times running their ghost gigs. Barely enough to pay the bills, and she'd found herself digging into her savings far more often than she would've liked. Now she couldn't even see ghosts anymore.

She didn't have the money to go back to college, and didn't have enough still saved up to just do nothing for the rest of her life.

Maybe Joey could get a job. Wasn't that a hilarious thought. She had no idea what he'd even do. She barely knew what he did before he'd died in the first place.

'So if that picture is of Danny Marconi, and he was a tailor, and you two used to work together, then you were a tailor too?'

'Yep.'

That's all he had said at the time. 'Yep'.

Rosa's career-related thoughts stopped suddenly as she realized something. She'd heard someone mention resurrection before, hadn't she? Gavin. When she'd, uh, killed him.

She hadn't intended to, to be fair, but she really hadn't had many other options while getting the life sucked out of her. He'd said that he had more than enough energy to bring himself back. Spiritual energy he'd stolen from innocent people like Jamie, and Tiffany, and Jeremy.

Which meant Joey... Had he been killing people? Every time she had her back turned, had he been sucking energy out of people? Waiting for his chance to revive himself so he wouldn't have to be stuck as a spirit guide anymore? So there wasn't a chance she could strand him in the void again?

She hadn't meant to do that, either. If Gavin hadn't controlled her so easily, she would've never...

Oh, Joey. Maybe this had been her fault all along. No wonder he didn't want to talk about it. She sincerely doubted that he would kill, though. Maybe when Gavin's soul had... disintegrated, the excess energy went somewhere. Maybe that somewhere was Joey. It made sense, if albeit only barely. He hadn't even been with her when it had happened. But she just didn't want to think about him like that, didn't want to consider the possibility that the Joey she knew was nothing more than a farce. Maybe if she reframed the question, he'd be more willing to answer? She couldn't do much more than wait at the moment, she supposed, sipping on her coffee. But, just in case, she looked over her shoulder to see if he was hovering around.

He'd run practically the entire way to Astoria, lungs burning from the exertion. It helped keep him warm, for the most part, at least. The snow was getting heavier, and it was becoming harder to see where he was going. And yet, the memories still served to be stronger.

The Pierro house. It looked about the same as the last time he'd been here, the only difference being that the snowman in the front looked more recently built. He jammed the key in the lock with admittedly little tact, fingertips turning blue from the cold.

The inside wasn't any warmer, the same ghostly chill still hanging over the interior of the house, darkness swallowing his shape as he descended into the basement, trying to catch his breath. There was no reason to stop, no reason to look around. He'd seen it all already.

The shelf. She was hiding there, in a secret compartment. With Kendra. He ran up to it, banging on the wood hard enough to rub the skin off his knuckles. "Lia Pierro? I know you're in there!"

A small panel opened in the wall, revealing a... he wasn't really sure. A camera? At the moment he didn't care. There just wasn't enough time to.

"Who the hell are you?" a voice hissed. Lia, for sure. She sounded just as happy as she had the first time around. "And before you get any funny ideas, I've got a gun pointed at your head."

As if he was afraid of dying. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. "My name's Joey. I know you're looking for the Bestower. I know what you're hiding from. And I know how to stop it." He didn't. Not really. Red had to die to stop Madeline. The only thing he could try to do now was to get a head start.

"You're the Bestower?"

He bowed his head. "No. But I do know one thing. Whatever's after you, it's not after your daughter."

"What? How can you be sure?"

"It's only after the people who were in your Grace Group twenty years ago. Kendra's soul is safe. I can take her to a hospital. She doesn't need to die for this." He had to get the little girl out of there. Had to get her to safety.

"You don't have any proof," she shot back, clearly defensive. A sentiment he understood.

"No. I don't. But do you really want to bet your daughter's life on this? Let me take her. Please."

"You can't," Lia whispered, voice wavering. "You can't do that. If I open that door-"

"Please, Lia," he pressed, trying to reason with her. "Do it for your daughter."

"No." Her voice was nearly inaudible now. "You don't understand. You can't, because... because Kendra's already... she's gone ."

"What?" It felt like all the life had drained from him in an instant. "No... I thought there was time, I-"

"I just checked her pulse, just in case, but- She's- she's cold. She's been cold. Since last night."

If he'd just been a little faster, if he'd just-

He could still see her face, the innocent little eyes that had looked at him. The eerily calm acceptance of a reality most adults found hard to swallow. But that wouldn't happen this time. Once she was dead, he couldn't help her anymore. He didn't know if anyone could. She'd just be there. Playing the piano alone in her room for God knew how long. Never getting to show her dad the piece she'd learned.

"I'm sorry," he mustered up. "I'm so, so sorry."

There was a pause before Lia responded, the edge coming back into her voice. "If you're not the Bestower, I'd like to be alone."

"Yeah. I'll go."

He stumbled out of the basement, leaning heavily against the wall as he went back up the stairs. It felt like his knees were giving out under him. He had been too late. All the foresight in the world had hardly done a damn thing. What was going to become of him, then? What about Red?

A kid was dead. And he hadn't stopped it. Hadn't even been close. He paused in front of the front door, head bowed.

And as he pushed it open into the night, the familiar plunking sounds of a child playing piano gradually filled the empty house.