The Latnok office seemed back to normal as Kyle wandered around talking to the students. Everyone was eager to talk to him and have him look at their projects and make suggestions. Jessi looked around but no one seemed to be interested in consulting her. She sighed and went to her usual workstation and started doing research.

After a few minutes, she looked up and saw Brian standing in front of her with a hesitant smile on his face, "It's good to be around you again, Jessi." He lowered his voice slightly, "I missed you, you are very important to me."

Jessi said defensively, "You just wanted me to help you get back into Latnok, you didn't care about me."

"I do care about you, Jessi," he objected. "I did make mistakes, though. I want to make a fresh start here. No pressure to do anything. I just want to be here for you"

"All right," Jessi said, hesitantly.

"So what are you working on?" Brian asked.

"It's a project that Kyle and I have been working on together," she answered guardedly. Brian nodded and looked over to where Kyle was talking to one of the students. Jessi noticed and said, "When we're here, Kyle usually spends his time helping the students with their projects. They all like to talk to him." She sighed, "No one seems to want my help."

Brian chuckled, "It's just like the old times. Everyone basked in Adam's attention. They all wanted to talk to him about their ideas. He was laid back, relaxed, comfortable to talk to. Your mother was so much more competitive and intense. I think everyone was a little bit afraid of Sarah."

"People didn't want Sarah's advice?" Jessi was obviously hungry for stories about her mother.

"They wanted her advice, but she wasn't as easy for them to talk to," Brian said.

Kyle had seen them talking and had excused himself from the student he was helping and came to stand protectively next to Jessi, putting his hand on her shoulder to add support.

Brian looked up to him, "Kyle, good, I was going to go and get you. I think the three of us should go for a walk. We can go over to 'Pockets' and get a cup of coffee."

"But there's coffee here," Kyle looked at the coffee pot.

Brian smiled, "Yes, but it's a nice day and it would be good to get out of the Latnok offices for a few minutes." He looked down and met Jessi's eyes, saying "Jessi and I were just talking about Sarah."

Jessi's look hardened and she stood up, "It would be good to get away for a few minutes and talk."

When they emerged from the building, Brian said, "I didn't want to talk about it down there, but I really want to hear what you two know about Sarah's disappearance."

"My mother didn't disappear," Jessi said heatedly, "Michael Cassidy killed her."

Brian's expression saddened, "So Sarah really is dead this time? What do you know?"

We told Brian about how we had used Jessi's holographic memory to relive the night of the Prom. How she had stood in the hall and seen the blood in Cassidy's basket. How she had stood helpless, remembering the sound of Sarah's heart beat slowing to a halt. How Cassidy had admitted it, under Jessi's pressure in the Rack, giving various excuses and how he had used it as a threat against me at the Trager house the night I destroyed his growth fluid.

Brian had tears in his eyes at the end of the story. He pointed to a nearby bench, "I have to sit down for a moment." He sat on the end of the bench and put his head in his hands. After some hesitation, Jessi sat next to him and Kyle sat on the other end. After they had sat there for a moment, Jessi reached out and rested her hand on Brian's shoulder.

Finally, he sat up and wiped his eyes, saying, "I'm sorry. I was still hoping she had just gone away again."

Jessi, who had taken her hand away as he sat up looked at him fiercely, "How can we make him pay for killing her."

Brian shook his head slowly, "I don't know. Even if Latnok allowed you to, you don't have any evidence that you can take to the police do you?"

Kyle asked, "Would Latnok keep us from going to the police?"

"Latnok prefers to handle matters like this quietly," Brian said. "Have you told them about this?"

"Jessi accused him of it at the meeting when they put us on the board," Kyle said. "Grace said it was a matter for another time and arranged for him to move away. I don't think anything is being done about him, nothing was mentioned at our last meeting. Until then we hadn't had any connections to the board except through Grace. Obviously we couldn't talk to her about him."

"Grace has a lot of power on that board," Brian advised. "She's going to be using it to protect Michael Cassidy. It's going to be hard to get by that."

"Are we just going to let him get away with it?" Jessi asked, bitterly

Brian looked Jessi in the eye, "Sarah was very important to me. I promise you that I won't forget or forgive her death. Whatever you think of me, you can count on that."

"Thank you," Jessi said quietly.

"There's one other thing we need to talk about," Brian looked back at Kyle. "When Grace brought me back she told me that the two of you were looking into Latnok finances and that there were people who feared that you were going to dig up things they didn't want known. She told me that they were considering solving their problem by having Jessi 'disappear' and that with her gone you would spend your time looking for her instead. She wants me to talk you out of looking deeper. She figures that I will do whatever it takes to protect Jessi. And she's right about that. "

Kyle looked freighted and took Jessi's hand, "They're threatening to kill Jessi?"

"Grace said so, that doesn't mean it's true, she could just be making up an imaginary threat to get me to do what she wants," Brian shrugged. "I can't take that risk, though."

"I can't take that risk either," Kyle said. "We have to stop looking."

"No," Jessi objected. "We decided that we needed to make Latnok back into the vision that Adam and Sarah had. We can't let them go back to threatening us."

"We have to tell Foss," Kyle said.

"I already have," Brian said. "But you should talk to him too. If you are going to keep looking you will have to take extra precautions."

I didn't know what to think about Brian Taylor and his warnings. Adam had said that Brian had been acting in his own interest for years. Adam didn't trust him. He had also pushed Jessi too hard and risked killing her. But his grief over Sarah's death was real and strong and he genuinely wanted to protect Jessi. I wanted to believe him, to think that we had an ally to help protect Jessi against this new threat, if there really was a new threat. That was the problem. What Brian Taylor was doing was exactly what the people hiding things at Latnok wanted him to do, discourage us from looking. I felt he was telling the truth about Grace, but I wasn't sure. His emotions were strong and confused. He was also guilty about something. The only thing I was sure of is that we had to be careful.