=== Halcox-Jameson Mental Institution / Fresno ===

The institution was not in the best shape – governmental funding had been cut for years now. The whole building transpired an air of sadness. White walls, metal, worn-out plastic chairs, tired nurses. The smell of antiseptic cleaning fluid hovered in the air when Stephan and Tessa entered. A patient stared at them empty-eyed, and a little further down, another man looked out of a door, cradling a ragged teddy bear. Everything, even the lifeless objects, seemed to scream in despair. Two orderlies passed them, a female patient in restraints in between. Only now Stephan realized how dangerous the situation was for him. In his longing to see Juliet again, he simply had forgotten his own risk.

„I hate these places…" Stephan whispered, and Tessa understood exactly what he meant. Was this place so much different from some of the children's homes or youth prisons she already had been in? „Me too," she murmured. At this moment, the minds and hearts of the unlikely companions were just one. He had taken the girl's hand in a merely subconscious reaction and startled when she squeezed it indeed.

-"Sir?" The elderly nurse behind the reception desk looked at them through glasses with an ugly black frame not suiting her at all. „May I help you?"

„We would like to visit Mrs. Juliet Keece," Stephan replied, forcing himself back to the matter at hand. „She is a patient in here, as far as I know…"

„And you are?"

„Her cousin Laurent. And my son Peter."

Tessa grinned in her face at this statement and buried her hands even deeper in the pockets.

The nurse didn't bother to ask for any identification. It would have been her duty, however, obviously, she wasn't interested much in it anyway. The patients here got visits very rarely. What should happen if once in a lifetime somebody showed up indeed? „Well, Keece… let's see…Juliet Keece… yes, number T 235… I'll check with the responsible if Mrs. Keece is in condition to see anyone. You would not mind waiting over there, please, would you? If you want any water, there is a dispenser…"

=== Fresno / Police department ===

Senior Detective Rowleys' head was nearly as red as the flowers on the desktop he just had hit to the ground. „This is unbelievable!" he shouted in the phone. „What did you mean; you can't initiate a State-wide campaign, as long as you haven't proof the man is dangerous? WHAT proof do you still want? He has killed ten people – and these are only the ones we know about! It's a psycho! And you can't spare some officers? You want to wait until he has iced another victim, or what? No, I want to speak to the Marshal right now! – Miss Kenker? Shit!"

He let the phone drop on his desk, grumbling something nasty, and swirled around. Detective Caulder, standing behind him, took a step back. „Sir, new intelligence…"

„Yes?"

„Seems our fugitive bought a car in Raspberry-Field. We have the license plate…"

„Magnificent!" Rowleys snarled. „So he can be anywhere within a radius of … at least 200 miles by now, and the Marshal won't give any order! Dammit!"

=== Halcox-Jameson Mental Institution / Fresno ===

The nurse had left them alone in the repulsive-looking visitor's room. The plant in the pot at the window had died weeks ago. Its naked branches enforced the feeling of loneliness. Stephan stepped closer to the fragile silhouette in the chair. Juliet wore a simple, white clinic-dress with pockets in front of it. Her hair was cut short without too much care, and some grey glinted in the strands. She looked down and had not moved since the nurse had put her into that chair.

„Juliet?" He lowered down at her side and took her hands. What had happened to his angel? „It's me! Don't you remember me?" She did not react, and he continued whispering her name like a spell while caressing her hands. Suddenly, she lifted her head. Life came into her eyes; it was quite visible she fought to find back. „Juliet, do you recognize me?"

A sharp line appeared between her eyebrows. Her pale lips moved silently before something could be heard. „Stephan…?"

Nothing could hold him back anymore. He embraced her. „Juliet! My angel, I thought you were dead! All those years I thought you were dead… thought I had killed you!"

„Stephan… you are… here? Nelson told me... told me you died... In that ... Institution." Her thin fingers clutched around the fabric of his shirt. "He told me you're dead!"

He decided not to tell her the exact course of events – for now at least. He did not know how much she could handle. He simply held her in his arms. Some minutes they rested like this, then Stephan said: „Tessa is here, too, Juliet."

She seemed to need time for adjusting to another memory. Her gaze wandered through the room until she found enough strength to focus on her daughter. The girl felt very uncomfortable and crumbled the baseball cap in her hands.

„Tessa…? You are… you are grown up fast, my… my little girl…And what happened to your hair?" Juliet's hand trembled when she reached out for her daughter. „I'm so sorry… so sorry…"

Tessa didn't know how to react. She felt embarrassed! No one had prepared her for that! Why the fuck had she accompanied Stephan? She watched this woman and searched the traces of her mother in her memory. She did not quite succeed in combining the two images. Everything seemed that odd! This weird guy and her Mom…. And if they would hang around here much longer, the police would get on her tracks for sure! Not knowing what else to do, the girl ran out of the room.

Juliet looked devastated. „I am so sorry…" she repeated.

„She will come back. Don't worry." He hoped at least. The question he had asked himself for two days was again burning in his mind, but he rested silent.

Juliet still stared at the door, where Tessa had vanished. Only with delay, Stephan's words reached her, and she nodded. „I hear a bird sing… and the sun is shining…" Her eyes followed the light ray on the ground. „I want to go out."

He helped her to her feet and discovered she was weighing next to nothing. Cautiously, he guided her down the stairs and into the small garden behind the building. Had she ever been here before, he wondered. She acted as if it had been a long time since she had appreciated open air. Despite the coldness, she loosened her shoes and stepped on the grass. They sat down on one of the benches, and for a while didn't say anything. Then he dared asking… „Juliet? Tessa is my child, isn't she?"

„Yes." She leaned against his shoulder. „I was… sure of it since the beginning. This made everything worse." She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. „Nelson discovered it when Tessa was five and came into the hospital with a minor injury. They made… a blood test, and it was clear he could not be her father. He got furious, really furious! Said, I was a perverted whore… sleeping with a man who tried to kill me and him… I said I would accept divorce, but he did not want to. Because of bad publicity. He was about to win the Pulitzer Price… He started drinking again, and we fought… more and more…" The memories seemed to overwhelm her fragile state. „In public, I had to smile and playing happy family… And at home we shouted at each other…I could not stand it anymore… I didn't see any way out… it was… simply blocked! Everything was blocked and I felt that guilty… Stephan! I left you alone and I left our little baby alone!"

From far, one of the nurses looked in their direction, and Stephan tried to calm and comfort Juliet. But he was in turmoil, too. "There was nothing you could have done for me. The police would have taken me anyway. But what has happened on that day, Juliet? On our last day?"

„One of our neighbors must have seen and recognized you when you left for some cigarettes. He called Nelson… They thought you would hold me captive. So they involved the police…"

„I remember going into the kitchen and taking a knife when they broke down the door. And then…" Stephan closed his eyes. „…Only a nightmare… for years."

„You grabbed my arm; with the blade in your other hand. I was panicking. The police burst in, weapons at the ready." She trembled, tortured by the memory. „I couldn't even understand what you were saying to me. I was just out of my mind with fear! Then one of the police fired. You were hit, but you took the officer down, too. Don't know, if you killed him or only injured him. … Oh God…I still see you lay there on the floor… you said my name… but I just couldn't move. And then, an officer lead me away."

Yes, it was all present again. Painfully and terrifying present.

Blood. Blood running through his fingers, over his pants, the only clothing he wore. He pressed his left hand against his belly. His knees buckled, but he still held his knife. It was bloody, too. „Juliet… Juliet?"

DOWN I said! Away with that blade!" He couldn't understand the words anymore. Juliet… His vision blurred and it felt as if his heart would burst. It pulsed loud as thunder in his ears. O no… Juliet… He fell, with a loud moan, now both hands pressed against his wound.

Just only half-conscious, Stephan heard hasty steps, again people shouting. Then he was lifted. The click of handcuffs immobilizing his arms was the last he was aware of.

Now Juliet and he cried both.

….

Meanwhile, near the reception of the institution, one of the patients scuffled towards a nurse, a newspaper in her hands. She couldn't read, but she loved watching the pictures, and this she did with an obsession, the same ones over and over again – till the next newspaper was on her table the next day.

„Ma'am, saw girl!" she said agitated and waved with the newspaper, holding the nurse back.

„Of course, many girls, Carolyn, I know." The nurse sighed. This poor one stared so long at the newspaper, until she saw walking the President and Paris Hilton through these rooms! „Please go back, it is nearly lunch time."

„Nono! Ma'am! The girl! This girl! Saw just here! Ma'am! Carolyn not stupid! Right here!"

„Let's have a look… „ The rest of the sentence rested unspoken, when the nurse saw the photo with the title +Tessa Keece - Missing – Please help us search+ Hadn't her colleague from the reception told her some minutes ago, patient Keece had visitors? For the first time since she was here?

Suddenly, the nurse ran. „Have you seen this girl?" she asked a moment later at the reception.

„No…ah… wait a second… this face looks familiar…" Her colleague frowned. „Yes, I remember! There was this boy with his father, coming along for visiting Mrs. Keece…"

„I bet this was her! What about this man? Here in the news is told, the missing girl is on the way with a dangerous fugitive from a criminal mental institution!"

„We better check…"

„Call the security first!"