I rolled out of bed late the next day to someone pounding at my door. My head hurt and I was in no mood to talk to people after knowing whatever happened to Lynn last night was more than likely my fault. Her father had most likely heard our brief conversation and seeing her with another person's jacket probably just fueled his anger. This was gonna bother me for the rest of the day for sure. I opened the door to find the police captain with a few of the detectives.

"Tom, we have good news," the captain said.

"What?"

"Get dressed, we're going down to the station," he ordered.

"Ok, I'll be out in a few," I said closing the door.

I quickly dressed in a random pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I threw on my sneakers and flew out the door down to the front of the building where the police car was waiting. We sped off in the direction of the small police station.

"So what sort of good news is this?" I asked, feeling anxious.

"We found some things that we think might be Veronica's," one of the detectives informed me.

All previous thoughts of anything potentially ruining my day evaporated at hearing this. She is here? She must be close somewhere. My thoughts were racing like mad. When we finally got to the station I practically ran out of the car, impatient to see what they found. The detective led us into the building, up some stairs, and into a small lab where several people in white coats were looking through microscopes and talking about stuff on their computers. We were led to a table where a small plastic bin held a few items. The detective laid them out on the table in front of me. I recognized them immediately as Veronica's old wallet, under shirt, necklace, and a scrap of paper.

I picked up her necklace; a silver treble clef with a single onyx stone on a chain I'd given to her for her last birthday. Her shirt was spotted with blood and powdered with dirt. I picked it up as if it were incredibly fragile. I felt the thin material between my fingers, remembering how I used to be able to feel her skin right through it. I inhaled through the flimsy shirt; it still smelled like her. There was some moisture in my eyes by now, but I didn't really care. It placed her shirt and necklace back on the table and picked up her wallet. The material was worn and torn but surprisingly still in one piece. I opened it to find it had been completely emptied of money and credit cards.

I checked the hidden pocket and found an old picture of us from one of our old dates when we found and old Polaroid camera. We were looking up at the camera smiling, arms around each other, her head leaning against my chest. We were sitting on the couch in her old apartment which I still kept tidy for her. Looking at that picture bought back so many good memories of us; it made more tears fall from my eyes.

"We found these in a crate on its way to the junk yard. It was so old it broke apart as it was being lifted into the garbage truck," one of the officers said. "It would've been just picked up and discarded anyway, but when the garbage men saw the blood on the shirt they called us."

"Where was the crate picked up from?" I asked, wiping the tears from my face.

"The back of a bar, along with several other crates that were empty."

"So are you going to investigate the bar now?"

"No; first we're going to take a closer look at the dirt and stains on the items we found and gather as much evidence from that as we can," one of the people in a lab coat said.

"What? She could be right inside that building and you're not going to look there?" I exclaimed.

"Tom, we have to be very careful with this. If we just go barging into every building we find evidence near, we would've scared them away by now."

This information was not making sense to me; If there were such obvious signs of her being there why would they ignore what's right under their noses?

"Tom," one of the other detectives got my attention, "these are just markers of her presence; they don't necessarily mean she's there."

"I would like to go back to my hotel now," I said. I'd heard enough of their explanations for one day.

When I got back to the hotel I headed for the elevators and waited for one of them to come down. I became impatient to headed for the side door instead. I stepped out into the quiet alley that divided the buildings along the empty street leaving the door open. The early evening air was cold and stung my face, but I didn't really feel it. I just needed to be alone for a little while to think. Despite the good news from the police that morning, hearing the news just sent me back into that dark world of nothingness that not even Bill could pull me back from. Where was she? Was she thinking of me? Was she even alive? All they said was that they had found evidence of her presence, not her living, breathing, self. Not that she was alive, not that she was somewhere safe; just evidence of her physical presence. While the knowledge that she was out there somewhere cheered me up a bit, not knowing where exactly was what killed me.

As I turned to go back inside, I heard the sound of a door open and close behind me and a bunch of stuff falling.

"Shit," a soft voice said. I turned around and there was Lynn, picking up stuff that fell out of the duffel bag she was carrying.

"Lynn, what are you doing?" I asked her as I watched her forcefully shove things into her bag.

"I'm leaving," she told me in a determined voice.

"What-why?"

"I can't stay here anymore."

"What do you mean?"

She turned her head and looked at me with her big, frightened blue eyes that seemed to have some new kind of strength in them, before turning back to her clothes on the ground.

"I can't stay in this building anymore. I can't stay in this town anymore. I'm leaving, and he'll never see me again," I knew she was talking about her father. She stood up, turned toward the back of the alley that led away from the buildings and took a few steps.

"You can stay with us if you need a place to stay." She stopped dead in her tracks.

"No, I can't. That's part of the reason I'm leaving," she said without turning around. "I can't stand being this close to you and not able to be with you. It tears me apart inside every time I see you."

"Lynn, what are you talking about?" I was genuinely confused at what she was trying to say.

She did a slow about-face and looked up at me.

"Tom, look at me. Don't I look familiar to you at all?" she asked me.

I looked at her face, but I still couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me. I guess she could tell by the look on my face. She took her bag off her shoulder before stepping towards me so she was right in front of me. She placed both of her hands on the back of my neck and pulled me down so our foreheads were touching.

"Look closer," she whispered.

I looked into her wide, oddly familiar eyes; those eyes--where had I seen them before? Her wide, deep blue eyes that seemed to draw me into them like a moth to a candle. The hope in them seemed to have no boundaries, yet fear of the present clouded them. I had seen these eyes before, with a similar expression, but where? And then, like a ton of bricks, it hit me.

"Veronica," I breathed her name so softly, I don't know if she heard me.

I pulled my face back to look at the rest of her; her face, a little more slender than I remembered, but defiantly hers; her small, delicate, yet strong hands; her long, thin, fragile frame hidden under her long sleeves and usual jeans. Except for the black hair, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen the resemblance before.

"Veronica," I said in complete shock.

"Tom, I-"

"Lynn, what are you-Hey!" her "father" had walked into the alley without us hearing and, now that he'd seen what we were doing, was charging in our direction.