Sorrow shared is sorrow halved. Joy shared is joy doubled. Unknown.

Audrey:

I woke up on Duke's couch. I must have fallen asleep. My partner had left me my pain meds and a glass of water…water which Morgan was now drinking. I had no idea how Duke lived with this cat. Nathan had unclogged the sink last night and pulled out a giant orange clump of fur. There was another one in the shower. If there was water involved, Morgan was right there. Case in point, the voyeur in the shower with me when I finally got in there myself. I had cleared out some of Duke's things, but hadn't really moved in. Of course, I didn't have that much to move in. Still, the bulk of what I owned was still at Over the Way.

I jumped when my phone rang. It was Julia.

"Hi, Julia."

"Hi, Audrey. Listen, can you come over? I need your help. And I need you to bring some of Duke's clothes, if you still have them?"

I was surprised to say the least. Think that she was hoping to be charitable, I supposed that Julia must have come across someone in town that needed help and was rather tall. It wasn't like Duke would need them anymore. I rifled through Duke's drawers and grabbed a couple of shirts, pants, and pairs of shorts. After a couple of moments I grabbed what appeared to be a relatively new set of shoes from his closet. I continued to talk to Julia while I ransacked Duke's wardrobe.

"Uh, sure. Anything in particular that you want? I mean, you can always come over if you want and grab anything you want. I mean, I don't think Duke would mind." He wouldn't mind anything anymore, I thought glumly.

"Could you grab some sweats if he has any?"

Has? She must have misspoke. I went back two drawers and grabbed two pairs of sweat pants. "You got pants, but no shirts. Duke only had sweaters."

"I'll take whatever you can get me and be grateful. Listen, can you get over here right away? I really do need you. I'll explain everything when you get here."

Julia sounded worried, and that raised my alarms. I'd just lost one friend, and I'd no intention of losing another.

"Is everything ok? Do you need me to call in back up?" I suddenly had visions of a junkie taking Julia hostage to get drugs.

"Yes and no. Yes there is trouble, and you getting here sooner rather than later would be appreciated, but no, I don't need the kind of help that the police can provide. I just need you, or you and Nathan if you know where he is, and Duke's clothes. Oh, and Duke's keys. The ones that he keeps in his right-side nightstand."

Ooooooooookay. This was getting odder and odder. Maybe Julia was borrowing Duke's truck back from Bill McShaw. Because a naked, tall, thin junkie wanted a ride somewhere. And why would Julia have known where the keys were? She hadn't been out to the docks since before Duke had passed. I searched for Duke's keys. There was a set in there, but the keyring was an innocuous 4 leaf clover key ring. Duke's truck keyring had a pirate flag but rather than a skull and crossbones, it was a lobster over crossed claws.

"No dice on the truck keys. They aren't here."

"I'm not looking for the Land Rover's keys. There should be a keyring with a 4 leaf clover. I need those keys."

I blinked. Things continued to be weird. "Uh, yeah. Those are there. I'll bring them over."

"Good. Can you stop by Ju... my apartment and grab the bag that is in the closet? It just has clothes and such. I think I'll be out of town for a few days."

"Julia, are you ok? You know that if you need some place to stay, you can stay here. I won't tell anyone but Nathan, and we'll keep you safe. You don't have run."

The laughter on the end of the line sounded just this side of mad. "I have to get out of Haven. It's not safe here. Hiding out on Duke's boat would not be safe, trust me. Nathan should get out too if you can find him. You'll understand when you get over here. Please, just hurry. There isn't much time."

"Where's here if it isn't Over the Way?"

"My mom's."

"Ok. Let me just find a bag for this stuff, and go home to grab your stuff and I'll be over. I'll see you in about half an hour."

I hung up the phone and explored Duke's closet. I found a large duffel and packed the clothes in it along with the shoes. I zipped it up and hobbled quickly up onto the deck, cursing the fact that the Cape Rouge was not designed for people on crutches. I managed to get onto the docks and in my sedan without mishap. Then I needed to go and do it again, this time remembering to bring Morgan in his cat carrier. If Julia was that spooked, I wasn't leaving her alone. I also couldn't leave Morgan alone for who knew how long.

Thankfully it was my left ankle that was broken, and I could drive. It took about 20 minutes to drive over and grab the bag from Julia's room. Then I went into my room and packed enough clothes for a week.

I was just zipping up my bag when Nathan called. Nathan's annoyance was quite clear. "Parker. I need you to come out to the smuggler's caves."

"Nathan, Julia just called me and she wants me to give her a bunch of Duke's stuff and a key he had to something." The smuggler's caves were a good 20 minutes from Eleanor's.

"Don't go. Something's not right. I don't know what. Just get over here. I need help." Nathan was slurring the words slightly. I frowned. Please God, let nothing serious have happened to him too.

"Fine, I just need to tell Julia I'll be late." I hung up the phone. It was nice to be wanted, but to be wanted at the same time on opposite ends of town wasn't so nice. Still, something didn't sound right with Nathan and I was worried Julia. They both needed me, but Julia had said she wasn't in immediate danger. Nathan would be able to help her if there was someone there preventing her from speaking freely.

I put all the bags in the trunk and dropped into the seat. I then drove out to the small park where the smuggler's caves were. The caves were a series of connecting tunnels that ran for a couple of miles into town. Local legend said that pirates had once used these caves and if you went far enough in, you would be able to find treasure. Mostly what I found whenever I was called out to them was teenagers making out.

Nathan was standing on the beach near the main entrance to the cave. There was blood in his hair. The bronco was nowhere in sight. He started walking to the car when he saw me park it.

"Nathan, what happened?"

He gave me a bleary-eyed look. "I don't really know. I remember going out on a call at..." He paused, trying to think about the call. "Juniper Heights. Timmy was making Mr. Rableth's house transparent. I saw something. I remember thinking it was odd. I remember being upset but I don't remember why." He scrunched his forehead, then shook his head. "Then I woke up here. Rather, I woke up in the caves and walked out. Then I called you."

I looked him up and down. He seemed lucid, and he wasn't appearing like he was having any serious difficulty. However, I was a little worried about what would make Nathan upset enough that he remembered it happening, but couldn't remember the details. Hopefully Julia would be able to help him. She had warned me that he should get out of Haven too. Maybe she knew what Nathan had seen out here and couldn't remember.

Nathan folded himself into my sedan. I hoped that he would be enough of a comfort to Julia that we could stop her from running from whatever she was so obviously afraid of. While I shifted into drive, I quickly filled in Nathan on the rather odd set of requests and he wrinkled his brow again. It seemed that he was clueless as to what she could be doing too. He brought out Stoic Maine Man Mode for the warning that he needed to get out of Haven. Unfortunately I could see that it had the exact opposite effect of what Julia intended. It tickled his stubborn streak.

"I'm not leaving Haven, Audrey."

"I'm not asking you to, but if Julia is going, I'm going with her. She sounded genuinely upset about something. I can't imagine what happened to her to cause her to think she had to leave. She sounded rattled."

"I rather you didn't." Nathan stared at me.

"Why?" I would have thought he would have been urging me to get Julia out of danger, perceived or real.

"I don't think I trust her." Nathan looked down at his hands. "I don't know why. She's just different since she got back from Darfur." He shrugged, then gave me a wry grin. "Maybe it was because she disliked Duke so much when she used to hang on his every word. I don't know. Something's not right with her."

Crap.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

"Well, she's my friend and I'm not abandoning her." I spared Nathan a glance as we flew down the road to Eleanor's house. Morgan politely provided a siren as we tore through town.

"I'm not asking you to. I just want you to be careful around her." Nathan continued to stare at his hands, which where resting in his lap.

We pulled into Eleanor's driveway. Nathan didn't have his gun on him, but he grabbed the can of pepper spray he knew I kept in my glove compartment. My eyes widened.

"It's for the tall, thin, junkie that's holding Julia hostage." Nathan grinned at me.

We entered the house.

A/N: Chapters will still be slow in coming. Sorry guys, I upgraded the memory and got an SSD and my computer decided that now it won't boot correctly, and is in love with me passing through the BIOS to get to Windows. This is being posted with a borrowed comp while I figure out what is going wrong.