4

As he got to his office at the university, he was really feeling it everywhere on how he was exhausted. He didn't want to do anything as he sat in the teacher's parking lot near the building he worked at. That was one of the only perks of the job. The other was he was getting really good at finding the right combo of pain relievers to get rid of headaches. The younger people seemed to bring them on in droves. He enjoyed working on a mostly unsolvable case much more, and the headaches often were fixed the minute he put the puzzle together. He had never thought he was good at puzzles either, but he had proven that he could see things and know things about human behavior that helped in his line of work.

He started to get a phone call on his work cell, and he pulled it out of his jacket. "Anderson." He said into the speaker.

"Max." a male voice said that he knew well.

"What do you want, Paulin?" Max laughed.

"What’s your problem?” Mack asked as he listened to the tone in the other man. Mack Paulin was a detective in the other major police force. He also happened to be a friend along with his wife Henni, who was the county medical examiner.

“Bad date,” Max said. “A bunny.”

“Oh,” Mack said with a laugh. “So what happened?”

“I am sure you didn’t call to find out I have no life,” Max said as he sighed.

“I already knew that,” Mack said. “But I also remember that feeling. I really didn’t have a life either until I met Henni.”

“You got lucky,” Max said with a laugh.

“I did,” Mack replied. “I also know it. You know the night we met, she didn’t want to go out at all?”

“I didn’t,” Max said, and he began to have flashes of the one woman who had invaded his mind at any given time. “I don’t believe I will be that lucky. I will figure something out. You didn’t call to find out about my horrible dating life, so what’s up?”

“I have a case,” Mack said. “I think I need some extra eyes on it. Something doesn’t make sense, and I can’t put my finger on it. Do you think you could come over on tomorrow or the next day to look it over?”

“I think I can. It isn’t like I will be doing too much else unless I catch a case this weekend.” Max said. “Tell Henni I said hi.”

They hung up the phone, and he wished he had a case like that. He felt almost trapped doing what he was. He didn’t mind, but he really hadn’t thought that things would be like this. He was good at what he did, and he seemed to be a huge help to others find the thing they needed to close the case, but this wasn’t going out and finding what he needed to do it himself. He looked at the building. Another late night in the cool basement was going to be in the books soon enough. He took off his suit jacket and left it in the car.

He walked to the building and saw that some of the lights were still on. He wondered if he was the only one there. He didn’t seem to think so as he looked back to the parking lot and saw all the cars that were there. He didn’t even see them when he was in the parking lot. Max shook his head. He was losing his mind. He needed some sort of break. In his mind, though, a vacation was something that families would do. At most, a couple should do that. He could think of things he wanted to do, but he did not want to do them alone. It was the worst feeling to be alone like this. It was something that he had accepted for himself, though. He really had no one else to blame for the way he was.

He entered the building and then walked down the stairs in front of the door. The lights were flickering again. They were another source of a headache. He got to the office and unlocked the door. Though his office was nothing but stacks of paper everywhere, it seemed like there might be some things out of place. No one came down here, and if they did, they didn’t have the key to get into the office. He knew he was making more out of this. He knew his brain needed something more to focus on. He walked through the stacks that he could mostly step over to get to his desk. His longer legs dodging the stacks as he made his way. He grinned as he thought about all the classes he had taken on. They were just a feather in his cap. He had written the classes himself.

Though it was disorganized, he knew where everything was. It was his organized chaos. He almost needed it to be like this. It also kept most people at bay. Though he craved to find someone to share his life with who could understand and help him with everything he did, he also needed to keep people away from him. He wanted to open up and trust someone, but he really didn’t know how to do that. He didn’t want to have the hurt and pain he had before ever again in his life. He didn’t know how fast people could turn on you. Even people who were supposed to love you. He didn’t know if he could risk that again.

It still hurt. The way that he was looked at when he drove through the town he had grown up in. It was still there. Though everything had come to light in the end, it was the single worst feeling in the world to have everyone turn on you. Though he had been in the shadows from his brother most of his life, he was only known for the one rumor that could have ruined his life.

He didn’t want to think about that, though. He tried like hell to rebuild himself into something he could be proud of. He was, for the most part, but he knew he needed something bigger than what he had. He sat in his chair and opened a file. It was going to be a long night. He sighed as he knew he had the time to waste.