JON MERRYFIELD DREAMT.
He was a boy, cowering in a corner. He did not dare look up. He could hear breathing. Close. Feel breath on his neck. Too close. He screamed. “Look at me,” a man’s voice said. Jon looked. It was himself, older. “No,” Boy Jon said and shrank from his older self. “No.”
Jon awoke, someone shaking him. His skin was feverish. Vision blurred. He lay on the sofa, curled in a ball. The room was dark, the cops gone.
“You had another dream,” Bethany said.
“Nightmare,” Jon said and took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She took her hand away.
“You should never have taken up this case,” Bethany said. “You put our family at risk over nothing. Damn you.”