Chapter 2

The world went silent. The rain, the distant sirens, Caleb's pathetic whimpers from the ground-it all faded away. The only sound was the blood roaring in my ears and Jennifer' s impossible words hanging in the air.

"What?" The word was a dry croak. "Jen, what are you talking about? He's right here! Caleb! He ran!"

Jennifer didn't even glance at the man I had tackled. Her eyes, the same eyes I' d looked into every morning for fifteen years, were filled with a certainty that terrified me more than any killer.

"Let him up, Andy," she said, her voice a ghost of itself.

Andy, my partner, the kid I' d mentored since he was a rookie, hesitated. He looked from me, on my knees in the filth of the alley, to Jennifer.

"Jen, I don't understand," Andy said, his confusion mirroring my own.

"Just do it," she commanded.

Andy reluctantly helped a trembling Caleb to his feet. Caleb just stood there, looking between the three of us, his face a mask of shock and fear.

"What is going on?" I demanded, rattling the cuffs. "This is insane! Jennifer, look at me! It's me, Scott!"

"I know," she whispered, and a single tear traced a path down her cheek. "That's the problem."

They walked me back to the crime scene like a common criminal. Uniformed officers I' d known for years stared, their faces a mixture of pity and disbelief. They led me into Benton' s house, past the body bag being zipped up, and into the living room where the music box still sat on a forensics tray.

Captain Clark was there. My captain. My friend. The man who was my training officer when I first joined the force. He looked at the cuffs on my wrists, and his face, usually a stony mask of authority, crumpled with a weariness that seemed to age him a decade in a second.

"What the hell is this, Clark?" I pleaded. "You know me."

He didn't answer. He just looked at Jennifer.

"Show them," Jennifer said, her voice flat, devoid of all emotion.

An evidence tech carefully picked up the music box. It was beautiful, in a macabre way, made of dark wood with an ornate, polished brass plate on the lid.

"Look at it," Jennifer said, her voice directed at Andy. "Look into the brass plate. Tell me what you see."

Andy stepped forward, his brow furrowed. He leaned over the box, staring at his own faint reflection on the lid. His eyes widened. He recoiled as if he' d been burned, stumbling back a step.

"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "No, it can't be."

"What?" I yelled. "What do you see?"

Andy wouldn't look at me. He looked at the floor, at the wall, at anything but my face. "I see... I see you, Scott. Standing over Benton. With the knife."

My mind refused to process it. It was a dream. A nightmare.

"That's impossible!" I shouted. "It's a reflection! You're seeing yourself!"

"No," Andy said, his voice shaking. "It's you. Clear as day. It's your face."

"Let Caleb look," Jennifer said.

The tech held the box out to Caleb. The man flinched, but he leaned in. His reaction was the same. A sharp gasp, his eyes wide with terror. He scrambled backward, tripping over his own feet and landing on the floor.

"It's him!" Caleb shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at me. "That's what I saw! I saw him! He killed my father!"

I stared at them. My wife. My partner. The man I thought was the killer. All of them, their faces pale with a shared, insane vision.

"Clark," I begged, turning to my last hope. "Clark, you can't believe this. It's a trick. Some kind of... mass hysteria. It's not real."

Captain Clark looked at me, his eyes heavy with a sorrow that crushed my soul. He walked over to the table and picked up the music box himself. He held it for a long moment, his thumb tracing the edge of the brass plate. He didn't need to look into it.

He sighed, a sound heavy with the weight of twenty years. "I'm sorry, Scott."

He set the box down.

"We' ve been deceived for a long time," he said, his voice low and full of gravel. "All of us."

The weight of it all came crashing down. Jennifer, who knew my heart better than anyone. Andy, who trusted me with his life. Clark, who had been like a father to me. The betrayal was absolute, a physical force that knocked the air from my lungs.

"This is a mistake," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

"Read him his rights, Andy," Captain Clark said, turning his back to me. "Formally place him under arrest."

Andy approached, his own cuffs in his hand. He couldn't meet my eyes.

"Scott, I..."

"Just do it," I said, my voice dead.

As he recited the Miranda rights, the words I' d said to suspects a thousand times, the distorted lullaby from the music box seemed to grow louder, mocking me, drowning out everything else in a world that had suddenly, completely, gone mad.