Page 24 of Encounter

The poor girl really was pretty bored here.

Apologetically, I turned my attention back to her. “Sorry for bein’ gone so long darlin’,” I smiled, rubbing her head while she happily purred as loud as she could. “Ah, you don’t wanna hear about it. Boring, stupid work,” I kept talking while I turned on the TV.

It feels good to be back home.

Making me pause, the memory of the last moments with Galen before I left came up in my mind for some reason. He went completely wide-eyed and flustered as I reached toward him.Was kind of cute.

When Kitty rubbed her head against my face, enjoying the roughness of my beard and demanding more pets, I shook my head.

Whatever. Nothing I should be thinkin’ about.

I spent the rest of the evening doing nothing but absorbing the calming atmosphere and watching dumb TV shows. Once I finished dinner, I finally got up to do necessary chores.

After leaving in such a hurry after Richard De Clare called me, urging me to find his son ‘as soon as possible’ like he was the center of our universe, I left everything like it was. I didn’t even finish the pizza I had—the box still sat on the kitchen counter open, and I wasprettysure it was missing a piece.

Frowning at Kit suspiciously, I took care of the cardboard box and continued with the mandatory sweep, armed with a cold beer from the fridge. When the kitchen was done, my travel bag emptied and dirty clothes thrown into the washing machine, I finally moved into the mess Kitty made on my work table.

“Goddammit, cat,” I mumbled as I stood above it, looking at the messed up files with dried-up paw prints on them. Before I sat down, I opened the balcony door to let some of the stale air out.

Paperwork had always been my least favorite part of the job. Gregory would usually take care of most of it—at least my share was nowhere as exhausting as his.

Galen’s file was still at the very top of the messy pile, making me smirk. Before, I didn’t even bother to read it properly. De Clare insisted finding his son was the utmost priority, and the time was running out, so all I did was briefly look over the boy's name and physical description.

Mother: deceased.Hmm. Suicide... No wonder he’s so anxious. Something like that marks a person.

Running my eyes briefly over the rest of the file before I was going to put it through the shredder, a set of numbers caught my attention. Barely containing a gasp, I stopped balancing on the chair and leaned over the table, tightening my grip on the paper. “What the—” Everything around me faded away and blurred as my eyes fixated on the date of birth section of the client profile form. “There’s no...”

It’s the same date.

I would’ve noticed that date anywhere. The time... 10:46 PM.

It took me a moment to finally force myself to inhale again. With an unpleasant, chilling sensation traveling up my spine and burning in the pit of my stomach, I stood up and stepped away from the table, feeling like I got hit over the head with something.

It’s the same date—only about fifteen minutes later.

He was born only fifteen minutes after—

“It’s nothing,” I blurted out, voice hoarse. Straightening my back and rubbing my eyes as if to wake up the fuck up from whatever bizarre nightmare I was experiencing, I tried to snap out of the strange trance I got trapped in. Kitty’s body pressed against my leg, as if she sensed the change too. “It doesn’t... Doesn’t mean anythin’,” I whispered, looking down on her like she could fucking help or even understand.

It’s nothing at all. Can’t be.

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