Medium Rare (COMPLETE)

Chapter Three

Daniel Howard - or rather what was left of him - was sitting on the bed with his knees hunched up to his chest and his arms coiled around himself. To Edna he just looked like a boy, but on her tongue she could taste the presence of the other world. The bitterness of unfinished business on him like a pungent odor.

Well, at least Edna knew what happened to Daniel, now it was time to figure out the specifics. “Are you Daniel?” she prompted, noting the wary look in his eye as she sat on the bed next to him.

There was a barely perceptible nod of his head. Going on what she had seen in the photos held in gilt frames, Daniel was the captain of the football team, adorned with trophies and confidence just oozing from his very being.

His ghost on the other hand, resembled a waif, trembling just like his mother downstairs. He resembled her greatly in the shape of his eyes and his thin lips, and the sun kissed hair atop his head.

“How come you can see me?” he asked, his voice quavering.

“I'm a medium.”

His eyes widened. “A medium? But...it's all just crap, isn't it?”

Edna smiled and exhaled softly. “Mostly, yes. Everyone you see on the TV is a phony.”

“But you're not, is that right?”

Edna could almost see the cogs whirring in his head and nodded at him. “The only one discovered so far.”

He hunched his head back on his knees. “I don't know where my body is.”

She couldn't touch him, but elected to sit closer to his quavering form. “That's why I'm here. I'm with the FBI. Could you tell me what happened?”

His head shook in a resounding ‘no’. “When I realized what had happened to me, I was on the riverbank close to the Penny bridge. I think my body was swept away by the current. I didn't really know what to do, I just wanted to come home. But when mom couldn't see me…” he trailed off, his shoulders shaking.

“I understand. I can have my colleagues dredge the river. I must ask you, Daniel though, what were you doing there in the first place? It's important you tell me everything you remember.”

He didn't answer. Edna had pushed him enough. “Come to HQ, my colleagues can help you settle into your new existence. I'll leave the address pinned to your noticeboard.”

With a pen on the desk, she scrawled the address on the back of a ripped envelope, with a bitter realization she saw it was Daniel's college acceptance letter. She pinned it up and looked to the ceiling as an overwhelming parental love bled out of her, threatening to show as tears which she quickly swallowed back.

“There are others like you. Others I've helped.” With that, and nodding at the poor ghost, she quietly shut the door and picked her way downstairs. Thomas was just finishing his coffee, and she nodded ever so slightly. Thomas caught her signal and stood, redoing the button on his jacket.

“We'll be in touch, Ms. Howard.”

“Please. I just need to know Daniel is alright.”

Edna looked up the stairs, and saw Daniel's form hunched on the stairs, sobbing. She used all her willpower to pretend she couldn't see him and gestured Thomas to follow her out the door.

Thomas turned to her in the car, his face no longer tightened into his usual sarcastic timbre. Thomas was excellent at reading subtle clues given off by his team, and he could read Edna like a book.

“He's dead, isn't he?”

She nodded. “He's up in his bedroom right now. God, I hate cases like this.”