Thirty minutes later, Dan is sipping his double something or other frappe latte. His order nearly made me cross my eyes trying to keep up with all the extra stuff he added. I still don't get what everyone sees in all those overpriced flavored coffees. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my caramel macchiato from Starbucks, but even I can't see paying five dollars every couple of hours for coffee. You'd spend an entire paycheck in less than a few days on the stuff.

The place is nice, though. There are over-stuffed chairs and couches scattered around small, cozy tables. Several students are sipping coffee and studying while others are just hanging out and having fun. It's very relaxing, especially after the whole strangulation thing a few minutes ago.  I'd texted Dr. Olivet to let him know where we were and what table to find.  I hope he gets here.

"Explain."

I wince at Dan's clipped words. I can see the worry on his face, so I can ignore the steel in his voice. He's upset, but then again, so am I. He wasn't the one who nearly had the life literally choked from him. Why should I try to explain? He pretty much just admitted on the way over he didn't believe me. Oh, wait, he believed I believed it. Did that mean I had some kind of mental break and choked myself? Mattie the orphan who thinks she sees dead people. Nutcase he just feels sorry for.

"Why should I?" I snarl back. "It's not like you're going to believe me anyway."

He sighs.  "Mattie..."

"No," I whisper. "I trusted you, thought you believed me, but you don't. So don't sit there and pretend you do now."

He rubs his forehead tiredly. "I'm trying, okay? It's hard to believe, but I'm trying to keep an open mind here. So please, tell me what happened in there."

It's my turn to sigh. I sip my tea and debate on if I should tell him a ghost tried to strangle me or not. It'll only make the crazy girl look even crazier. Do I really want to open myself up to that kind of ridicule? Though to be fair, Dan has never once made me feel like a freak when I told him about my ghost girl abilities. He just blinks and nods. Usually.

"There was a ghost on the stage. He wasn't there in the beginning. He sorta just appeared."

"Was that when all the equipment on stage started to go crazy?"

I nod cautiously. At least the ghost gear gave me a little credibility here. "He was angry and no, I don't know why. He jumped off the stage and headed right for me. I knew something bad was gonna happen and I had to get out of there. He didn't say a word, just started to strangle me even before we got out. I couldn't breathe. The more I fought, the more he squeezed."

My hands creep back up to my neck. I had zipped my jacket all the way up earlier to hide the marks, but I can still feel them there. "I got mad. No way was I gonna let another freaking ghost hurt me. I remember thinking really hard that I wanted his hands to move and..."

"There was a light," Dan whispers. "I saw it. If I'd blinked, I wouldn't have seen it, but it sorta flared up around you and then you were breathing again. Mason came out and distracted me about the same time."

"So maybe I'm not so crazy then, Officer Dan?"

His eyes are wide, but he's not shaking his head in denial at least. That's something. I know I have marks on my throat. Mason had been yelling about them. Even Dan can't explain those away. Maybe my getting hurt today actually helped my case with him. He's a cop. He believes in what he sees with his own two eyes and the strangulation marks on my neck are real.

Time to switch topics. His not believing me feels too much like a betrayal. "I figured out why Mirror Boys was so familiar to me."

He blinks.  "Mirror Boy?"

"Bloody face in the mirror? Remember him?"

He nods. "Yeah?"

"He was in foster care."

"How do you know that?"

"I recognized his name," I tell him. "There was a boy who taught me how to protect myself and he told me that Eric Cameron had taught him to take care of himself. Dude was in the system."

"You can't be sure it's the same person," Dan argues, already going through a whole list of possibilities in his head.

"Even you have to admit it's a pretty big coincidence." I take another sip of my tea. It is doing a fabulous job of soothing my throat. I'm not usually a tea drinker, but I've never tried it with honey either.

"It's an angle we can look at," he says at last. "I checked out that list of neighbors you gave me too. Everyone on your street is your average middle class family-types, well most are borderline poor, but you get my point."

Well, there went that angle.

"So I did an expanded search," he continues. "There are eleven sex offenders within ten miles of your house, two just a couple blocks over from you."

"Really?" Now that is just creepy.

"Yeah," he nods. "I am checking into it. I'll find out where they work tomorrow and before you ask, I just got this information today."

"Did you check out the Olsons?" I hate to think they had anything to do with it, though. Mrs. O is probably the best foster mother I've ever had.

"I did. Clean as a whistle except for a couple traffic tickets over the years." He frowns. "They are the most likely candidates, but there's no evidence to suggest they are anything but what they appear to be. Decent folks trying to help people."

"We have to figure this out, Dan. Mary didn't look good the last time I saw her. I don't think she has much time left."

"Have you seen her since the other night?" he asks hesitantly. I can see how hard it is for him to even ask that question, but he did. Brownie points to Officer Dan.

"No," I tell him. "I don't know how much longer she can last. If she's even still alive. I see dead people, not ones that are still breathing, but I don't know, she didn't feel dead to me."

"I'm doing the best I can, Mattie."

"I know."

And I did know. Whether he bought the whole ghost business or not, he's put a lot of time and effort into everything I gave him. He'd found names for the drawings of the dead kids, found out information about them, mapped out where they were taken, and above all else, he treated this like it was real, like they were important and they had been killed in the way I'd described. He's a good guy and I need to remember that instead of getting all hurt and huffy over him not believing I can see ghosts.

It just feels like we aren't getting anywhere and that frustrates me. I'm the kind of person who goes out and gets things done, but instead I'm trusting Dan to use his connections to find out stuff it'd take me a long time or possibly never to find. It's funny really. Me, trusting a cop.

"I promise you, Squirt, we will figure this out."

"I can't believe I trust you," I growl at him. It rankles that I trust him and he doesn't trust me back. If he did, he'd believe I could see ghosts, no questions asked.

"You sound furious that you do," he laughs.

"I am," I tell him in all seriousness. "I've never, ever trusted anyone since my mom, not even Nancy, not really. I'm mad because I trust you and you don't trust me. Do you know how hard it is for me to trust a cop?"

"I trust you, Squirt."

I laugh bitterly. "No, Dan, you don't. If you trusted me, you'd believe me no matter how insane it sounds and you don't."

He stares at me, his warm brown eyes all full of gooey liquid gold. I hate it when he uses that look on me. It makes me want to tell him things I normally wouldn't. I have to keep a lid on my runaway lips from now on. I need to distance myself from Officer Dan.

"Mattie, it's not that I don't want to believe you, it's just hard to believe that ghosts are real."

"And that is the crux of the whole thing, isn't it? No one wants to believe ghosts exist because then they'd have to re-examine everything they believed to be true."

We both turn to see Dr. Olivet standing a few feet from us. Neither of us saw him come in or even walk to our table. I'm not one to let people sneak up on me. Maybe I need to just leave this freaking town altogether, get away from Dan, Meg, Jake, Mason, Mrs. O. The whole lot of them. They're getting way too close.

"Ready to talk about ghosts, Mattie?" Dr. Olivet asks, distracting me from my internal tirade.

I smile at him. I'm more than ready to talk about ghosts. The faster I can learn to protect myself from them, the faster I can get out of this place and get my life back.