I violently gripped the edge of the desk, steadying myself against a rising wave of nausea, a festering crescendo from the base of my spleen. . I am stronger than this...I silently chanted my private mantra as the morning's events replayed themselves unrentingly in my mind. I am stronger... 

I stooped down slowly to gather the fallen files which now littered the freshly installed nubby tan carpet. There they were. The people I was supposed to fix. Broken lives, broken minds, broken families, broken spirits: names and dates and diagnoses. All there for me to piece back together like some warped Humpty Dumpty.

"Dr. Davis, let me get those," Mertha offered, her tone maternal, soothing,  "please rest a min..." The phone interupted her mid sentence and she held up her finger.."one sec" she mouthed, as she lifted the receiver with one hand and removed a gold clip earring with the other.

At least my clients genuinely want my help, I mused as my mind drifted back to a place some 16 years before. By then these visions had been more frequent, more precise, more detailed; the evershifting line bordering reality and illusion more transient. It was sometime in April. School had finished for the day and the usual scattering of students were lingering on the grassy lawn, drinking in the new warmth of early spring. "Hey B.J." my classmate Sandy chirped to her latest beau as she trotted gleefully across the street to meet him. In an instant I saw it: the green cement truck, brakes squealing, an ashen smokey haze, a sound like crushing ice and  Sandy's honey colored hair and frosty pink lipstick matted with blood.

"No" I screamed racing towards her, the impact of my body catapulting us both into the sidewalk in one motionless heap. We lay entwined, arms, legs, algebra books.

"You Bitch" she finally shrieked propping herself up on one arm, pressing her hand to a large scrape on her forehead. Gathering my wits, I sat up surrounded by the slack jawed silent stares of my peers.

"Why did you do that, are you crazy?" someone screeched..."psycho!...freak!" approaching voices called out.

"But the truck..." I stammered uselessly "I saw...a...truck" The street was empty. No truck, no accident, just a bleeding bewildered girl on the sidewalk.

Sandy's friends escorted her into the building, cradling her like a lost kitten in a protective group embrace, turning only to glare back savagely at me."You're jealous!" Sandy shreiked through her tears, "just  ...jealous!" B.J. punhed me hard in the left shoulder "weirdo!" he growled, as he ran to join the others. They were safely inside when just moments later, a green cement truck barreled by uncontollably, swiping the mirror off one of the parked cars which lined the street.

Were they right back then? Was I, for lack of a better term, just a weirdo? a freak? But, I'm a Doctor, I have a post graduate degree. I fix people...

My self depreciating reverie was broken by Mertha's gentle voice, trembling "It's the police" she hesitated, "they want to talk to you."

I picked up the line in my office and a low familiar voice greeted me as I pressed the winking red button. "Long time no see"

"Hey Joe" I tried brightly. Joe was short for Jonah, or Detective Shephard more formally. I had done some case work with him before, although the "vision" aspect was all very hush-hush. A seasoned old school cynic like Joe, would be less than pleased having the public hear he had gotten help from a "psychic" and the anonimity was fine with me. I was simply a psychologist, evaluating the criminal mind.

"We've got something here Adara, and I think we could use your help. Any chance you could swing by the station?" It was a question with only one correct answer.

"I'll be right over" I answered, grabbing my briefcase and asking Mertha to cancel my appointments, somethng I rarely did if possible. I felt oddly relieved to be getting away from the office, even for something like this. I was in no shape to face my clients and they would know that, see me as vulnerable, powerless. My hands were still shaking as I got to my car and headed west. I am stronger than this...whatever this is.

"Any lucky numbers today?" joe queried, kissing me on the cheek as I entered his office. It was our running joke. "I don't get it. You see all sorts of things...." he reasoned "but not lottery numbers."

"What have we got?" I chuckled, addressing the business at hand and feeling strangely renewed by whatever challenge would be presented before me.

"This nasty Nona Flores situation. I assume you heard...or saw?" he responded. "we've got Miguel Sanchez, but something's not ...well, right. Will you talk with him?"

"Nona Flores was going to be my client," I sputtered...a sudden tightness in my chest.

 I know, but off the record,...a little chat, I know it's...unothadox and maybe illegal but I need your, uh, feedback."

Jonah Shephard was used to getting his way. Not because he had "the goods" as he liked to say, on everyone in the entire state of Nevada, but because people genuinely liked him. Late fifties, widowed early in life, no kids. He said wistfully one day that the street kids of Las Vegas were his family: the prostitutes, the runaways, drug dealers, even a 17 year old transvestite. Joe had paid out of his own pocket for the boy's nose to be fixed after a vicious hate crime attack left him looking like ground chuck. The boy changed his name to Madame Josephine, in his honor and now headlines some casino shows. Of course Joe paid the price on the force- he arrived one day to find his office name plaque replaced with "Detective Josephine" and feather boas and beads draping his desk. "They're all God's children" was his only answer, "even the weirdos" Adara had loved that line and him for saying it.

I followed Joe through some back hallways to a small room, a large interior glass window making up one of the walls and immediately felt a drop in the temperature. I am stronger than this...

Are you sure he can't see us? I questioned, nodding toward a dark haired Hispanic man who was seated at a table. "see or hear" Joe added proudly tapping on the two way mirror.

"Where'd you get this guy, central casting?" I asked, a stab at nervous humor. Joe smiled. It was true. Miguel Sanchez could have played the thug/gangster/carjacker role in any number of B detective or odd couple cop buddy movies. An unfair but all too familiar strereotype.

"How about the ink?" I asked. Etched into Miguel Sanchez's arms were intricate black and flesh patterns, the largest an unusual finely detailed star with nine points radiating from the center. At the end of each point a small flower. A band of what looked to be roses and thorns circling his neck.

"Not gang stuff" Joe stated, "at least not the tattooes we know of. Why do these guys do this?...cover themselves with these things?" Adara glanced at Joe with a knowing grin, remembering last summer's policeman's barbeque- the only time she had seen Joe out of a suit, a small tattoe peeking out from under his short sleeved shirt.

"That's different, I was in the navy..I earned it." he added with mock indignation. "How did he earn his? I don't know Addie, this guy's different, flies under the radar. And no priors. Not even petty theft." Adara was intrigued. 

"Hello, I'm Dr. Davis, " I greeted Miguel Sanchez sitting a comfortable distance away. He jolted his right arm upright, an attempt at a handshake stifled by mental handcuffs ringing his wrists. "Nice to meet you," I lied, ignoring his embarrassment.

 Joe was right outside watching everything. I had insisted I go in alone. "How can I get a guy to open up to me with an audience?" I had rationalized. "Plus he's cuffed to that table in Police headquarters. Besides Joe, I've done this before." He gruffly agreed and now I sat, face to face with a man accused of a brutal murder of his own flesh and blood, probably capable of worse. I could picture Joe just beyond the mirror, pacing,eyes fixed, gun at the ready.

"Hello" Sanchez answered, fawn brown eyes set steadfast on mine. I was thrown off balanceby the gentleness of his face."Is it Ok if we talk?" I continued.

"You know he would have been four." his voice drifted in the stale air.

Excuse me?"

"My son, would have been four today" I shuddered. "he wanted a dog, but he was too young. His mother got him a mechanical toy one ...robopup, I think they're called. She joked she wouldn't get stuck feeding it and it wouldn't ruin the carpet. he would have loved that..."

Yes, if you hadn't killed them both, twisted psycho, the dialogue played in my head, ignoring the fact that he was still just a suspect...innocent until proven guilty, I told myself.

"you know I didn't do it" he uttered as if answering her thoughts..."that murder, that slaughter..they were my...they were my everything..Mi vida" He was neither passionate nor enraged but spoke as if he was looking at something far in the distance, something just out of the line of sight, something that if he just tried hard enough, he could catch a glimpse of.

"So when did you know?" he continued. I furrowed my brows. "You know that you can, well, see things? feel things?"

"We're here to talk about you, Mr. Sanchez" I quipped, unsettled by the comment. Surely Joe wouldn't have told this man anything.

"Saint Michael' he grinned, his eyes resting on the small gold medal which had escaped the confines of my white blouse. "My namesake" he smiled." Diagnoses ran through my brain like a ticker tape.. various pyschosis, a sociopath? delusions of grandeur, PTSD attachment reactive? Pages of the DSM IV flipped frantically through my head.

"I'm glad you were sent here to help us. You have the key..." he added with a knowing hint of a smile. the key? I was paralized.

And then it happened.  A ferocious slam as the heavy door swung on its hinges. Four armed policemen and a policewoman stormed in, nearly filling the small room to capacity.

"Took you long enough" Miguel laughed as one of them unlocked his cuffs with a sharp snap. What was happening? I swirled around in my seat. Where's Joe? who are these people?

"He's not hurt" Miguel offered, reading my thoughts. A scream escaped my dry throat. One of the men grabbed my arm forcing what must have been a handgun into my lower back. Sanchez nodded to one of the men. he raised his pistol and with a puff, like a childs air gun the window dividing the room shattered. On the other side I could see Joe, slumped on the floor hands tied at the base of his back.A small rivulet of blood trickling outward, glossy red against the cold grey linoleum.

"He's unharmed" Sanchez soothed, " a minor bump , if that. Please, come with us." He extended a now free hand, braceletted with bright red markings from the cuffs.

"Like hell" I screamed as the pressure of the weapon against my spine increased. "You're going to shoot me, in the middle of police headquarters? Go ahead!" I am stronger than this

Sanchez smiled like a proud parent, "I must insist. Come with us, my word of honor, you, or your detective, will not be harmed."

"Honor?" I screeched

"Please, you will see later why we had to go to these extremes." With a firm but gentle nudge, I was escorted out a narrow hallway. 

"Prisoner transport" his apprentice commanded, into a small black staticy box." A muffled crumbly voice returned "All clear"

And with that, five police officers, a high profile prisoner and his doctor walked out of the doors of the Las Vegas Police Headquarter building into the back of a waiting van.