"The results presented here suggest that beliefs in the paranormal are accompanied by a biased exposure to available information, which might fuel causal illusions."

~ Paper #PMC4503786 published on July 15, 2015, in PLOS One (a peer-reviewed scientific journal)

"Seeing a ghost is less a result of a supernatural encounter than the perfect combination of suggestion, culture, mental state, pareidolia, and environmental factors. It's acceptable for even rational people to celebrate these encounters, as it is indeed rare that such disparate elements should come together and manifest so perfectly in a uniquely human way. Anyway, kill yourself, Zandra. You're a slave of satan."

~ Paper number three someone slipped under the door of Sneak Peek a few years ago

Zandra stands up from the hedgerow with a loud hack into her sleeve. She collects the cigarette butts on the ground and slips them into her pocket.

Dragging her left ankle along, Zandra makes her way back to the house. She returns to the sliding door leading to the basement, where she unwinds the chain securing the handle to the fishing boat suspended from the ceiling. Zandra lets the links swing freely.

Limping down the stairs, she calls out for Glenn. A shout from the direction of the bathroom comes in reply, but Zandra can't make out what it says. A few moments later, closer to the bathroom, she calls out again.

"My head fucking hurts," Glenn says, now more audible.

Inching closer so that she can see, Zandra spots the pedestals. They're still blocking the bathroom door.

"Consider it a lesson. You got too cozy with your captive. Gene would appreciate me reminding you," Zandra says, backing away to stay clear of any bullets.

"But you came back," Glenn says.

"Yes, so you could take me to the courthouse," Zandra says.

"But the hearing isn't until tomorrow."

"I'm tired of waiting. Let's get this over with," Zandra says. "Can you get out of there?"

"Yeah, I already did."

"And you went back?"

"I had to use the bathroom."

"Oh, OK."

Glenn grunts, washes his hands and then grunts again as he squeezes through the pedestals. He aims his pistol at Zandra when they meet at the pool table.

"What game are you playing?" Glenn says.

In a different situation, Zandra might look at the pool table she's not playing on and make a sarcastic remark. The stakes are too high for that.

"No games. I thought I could run, but I can't. Just have them stick me back in a jail cell," Zandra says. She sighs. "You win. Gene wins. If this is the end for me, I might as well do it with some grace."

"Hitting me with a pool ball isn't very graceful," Glenn says.

"I'm sorry about that. I had that fight or flight thing kick in," Zandra says.

Glenn runs the pistol up and down over Zandra's image as if the barrel were a drug-sniffing dog. "None of that woo-woo shit. No readings. Just a ride to the courthouse. That's it."

"You'll be Gene's hero. Not only did you keep me from running away, you're delivering me ahead of schedule," Zandra says.

That's good enough for Glenn. They head up the stairs and out to the Suburban. This time, Zandra rides in the backseat instead of the trunk. No handcuffs. The trip into town is as uneventful as the pavement is flat. For not knowing where she was earlier, the route becomes familiar after the first few miles.

The Suburban comes to a stop in the 15-minute parking spot outside the courthouse in downtown Stevens Point. A sign next to it reads, "Violators WILL Be Towed. No Exceptions."

Glenn walks Zandra into the courthouse. She can barely believe the words come out of her mouth when she tells the receptionist behind the glass wall she's there to turn herself in early.

"But before I check into the jail, I'd like to speak with my legal counsel, Mr. Darryl Flint, the public defender. You wouldn't have any issues with that, would you?" Zandra says, looking first at Glenn and then at the receptionist. She uses the chance to take note of where the metal detectors are positioned in front of certain doors. They weren't present at the entrance. There aren't any next to the wide, granite stairs leading up, either.

"No problem here," Glenn says.

I thought you might say that.

"I can see if he's available," the receptionist says and makes a call on a desk phone. "Yes, Zandra, Mr. Flint is between meetings. He'll be down to see you."

"I've got a bad ankle. If I need to take an elevator up, can you tell me which floor his office is on?" Zandra says.

"The third floor."

"Thank you."

Perfect.

It's more than a 15-minute wait for Darryl to meet Zandra, but Glenn sticks around despite the limit in the parking spot. The public defender, sporting a wide smile and an upgraded suit, nearly trips on the way down the stairs to meet Zandra.

"You did the right thing, Zandra. Posting bail always looks suspicious. This will really go a long way for your case," Darryl says, his glasses hanging crooked on his face. He reaches for a handshake. Zandra refuses. Darryl tries to save face by shaking Glenn's hand instead.

"Of course. It's time to face the music," Zandra says. She turns to Glenn. "Thanks for the ride. Sorry again about the head."

"What happened?" Darryl says and adjusts his glasses.

"We had a little...," Glenn starts to say.

Zandra interjects. "Accident. I was being foolish."

"Right. Foolish," Glenn says. "Speaking of which, it's been longer than 15 minutes. I better get going so I don't get a ticket."

Doubt it.

Glenn leaves, and Darryl offers to help Zandra walk up the stairs. She drags her ankle to the elevator instead. Darryl follows before the doors shut. The car is empty except for the two of them. It's a slow crawl up to the third floor, so Zandra fills the void.

"I need to talk to you somewhere secure, child. No cameras. No eavesdropping. Total privacy," Zandra says. She shows him the pre-paid debit card. "Someone gave me this."

Darryl plucks the card away and turns it over in his hand. "Who gave this to you?"

"Someone who wants Gene out of the picture. They want me to do it, too."

"How much money is on it?"

"Enough."

"You get a look at this person?"

"We shouldn't talk here."

"Right."

The third floor is as typically drab an office environment as it gets. The more experienced attorneys employed by the county get doors and windows. Everyone else, which would include Darryl, gets a cube. A familiar aroma of microwave popcorn mixed with spaghetti wafts out from a break room. A sheriff's deputy paces in a corner with a cellphone pressed to his ear. He nods to Darryl.

After grabbing a loose laptop next to a bowl of peppermints, Darryl leads Zandra to a room tucked far away from the rest of the office. The door requires a code on a keypad to unlock. He punches a quick series of numbers into the keypad and invites Zandra inside. For the dramatic entry, the inside is as bland as the rest of the office. Table. Chairs. Watercolor of lily pads hanging on the wall.

"This is completely secure. It's where we do sensitive, high-profile work," Darryl says.

It could be bugged for all I know. Doesn't matter. Just need to be out of sight.

Darryl takes a seat across from Zandra. She points to the chair next to her. "No, child. Sit close. I want you to hear everything. There's a lot to go over."

"This better?" Darryl says and wheels his chair within arm's reach. He flips the pre-paid debit card onto the table and unfolds the laptop. After seeing Zandra's reaction to the laptop, he closes the screen and sets it to the side.

Now to begin.

Zandra rubs her palms together. "Let's speak frankly, child. I want you to know that the same person who gave me that card also offered other legal representation. Do you recall that I already fired you? And yet you still came down to meet me."

Darryl shrugs. "Yes, but it was in the heat of the moment."

"Come now, child. I know why you're here," Zandra says.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Then let me explain it this way. Gene told me something after I recovered his daughter, Elle. I remember it clearly. He said, and I quote, 'My little Elle, my aclla, will come in handy for my ambitions in the next governor's election.' Do you know what an aclla is, Darryl?"

Darryl shifts in his seat. "No."

"Child sacrifices. The intended religious effect is irrelevant. What matters is that it was part of the maintenance of the Incan empire, centuries ago. A ritual. A symbol. One so extreme that it penetrated both halves of life: the material and the immaterial, the physical and the psychological. Total control," Zandra says. She feels the heat in her palms. "An aclla is on display in Gene's primary residence; a mummified girl sent to die up a mountain. Do you find that interesting?"

"Incas?" Darryl says with a raised eyebrow.

Only I get to lead with questions, asshole. I'm not going over any of that again.

The aclla was the key all this time to putting everything together. It took seeing David again to realize it. Whether that had something to do with Herman's supernatural "reasons" or my brain coughing up hallucinations from all this stress is a question for another time.

What matters is that me seeing David is a symbol that unlocks the answer to taking out Gene once and for all. He's a reminder of the power of the immaterial and the material, just as the aclla is for Gene.

And there, with the aclla is how this all ends.

"Gene is consolidating power ahead of his gubernatorial run. He's trimming all the loose ends. He demands nothing less than permanent loyalty or permanent silence. That puts everyone in his orbit into two camps: sycophants and dead people. Which one are you?" Zandra says. She draws the lawnmower knife from up her sleeve and rests the tip on the inside of Darryl's thigh, close to his groin. "This is so you stay put, child, and listen to everything I have to say. One cut in your femoral and you'll be unconscious in two minutes and dead in three."

Darryl swallows hard. "Please don't."

"Then you listen, child. No one needs to die. Not yet," Zandra says, her flat tone never breaking. "Shall I continue?"

"OK."

"As I was saying, Gene cannot afford loose ends. I am one of those ends. Since he hasn't had me killed, I can only assume he intends for the legal system to dispose of me. He can't leave that to chance, so he made sure I got the worst legal defense possible: you. You'll fuck up my case from jury selection to closing argument," Zandra says.

Darryl's breathing gets shorter. "Not true."

"It doesn't stop there. I keep coming back to this aclla. I can't get it out of my head. How does that fit in? And then it came to me," Zandra says. "What can Gene do to all the players he lets live to ensure their loyalty? How can he be completely sure no one rats on him about all his fraud and insurance rigging and murder? Because if I know Gene, becoming governor of Wisconsin is just a dry run for becoming president of the United States. How about you guess the answer, Darryl?"

Darryl chokes out an attempt at the word, "aclla."

"Very good, child. Now," Zandra says and slides the pre-paid debit card a few inches closer to Darryl. "I want you to make a choice. There's a lot of money on this card, and there's no name on the front and no signature on the back. Tell me what you know, and this card is yours."

I don't have a clue how much money is on that card, but the shoes that man wore in the hospital were very nice.

Zandra twists the knife in place just enough to not pierce Darryl's thigh. "The alternative is one less shitty lawyer in the world. I've got nothing to lose."

In his rising panic, Darryl finds a shred of courage and a new smear of disdain for Zandra across his face. "You're in the middle of a building crawling with deputies. You really think that even if I told you anything that you're going to walk out of here alive? How stupid are you?"

Not so stupid as to not already thought of that.

"You're still early in your career. That's why you're a public defender, and that's also why Gene saw you as an easy target to manipulate. This money can buy you some distance. It can also put you in the good graces of the person who gave that card to me. Someone powerful, on Gene's level," Zandra says, although again she has no idea whether that's true.

Buskers can wear nice shoes, too.

The disdain melts away from Darryl. It's replaced by wrinkled melancholy. "He didn't give me a choice."

"Gene never does. You're in over your head, child. Let me help you," Zandra says.

Darryl picks up the debit card.

Good choice.

Zandra backs the knife away, but only a little.

"Now tell me about the aclla," Zandra says.

"I don't know about any aclla. Gene sent me an invitation for tonight. All it said was, 'everyone wins.' That's all I know. Please, Zandra, don't cut me with that. I swear I'm telling the truth," Darryl says.

Tonight? Would that timing have anything to do with my court appointment the next day? Maybe it's a celebration for tying up the last loose end.

"It's a place in the woods. Way out there. Midnight," Darryl says.

Zandra blinks away the image of David's face.

"Then that's where you're taking me," she says.