The United States of America had nine panhandles, and Nick Parker had officially been to three of them.

When he was ten, he visited Florida with family. When he was twenty-seven, he was sent to Connecticut for a case. Now, at thirty-two, he was in a small town in the Oklahoma panhandle, mentally checking it off the list.

He drove down an empty road, in no rush. The station wasn't expecting him for twenty minutes, and even at the snail's pace he was going at, he'd be there in ten. His briefcase, full of his research, lay in the passenger seat. A flash drive would have sufficed, but what he'd discovered from years of travel around various law enforcement stations was that the small towns were typically underfunded and several years out of date regarding technology. He wasn't going to take his chances with a slow computer, so he'd gone the physical route.

He turned the rental car into the police station parking lot. Monroe, the FBI agent from the local regional office, was standing outside.

"Thanks for coming," she said.

Nick shook her hand. Monroe had no official partner for the case—it was one of those voluntary cases that were simple enough to leave up to local police—and since Nick was an old friend who she knew wouldn't tell her to abandon the captain who asked her for help, she reached out to him to do some research. Nick's assigned office was the headquarters in D.C., but he didn't mind making the trip.

"Captain's waiting inside," Monroe said. "I'll go ahead and get set up with him. You check in at the desk and meet me in there, okay?"

Nick nodded and followed her into the station. The chairs in the foyer were empty save for a single older man reading a newspaper, so without having to wait, Nick walked straight up to the desk. He slid over his badge for the administrator to verify and started filling out a visitation form.

"Nick."

Nick froze, and then he turned around slowly. Standing there was his younger brother, looking older than when he'd last seen him. The foyer was empty aside from them; the man with the newspaper was gone.

"How did you know I was here?" Nick asked quietly.

"You said you were going to Oklahoma."

It wasn't an answer, and judging by Jack's suspicious smile, he knew that. Oklahoma didn't say what town, what building, or when.

"Parker?" Monroe called from the end of the hallway.

Nick turned halfway to gesture that he'd be there in a second, but he kept Jack in the corner of his vision as he did so, convinced he would disappear if he took his eyes off him. When Monroe slipped back inside the captain's office, he turned back to Jack, who was still there.

"I have to work a case right now," Nick said stiffly. "There's a diner across the street. I'll meet you there afterwards."

Jack nodded, but Nick still didn't believe this was genuine. He would come out of the station to find the diner empty. He was near-certain of it.

As Nick went to go, Jack gently grabbed his arm. "It is there," he said. "Just not in the one that she thought."

Jack let him go and left the station, and Nick stared at the door as it closed behind him. What the hell does that mean?

When he got into the office, Captain Cardiff was sitting at his desk with a spread of photos, and Monroe was pacing along the wall. Nick handed her his briefcase and his pen and took the empty chair.

"Sorry for the hold up," he said. "Where is he?"

"In a holding cell," Cardiff replied. "You'd think his lips are glued together with how little he says. We've got a missing man—" he tapped a photo of said man "—and surveillance showing our suspect, Terry Matthews, shooting the victim twice in the head and dragging the body."

He showed Nick a series of screenshots of a video. The suspect's face was clear as day, as was the victim's. It was essentially a snuff film, but though Matthews was found in his home and arrested, and though he admitted to the murder in a short but damning sentence, he wouldn't say where the body was.

"We've been looking for a week straight," Monroe grumbled. "It's a small town. Not many people, but God damn it there's so many places to hide because of all the old mining infrastructure and the campgrounds by the rocks."

"It's just the deputy and me," Cardiff added. "With Monroe, that makes only three of us out there searchin', and only when there's no other town shenanigans to take care of. Other officer's on maternity leave."

This was why Nick was asked to do the research—Monroe was busy searching. "I separated it with tabs," he told her, pointing out the stickers in the stacks of papers he brought. "Matthews' residence history, school records, call logs, transcriptions of answers to questions I asked to people who knew him, anything I could gather. What are you hoping to find?"

Monroe sighed as she thumbed through, making notes with the pen. "Hints on his thought process. Maybe he liked climbing down wells when he was little. Maybe he dismembered animals and hid the pieces in different places. Anything to narrow it down. Meanwhile, you should talk to him. He's already grown tired of us. He might open up to someone new."

"The body's all we need," Cardiff explained. "We've got enough evidence, including his own confession, to pin him on murder. His court date is already set. In terms of prosecution, we're done. We just want the body to give the family some peace."

His desk phone rang. Cardiff answered, and then he suddenly hushed Nick and Monroe's already low conversation and pushed a button.

"You're on speaker, Deputy," he said. "Repeat what you said."

"Oh. Ah, I found it."

Monroe straightened. "What?"

"Yeah. It's in the cellar near the mine canteen."

"I already looked there!" she exclaimed. "Twice."

"Not that one."

"We only saw one cellar door in that area."

"I know. It rained this morning, so I went up there to put up new caution tape in case it got messed up. Saw a landslide—nothing major, just some mud that slid down, but it exposed another door in the ground by the canteen at the top of the hill. Body's in there. Guess Matthews buried the door after he deposited it?" The deputy paused. "You weren't wrong, ma'am. It was in a mine cellar, just not in the one you thought."

Nick went still. Monroe took no notice of his sudden paleness and plopped the papers back into his briefcase. "Damn it," she sighed. "Made you come all the way out here for nothing. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said blankly. Distractedly. "No problem."

Cardiff leaned over the phone. "Stay there, deputy. We're on our way."

"You can come if you want," Monroe told Nick, "but like the Captain said, the case is already closed. If I were you, I'd bail."

Nick cleared his throat as he stood, struggling to come up with sentences. "I think I'll take you up on that."

"Alright. Have a safe flight back."

Nick left the office, still disoriented by what happened. He walked outside and just stood there, looking at nothing, until he realized that Jack was sitting on a bench along the sidewall of the station, and he stood when Nick saw him.

Neither of them said a word. Nick watched him for a moment, and then he started walking to the diner. He was aware that Jack was following him, lagging a few steps behind.

Nick slid into a booth along the window. Jack sat down across from him. The waitress appeared with a pitcher of water and said she would be back in a few minutes to take their order. The diner had the small-town charm, and more importantly, it had the small-town emptiness. There was no one around to eavesdrop on this conversation that Nick was sure was going to be a disaster. He stayed silent and watched Jack with a practiced calm.

Eventually, Jack caved. "Are you mad?" he asked.

"Mad?" Nick repeated lightly. Coldly. "Why would I be mad? It's not like I had to find out from your landlord that you moved. It's not like I called your phone for three days straight before someone finally picked up, and it wasn't you, it was a woman named Mary who said she'd just bought a new phone plan, and I figured she had your number because you switched it out for a new number, which you didn't give me."

Jack was silent.

"It's been four years," Nick said tightly. "Four years since I've seen you or even talked to you. And every few weeks, you would send me a postcard from a new town, but there was barely anything on it. Just your initials and a short comment about the weather or the sights. There was never a hello, or a how are you, or a sorry for dropping off the face of the fucking Earth. And for what, Jack?" Nick glared at him. "What did I ever do to you?"

"Nothing," Jack murmured. "You were a great brother."

Nick felt his throat tighten. "Then why did you leave?"

Jack went silent again.

"Four years," Nick said, "and then you suddenly show up at the exact place I am at the exact time I'm there, and you say something about a case that you couldn't possibly know anything about. Why? What am I supposed to think? What are you doing here?"

Jack fidgeted with the corner of the menu. "Black coffee, please."

Nick realized the waitress was back. He asked for the same thing, and she returned to the counter.

"Remember when we were younger," Jack said slowly, "and I used to have a really...active imagination? And nightmares? And sometimes I thought I saw ghosts?"

"Of course I remember. You woke me up every night for two years, and then you stopped."

"Yeah, well. I saw actual ghosts. Those nightmares were more realistic than you think. And I'm some sort of psychic."

Nick blinked. The waitress brought their coffee, and while Jack sipped at his, calm and at ease with what he'd said, Nick left his mug untouched and stared at him. "Are you going to elaborate on that?"

"I'm something called a Gifted," he explained. "It's different for everyone. Some people heal cuts. Make fire with their fingertips. Others have more...psychological talents. I'm one of those, but I can also shapeshift." He leaned forward, and his eyes started changing colors. "I can be anyone," he said, his voice going from his own to their middle school gym teacher's rasp to one Nick couldn't identify, "but more importantly, I can be no one."

Nick was glad he hadn't drank the coffee—he would've spit it out or dropped the mug.

Jack leaned back in his seat, his eyes back to brown, his voice back to his own as he continued. "There's a cult called the Enhanced who eat Gifts and kill the Gifted in the process. There's also an entity called Death, but I haven't seen her since an incident. Let's hope it stays that way."

Nick reached for the coffee. He forced some of it down his throat as he recovered from the grand concept of...magic? The supernatural? Whatever this was. He slowly, calmly accepted what Jack was telling him, and then he let go of its cosmic scale and focused on the small part of it between them, on the consequences of it that drove them apart for four years.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked quietly.

"I tried, remember? I told you and Mom about the ghosts."

"When you were little. And you always clammed up about it as soon as you mentioned them. Why didn't you ever try to prove it to me, like you just did with your eyes, or with the case?" Nick shook his head. "I would've believed you. I would've tried to help you."

"I didn't want you to."

"Why not?"

"Because I loved you. I looked up to you. You were an amazing son, student, brother, and friend, and I didn't want any of that to change because your younger brother was one bad day away from insanity." Jack looked down at the table. "I didn't just start traveling because of complications with the Enhanced and Death," he said softly. "I also wanted to leave you behind. I wanted to cut myself and my problems out of your life. But no matter what my intentions were, it was wrong of me to do it the way that I did, and I am so, so sorry."

Nick always knew the intentions weren't bad. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "So why are you here now?"

"Do you remember Jemma?"

"Jemma," he repeated. "Dr. Jemma Nelson? Your old research professor?"

"She was Gifted, too. We were friends." Jack paused. "She's dead. An Enhanced killed her. The only other friend I had is a twelve-year-old who currently thinks I'm dead, and I'd like to keep it that way. You are the only person left who I care about, and who cares about me, and I thought you'd want to know what I'm going to do."

Nick froze. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to destroy the Enhanced."

He said it so bluntly that Nick thought he was joking. When it was clear he wasn't, Nick asked, "How are you planning to do that?"

"No fucking clue." Jack smiled. "I'll have to figure that out. And, for the record, I didn't come here to exploit the fact that you're a government agent. I don't expect you to help. I came here because I missed you."

Nick closed his eyes. He was glad to have the truth, but the truth was complicated, and, well, it shattered his perception of the world, and he was still reeling from the frustration of the last few years, and he was horrified with what Jack had dealt with, and he was horrified that he'd been so oblivious to it when they were kids, and he was relieved he was here, and ultimately, he was exhausted. Nick rubbed his eyes, the gears in his head already turning. He didn't owe Jack his help, he knew that and Jack clearly did, too, but damn it, he was going to try.

"When the Enhanced kill the Gifted," he said finally, "what do they do with the body?"

"Bury it in a ditch. Throw it in a river. Burn it." Jack shrugged. "Whatever's convenient. If the corpse gets found, it becomes a murder mystery that eventually has to close. If it never gets found, it's a missing person's case that people eventually stop caring about."

Nick nodded slowly. Then he stood. "I'll be right back."

He saw panic flash across Jack's face. It seemed he was as worried about Nick leaving him here as Nick was about Jack leaving him at the station. But it was just a flash, nothing more, and Jack only nodded.

Clouds were beginning a slow crawl in front of the sun. It was getting gray in the sky and humid in the air as Nick made a phone call while crossing the street. He gave his colleague a request for a search for cases of a certain type within an hour's drive of this town, and he grabbed his laptop from the rental car and waited for the email. The reports were long—they always were. He walked into the station, printed only the first two pages of each of the four cases, and returned to the diner and put them on the table in front of Jack.

Nick sat down. "Two unsolved murders and two missing persons spanning across four decades," he said. "I don't know how the psychic part of your Gift works, but were any of these—"

Jack scanned them and immediately set three of the cases aside. "This one was killed by the Enhanced."

"Candice Morrison," Nick said, picking up the remaining report. "Thirty-two. Went missing at the turn of the century. Never found."

Jack stared into his empty mug. "They called her Candy, but she preferred Dice. She thought it was funny."

Nick hadn't printed out the fourth, fifth, and sixth pages—the ones with testimony quotes and descriptions from loved ones—but he did read them. Everyone referred to her as Candice or Candy, except her high school best friend.

Who called her Dice.

"I know where she is," Jack said. "Come on. I'm driving."

They paid for the coffee and returned to the station's lot, headed for Jack's car. Nick searched in his pockets and realized that while he had his notepad, he'd lent his pen to Monroe to annotate the research, and he never got it back from her.

"Do you have a pen?"

"Glove compartment."

Nick opened the door and the compartment, but before he could feel a pen, his fingers closed around a dilapidated box. He pulled out a half-full pack of Marlboros and stared at it for a long time, and then he looked at Jack across the car's roof.

"Do you smoke?" he asked.

Jack looked at the pack as if he was surprised it was there. "Yeah."

"Well...you're going to stop."

"Okay."

Jack walked around the car, took the pack, and tossed it into a nearby trash can. Nick blinked, wondering if he'd been too mean in the way he said it.

"We can stop at a convenience store first," Nick said. "Get some nicotine gum."

Jack got in the car. "No need."

Nick climbed into the passenger's seat. "You can't quit just like that. We'll do it slowly."

"Be honest with me, Nick." Jack twisted sideways to look him in the eye. "At any point in our conversation, could you tell that I've been smoking for ten years? Did you see any signs?"

Ten years? For six of those, they were in regular contact. And yet, then and now, Nick couldn't come up with a single clue aside from seeing the cigarettes himself. He could chalk up the lack of smell in the car or on his clothes to a number of things—time and cleanliness—but Jack himself didn't have any indicators. His teeth looked fine. His nails and fingers weren't stained. His voice, though a little hoarse, wasn't the hacky sort of hoarse.

"No," Nick said. "I didn't."

Jack started the car. "Trust me, Nick. I'm going to be fine."

He said it with such confidence, and Nick believed him, but that didn't make it easy to stomach. Ten years. It wasn't normal. "Jack?" he asked carefully. "Are...are you im—"

"Please don't ask me that," Jack said quietly.

The question was stuck in Nick's throat. He could feel it clawing up, but he forced himself to swallow and pretend it wasn't there, and he'd never started to ask, and he'd never even thought of it. Jack stared at the wheel, and when it was obvious neither of them were going to speak, he pulled out of the station and started down the road.

A single raindrop hit the windshield. Then another. Nick waited for the rain to come down, but even twenty minutes into the drive, it didn't. He wrote down the direction they were going in and observations about the climate. He wasn't yet sure if it would be useful, but he kept at it. It got dark and dim and dark and dim as clouds of varying thicknesses roamed in front of the sun, and by the time Jack spoke, the sky had settled on being entirely overcast.

"I don't know how it works, either," he said.

"What?"

"The psychic part of my Gift. I don't use it enough to get skilled. I just poke holes in the floodgates and work with what trickles through, but sometimes those holes lead to cracks. Sometimes the cracks happen on their own because of how much is being held back—but in that case, isn't it a good thing to poke holes and relieve some of the pressure?"

Nick thought he understood the metaphors, but they were still just that. Metaphors. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to respond," he admitted.

"It's okay." Jack smiled. "I'm just venting."

Another lone raindrop. Nick rolled down the window more, gripping his notepad so the pages didn't go flapping around. They were creeping up on thirty minutes.

"I really am sorry," Jack murmured suddenly. "I know I should've explained. Called. Wrote an actual sentence on those postcards. I was too scared to."

"It's okay. I forgive you."

Jack pulled over onto the shoulder and slowed to a stop. "You do?"

"I do."

Jack took a deep breath and smiled as he exhaled. "Thank you. Now, before I open the trunk, I just want to say that I am not a serial killer."

Without further explanation, he got out of the car. When Nick walked around, the trunk was already open. There were no suitcases or nomad things like he expected—maybe all of Jack's actual stuff was in a motel room somewhere—but there were two shovels, one a little more worn than the other, some rope, a bucket, and a mop.

Nick looked at him. "Why?"

"Attacks from Enhanced led to some ashes that needed cleaning. Or burying."

"How many—"

"Three across the span of five years. They were individual hunters or scouts—I've never ran into the main pack of the cult. They only end up dead if they keep attacking. Usually I just run away."

Three times. Jack almost got murdered three times. Nick had been a field agent for nine years, fired his gun plenty of times, chased down and ran away from plenty of psychos, but not even once was he in actual danger of getting killed.

Jack grabbed a shovel. "This way."

Nick grabbed the other one, closed the trunk, and followed Jack into the woods. He took notes along the way: the types of paths they walked on or lack thereof, the kinds of plants they passed by, the texture and compactness of the dirt. He followed Jack until he stopped short in a clearing and looked down.

"How deep is it?" Nick asked quietly.

"I don't know."

Nick placed the tip of the shovel into the dirt, a mound forming around it as he used his heel to press it in. They started shoveling slowly, shallowly, in different areas along the clearing until Jack crouched down and gently brushed away dirt with his hands. He found a bone. A shoulder bone, it looked like, and Nick knew that if they dug around this area more, they'd find the rest of Candice Morrison.

A few raindrops dove from the clouds and shook the leaves above them. If a deluge worthy of the severely overcast sky was about to fall, it would erase the footprints they made getting here.

Good.

Nick returned his notepad to his pocket. "I have an idea."