No, it’s obvious he made it to the water, and into the water, and well into his swim.

  How did they know he’d gotten well into his swim on the morning of his disappearance? Believe it or not, he has groupies along his swim route.

  They’re fans of his books, and they wave to him from the multi-million dollar beach homes. Amazing he can even see them, but, apparently, he always waves back. I guess he’s even written about the experiences in his latest book, thus encouraging even more interactions.

  The first of his readers, a retiree named Dana Lawrence, waved to him on the date in question. He had promptly waved back, and she went inside. She saw nothing unusual. No sign of distress from Roy, and certainly no other boats and swimmers. The next three groupies, all of whom wait on their balconies with coffee in hand, did not see him that morning. A first for them.

  The Coast Guard’s report, buttressed with help from Newport Beach PD, had been refreshingly thorough. I didn’t feel the need to speak to any of the witnesses or even the Newport PD. It’s all in the report. Now, we just needed to find the guy.

  Where in God’s name did you go, Roy?

  If you’re dead, I’m sorry. Swimming in the ocean is a bit like playing with fire. Wet fire, mind you, with sharp teeth that rises up from underneath.

  But if you’re dead... why doesn’t your twin feel your death? Why does she think you’re alive and scared... and somehow moving? If you’re alive, why didn’t Allison get a bead on you? She did, kind of, but not enough to help.

  An hour later, with my smoothie finished and the sun well below the horizon, I can start thinking about my big transformation. Doubtful anyone will see me at this hour if I’m high enough.

  Ready, Talos?

  I’m ready, Sam. As the kids say: let’s do this.

  Chapter Four

  I exit the Momvan with a belly full of smoothie.

  That this same body will soon be hunkered down in a fourth-dimensional world God-knows-where in the universe, guarded over by Talos himself, all while he projects a version of his body into this world, is nuts. I mean, who thinks of this stuff? That my own consciousness remains in this world, to control his physical manifestation, is crazier still. With that control, I feel what he feels, see what he sees, and should he perish in this world, it would do irreparable harm to him in his world. Not to mention I would be stuck in the fourth dimension, with nary a way out. Fourth-dimensional pressure would quickly destroy my three-dimensional body, killing me as surely as a silver dagger to the heart.

  Thankfully, it takes a lot to kill a hulking twenty-five-foot dragon who breathes fire and flies like greased lightning.

  So, yeah. There’s always a small risk summoning him here, so I never do it lightly. We both trust each other... literally with our lives.

  And I would have it no other way, Samantha Moon, he says in my head, his deep voice loud and clear. Not exactly telepathy, since we are both psychically connected. Truly a mindlink across dimensions. Pretty cool.

  I concur, Sam. Pretty cool.

  When I confirm I’m alone in the parking lot, I summon the single flame. Not an actual flame. No, it wavers and flickers inside my mind. But it might as well be a real flame. Definitely not my imagination. It snaps and crackles and awaits my command.

  I consciously summon the image of Talos, my majestic blunt-nose dragon counterpart, with his huge, leathery wings that look oh so very bat-like. He sort of steps into the flame in a manner that suggests he sees the flame, too. That is, if the tiny image is really him and not some sort of avatar.

  It’s me, Sam, says a faint voice in the back of my mind. And I’m ready.

  I nod and grin, and move toward him in my mind. Heck, maybe I even move toward him with my actual body. I don’t know because my eyes are closed and this whole process is freaky enough that I never know what really happens. My moving soon feels like racing, and he’s moving toward me, too, across dimensions and worlds.

  When we sort of meet in the middle, I feel my body exploding in all directions at once, even as my consciousness races into every part of this magnificent being, claiming it as my own. Within seconds, I’m lifting a massive, triangular head up toward the heavens, in particular at some patchy, low clouds.

  Ready, Talos?

  I’m ready. Then again, my body is your body.

  I grin at that, squat down on legs rippling with scales and muscle, and launch myself upward, flapping hard. Should someone be looking this way, at this exact moment, they are in for the surprise of their lives. Then again, it’s getting dark, and they might question their eyes. Or their sanity. Should they be pointing a camera my way, they are about to go viral.

  And so am I.

  Propelled as fast as any NASA, Space-X, Blue Origin rocket ever could, I soon find myself above those fluffy, low-hanging clouds above. I hover, beating my wings, dispersing the cloud below me. Up here, I’m glowing gold, catching some lingering sunlight before it disappears behind the curve of the horizon.

  With the cloud coverage, I should still be hidden from below. Of course, anyone on board a passing plane might see me, but I don’t see anything close enough to matter. To date, there are no TikTok videos of a dragon terrorizing Southern California.

  I’ve never been very good at terrorizing, says Talos in my head, his voice noticeably stronger.

  Same here, I say.

  Might be why we’re such a good fit.

  I’m leaning that way, I say, and tilt my body a little.

  Oh my, says Talos. A dad joke from a vampire mama?

  Mom jokes need to become a thing.

  Talos chuckles in my head.

  Though the parking lot below me is empty, this is still coastal California, and there are bound to be any number of people enjoying the sunset below me, having a late-evening picnic, walking the beaches, or you name it. I need to be careful. I did jump the gun a tad bit early. It’s certainly not full dark, and I can still be seen.

  Time to go.

  I beat my wings hard enough to scatter the cloud below me, but I’m moving now, over another patch of clouds, then another and another, moving about like the tiny frog trying to cross the busy street. Hopefully, there are not a half-dozen eager influencers with their cell phone cameras trained on me. I doubt it. I did a good job keeping the clouds between me and them.

  Soon, I’m fully exposed over the ocean. Luckily, there’s not much down there, and the dusk is growing ever darker. But not to Talos’s eyes. Like mine, his are the very definition of night vision. Unlike mine, he can see a fly from miles away. With my switch from bloodsucker to energy consumer, my eyes shifted from seeing the squiggly energy of the Source of all Life itself, to simply enhancing what little light there is and expanding it. Again, true night vision. Talos’s eyes are far better at doing that. Almost as if they are somehow creating their own light source.

  That’s not far off, Sam. For us, light is not needed to see. We use a form of sonar, combined with light sensitivity, to give us the images you see now.

  It’s amazing.

  It’s the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, but thank you.

  I begin making my sweeps over the ocean. I know the grid the Coast Guard used. I also memorized some landmarks to keep me on track.

  There’s the Ritz Carlton to the south. There’s Balboa Island. There’s the pier at Newport Beach. And there’s Catalina Island. The island is a bit far, but I’m going to include it in my search parameters. Basically, everything from Newport Beach to where the Coast Guard figured Roy might have drifted to, based on weather conditions and tide conditions. From what I gathered, the crew utilized state-of-the-art everything to conduct their search, including sonar, helicopters, small and big boats, submersibles, divers, and even satellite imagery. That, and the 24/7 human eyeballs that scanned the oceans for six straight days, way longer than their models predicted Roy would be alive.

  And yet, there was a lone dissenter. Roxy herself. A voice in the dark, so to speak, claiming she felt her twin brother was alive. Had she not been a twin, I might not have put so much stock into her claim. But wow, she was convincing. Though I can’t read minds anymore, I can see auras, and her aura radiated an undeniable blue. She believed she was telling me the truth.

  Good enough for me.

  When the last of the sun’s light is gone even from the upper heavens, I descend down to maybe a half mile above the tranquil Pacific Ocean. Low winds keep the surface fairly smooth, though it’s always moving. Some currents seem to go crosswise, while others leave strange streaks and impressions over the surface. The ocean seems a bit chaotic to me, even in this relative stillness. I suspect that even oceanographers don’t know why it does what it does.

  That said, Talos’s eyes are perfectly suited to spot anomalies on the surface. From up here, we can see seabirds and buoys and even creatures beneath the surface. Pretty sure that’s a great white—yes, a great white deep beneath the current. From up here, it looks closer to something painted by van Gogh, a painter I happened to meet. He’s another creator, God bless his crazy heart.

  And wow, it could be my imagination playing tricks on me, but I think—think—I can see a rusted hook embedded in the shark’s mouth.

  Yeah, Talos’s eyes are that good.

  The ocean is surprisingly quiet at this hour. Not a lot of life above or below. Well, I’m sure there’s a bunch below, though not presently observable beyond the lone shark. We continue crisscrossing the ocean well into the night, until I’ve gone from landmark to landmark, island to shore. Next, I fly a long, slow, arching half circle from Dana Point to Long Beach, covering new ground—or water—but I don’t see a man adrift, or treading water, or a body floating.

  And maybe that’s just it. Maybe only part of Roxy’s psychic hit is accurate. Perhaps he is moving... as in, adrift on ocean currents, though very much dead. She is, of course, adamant about Roy being alive. Could be wishful thinking. More concerning is the movement aspect. He could be in the belly of a Great White. That shark I had seen earlier was no joke. And it could have been looking for another human meal.

  That is, of course, if he really did run into trouble out here on the ocean.

  There is still the possibility he’d swum to shore and disappeared in an entirely different way. If so, he’s running from something. What, exactly, I don’t know. At least, not yet.

  I think the Coast Guard was right to wrap up this search. There’s nothing to see out here; at least, on the surface. What lurks below remains to be seen.

  But not tonight. Though Talos’s eyes are wicked good, I don’t want to push things by searching underwater and in the dark.

  A wise idea, Sam. They’re good, but not that good.

  Okay, I think. I might be calling you again in the next few days. We’ll do a daytime search.

  Your wish is my command.

  I laugh at that, and head back to the Momvan parked at the top of the cliff, dozens of miles away... and wonder all over again what in the hell happened to Roy.

  Chapter Five

  Low on energy, I stop by a little dive bar I can always rely on.

  As usual, it’s hopping. Sure, the energy inside is often wonky: depressed, frenetic, addicted, and sexual. Yeah, I can temporarily feel the emotions of the energy source, which is why I prefer drawing energy from a Starbucks in the morning. The energy is fresh and new and often eager.

  Wherever I get it—or from whomever and whatever I get it from—it still beats the crap out of drinking blood.

  I spy a group of young women laughing at a table near the door. Pretending I’m looking for a friend, I psychically hop from gal to gal, drawing from them equally. The laughing soon stops. They look at each other, confused, surely thinking, ‘what were we just laughing about?’ One of them yawns, which turns contagious. When all four yawn, I stop the energy download and mime frustration that my ‘friends’ are clearly not here. I turn around and head out. Anyone checking their security feed would think I’m the biggest loser, having been stood up by friends or dates nearly a dozen times over the past few months. I might actually need to meet Allison here someday, soon.

  Buzzing with energy, I call Tammy, checking in with her. They are all fine, watching the latest She-Hulk episode, which we’ve all been enjoying together. I feel a strong case of missing my kids, but I’m not ready to go home. Especially buzzing with this much energy.

  It takes me only a few minutes to decide my next move.

  Under the bar’s parking lot lights, I get to work. First, I find the very same high school friend Roy had spent an afternoon with a few weeks ago, an afternoon out in the open, and clearly documented on both Facebook pages. Her name is Vickie Anders, and I run it through my various proprietary accounts... all accessed via my phone.

  I soon come across the most likely candidate. No, it’s not always this easy. Then again, I’m not looking for someone who’s running from the law or trying to remain hidden. Still, I cross-reference her phone number with Roy’s phone records, which, thanks to my standing as a consultant for the Fullerton Police Department, I have access to... with Sherbet’s approval, of course. So far, he’s yet to deny me any approval for any case. I guess he likes me.

  Vickie answers on the second ring. My name, on most phones, shows up as “Moon Investigations.” Often, that’s enough for most people to pick up. Those who don’t get a text from me, introducing myself. That’ll get a response, too. It’s a rare person who refuses to pick up or call me back.

  “Hi, Vickie,” I say immediately. “My name’s Samantha Moon, and I’m calling about the disappearance of Roy Aberdeen.”

  There’s a pause. “You’re a private investigator?”

  “I am, yes. I’ve been hired by Roy’s sister to look into this case.”

  “I heard the Coast Guard called off the search.”

  “Officially. I’m working this privately.”

  “I see. The police contacted me a few days ago.”

  I had no doubt about that, since, really, she’s the last person to show up on his Facebook page before his disappearance: a married woman who he might have had an affair with. I might need to request the Newport Beach police report, though most of it made its way into the Coast Guard report as a sort of dual report. The Coast Guard wouldn’t have followed up with Vickie, though.

  That said, I really don’t think Vickie or her hubby had anything to do with Roy’s disappearance. I’m not exactly psychic, but I have a helluva good intuition and almost never doubt it. Maybe, just maybe, she can recall something that Roy said during their meeting that could help find him.

  “They’re really done searching for him?” she asks.

  “They are, but I’m not.”

  “I see. And are you calling because you think there’s a chance I might have something to do with his disappearance?”

  Sitting in my Momvan in the city of Orange, very near their famous traffic circle, I shake my head. “I highly doubt you had anything to do with that. No, I’m wondering if Roy mentioned anything at all to you that might indicate he’s in trouble.”

  “But I thought he was lost at sea. Drowned... or worse.”

  She means eaten alive, I think. “That’s one avenue, and perhaps the most likely. Another is that he returned to shore and found himself in trouble. Or ran from trouble.”

  “I see, I think.”

  “Mrs. Anders, did Roy seem nervous or scared?”

  “Not at all. Then again, I hadn’t seen him in forever.”

  “Did he mention anything at all that might suggest he was concerned about his safety or the safety of anyone else?”

  “No. We were too busy catching up. I was hardly a confidant. Surely, his twin sister would know something like that. They were always weirdly connected. Maybe I shouldn’t say weirdly. Curiously connected.”

  I take a breath, not wanting to ask this next question, but knowing I have to, for my own satisfaction. I plunge forward. “Is there a chance your husband was jealous of the time you spent with Roy?”

  “So jealous he would have attacked Roy? Over an innocent dinner date that I invited my husband to join us on? He didn’t, of course.”

  “Er, yes.”

  “Ms. Moon, I’m aware that you need to cover all your bases, but let me cut to the chase. I didn’t have an affair with Roy. I wasn’t attracted to him then, and I’m not attracted to him now. Most importantly, I am happily married, and my sweet husband couldn’t trust me more. He gave me his blessing to see Roy, which I did, and we spent the time having dinner and reminiscing, and that was it. Barely a hug, and no real plans to see each other again, other than a vague ‘we should do this again sometime.’ Truth was, that was enough for me. I missed the guy, but we’ve both moved on, and are so different as to have very little in common. We used to play Pokémon together in high school, for crissakes. Now he designs book covers, and I have four kids and a cleaning business. We really didn’t have much to talk about, other than it was fun reminiscing about the old days. Does that satisfy you, Ms. Moon?”

  “It does, thank you.”

  “Will you be closing up your file, too?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?” she asks.

  “Because Roxy thinks her brother is still alive.”

  “Then I wish you luck. He’s a good guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Literally. I watched him gently shoo one away from our food.”