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of
conflict.  He walked to the far end of the corridor taking the glass urn
from the percolator and entered the WC, the European equivalent of a Restroom
sign, long ago posted on their lone toilet door.  Filling the pot with
water to the brim, he went back to the coffee shelf, threw several scoops of
filter coffee into a disposable paper filter, and poured the water into the
percolator, leaving the coffee to brew .
    Then he approached his office,
which loomed dark and threatening at the front end of the corridor.  He
dreaded entering his office at the dawn of a new day fearing what he might find
in the way of faxes or phone messages; a hysterical parent missing a child;
another child found dead on the street; or maybe a runaway or a kidnapping of
the sort that had ravaged his own life .
    The dread never ceased. 
Not for one moment.  The horror would forever be with him.
    He had found her on the
bed.  Little Sammy was gone.  Then he barely made it to the
phone.  The doctors heavily sedated him for days and he had to be wheeled
to the funeral .
    Sam flicked on the lights in
his office and looked at her photo.  The bedroom scene would never vacate
his mind.  In the photo she was beautiful and radiating, smiling at him
with little Sammy on her lap.  It was the only photo he kept at the
office.  He recalled exactly where it had been taken; at Sammy’s birthday
party at the daycare center under the large tree by the yellow swings.  He
had taken it, but the photos were developed after Michelle died and little
Sammy disappeared .
    That night he had reached his
house past midnight and had gotten an uneasy feeling as he parked his
car.  The front door was partly ajar and the house was lit as in early
evening.  It puzzled him because on those rare occasions when he came home
late, the front door would always be locked and he would find Michelle asleep,
a book in her lap, with her bedside lamp and Sammy’s night stand the only
active light sources in the house .
    As he climbed the stairs to
their bedroom he felt a sense of dread creeping in on him, intensifying with
every step.  Michelle lay naked, spread eagled on
the bed in a pool of blood and vomit that soaked through the covers and
sheets.  He tried to call to her but produced not a sound.  Her face
was covered with the bloodstained pillows but he would never get to see the
hollow look and disfigured heap of flesh caused by the two bullets fired at
point blank range.  Feeling faint, he had hesitantly touched her bare leg
and felt death, the coldness and hardening of limbs.  He suddenly felt
very heavy, unable to take another step, as if all the blood in his body was
draining to his feet.  Then another dread struck him and he gingerly
stumbled to Sammy’s room, finding it empty and cold.  He wobbled back to
the bedroom and tried to look at his wife but flashes of light and floating
dark spots was all that he could see.  He lunged for the phone, his body
shaking and out of control and managed to dial the emergency number and give
his address before passing out.  
    He came to in the ambulance
but remained still.  He just lay there staring into emptiness.  Then
he was up and lunging for the door, shouting his son’s name.
    The paramedics, caught
unawares by this sudden surge, just managed to latch on to him as he threw open
the back door of the streaking vehicle.  The driver braked and they were
thrown about to the front of the ambulance, knocking over medical equipment,
IVs, scopes, and the like.  Sam fought to get past them but they held on
tight, quickly sedating him with a syringe prepared in advance, as Detective
Black Jack had wisely suggested .
    As he slowly subsided under
the substance Sam began to cry, begging to see his son. A while later, at the
hospital, Detective Black Jack informed Sam that his son was not in the house
nor anywhere else they had looked so far.  He assured him there was
nothing to point to Sammy being harmed in any way but