Mary was lost in thought as they rode the bus home from her mother’s house in Cleveland. She had taken her daughter, Samantha, with her to visit for the weekend while Mason was out of town on business. Her thoughts of her husband brought back the memory of helping him pack for his trip.

He had been working long hours and had asked her to pack up his clothes and necessities for him so he could make his flight to Quantico on time. As she had been pulling his underwear and socks out of his drawer, she had seen the lever that opened the extra space behind the top drawer. She knew her husband had to keep his secrets. She’d had secrets of her own when they first met and she had been in the analyst and code department of the CIA, but her curiosity got the better of her.

She had pulled the lever only to find an electronic journal. It had been in code, but Mary had been one of the best code-breakers during her time at the CIA and it had taken her little time to decipher. What she had read from his logs had been disturbing. She had decided to go to her mother’s for the weekend so she could think of what to do in an environment where she felt safe. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to come to any conclusions.

She was too torn to be able to decide. She loved Mason with all of her heart and she knew that nothing could change that. But what he was participating in now was too much for her. She knew she would not be able to pretend ignorance, and she also knew that Mason would not discuss it with her. He was loyal to his country and to his superiors, and she could not fault him that. But she was so worried about what this new project would do to him. He had already started to become somewhat withdrawn from her and Samantha, but Mary had passed it off as being temporary. She knew that his job asked a lot of him.

Mary didn’t miss the irony of the situation. If she had never asked Mason to quit the field and take a desk job, none of this would be happening. She had wanted to protect him from getting killed. The operations he had been involved in had always been extremely dangerous and Mary didn’t want to become a widow so soon. But now that he had his desk job, she had to fret over his sanity. The project she had read about in his log would take years to complete. What kind of man would he be by the end of it? Mary shuddered at the possibilities.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Samantha began  patting her hand. “Mama,” she said in an urgent whisper. “I see a ghost!”

Mary leaned down to give her five year old daughter her full attention. “Where do you see a ghost, honey?”

Samantha pointed a chubby finger at an old man who was sitting across from them. He looked pale and drawn, but was very much alive and breathing.

Mary smiled down at her daughter and said softly, “Sweetheart, that man is not a ghost. I can see him, too.” She smiled and waved at the man when he glanced over at them. He returned the smile and nodded in acknowledgment. “See? He’s alive.”

Samantha wasn’t convinced. She shook her head emphatically. “I saw him in my dream last night. I watched him die.”

Mary sighed wearily. Samantha’s dreams about death were really becoming a concern. Samantha would often tell her about the dreams she’d had of people dying in various ways. It was dark and morbid and Mary had no idea where Samantha was getting these crazy notions about death. She was such a happy and energetic child that Mary had tried not to think about it too much. If Samantha was really disturbed, she would be a more withdrawn child, wouldn’t she? But now that Samantha was putting real people’s faces into her strange fantasies, Mary was getting increasingly bothered by them.

She leaned down again to her daughter. “What happened in the dream?”

Samantha’s eyes got wide and serious, just as they usually did when she recounted a dark dream. “I saw him walking on the sidewalk with a cane,” she began. “He didn’t hear the shouts and honks and he crossed the street. That’s when the car hit him. He got pulled under and when the car was gone, his chest looked funny and there was lots of blood, too.”

Mary shook her head in dismay. Where did Samantha get this stuff? Mary was always censoring what Samantha watched and did not allow her to play any video games, yet she still came up with these macabre dreams.

Before Mary could think of what to say to her daughter, the bus came to a stop. They were in Toledo and were being given a thirty minute break before the bus got back on the road. The old man across the way pulled a dark wood cane from under his seat and made his way to the exit.

The sight of the cane gave Mary a brief pause, but decided that Samantha must have seen it when he had stashed it there earlier. She held Samantha’s hand as they got off the bus and led her to a gas station across the street to use the bathroom and get her a snack. As they were coming out of the station and heading towards the traffic light to cross the street, Mary noticed the old man was across the street and walking towards the cross walk in her direction.

She felt goose bumps sprinkle across her arms and looked to her right. There was a black SUV speeding down the street and it was heading straight for the old man. Mary shrieked for him to look out and heard others around her gasp and shout their warnings. The man did not seem to notice anything and stepped into the street. The driver of the SUV looked up a moment too late. She screeched on the brakes, but could not swerve because of the traffic around her.

The old man’s cane flew high into the air as he was pulled under the car and was crushed by both the front and back tire. Mary joined the group of people running to the man to try and aid him. As soon as she was a few feet away from him, she saw that there was nothing she could do. His feeble ribs had caved in under the pressure of the car. Blood was everywhere, and there was no way he could have survived the injuries.

Mary felt numb as she looked down at Samantha. The little girl’s eyes were wide and serious, but she did not seem affected by the gruesome scene before her. Her blue eyes met her mother’s brown. “I told you so,” she said solemnly.