Rosie looked at the people assembled on the beach at Smith’s Cove. Quite a crew she’d amassed for herself. Dallas stood talking logistics with Max and Jay while Wendy stood by her side overlooking the cove.

It really was a beautiful place. She imagined, when she wasn’t being haunted, it would be a lovely place for a picnic or a relaxing afternoon.

Max sent her a smile and wink.

“You know, I’m not sure what would have happened if you hadn't come back.”

Rosie bumped her shoulder against Wendy's. “Thanks for not giving up on me. I know I’m not easy.”

Wendy bumped her back. “You were right you know. I expected you to tell me about your skeletons and I kept mine in the closet. It wasn’t exactly fair.”

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

Sometimes, baring your soul is easier said than done. Some scars ran too deep and exposing them was no mean feat. So, she’d wait until Wendy was ready. For the first time, she’d make sure she was there when her friend needed a shoulder.

“You’re like, zen now,” Wendy remarked. “It’s freaking me out.”

“Me too, kind of,” Rosie admitted. “Clarity comes in the strangest of places.”

“Like, my brother’s bed?” Wendy sang with a laugh.

Rosie slapped her friend’s arm. “Like the fifty-six south bus was what I meant, you perv.”

“But, my brother’s bed, right?”

Uh-oh, the eyebrow bob was back.

“Like your brother’s bed,” she agreed.

“I knew it!” Wendy yelled loud enough to make the men all turn to look at them.

Rosie hid her face while Wendy laughed.

“I can’t take you anywhere,” Rosie told her.

“Yeah, thanks by the way. I’ve never hunted for a dead body before.”

Rosie was saved from answering when Max, Dallas and Jay joined them. She was still a little awestruck they’d all showed up just because she’d called and asked. No questions, no problems. They’d just, shown up.

Max stopped next to her and slid his hand inside of hers.

“So, we’re thinking we’ll go in there,” Dallas, all business, pointed to the far end of the cove. “Seems like that’s the most likely place to put a boat in and we’ll see which of the islands gives you a hit.”

“I’m going to stay back here,” Wendy put in, a little more sedate than she’d just been. “You can call if you need anything but really, I don't want to find a skeleton.”

“Not high on my list either,” Rosie agreed.

Max squeezed her hand. “Let’s drag the kayaks over,” he gestured to the two, two-seater kayaks in the sand.

Okay, so he did most of the work. She tried to help but clearly it was just for show because he didn’t need her at all to drag the boat. They got it to the edge of the water and Max began checking the oars.

He looked up at her, “Do you want a life vest.”

She lifted her brows. “That’s probably a good idea since I can’t swim.”

Max was upright in a flash. “Are you shitting me?”

She shook her head and held out her hand.

“You never told me that. All those times you got pulled down here into the water and you can’t even swim?”

She shrugged. She may have left that part out.

“You should have said something,” he told her.

She just met his stare in response. He was right, she probably should have said something. There were a lot of things she should have told him, but didn’t. It would take time to remember she could trust him with everything. Even then, like she told him, she might screw it up.

“Hey Max, I can’t swim,” she said.

He shook his head and grabbed the life vest, helping her slip her arms into it.

“Can’t cook. Can’t drive. Can’t swim.” He laid a kiss on her lips. “What am I going to do with you?”

There were a lot of things she couldn’t do, Rosie thought, but she was getting there.

She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes.

“Teach me.”

* * *

No more than forty minutes later, Rosie felt a stirring beneath her skin. It started as a small niggle at first, the feeling that maybe they were getting close but as they neared one of the islands something lit up inside of her.

“That one,” she pointed. “Right there.”

It wasn't far from there they were paddling and it would have been the next one they went by. It had to be the one. Something inside her body was urging her to get there, now.

She gripped the sides of the kayak as they slowly made their way over there.

“Baby? You okay?” Max asked from behind her.

She shook her head no but answered yes anyway. “Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

She looked back at him. “I feel like I need to jump.”

“Jump? Out of the boat?”

She held the sides of the kayak tightly.

“I can’t explain it. It’s like I need to get there, now. My body is telling me to jump.”

“Don’t jump!” He exploded and she felt the boat move a little faster.

She huffed out a laugh. “I don’t want to. I’m just telling you what’s going on.”

“Don’t you let go of the boat!” He ordered. “We’re almost there.”

She had no plans to let go and she held on until both boats beached.

She took off the life vest and left it with the kayak and just stood, staring at the rest of the island.

It was small in the grand scheme of land masses. No bigger than your average grocery store might be, it was covered with a dense growth of trees and underbrush.

She felt a hand slip into hers and expected to see Max but it was Jay.

“Two crazies are better than one,” he laughed.

She smiled, thankful he’d come. He’d shown up at Max’s along with everyone else, had taken one look at her and had known everything was different. He’d seen her energies and knew she wasn’t blocked anymore. His gift was so interesting, she reminded herself to sit with him and compare notes when this whole thing ended.

“Do you see anything?” She asked him. “Feel anything?”

She looked to the woods and scanned the surrounding areas. The trees held no interest to her. She could still hear the sucking sounds of Helene’s killer’s boots in the water. They had to look closer to the water.

“Why isn’t she here?” She heard Max ask. “You’d think if she was so determined to get you here she’d show up and show you right where she is.”

She was saved from answering when Jay spoke.

“Yeah, spirits and energies don’t usually work in that kind of logical way.”

“It’s somewhere over there,” Rosie pointed to the left-hand side.

Even though she couldn’t see anything, she just knew it was somewhere over there.

“I agree,” Jay added.

Dallas ended up leading them with Max bringing up the rear. Jay kept hold of her hand as they traversed a narrow beach area and climbed over small rocky outcroppings.

Still none of the places felt right.

“So weird,” she commented. “It has to be here.”

Dallas stopped short and turned around. “It has to be now.” His voice was low and she looked at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what you said when we were at the Murphy’s for Thanksgiving. When you-” He trailed off.

“When Helene,” Max corrected.

“When she – you know.”

Rosie did know so she nodded.

“What did I say?”

“It has to be here. It has to be now,” Dallas repeated and then looked at the beach that butted up to the woods. “Even I feel it. It has to be here.”

“It is,” she told them. “She’s here.”

She could feel Helene’s presence even if she couldn’t see her. The spirit was with them on the island, somewhere.

“Keep going,” she urged them.

She was still holding Jay’s hand and she turned, holding her other hand out to Max who took it without question.

Jay looked back at the chain and then turned to Dallas with a smile.

“Not a chance,” Dallas ground out.

Rosie felt some of her tension seep away.

She never would have been able to do this alone. She wouldn’t have been able to center herself enough to figure out what she was supposed to do and it wasn’t just Max that grounded her, it was all of them.

It was Wendy, back on the shore being the anchor for all of them.

It was Dallas, leading the charge without question.

It was Jay, answering the call and being by her side when she needed him.

It was Max, having her back, literally and physically.

They walked on, the rocky shores turning to softer sand as they reached the back side of the small island. At first, the sand was hard and packed under their feet but soon it gave way to a softer muddier silt.

It wasn’t two more steps when she heard the sand make a suction noise when Dallas pulled his foot up.

“Wait,” she told them. She had to think, had to try to remember her dream and how many steps the killer took before he’d thrown the body down. “I need to think for a second.”

Rosie closed her eyes, trying to remember.

“I might have missed some,” she said vaguely. “But he took twelve steps that I counted.”

“From where?” Max asked.

She shrugged, not having a definite answer. “From when that sound started,” she pointed at Dallas’s foot.

“Then we go twelve more steps and look around,” Jay urged.

They did, making that noise all the while. Rosie didn’t think she'd ever hear that noise again and not remember what happened to Helene, being thrown in that hole like garbage.

Those twelve steps seemed like an eternity but by the eleventh she knew they were in the right place.

“That’s twelve,” Dallas said when he stopped.

“Oh,” Jay whispered, his head tilted as he looked toward the woods.

Rosie followed his gaze. She had no idea what Jay saw, his gifts being different than hers. She only knew what she saw.

“Oh,” she agreed on her own whisper.

She’d done this kind of thing before. Granted she’d been younger and less attuned to the other side but she still had some experience. She’d been led to graves by ghosts or loved ones that had already crossed over. They tended to just stand there, waiting.

“It’s glowing,” she noted, dumbstruck.

Jay let out a harsh breath. “I’m so glad it's not just met that’s seeing that.”

Max stood behind her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. “What is it?”

She pointed to an area just fifteen feet from them at the base of a tree and grown over with moss.

“It’s glowing,” she told him. “From under the ground.”

“What color do you see,” Jay asked, still staring.

Rosie gauged what she was seeing, like sunbeams coming from underground. “Yellow. Pale yellow.”

“This is the weirdest fucking thing,” Dallas murmured.

“Come on,” Rosie said, heading the few feet up off the sand and into the shallow underbrush, grabbing Max’s hand and pulling him along.

She crested a tiny hill and looked around at the area before turning her eyes up to the sky. She may not recognize the ground she was walking on but she might recognize the trees that loomed above her. Looking up at the trees she closed her eyes, imagining what Helene had showed her, lying in the bottom of her grave.

Dirt walls rose around her, towering and closing in. Rosie flexed her fingers and felt the damp earth between them, loose and gritty. The tall pines loomed overhead, her killer crouching over the hole.

“I never wanted this for us, Helene. I wanted to make a life with you. Why couldn't you just listen?”

Rosie flexed her hands in the earth again but this time it was soft and mossy.

She opened her eyes and saw her hands, full of moss as she knelt over the place she was sure Helene was buried.

She sat up a little and looked to see Max, kneeling next to her, watchful and concerned.

“What did you see?”

“She’s here.” She looked down at her hand and the ground below it. “She’s always been here.”

* * *

Though Rosie was willing to go out onto that island and help determine where Helene’s remains might be, she did not have it in her stay and watch.

Even hours later, as police swarmed the cove and a forensics specialist came in from Jacksonville, she waited on the shore by Max’s truck.

Three feet.

That’s how deep she'd been buried out there.

It had taken Max and Dallas less than an hour to find her. She and Jay had paddled back to where Wendy was waiting and told her everything. They'd sat there, nearly silent, until they saw the two men headed their way.

Max had given her a solemn nod of his head and she knew, it was over.

Helene would go now, to wherever it was spirits went.

It almost seemed anti-climactic in the wake of everything Helene had put Rosie through. No big fight scene to resolve the story. No psychic showdown to bring closure to all those involved.

Just one very sad, unmarked grave belonging to a woman that hadn’t deserved to die.

“He’ll see now.”

Rosie looked to her right to find Helene leaning against the truck bed.

“He’ll see that I never left.”

Rosie agreed. Her son, no matter how old, could come to terms that his mother had never left him, she’d been taken away.

“I lived for him”

“I know,” Rosie told her. “I dreamt he brought you flowers sometimes. Your son,” she clarified.

Helene smiled and Rosie took note that she wasn’t nearly as disheveled as when she’d first appeared. Her skirt wasn’t torn anymore and every hair was in place. Like finding her remains had put her back together again.

“My husband used to bring me flowers every Sunday. When he first came to court me, I refused. I wanted to be a modern woman and have a career, so I turned him down flat. Every Sunday, rain or shine, he’d bring me flowers. If I wasn’t home, he’d wait until I got there just so he could hand them to me himself. Oh, he wore me down eventually. Took more than a year but he did it. After we had Jack, Jerry started having him bring me the flowers.”

She looked at Rosie. “I would have never left my husband. Not for all the money in the world and certainly not for that man.”

“Who was he?”

“Who are you talking to?”

Helene blinked out.

Officer Murdoch casually leaned on his forearms against the hood of the truck, watching her.

“Myself,” she lied.

Some habits died hard. Self-preservation wasn’t something she’d probably ever give up.

“It wasn’t a he,” he continued at her blank stare. “Out there. It was a woman. Forensics already confirmed that.” When she still said nothing, he kept going. “I heard you ask who he was, I just thought I’d clear that up.”

Rosie had no reply for him, unsure of what he wanted from her.

“So, I’m still sorry about what happened a few months back down at the station. I really took what you said into consideration and I’ve tried to listen more.”

Rosie’s brow furrowed, wondering where he was taking the conversation.

“Not that you say much.” He gestured to his face. “But you're very expressive and I know what happened left a bad taste in your mouth.”

“What do you want?” She finally asked, hoping he’d stop talking and leave her alone.

She wasn’t sure if it was the lingering memory of sitting in the jail cell that make her burn with embarrassment or the tears she’d shed when he’d been standing right there. Either way, she had no desire to carry on any more conversations with him.

“I happened to see some of the reports Deputy Hardy brought by for Hunter. The ones that say your name isn’t really Rosie Knight.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why do you care?”

He shrugged. “I don't. Not really.” He waved his hand carelessly. “I mean, if you had a warrant out or were wanted for a crime, that would be one thing. Running from your past? I can see that. Plus, Hardy made it clear you weren’t in any trouble.”

With her walls down she could see his aura, very similar to Dallas’s, with its blue hue and pure motives and she wondered what he wanted from her.

He scratched the back of his neck looking suddenly sheepish.

“Here’s the thing. I know, from reading those reports, you haven't exactly lived the high life, that it hasn’t been easy for you. But I wanted to tell you, you can overcome that.” He pulled a face. “You don’t have to be who you used to be.” With a sigh, he rubbed his face and began again. “My father was a drunk and my mother loved him too much to leave him. He hit her and when she was too beat up, he hit me. It took me a while to realize it, but I’m more than what he tried to make me. He wanted me to feel like I was nothing. That I’d never be anything to anyone. Do you know what I mean?”

He sent her a look that was more vulnerable than she’d ever imagined he could be.

She nodded, because yes, she knew exactly what he meant.

“My dad wasn’t a model citizen and in turn I made it my life to be exactly the opposite. When I read your file and where you came from, the look on your face when you were sitting in that cell made a lot more sense.”

He squinted and looked off into the distance where Max and Dallas were finally being brought back to shore by a Police boat.

“They’ll never fully understand where people like us come from,” he told her. “To them, being poor or beaten or neglected is just an idea. Something that happens to other people. Me and you? We’re the other people. But we can be more than they made us think.” He looked at her and pushed off the hood of the truck. “I guess that’s what I've been trying to get at here. That every second we spend dwelling on the past is just another second of the future we’re missing. Don’t miss out because of them.” He slapped a hand on the hood. “Let your future be what you want it to be. Not what they told you it would be.”

With that, he waked away leaving Rosie completely and utterly flummoxed. He was right, of course. She couldn’t let he past dictate her future for one more second but she never expected such wise words from someone she’d written off.

That was on her. He’d never done anything to wrong her personally. He’d done his job. She’d been the one that had been jaded about him from the get go.

She looked out at Max who was now reaching the shore. He was the real push she’d needed to not live in the past anymore, to somehow merge Happy and Rosie and figure out who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do with her life.

But it was up to her to stand on her own two feet and decide her future. If that included Max, she’d be happy. Scared and completely inexperienced, but happy. He’d be the icing on top of the cake. The main course would be taking her life back. Though her mother was dead and she’d run well and far from her past, Max was right when he said she was still living in Happy’s shadow.

It was time for her to step out of that shadow she was so used to hiding in.