White Space Season 1

morning about Manny. He died. And Milo’s in the hospital now. His mom tried to kill herself, they think. She drove into Jordy’s.”
    “I know, Honey, I’m so sorry,” Liz said, as her son collapsed into tears.
    She was at his side in a second, pulling him into a hug.
    “Why did Dad do this?” Alex wept, his voice shredded by tears. “Why?”
    “I don’t know,” Liz said, crying herself.
    Aubrey stared at them, her face puzzled. She looked from her mom to her brother, then back to her mom. Her lip trembled and she started to cry.
    Liz picked her baby up and held her, tears now filling her eyes. Tears of joy to have Alex back. Tears of pain for all that they’d lost. And tears for all they had yet to endure.
    As she looked at Alex, safely back home, she thanked God for returning her son.
    And maybe soon, she’d have answers as well, once Mr. Houser found out what was on the flash drive. Or, if she wasn’t losing her mind, and her husband had somehow returned from the beyond, perhaps she could ask him directly, and maybe heal her wounds.
    After they had a good long cry, the phone rang, bouncing the fear of more bad news against the walls.
    She dreaded the dull ache of more bad news.
    It was the funeral home. They’d finally gotten Roger’s body from the coroner’s, and were ready to provide a funeral. Just one problem — they accidentally cremated him.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 6 — Chief Kevin Brady

    Saturday morning…

    Kevin Brady was sitting at the dining room table eating corn flakes with his six year old son, Aidan, when he saw the black Paladin van idling on the street outside.
    What the hell are they doing here?
    Paladin usually called when they needed something. If they were showing up at his house, something big must’ve gone down.
    He took a sip of orange juice, wiped his mouth, and said, “Be right back, buddy. Daddy’s got some work stuff to take care of outside.”
    “OK,” Aidan said, shoving another spoonful of corn flakes into his mouth.
    Brady slipped on his jogging sneakers sitting beside the front door and went outside to see what was going on.
    The black window of the SUV purred as it lowered, revealing the jagged scar of Carl Kaiser, the second in charge at Paladin, a 45 year old 6 foot five bald man with a wicked scar creeping over his left eyebrow then fleeing his face down to the bottom of his left cheek. The crown jewel in Kaiser’s blemish was the bleeding edge in artificial eyes, one of several Conway Industries state of the art prosthetics. It was unnerving because the eye wasn’t designed to look, or even work like normal. It was an augmented eye, glowing bright blue with abilities. It worked a lot like the sight of a rifle, with zoom, infrared, and God knows what else. Kaiser was one of the first civilian subjects to test the eye. The company had already signed a big fat contract to provide the artificial tech-augmented eyes to injured soldiers.
    Something about the eye, in combination with the ugly mug of its former Marine host, gave Brady the absolute creeps. Brady was not happy to see him at his house.
    “Nice house you have here,” Kaiser said. The way he looked past Brady and at the red of his front door was a subtle veiled threat, though not particularly subtle.
    “What are you doing here? You lose my phone number?” Brady asked.
    “No, I was in the neighborhood and wanted to update you on the status of the Heller boy incident.”
    “Hm, that’s odd. I don’t remember this involving Paladin.”
    Kaiser smiled his snake-like smile, and ignored Brady. “Jake Brewster has made a full recovery. His parents would like to apologize to Mrs. Heller, and wish for the whole situation to go away.”
    “Full recovery? He was in a coma yesterday, with all kinds of injuries.”
    “Miracles of modern medicine, eh?” Kaiser said, his smile broad. “That’s all she wrote, the case is closed. Understand?”
    “Well, we’ve still got two missing kids, so the case is not ‘over.’”
    “The kids both returned home last night. Safe and sound, everything is alright in the world again.”
    “How the hell do you know that?” Brady asked, immediately wishing he hadn’t asked.
    “The question is, how the hell do you not know that, chief? ”
    Kaiser was so fat with condescension, Brady wanted to punch him in the center of his stupid fucking eye. Hell, the eye was probably reading Brady’s biometrics and shit right now, telling Kaiser how much he wanted to fucking