Life After Death

What now?

Sunshine, salty breeze, and warm temperatures. It was a typical morning in So. Cal.

Standing motionless on a busy sidewalk, Sean Vetter watched as the world went by. To him it seemed as if the world revolved around Southern California. Anything that you could want or that was worth having was in Los Angeles. And if it wasn't here, you probably didn't need it.

That was his opinion anyway. Or it had been. He'd always been proud to be part of this area that seemed to be the hub of everything. Proud that he'd grown up here, lived here, worked here. He'd planned to never leave, at least not for any length of time. This was his home. He'd intended to grow old watching the Pacific waves pound the beach just off his deck, with his woman beside him.

For a few short years Sean Vetter had had the world by the balls. Against all odds he'd left the crime and drug infested streets where he'd been nothing more than a statistic and a chalk-line waiting to happen. He'd left it behind, wanting to make something of himself, to be somebody, to make a difference. And he'd made it out with his best friend, De.

They'd trained side by side, pushing each other, leaning on each other. When failure loomed looking at his friend and knowing what the alternative would be urged him on, to do more, to not quit.

Then the DEA. It had been a dream come true. It had been a place for him, somewhere he and De could work for the very streets that had nearly claimed their lives. And they'd been good, driven by a personal vendetta formed from watching friends die, shot down for drugs or money, or even less.

Through miracles that had just seemed part of the upturn of their lives, they had each found a woman that loved them. He had met Stacey years before and then he'd suddenly realized that she was his, that they were meant for each other. De had met Candace and they'd gone from being two guys to being two couples. And it had been good.

They had each bought a home, married. De had even started a family. Sean hadn't been quite ready for that, but he was happy. From filthy bug-ridden drug houses to a dream house on the beach. A wife that he adored and who accepted his love for his job. Could life get any better?

An angry driver leaning on the horn in an attempt to motivate pedestrians from his path brought Sean back to reality. He blinked at what was before him, surprised that he'd just been standing on the street unaware of what was around him.

A flash of the thoughts that he constantly tried to keep at bay made him smile sadly. Yeah, life had been good. But here he was. And it was all gone.

He turned slowly and looked up at the building that he had exited an unknown number of minutes before. Were they up there watching him? Probably not, but it felt like it. He felt like an object of ridicule. Something to pity, or be scorned. He was no longer Sean Vetter, or at least not the Sean Vetter he had been.

No wife, no home, no badge, no purpose. The friends that had embraced him at one time now just patted his back and gave encouraging words that were as empty as he was. They didn't care. They just wanted him away. Gone. Where they didn't have to look at the sad pathetic man he had become, so that they could go back to their own lives and what was important to them.

He bit the inside of his lower lip as the urge to cry nearly overtook him. Being ousted by the one place that he'd always felt would accept him no matter what had almost hurt worse than having his wife bleed to death in his arms.

He'd felt useless, unable to save his own fuckin' wife. He'd thought he was so good, so strong. But in the end he'd needed her all along. She'd completed him, made him feel like he was worth something. All the effort and advancement in the world were only worthwhile if he had someone that was there for him, to share it with. It made him feel so weak. He'd needed her to remind him that he was human, that he was making a difference to someone. And now she was gone. The floor fell out from under him in that one moment. How could he go on without her? How was he supposed to live with himself?

The DEA. He'd consoled himself that he always had a place to go, even after he'd been suspended. He understood. He knew. He was a liability. He'd gotten men killed. De had even covered his ass for him at the risk of himself. Yeah, it was best for him to be away from it. It was safer for the other agents if he wasn't there. That was fine. He could take the time off. Six months of 'grieving' wasn't his idea of fun, but he'd survived. Sane? That was still in question.

And then the other shoe had fallen. The last few weeks before his mandatory psyche evaluation had been hard. He'd been eager to get back to work, needing the distraction, wanting to do his job, what he loved, which now was all he had left to live for.

In his mind it had just been a formality. He'd go in, talk to some assigned head shrink, get the 'all clear' and pick up his badge and gun on the way out to start his next assignment. It had never occurred to him that he would be rejected, that it was a permanent dismissal.

If Stacey's death had broken his heart, then being fired had ripped it out and thrown it into a meat grinder. He was out? He was no longer an agent? The reality of it had yet to sink in. The men that he worked with, had been accepted by, had risked his life beside and for, had turned him out. Not the hero now, was he?

From single-handedly apprehending the head of Mexico's largest drug cartel, not once, but twice, to . . . this. Standing on a busy street trying not to cry like a lost child, which was exactly how he felt.

Frost had given him a choice of several positions he'd lined up for him to choose from. Some had even been PD. What the fuck was that? As if taking the little hope he had left and beating it into the ground wasn't enough. Might as well have pointed and laughed, 'There's the crazy fucker that got his wife killed and would rather shoot you than to look at you'. It had been a slap in the face by those he'd trusted most on one of the worst days of his life.

What now?

He tried to console himself that he could find purpose in any law enforcement position. Even beat cops were doing their part to clean the streets, right? But it felt like an empty promise made with the intention of saving what little pride he had left. And the brief glance he'd given the paper Frost had handed him had been enough to see that all of the 'openings' were out of state. Not even LAPD wanted him. If leaving the DEA didn't kill him, leaving California surely would.

A clock on a church two blocks over tolled the hour, making him realize that he'd been standing on the same square of concrete for a good half-hour. His truck was across the street, waiting. He started walking, heavy feet almost dragging, oblivious to the people that had to stop in their tracks to keep from colliding with him. Finally he reached his truck, feeling like the walk from the building that he'd thought of as his second home had been miles long. He was breathing hard, and a tight aching in his chest fueled his eyes in their attempt to leak. Whether it was forced or voluntary, walking away was incredibly hard.

Inside the somewhat comforting confines of his familiar truck he wiped tears away, hating them for continuing to fall after so long. What was left to cry for, anyway?

After gulping down as many tears as possible he started the engine, refusing to look out the window at the building across the street. He had no idea where he was going, and didn't care. He'd sold the house. He hadn't wanted to let go of that place that he and Stacey had been so happy in, but had been unable to keep it. It would have been impossible for him to return there, to live there. The apartment that he'd been staying at was now empty too. It had just been a hole in the wall, a place to stay until he started working again. He'd packed his bags and left the last of his furniture for the next tenant.

Now, everything he had was with him. A few boxes of Stacey's things that he hadn’t been able to part with. A dozen or so boxes of his own things, a few suitcases, and that was it. In the span of about seven months he'd gone from having it all to having nothing. To living his dreams with the woman he loved, to being homeless, jobless, and alone.

When night fell just after eight in the evening Sean had driven more than six hundred miles away from the west coast and the only life he'd ever known. He'd watched the clock change as he'd crossed the California/Arizona border. It had been 2:23 pm. He'd stared at the clock so long that his tires had strayed onto the shoulder and he'd had to jerk the wheel back.

California was behind him and it felt like he'd never go back. After all, what was there to go back for?

His eyes welled with tears dangerously when he thought of leaving Stacey behind, or at least her grave. Yeah, he'd have to go back to visit her someday, but that little stone and that patch of horridly green grass wasn't where she really was. She was with him. Her memory filled his thoughts and his dreams, making him sometimes feel as if she had never really left. For months it had been anger and frustration, pain and loneliness. Now at least he smiled sometimes when he thought of her.

When the I-10 had begun to go further and further south he'd gotten off of it, not wanting to go in that direction. What was down that way anyway? The Gulf of Mexico? No, that wouldn't work. So at Phoenix he'd turned North on I-17. The next major highway running East was I-40 at Flagstaff. With a shrug and a bite of his fast-food burger he'd turned East again.

When it started to get dark he decided to pull over. He was tired and cramped from sitting in the truck so long. Exit 294 advertised a Holiday Inn and he took it. He'd just passed Holbrook, Arizona.

Another trip through the nearest drive-thru and he was set for the night, though he was already getting tired of french fries and cheeseburgers. A room with a king size bed and HBO, and before all the light had left the sky he was passed out across the top blanket, still dressed, with the TV on and the air conditioner blowing full blast.

He woke ten hours later, feeling better than he had in seven months. No nightmares, no prowling the pitch black house waiting for someone to attack him, no staring at a blank TV until his cigarette burned his fingers and snapped him out of it. He'd just slept.

The smell of cold fries and ketchup made him toss all the food he'd gotten and hadn't touched. A shower followed. Steam filled the small bathroom, turning it into a sauna. With a never-ending supply of scalding water, he didn't move from under the spray until he'd started to prune. A shave and clean clothes, and then he sat to pull on his boots.

Then . . . just sat.

Sean rubbed his cleanly shaven head and face and then just rested his elbows on his knees.

What next?

He had no idea where he was going. He'd refused to even think about it yesterday, just driving to be driving, to be doing something. But today that didn't seem like such a good idea. He had money, that wasn't the problem. But eventually he'd run out of land. What was he gonna do? Drive to the Atlantic and then turn right back around? Was he Forrest Gump now?

The pile of stuff he'd pulled from his dirty jeans lay on the bed, the folded list that Frost had given him the biggest thing there. Sean glared at it for long minutes, hating it, hating needing it. But working seemed like all that was left to do. Find a job, settle down somewhere, and then . . . pretend to be normal, he guessed. Just go on living and missing Stacey.

Slowly he unfolded the paper. There were more positions than he'd originally thought. Several bigger cities: Seattle, Chicago, Baton Rouge. Some that he'd never heard of: Milner, Colorado; Wentzville, Missouri; Vinita, Oklahoma; Atascasita, Texas; Ahmeek, Michigan; Bealton, Virginia. Where had Frost found all these? He must have purposely chosen them as far flung as possible.

Nine states, from Washington to Virginia. The choice weighed on him. How did you pick where your life should go, especially when he didn't really care. None of the places were particularly interesting or caught his attention. The closest were the best possibilities. Colorado was out. No way was he going up into the mountains. He'd be dead and frozen inside a week. Virginia was a possibility only because it was close to the ocean, and Seattle for the same reason. But neither could compare to So. Cal, so there was really no point.

That left Oklahoma and Missouri. All the rest had some little thing that was less than appealing.

Sean stubbed out his first cigarette of the day and sighed, rubbing his head and face. He needed to shave, the goatie and mustache were making his face itch, but he rather liked the way it looked. The unkempt look suited the way he felt.

Folding the piece of paper he stood, reluctant to move, yet knowing that eventually he would have to. He tucked each of the things from the small pile back into his pockets, following a system that had developed years ago. Change in this pocket, lighter in this one, keys here. Then he grabbed up the bag he'd brought in and left the small room.

The hotel lobby had a soda machine. He bought two and then picked out a map of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

In the truck he awkwardly spread out the map of Oklahoma across the steering wheel and much of the dash. Vinita. For long minutes he searched, lighting another cigarette, and pouring over the map. Finally he found the damn spot.

Vinita was about sixty miles northeast of Tulsa, just off Interstate 44 on State highway 60. It looked like a small city. Nowhere near the size of Tulsa, but large enough to rate getting a star to mark it on the map instead of the tiny dots around it.

Sean rolled the driver's side window down and sat back to watch the traffic go by on the interstate and smoke. What the hell was he doing? Looking at tiny dots on maps with the possibility of going there? It seemed surreal, like he was going to wake up and it would be yesterday morning, and none of this had happened, the psyche eval, the talk with Frost, the nine hours driving. He would wake up and none of this would have happened. Or, better yet, wake up in the beach house with Stacey beside him, and the past year would be gone, never having happened.

He closed his eyes against the sting of tears as the memories and wanting overwhelmed him. What he would give to turn back the clock, to call do-over, to kill that bastard Lucero when he'd had him in his sights. If only he'd stopped working the case sooner, had heeded Stacey's fears and just got a patrol job working the streets. If only . . .

For a few moments he could pretend that wishing could make it happen, live in that tiny bubble of hope that came with reliving mistakes differently. But then he opened his eyes to see a blacktop parking lot outside a hotel in Halbrook, Arizona. His chest tightened with the need to rage and hurt and destroy, anything to lessen the pain. Instead he just took deep breaths, dropped his mostly ash cigarette out the open window, and turned back to the map.

A lake near the small star had the spidery shape of a manmade water hole. He leaned closer to see 'Grand Lake' written across it. And a tiny dot on the western shore boasted the name 'Bernice'.

Sean smiled in spite of himself. Bernice.

Stacey had hated her middle name. It had gone much better with her maiden name, but Stacey Bernice Vetter had sounded nearly hilarious. He would call her by her middle name just to rile her, to see that flash of outrage in her eyes before she attacked him, which had been what he'd planned on all along.

Rubbing a fingertip absently over the town's name he allowed himself to smile as he thought of the past for a few minutes, enjoying memories for a change.

He didn't believe in fate or that shit, and even if he did he doubted that finding a little town on a map with the same name as your dead wife was all that spectacular. There was probably a Sean, Connecticut, or a Vetter, Montana. But it still felt special some how.

If anything it was a tiny sign as to where he should go from here. It was silly in the end, but he'd take it. A difficult question was for now answered, if only by the coincidence of a name. It wasn't eerily divine or anything, but at least it was better than nothing.

He folded the map, disregarding the previous creases, and started the truck. By his calculations he had almost a thousand miles to go. No time like the present.