Free The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) by John Montesano

Whirl.  I also hear what sounds like fireworks exploding somewhere in the distance but I cannot see the color bursts anywhere.  I smell carnival food again.  Cotton candy.  Funnel Cakes.  Popcorn. 
                  Suddenly, the children stop screaming and the fireworks fizzle out.  I smell nothing but the salty ocean air.  I stop walking, not feeling what’s underneath my feet.  It’s almost as if I am levitating off the cold silky sand.  The only thing I can hear is a voice.  So soft and innocent.  It sounds like he is crying for help.  My vision shifted to a short distance into the ocean.  And bobbing up and down and side to side like a lost beach ball is what my mind cannot quite fathom.
                  Jake is calling out for me to rescue him, holding my other shoe. 
                  This is one dream I’ve had on numerous occasions.  It took me a long time and many sleepless nights to finally reach the end of the dream.  When I finally saw the vision of Jake encircled in the moon’s reflection, resembling an angel’s halo, I didn’t sleep for a week straight.  Jake’s image was burned inside my mind.  I still have the dream but my nighttime candies help treat me better.  Dr. Sharper gradually analyzed the progression of the dream.  She fed me the usual crock of cockamamie psycho- babble bullshit that left me questioning her credentials every time I left her office. 
                  I had the dream again that Wednesday night and Lindsey knew it.  She could always tell when I had a bad dream because I woke up with the same look on my face. 
                  “What can I get you?” she asked.  She kneeled behind me on the bed, rubbing my shoulders.
                  I craned my neck and looked up at her.  She knew I didn’t have to answer.  There was nothing she could get me.  Nothing would bring Jake back.  Nothing would change the night that he used a gun and attempted to rob a convenience store while doped up on LSD.  It was just something I’d have to live with forever.  There’s this crazy rationale that gets tossed around my brain that tells me there is no way the incident could be my fault.  It’s so irrational that I find it comical and laugh it off.  Here I am attempting to rationalize what happened that night by placing blame on someone else.  The real blame should be placed on me.  I see the flashes of the muzzle- both of them- every time I close my eyes.  It’s like staring at the flash of a camera.  It gets stuck in my irises and there’s no way to shake them off and make them disappear. 
    In previous sessions with Dr. Sharper, I would mention this line of thinking and, like always, Sharper remained neutral to my thoughts and attempted to let me figure them out on my own.  Some fucking doctor.  At the same time, I guess I can’t blame her own irrational analyses since I won’t let her piece together the entire story.
    Lindsey took a seat across from me at the kitchen table.  Neither of us drank coffee so I had orange juice while she had a cup of herbal tea. 
                  “I still can’t believe Fitzy wanted to give me Esteban’s case,” I said.  Whenever I had a dream that would keep both of us up I never liked to talk about it.  Besides, we both knew why we were up.  Why beat a dead horse?
                  In your case, Jake, right?
                  “I still can’t believe Esteban is missing,” Lindsey replied.  “What did you find on your trip to Paterson?” she asked.
                  “Nothing.  I drove around for a while, just sort of getting the lay of the land from Esteban’s perspective.  I was on my way to Esteban’s house when Fitzy called me.  There wasn’t much else to do; I was shocked at the coincidence.”
                  “God, I hope he’s ok,” Lindsey said, once again showing her