Chapter 1

It was June 23rd,1995. I’m sure of the date now as I’ve gone back over my calendar and phone records to verify everything. At the time the date meant nothing to me, just another day like any other day. The only difference being was that my wife Susan and I had just completed construction of a new home with a separate office building out back, above the garage. We lived on a bluff in Westchester that gave us a great view over Marina del Rey, Santa Monica Bay and the entire West Los Angeles basin.

I remember it being a cool, clear day headed into evening. The foggy marine layer usually present at that time of year was gone and I could see all the way along the coast to Malibu. I stood up from my desk, walked over to the window and lifted up on the lower pane, cracking it open a few inches to let the soft ocean breeze spill in.
Susan was over in the house unpacking, and still fuming from an argument we had an hour earlier. When she got like this I found it was best to just leave her alone so I had retreated to the safety and solitude of my office space, her words still ringing in my head.

“I don’t know why I ever let you talk me into building a new house in this white trash neighborhood with these white trash neighbors.”

I wondered if she actually meant what she had said. She seemed happy when we first moved into the area eight years earlier. I chalked her comments up to the tension and stress of building a new home and all the work of moving into it. Standing there now, gazing out to the mountains off Point Dume, the sting of her remarks dissipated as my mind quickly cleared of everything. I was focused on the sun’s brilliant yellow mass as it diffused into a soft orange glow slipping quickly towards the horizon.

I didn’t know where my next thought came from. It was just suddenly there, out of nowhere – the memory of a girl I’d known in grade school. Her name was Kathy Lynch, and what I was thinking was so disturbing that I tried to push my thoughts of her out of my mind. But it came back again, stronger and through my inner voice, telling me Kathy had passed away! Kathy was dead. I felt it… I knew it!

A feeling of immense sadness washed over me quickly and with such force that my body shuddered, causing my knees to buckle, snapping me out of my daydream. I quickly grabbed onto the window sill to regain my balance. Looking out again, the sun had vanished and my haunting thoughts echoed that loss through my own emotions as well. Kathy was gone…forever!

I sat back down in my chair, trying to understand what had just happened and hoping to shake this feeling of losing my friend.

Why am I thinking this? I’ll just make it go away. I won’t think this thought any more. I tried once again to shove the idea out of my mind.

If she’s not dead, then what happened to her?

Who keeps asking these questions I hear bouncing around loudly in my head? It’s as though Kathy herself was prodding me for the answers. The thought to ask my mother