Un: Thestrandinstitute| Memory Share

[nobasisinfact]

It's been quite a while since you've spoken with Alex. At least since you've had a real conversation. You know the reason, and her number is posted against the wall behind the bottle of scotch that you've been nursing since you received her first call.

It isn't as if you're unhappy with this turn of events; how could you be? Finding her is the one thing you've been longing for, the missing piece that could make everything make sense. At least that's what you believed before Alex started poking her nose into all this. Before you began to help her and want to know more. Before you give in to the yearning to understand what the hell was going on in all of this.

Now you feel like you don't know anything, and you're being pulled in two different directions. Not that Coralee would want you if you tried to go to her. She won't tell you where she is or who she's with. It took so much just to get her to give you the number, and there's a part of you that's almost afraid to use it. Fearful that she won't pick up or worse, the number will no longer be in service.

You take a long drink of the scotch as you cue up the episode of Alex's first meeting with Simon.

Leave me. Find Advocate. Simon Reese.

Fine. If that's what Coralee wanted, that's precisely what you would do. Maybe if she understood, if you followed her instructions, she'd come back. At least it was something you could hope for, even if you knew it was a false hope at best. So you listen and scratch down new notes, but nothing new comes from what you're listening to before the ding of your email disrupts your thoughts. The message was from Nic. Wonderful. This had better be worth disrupting your already worthless task. You click through the familiar pictures rapidly first, then more slowly. The third time you enlarge them, the fourth, you print out larger pieces. It's only by the fifth pass of them that you reach for your phone and dial the number.

"Richard." You let out a breath that you hadn't known you'd been holding in.

"It seems Alex found information regarding an E. Hausdorff. He was a patient at Riverview Mental Hospital in Coquihalla. Have you heard of him?"

"I assume this has something to do with The Advocate." It wasn't a no, but if it was a yes, you weren't getting any more about him from her any time soon. There were a million other things you want to ask her. Where she is, where she's been, how she could leave not just you but Charlie too? You know she'd hang up on you if you said anything about it, though, so you keep silent and keep to the topic of E. Hausdorff.

"I've emailed you some photographs that they found with his file. There was a recording, but it was on tape." He'd have to wait to hear it when he next saw Alex. Part of him wondered if it was going to be as inane as their conversation with Simon. What she'd found for E. Hausdorff, however, were apparently doctor's notes. Those might contain more information than the insane ravings of an insane murderer.

"I assume you're aware this is sacred geometry."

"Yes." You've studied and seen enough of it to know it practically at a glance by now. The figures, while not sacred geometry, were also something you had seen before. Though, those had borne upsidedown faces. Alex had encountered them in the desert.

"You know what they mean?" It's as if she's testing you. You hate it.

"No." You also hate how you sound disappointed that you can't rise to her challenge.

"You need something for her, don't you? For your podcaster?"

"It isn't like that." You let out a heavy sigh. How did this start? No, why did this start? If Coralee wanted you, all she had to do was tell you. You've already told her that. "It would be helpful to the investigation." You won't have this argument again now.