“Ashton Drake...” the front desk clerk at the police station trailed. The name sounded familiar. After a second, he got it. “Wait. Like detective drake! But he’s been gone for... you’ve been gone over a month.”

Yep. He had. Was that all?

”Got shrunk.” he said gruffly, and gestured down at himself. His newly deaged, scruffy self. He’d figured out his bank codes, so he’d been able to buy himself the old man’s signature gray ass suit. Looked like a kiddie interviewing for the part of his dads job.

The brown-haired clerk grunted, Abe grimaced.

Ashton explained. ”Got deaged. Amnesia. Took a while to piece the puzzle together. Even longer to sort my life out, and decide if I even wanted to be what I was again. I’ll have to do all the police academy stuff again, I take it. On account of property, and not remembering everything...”

“I’m not sure—“

”Well, find out. Please?”

The guy told him he’d need to make some calls. Ashton had told him he could wait. He went to seat himself down in the police stations waiting room, amid the prostitutes and the other criminals who were also waiting on various things.

This was basically how she had said it would go down. He needed to go down to the station, make some noise, shake a few trees, and see what fell out. It was stupid. But he was desperate. And she would not help him unless he did something for himself. To make sure he wasn’t crazy And full of shit.

—

Mallory Swann, PI, the sign had read. He has read it. That was all it had said. Nothing about missing children, or exposing affairs, or anything else of note. That, he’s read into by the as on the internet. The modern yellow pages.

He’d had to wait. Someone had been seeing her.

The woman ahead of him, the one he’d had to wait on, passed him on the way out. The older woman had stumbled, and dropped her file folder. Before consulting his brain, Ashton had moved forwArd out of his seat to help her father the few scattered papers.

His hand had fallen in an enlarged photograph of a young girl, 16 or 17, though she could have been older. She was striking, with shoulder length grown hair and blue green eyes. The shot was a security camera angle, and wasn’t perfect. It had some graininess to it. He passed it back to the woman with the files. It joined another, better, security camera shot. This time, of the girl in a green bathing suit, indoors at some party. The background seemed vaguely familiar. There was another picture next to that, but mostly covered by the other photos. What he got of it in the split second before she thanked him and snapped the file folder shut looked like an old family photo, with a far younger version of what could have been the same girl... though this ones hair was still mostly blonde, as if time and the sun had yet to darken it.

He hadn’t been most enough to see any writing on the papers with the photos. Just the handful of images... had the suit been familiar? Not the face, but... from the neck... um... down? He couldn’t tell. Fuzzy. Eh. Maybe he’d see someone in a suit like that at a party? But then, he probably wouldn’t have remembered much of the party afterwards.

He shook his head, and moved on. It was hardly likely he’d have been able to help her, and he’d had business.

Mallory Swann showed him in. She’d been Hot. Capital H. In her thirties or forties, with shoulder length blonde hair and a cute face. All the right curves. 30s or 40s was what he’d placed her at, which was strange, because the ad had said Swann investigations had been operating a whole lot longer than the 10 or 20 years she would have been in the business. Maybe it had been passed down? Family business? Or maybe she’d just been 30 or 40 once upon a time, and looked younger than she was.

He’d introduced himself and sat down.

“Well, Mr. Drake.” She’d asked him, with a brief, assessing look. He had not been wearing a suit then. Just jeans and a Yankees shirt. “What can I help you with, today?”

She had asked. He had told her. Cautious, but giving enough to go by, Ashton had detailed the recent events of his life. He had told Miss Swann (it was Miss, right?) about his previous life as a detective. What he had been able to piece together. And the recent case, with the kids. What his sister had told him, of the lady. Archer. And the potential dirty cops who had done her wrong... and him, as it turned out. He told her how he wanted to find and expose the cop.

She listened, thoughtful and patient. And then told him it was a load of crap.

Why would she risk her career trying to expose a crooked cop without evidence?

Why would she risk her career, if he were right and the cop had orchestrated multiple attacks that left people youthful?

Why would she risk her career on someone who might be mistaken. Crazy, or full of crap.

Finally, why would she try and help someone who had yet to truly try and help themselves?

If he wasn’t willing to work with her a little and get evidence, she wasn’t willing to go out on a limb for him to try and shake up the tree. He had been a detective. Surely, he could still do a little sleuthing himself? If the skills had been there once, there was a basis for them to be there again. It’s how the mind works, Swann has told him. Was he a problem solver or not?

If he could find some evidence, maybe she would help. Until then... so here he was, finding it. Shaking things up.

She had given him oooone last piece of advice. Something he might not need, but had gone out to get, all the same. She had told him to get a lawyer. Referred him to some company and a guy called Mellitus? Aurum Mellitus... stripper name if ever he’d heard one. Isn’t Aurum Latin for gold?

The lawyer. The lawyer had paid off. They’d been cautious, hadn’t wanted to give him a shot, and reasonably so too. He hadn’t started as a full officer. That was fine. He’s had to spend several weeks in police academy. Taken several tests. Even personality ones! It had been complicated, but the lawyer had helped keep things above board. There was only one problem. He’s shaken down a lot of trees, and still... nothing had fallen.

No cops had threatened him. No detectives accusing him, or stuff like that. Several months had passed, during which he got a separate job to keep the apartment rent paid. His sister, Alice, has helped. At least until he’d gotten his feet underneath himself. Thankfully, past him had also stockpiled funds for, in the words of foghorn leghorn, just such an occasion!

What the situation told him was this. The people he was dealing with were not the ones he needed to be bothering. If he wanted the rat he’d have to shake harder, and elsewhere! If he even wanted to shake at all. What would that accomplish again? If he became a cop again officially, he’d have his old life again. Or at least, the starts of it. He would need to work hard and progress through the ranks to regain his old footing. And most likely, he’d ask to be stationed in a station Ashton Drake has not worked in before, to avoid people he had known.

Did he want his old life back? Also, did he trust these cops at all??