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know how she got sometimes,” Tracy gave a sly grin. “Every once in awhile she got a wild hair up her behind to save the world and everybody in it and that sociology major came up like the resurrected dead or something.”
    â€œYeah, I used to have to tell her to back off, because she used to try and drag me along.”
    â€œBut she was all obsessed about this chick. I went by her place one day and she was on the Internet, reading all of these articles about her, Alina Petrov or whatever. She showed me some of the articles, and I asked her what was up, but she just said . . . she didn’t know for sure.”
    Fatema drove home with the conversation she’d had with Tracy heavy on her mind. Toni had been dead for nearly a week, and the police still hadn’t found the killer. Maybe she was just looking for a reason to butt in. Tracy hadn’t told her anything all that extraordinary. Toni had a man she’d broken up with and who had her tripping. That was a broad term, “tripping,” and it could’ve meant a lot of things. Jilted lover murders woman for wanting to leave him—seemed mighty clichéd for this day and age, but hey, it happened. And then there was the other thing making her “trip.” That girl who’d gone missing about a month ago that Toni had become so enthralled with recently. How and why would something like that ever pop up on the radar of a city planner? Fatema wondered.
    Â 
    Tracy had been kind enough to give Fatema a key to her sister’s condo. She needed to see it—to connect with her friend one last time. She stood outside the door with the key in her hand, daring herself to put it in the lock and open the door. Fatema didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, but eventually she realized that today was not the day to go inside. She’d burst like a dam if she did, and there’d be no amount of objectivity in her.
    â€œTomorrow,” she whispered to Toni’s spirit. “I’ll go inside tomorrow, T.”

Nelson
    T here was a time in his career when Nelson Monroe waited hands and feet on the rich and famous. He was the very successful manager of a very successful five star hotel called The Menagerie in downtown Denver, and he was miserable. Ten years ago, he turned his life around and found his true calling. These days, he was a lot poorer, but his life had purpose now, and he loved what he did for a living.
    Nelson could’ve written a book on his life. He’d literally come from nothing to become a successful young businessman, and the sky would have been literally the limit had he kept on that same path. But there was always something in him that would never fully let him enjoy his success. There was the sad part of him, lonely and afraid, that served a dual purpose. On the one hand, it drove him to work hard to finish school, get into college, and graduate at the top of his class, and find his own piece of the American dream. But on the other hand, it was the thorn in his side, the fly in his soup, that one thing that held a part of him at bay, standing on the outside of the window looking in.
    His mother raised him and his brother. Nelson’s father died when Nelson was young and he barely remembered the man. But he remembered being happy before his father passed away. He remembered feeling safe. His mother did the best she could, but it was never good enough. For years they lived on the streets, homeless, wandering, the boys were in and out of school. They slept in strange places and beds, and found food whereever they could. Those were his formative years, and they were as much a part of who he was as an arm or leg.
    One Thanksgiving, for reasons he still didn’t understand, Nelson volunteered at The Broadway to help serve food to the homeless, and he felt like a man reborn. A man with purpose. It was the happiest day in his life, and he said a quiet prayer that night, thanking God