Here Comes the Sun

“There has to be some kind of mistake,” I told the detective in charge of Max’s case, “These have to be somebody else’s clothes – not his.”

The detective shook her head. “That’s what he came in. That’s what I have.”

My eyes were wide as she laid the rest of his outfit on the table in front of me. “But how…?” I whispered.

He had been wearing a brand new Armani suit, a sky blue dress shirt and matching tie, shiny black shoes, and a silver Rolex watch. His iPhone, leather wallet, and keys to a Mercedes Benz were in a Ziploc bag in my purse.

I was shocked.

Not that I was expecting him to look homeless or anything, but he must have had an insane amount of money to afford such high-class stuff.

“You see this in movies,” Joe said softly, looking at the watch with a mournful look on his face, “It was probably the dealing.”

It made perfect sense to me then. Drug lords were always filthy rich – so I had heard.
But the detective shook her head again.

“His blood was clean,” she said, “And we found no drugs on him. Not even cigarettes.”

“Really?” I asked in disbelief, “That can’t be. He was a big drinker. And he did cocaine all the time.”

“Sweetie, we found nothing.”

I was so confused. It was the complete opposite of what I had been expecting. It was like they had a totally different person – not Max Chanel.

The detective packed up the rest of the clothes and gave them to us to take home. They had no use for Max anymore. That brought tears to my eyes. We stowed the bag into our rental car out front and didn’t even look twice at my mother – not that I wanted to. She was still fuming over my speech.

I was relieved when I stepped out of the morgue and into the warm air outside, but at the same time I felt guilty leaving Max there alone, lying helpless in a freezer surrounded by dozens of others who had lost their lives. He would remain there until morning. Then he’d be taken to the graveyard and buried.

I shuddered at the thought.

I was about to sit down in the backseat beside Nick when I heard my mother’s dark voice spit something at me.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” she spat, “and bringing them.”

I felt myself growing heated once again.

“I told you not to come here. You didn’t listen. Now, I won’t tell you not to come to the funeral. Instead, I just won’t have one. Happy now?” She finished with an evil grin stretched across her face.

It took a lot of will power to not run up and slap her face. She wasn’t going to have a funeral for Max, her only son. What kind of human being does such a thing?

“You bitch,” I said coldly.

She smiled with satisfaction.

“And I see you’re not pregnant anymore. Or are you? I wouldn’t really be surprised if it happened again, especially with that tramp of a boyfriend.” She motioned to the car, meaning Nick. “I do feel sorry for the child though. She had a drug-dealing uncle and a slut for a mother. She’ll probably turn out the same way. What a shame.”

I could have screamed out in anger at her, but my voice was suddenly lost. She had insulted me and everyone I loved in just a few sentences. Her words pierced me like daggers and I felt myself lose control.

“How dare you.” I spoke loudly and rudely. “You have no right to say any of that. Shows what you know. As a matter of fact, I feel sorry for you. Your granddaughter is beautiful, and you will never know her. I hope you’re happy now.”

I stared at her for a few more seconds before taking my seat and slamming the door as hard as I could to make her jump.

“I can’t believe I’m related to her,” I said as I took my head in my hands. “She’s like a witch, I swear. I can see her with a cauldron and everything.”

Nick took a deep breath and held my hand as the car began moving.

“I heard what she said about the funeral,” he said sadly, “But Kara, we can do it ourselves. We don’t need her.”

“That’s a lot of money,” I said, looking up at him, “Even for you.”

“Us. It’s your money, too.”

I shook my head but he insisted.

“We’ll do the funeral. A really nice one just for Max. Okay?”

I debated the idea in my head. No matter what I said, Nick would make it happen. So it didn’t really matter.

“Thank you,” I whispered, leaning against him, “You have no idea what it means to me.”
He wrapped his arms around me tightly. “He’s family, Kara. And you’re family. And I’m gonna do everything in my power to help family. That includes finding out who did this.”

I sighed and closed my eyes.

Don’t you worry, Max, I thought to myself, We’re going to figure all of this out. And everything will be okay.

I love you.

---------------------------------

I couldn’t bear to have an open casket.

So they closed it for me.

The service had been beautiful. One of Papa Jonas’s old pastor friends from church did it for us. He was so kind and his words were so sweet, I cried much sooner than I should have. It was done outside so Max could be buried straight away. I had brought him a bouquet of daisies to put on his grave. I had never felt such pain before.

And I had felt a lot of pain.

I stayed until he was buried and an hour after. I didn’t want to leave him there six feet under the insect-infested ground. But Nick and Joe forced me away, back to our hotel. They didn’t want me to cry anymore. It was already getting to Nick too much – I could see hints of the ghost returning. That was the last thing I wanted.

“If you want to get to the bottom of all this,” Joe said as he grabbed the Mac and turned it on, “we better start now.”

Nick rolled his eyes at his brother. “You just wanna play detective.”

“Pshhhhh, no… For your information, my naïve little brother, I am thinking rationally. We need to get on the next flight back to Cali ASAP to get back to, you know, life. Plus, whoever this killer is, he’s still out there on the streets, probably hurting someone else as we speak. And it means a lot to KC, who happens to be my baby sister. So I say we get a move on.”

Nick sighed and fell back against our bed, leaning on a pillow. “I never thought I would actually say this,” he said slowly, “But Joe is right.”

Joe stuck his tongue out at him and began typing. I smiled at their bickering.

“We’ll start with the obvious,” said Joe, “Google. Then we’ll work our way up. And yes, I know I watch way too much CSI. But look how handy it came in?” He gave me a giant grin.

“Aren’t we lucky to have Detective Joe Jonas on our team,” I said, draping my arm over his shoulder.

“Hey, anything for you, KC.”

He smiled and began searching the internet. His face morphed into one of serious concentration and I took that as my cue to go sit by Nick, who had been eying me for hours.

I sighed as he took my hand. “I know I’m gorgeous, but it’s not polite to stare.”

He understood the punch line and smiled at me. “You are gorgeous.”

But his smile quickly faded as he continued to look at me.

“Stop worrying, Nick. I’ll be fine,” I told him.

“You just lost your brother. You’re not fine. You can fool everyone else because you’re good at hiding it, but not me. I can see it in your eyes.” He stroked the side of my face with his hand.

“I can’t go around crying all day,” I whispered softly so Joe wouldn’t overhear and get upset. “I have to be strong to solve this. I have to be strong for Max.”

He took a moment to think over what I had said, looking deep into my eyes as he thought. Then he smiled in awe.

“How is it that you’re just so…perfect? I’m amazed by you,” he said sweetly.

I laughed. “I am so far from perfect, Nick.” I paused, feeling my smile wipe off my face. “I just know pain. I know it well enough now so that when it comes around, I can deal with it. It’s just life.”

His eyes turned sad. “You have no idea how much I wish it wasn’t like that.”

“BINGO! I found something!” Joe suddenly yelled from the computer.

I looked down quickly, focusing on changing my facial expression into something more relaxed so Joe wouldn’t worry. Nick watched my every move and I knew he didn’t like it. He tightened his grip on my hand and brought it to his lips to kiss it lightly. I looked at Joe and faked a smile.

“Already?” I asked, “Wow, you got major skills, son.”

“Chyea, I do! Okay, listen. You’re not gonna believe this. Even I find it completely shocking.”

“Just tell us, Joe,” said Nick.

“Okay, okay… You ready?”

“Yes!” Nick yelled a little too loud.

“Sheesh, don’t have a freaking cow.”

“Sorry…”

I looked at Nick and saw the ghost coming back again. It was my fault. He was so worried about me. I shouldn’t have told him anything.

“Alright, so I searched Max Chanel and got like, a million results. So I thought, duh. It’s not his real name.”

“It’s Maxwell Anthony Chanel,” I said. I had to fight tears as I remembered it.

“Exactly. So I put that in and hit gold. He had gone to rehab in 2005 and had been completely sober since. He put in an interview for that Intervention show and got tons of hits, so he got like, an advice column in the newspaper.”

My heart could have exploded. “Are you serious?” I asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“So serious!” Joe replied with excitement, “But wait, there’s more.”

I nodded for him to go on.

“He wasn’t dealing. He had a real job in some business and he was really racking in the bucks. He had gone back to school and earned a degree.”

“That’s amazing,” I said, astonished.

“But here’s the best part. Well, it’s the worst in the same way…” I saw Joe’s face drop as sadness took over once again.

“What is it?”

He took a deep breath and looked into my eyes. “He was looking for the person who raped you, Kara.”

I heard Nick wince and become rigid at the word.

“He had been searching ever since it happened. It must have made him so bad. It was like an obsession with him. Like, seriously…All these cases and searches and whatnot he had going on all pointed to it,” Joe went on, “And he got really close, Kara… Hell, he might have even figured it out. And that’s why-“

“And that’s why he’s dead,” I finished.

Max had been fighting for me. He had been looking for the truth when no one else was. He had risked his life to help me and he hadn’t even seen me in years.

I suddenly felt cold.

Max had died because of me.