He found himself back in the city courthouse shortly after, only now it was late, and most of the lights were off and the offices closed up for the night, and the air was so still that the sound of his shoes striking the floor rang abnormally loud in his ears. He frowned at the doors and the names stenciled upon them, none of them readable. He didn't bother wondering why he'd chosen to come back here at such a stupid time; the decision had made sense, before.
He tried a few doors, but of course found them locked. He located the office that he assumed was Buchanan's, as it was in the same general area, and knocked, calling out the prosecutor's name, but nobody replied. The attorney must have headed straight home after speaking with the judge; maybe he'd hear from him tomorrow.
Toward the end of the hall, he located a door that was cracked partly open; he tried to read the words on the frosted-glass window, and thought that it said it was a records room, but wasn't sure, since the dim light wavered so much. He pushed it open anyway and peered within. If they couldn't be bothered to lock up after themselves, was it really his fault for deciding to look around?
He found himself in what was the city courthouse's equivalent of the dusty file room at the police station; here the cabinets and shelves were much nicer and cleaner and more orderly, and there were far fewer of them, probably because everything was going digital now. The doorway lined up with a long wooden table and benches, which themselves lined up with a set of windows through which moonlight was streaming. A long low cabinet of drawers sat below the windows, and somebody was standing at it, head hanging down, rifling through whatever papers were contained within.
Kristeva frowned. It was strange enough that somebody was here this late at night, unsupervised, like he was. But what was even stranger was he thought he recognized their build, their posture, their style of dress, even though he was looking at them from behind and had only ever seen them in pictures before now.
It seemed utterly ludicrous, but he called out, hesitantly, "Wesley Singer...?"
The person standing at the cabinet froze in place for a second or two, then lifted their head. They took a step back and started to turn to look back at him. Kristeva's eyes locked on theirs and there was no mistaking the face from the photos he'd seen in the missing person report, the face in Cheryl Singer's case folder. Kristeva's heart felt like it stopped when Det. Singer smiled at him, the gaping slash across his throat a ghastly echo.
"Looks like you found me, kiddo."
Kristeva's eyes flew open and he sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly seeing nothing before him but ceiling. He blinked a few times, gasping, before the familiar, half-shrouded contours of his bedroom came into view; he slowly sat up and looked around himself, but aside from the moonlight streaming through the windows, nothing remained of the dream except his own heartbeat hammering in his ears. He remained still for a moment or so, willing his pulse to slow; without thinking, and for no discernible reason, he glanced at the bed beside him, but the other half was empty, just as it had been for quite a while now. He had no idea why he would have expected it to be otherwise, but the realization still stung him.
He turned to face forward again and lay back down, staring at the ceiling that had greeted him upon awakening. There were vague, random patterns in its surface, and he couldn't count how many times he'd let his eyes roam over those while trying to drift to sleep. It didn't feel like it was working this time, yet it must have, because when his eyes opened next, there was no moonlight and no records room but just sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows instead.
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