When she came to him, he looked down at stillness, her death spoke to him.

“Hello, Owen.”

“Hi, Bella”

He tapped her lips with his forefinger. A sticky substance there. Checked her toe tag… suicide. Owen searched her body thoroughly and there it was a tiny puncher mark. Suicide my ass! Those stupid detectives, wait’ll  I tell...hold on eager beaver…what if they’re in on it. Voices…voices coming down the hall, he rolled her into the cooler, grabbed the paper work, turned on the crematorium fire as they came through the doors. 

I could save her...just go back in time right before the fatal injection. Shit yes; there she was bound up,  I observe her from the fire-escape window, no one is around. Go, go I was through the window gave her the shush sign and removed the duct tape. Cut the ropes gone, gone through the open window. Wait ass-hole there’s no such thing as retro causation. 

Twisted in my cover sheet I kicked free and sat on the edge of the bed. My watch read 2:10 “christ” went to bed at 2:00. Wandered into the bathroom squeezed out two drops. Watch another movie, kept nodding into the computer, awoke drooling into the keys of my laptop.Fuck… what am I going to do with Bella, ran across the empty street burst through the swinging doors  the Baton Rogue City Morgue. Pulled open the cooler door…gone…someone beat me. 

Hell it was time to move on anyway, told my boss my mother died well she did two years ago; he put his arm around me affectionately.

I was giving it the old Clark Gabel thumb wiggle a car pulled over I ran up to the open window.

“Hi where you headed?”

“Anywhere out town.”

“Me too, can’t wait to get out of thisberg.”

“Keep it under a hundred ok?”

She squinted at me, “Have we met?”