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of the ordinary and interrupted the 'ceremony'. Unfortunately, there must have been a lookout, because the leader of the group and several of his followers escaped before back-up could arrive. The ones left were just low-level members who didn't really have much info. Just knew the leader as Adrian Kern."
    "Okay, well let's go question this woman." Dan stood, stretching as he did so.
    "Sure, let me just check for a current address first." Jessie sat and pulled her chair close to her desk and tapped the woman's name into the computer. Squinting at the small print, Jessie felt her heart sink. "Oh, damn."
    Dan came around to stand behind Jessie. "What's wrong?"
    Jessie pointed to the screen. "She was killed in a hit and run accident a month after this report was filed. Nobody was ever caught."
    "What about Kern?"
    Jessie typed the name into the database. While waiting for the computer to search, she drummed her fingers on the desk impatiently. In a few seconds she was staring into Adrian Kern's eyes. She shuddered as she remembered reading Mark's statement describing the leader's eyes as cold. And looking at the eyes in the photo, she knew instantly that this was the same guy that Mark had encountered. Averting her gaze from the man's picture, she read his history.
    "Huh. It looks like Mark sure picked a winner to get messed up with," Dan commented dryly.
    "Possession of drugs with intent to deliver, battery, extortion..." Jessie sighed. "You aren't kidding."
    "But look, in every case, witnesses failed to show, resulting in a mis-trial, or the jury is dead-locked. In all the instances, the DA then reduced the charges to avoid another trial." Dan pointed to the outcomes of the charges. "What's his last known address?"
    Jessie entered the request and then blew out a sigh of frustration. "Unknown. Figures."
    "What about--" Dan began but was interrupted by the arrival of one of their fellow detectives. "Hey, Schmidt, what are you looking all excited about?"
    The tall blond detective grinned as he waved a newspaper. "You guys aren't going to believe this! Look what the Chicago Tribune investigator wrote in her column today." He slapped the paper down in front of Jessie.
    "Can't you see we're kind of busy here?" Jessie started to shove the newspaper back at the young man when a small picture of Mark Taylor on the upper corner of the front page caught her eye. Beneath the picture was a caption, "Fake, Flake or For Real?"
    Puzzled, Jessie glanced at Dan, who looked as confused as she did. She turned back to Schmidt. "What's this about?"
    "Well, the condensed version is this: The reporter, Denise Jeffries, claims your guy, Taylor, has some kind of divine powers." Schmidt rocked back on his heels, a grin on his face. "How funny is that?"
    "Divine powers? What does that mean?" Jessie began flipping through the pages to find the article. Dan leaned over her shoulder to read it too. She began reading; dread building in her as Mark's past dealings with the police were summarized. It emphasized that each time, he had been cleared in each case. It detailed the year spent as an enemy combatant and how Mark's prediction of 9/11 had never been explained, but that Mark had been released just as suddenly as he'd been arrested. The reporter wondered if the government knew something about Mark Taylor that they were covering up.
    Jessie glanced at Dan, and he gave her a warning look and a quick shake of his head then pointed his chin at Schmidt. Dan didn't know the specifics of Mark's secret, but Jessie had shown him photos that she had accidentally received after she'd used Mark's special camera--before she knew it was special. She'd even told her partner about Mark's claim that he dreamed the future after viewing photos from the camera. After Mark's release, she'd never mentioned it again, and had hoped Dan would forget about the camera. Obviously, he hadn't, but at least he wasn't going to spill the news to Schmidt.
    Jeffries wrote that she had