“Who could be calling me at 7:00 A.M.?” I wondered as I rolled over ,grabbing the shrilling telephone.

“I know what you did!” shrieked an ominous voice before hanging up.

Shock permeated my body as I remembered what had happened three years ago. I had become tired of that bitch’s nagging, shoving her away from me. Tripping, my wife knocked her head on the corner of the kitchen table. In horror, I felt her pulse but it was too late. She was as dead as a door nail. For an hour, I sat on the couch in abject terror, frantically thinking what to do next. I decided to roll her up in the shower curtain before placing her body in a garbage bag in my bathtub until night fell. Needless to say, I called in sick to work. Well, I was the boss, anyway, so that was no problem. Darkness came as a relief to me!

After pacing the floor the entire day, I came up with a plan. I dragged the trash bag to the kitchen door which opened to the garage, placing her in the trunk. Driving for three hours, I stopped to cover her with branches deep in the woods.

After the phone call, I knew I was probably falling into a trap but couldn’t resist driving to the disposal location to see if her body was still there. To my utter consternation, the bag was torn and empty but there was a little box on the ground.

Opening the container, I saw a note which read, “I wasn’t’ dead, you S.O.B., just unconscious. Right now, I am cleaning out our bank accounts and safety deposit box and flying the coop! My name is still on our accounts because you didn’t declare me dead!

The phone rings. I glance at the clock as I reach over to answer it. 

7:00 a.m.

“Yes?” I say, angry that I was awakened so early. My chronic insomnia makes it difficult to fall asleep before three or four o’clock so being awakened—by a ringing phone nonetheless—is quite aggravating.

“I know what you did!” the male voice on the other end says, before hanging up.

I pause for a moment, cogitating on things I’ve done lately that could have pissed someone off. There were too many to count.

I didn’t stop at the crosswalk last Saturday and let the bleached blonde with the fake boobs and eagle-talon nails jog across the street in her fancy Diane von Furstenberg track suit. She tried to wrinkle her nose at me but there was too much Botox in her face to do so. She could have taken note of my license plate and told her husband—perhaps a cop, but more likely a plastic surgeon—who called me. Who was I kidding?! This bimbo probably couldn’t even remember a license plate. Even a personalized one like mine.

Then there was the Fuji apple avalanche I accidentally caused at the grocery store last evening. Everyone knows that produce handlers purposely balance round produce so precariously that if you don’t take the bruised and squishy pieces from the top—but instead go scavenging for the good items—an avalanche ensues. I grabbed my items and then darted through the express lane as the produce guy ran to my mess. He could’ve been angry enough to call. They know me there.

I honestly wasn’t sure. So I *69’ed the asshole and when he answered, I said, “Oh yeah?! Whatever I allegedly did is NOTHING compared to what I’m going to do to you for waking me up!”

7AM, the phone rings, but in my halfhearted state of torpor, I ignore it. While I am wearily grappling with the tornado that has become of my sheets, the first dusty traces of autumn light seeps through the blinds, emblazoning the room with stripes. I can't help but feel imprisoned, as if the light itself has become my captor, driving me from my lucid sanctuary into the real world. Sighing, I finally slip from the comforters embrace.

Per the usual, I head kitchen for a cup of mildly diluted coffee, but before I can settle at the table to get my caffeine fix, the phone rings again. Intrigued by the anomaly of getting not one- but two- phone calls at such an early hour, I rush over to the counter to retrieve it.

"Hello?

"I know you did it"

"Who-"

The line dies out. Perplexed, I flip on the static tv in the corner of my small NY apartment to a local station, and my jaw drops with a sudden realization.

It sure looks like I did it.

Because I left the bar early last night, thanks to a migraine, and in the dark, I must have taken a wrong turn, because eventually I ended up at the bar again, but now it was closed. And outside the bar was a peculiar cat, which I approached for the sake of company. But that cat ran into an alley and in pursuit of it I stumbled across a body and this was bad, very bad. And I tried to run away, though I really should have called the cops, and was spotted by a beggar man fleeing the scene of crime.

Squinting at the light now streaming through the windows, I mull over the imprisoning nature of my ill-fated luck.

The phone knows something

That I don't

What I did?

Up for discussion

What I'll tell?

Nothing

Everything you need to know

Is here

And the only other person that knows

Is the phone

The side kick 

The 'innocent' passerby

Knows what it did.

The caller

Different each time

The only thing for certain

Is the phone.

Every morning the same thing

"I know what you did!"

And every morning I hang up

I don't care what you

Know

But please

Would you

Lose my number

Because I'm tired of my phone

Knowing more than me.

It was a stranger’s voice, yet there was something familiar about the tones and cadences.

I fought back from the verge of panic. The caller had said: “I know what you did!”

Behind me Rosie stirred in her sleep. I quite liked the blonde look but was less enthusiastic about the butterfly tattoo.

I sucked in a breath of clean air and blessed the marvels of dimensional shift technology.

It happened because a madman was trying to work out how sub-atomic particles appeared to have the ability to be in two places at the same time.

Once we discovered how to step into the doppelganger Earth, production of the most polluting industries was immediately shifted into third world countries on the other side of the curtain, as were all strip mining and deforestation activities. Waste disposal was also booming.

There was a pest control problem, of course, with ‘gangers’ regularly smuggling themselves onto Earth hidden in shipments.

As head of security for Akiko Toxic Waste Industries I never once thought of taking advantage of my privileged access to this wonderful, world-changing technology.

Until, that is, Rosie’s tragic accident.

I knew I couldn’t live without her. And then I thought. Why should I?

Because, there was another Rosie across the curtain, living with another “me”.

It was a standard operation ending with me striking myself on the back of the head with a tire-iron and slipping some Diphenhydramine into Rosie’s cocoa.

As I pondered the workings of fate, I heard a knock. I opened the front door cautiously, my snub-nosed magnum cosy in the small of my back.

It was like looking into the mirror, only the battered looking me had a magnum already thrust in my face.

The other me said, “I know what you did”, and pulled the trigger.

"I know what you did!"

Suddenly, the fog of early morning fatigue was shattered. 

"Mm- what?" 

"I know what you did. You're a Senchi. You're one of them."

Clearly, this one had done his fair share of homework. 

"I've got some friends headed your way. They're not to be trifled with."

I sighed.

"Tell them to do their worst." I challenge, then hang up. 

I only have enough time to put on a pair of sweatpants before I hear a few bangs on the front door. I do my best to look tired and walk over to the door. 

"Mmm?" I open the door and greet the three large men there with a tired groan. They imprudently shoved the door open, all of them pushing in. Wisely, I distanced myself. 

"You know why we're here, punk," one said. I gave a good natured shrug.

"We'd best get started then. I have school in an hour," was all I could say.

I still was a bit tired, so I don't quite remember in vivid detail the ensuing fight. 

Punches were thrown, and all were neatly dodged. Then I started giving my opinion on their fighting style, around some punches and kicks of my own. It took longer than I would have liked, but inside three minutes, all three of them were lying prostrate on the carpet, all unconscious. I tapped a few buttons on my phone and left it. Another nearby Senchi would come over and take care of them. After all, I had a very tight schedule. I'd better get ready for school

My phone rings, waking me up. My boyfriend is pulling on a shirt beside the bed. My thumb slides across the screen and I answer "Hello?"

"I know what you did" the line goes dead. I jump to my feet and promptly fall over.

"What the hell, Robert?" Jason helps me up. I can't breathe. "Someone knows. Someone knows about me and I'm gonna go to jail and I'm gonna die and-" Jason covers my mouth with his hand. Sometimes he has to do that to get me to slow down. Rob, you aren't making sense. What was that call?"

"Someone said 'I know what you did' and just hung up" Jason takes a deep breath. "Okay. This could be bad. I think we should leave town for a while. I say I'm on emergency leave and close my shop for a month or so and we can go somewhere out of state." That makes sense I suppose. And maybe it was just a prank call. I did that when I was younger. "Where will we go?" He pauses. "Well, there's always New Orleans. You know the city well, and have contacts there that know your situation." It's a funny way to phrase that I literally kill people, so I laugh. "Yeah. I'll call Sonja and we can leave today. She'll probably be able to take us in tonight." I dial her number as Jason pulls a suitcase from the top or our closet. It's a hell of an excuse to go on a road trip.

She's right: I did it,

But I'd still call it progress.

It's my fault, I admit it,

But don't let it get you stressed.

I might have used your toothbrush once,

And I switched the names thinking "she's a dunce",

But I guess the only dunce I see, 

Is crazy, nutty, duncy me.

Okay, yeah, it's not my couch,

But even you have to agree that it looks better thrown out,

And maybe that's not all that this fuss is about,

But I know you'd rather have me than a dirty lout.

At first I didn't think it was bad,

To burn down every last thing you had,

But when you called the cops, it made me sad,

Because all I asked was that you clean up a tad.

And sitting in a cell isn't much fun,

Even though I'm not the only one,

Since when the whole thing was said and through,

Turns out I had some dirt on you, too.

But you're down the hall,

And what can I say,

Except that I don't like your yelling at me everyday.

I'm sick of the harassment,

And this cold entrapment,

But I know what I did, 

And I can't change it; no way.

I think you've gone nuts,

Because you even call,

At the crack of dawn (you've got guts),

Say "I know what you did!", and then nothing at all.

"I know what you did."

That was all the caller said before hanging up and those five words were enough to wake from the blissbliss filled sleep that I had been clinging to. It was Saturday, I should not be waking up at eight in the morning.

But the idea that someone knew what I had done or who I really was pulled me from my sleep. The idea that someone could tell Coleman that Bridget Meadows was actually Helena Townsend scared me. The idea that someone could know that I had come back from the dead or that I had knowledge of a conspiracy predating my father's death. It was a threat that I had kept out of my head for weeks, but it had come to pass.

I've been stuck on my book and I love Helena too much to not use her right now.

Fuck.

     Rolling back over, he pressed a clammy hand to his forehead, mind racing and fingers subtly shaking. His phone sat unevenly on its receiver, a faint dial tone humming in the air.

     He'd arrived home late last night, sometime around three. That was the only reason he hadn't been awake to answer the phone. By the time it roused him it had already reached the answering machine, a robotic "Leave your message after the--" having caught his semi-conscious attention. As it was, his mind had yet to comprehend the situation and he had only caught the final snippets of a relatively short conversation, ending with a smug "and I know what you did!"

     That had sufficiently horrified him into wakefulness. Seb lay back in bed shocked. He didn't need context to understand what the man meant.

Fuck.

     Three months of planning, he thought to himself. Three months and all for shit.

     He'd made sure to enter the office from a side door, hours after closing when nobody--not even those on the night shift or the stray maintenance worker--would notice him. He'd worn all black, in compliance with the hacker/spy stereotype often outlined in films. He'd wiped away fingerprints, worn soft-soled shoes, ensured Lea disabled all security cameras.

     Seb found Baker's office quickly, his stop-watch registering three minutes thirty-eight seconds. Once overriding the locking mechanism, he made it inside. Sliding over to the filing cabinet beside the desk, he'd opened it using both a pen-knife and several strategic blows on its front.

     Snatching every file in sight, Seb re-locked both the cabinet and door then sauntered out, unseen.

     Guess I was wrong about that, he murmured.

     Turning his head, he stared at the documents piled on his nightstand. He groaned.

     Just my luck that Maron, of all people, knows.