David Jackson - The Helper

And then she’s gone to tend to Amy.

Slowly, Doyle raises his eyes and looks straight into the webcam.

‘Gonzo? Are you out there, man?’

He expects no response. Expects just to feel stupid for talking to an inanimate object and waiting for it to talk back.

But a response is what he gets.

The screen darkens. The photographs Rachel was working on disappear.

When the monitor brightens again, it shows Doyle a view into an empty room. A study, with lots of bookshelves. Doyle doesn’t recognize it.

He wonders whose room this is. Wonders, too, how many other supposedly private places in the world are being observed right now. If Gonzo could do it, then so can others.

Movement on the screen. A figure enters the room, walks across it and sits in front of the computer.

No, thinks Doyle. It can’t be.

It’s one face he thought he would never see again. A face that is being shown to him in order to taunt him, to make him realize that he doesn’t always get things right. To make him feel humble.

And he does. Humble and sad and guilt-ridden.

Because the person staring back at him, now somewhat older than in the photographs he has seen, is Patricia Sachs, long-lost daughter of Olivia Sachs.