"I'm telling you, I didn't do it," I repeated for the upteenth time. "I was at home last night. I went to bed early."

The detective didn't seem all that convinced. And truth be told, by this point even I was having a hard time believing me. It made no sense. I didn't own a gun. I had never been to that part of town. But there I was, on what was quite possibly the clearest looking security camera footage ever captured in criminal history, just my luck.

I was going to jail. The sudden, unavoidable certainty of the fact hit me like an anvil. They had proof. I had a story I didn't know how to back up, one that even I was calling into question. My life was over.

And then the door opened.

He was tall, and wiry, wearing a very slim, tailor made grey suit and a checkerboard tie. His hair was a scraggly mess of short, dark locks, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of small, circle-lensed sunglasses. In one hand, he held a briefcase, in the other, a cup of coffee.

"Excuse me, officer," somehow, he managed to extend the swagger of his step into his voice. "But you seem to be questioning my client without his attorney present. Now we can have a back and forth where you're angry about someone you've obviously decided already is guilty having rights and I'm simply doing my job, or we can skip to the part where you give me five minutes with my client."

"And just who the hell are you?" the detective asked.

"Duncan Al," the man introduced, adjusting his sunglasses. "I'm Mr. Free's lawyer. Five minutes, officer?"

The detective looked annoyed, and made no effort to disguise it, but she got up, and left the room. The lawyer from nowhere, Duncan, watched the door shut behind the detective with a smile on his face, sipped his coffee, and then casually sat down in front of me.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you people not to say anything before you get a lawyer?" he asked me, tossing his briefcase onto the table.

"I..." I began, trying to formulate words amidst my confusion.

"Right to remain silent, right to an attorney. It's in the goddamn speech," he went on, ignoring me. He flicked open his briefcase, and began flicking through papers inside.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He stopped, looking at me with a slightly confused face. "I just told you. I'm your lawyer."

"You probably have a few questions," he mused, going back to rifling through papers. "Most people do. So no, I am not the public defender, no, this won't cost you anything, yes, I can get you out of this, and no, there's no catch."

"I... what?" I asked, hoping for an explanation that made more sense this time.

He sighed. "Mr. Free, there are things in this world most people don't understand. In fact, there are things in this world most people don't believe exist. But they do, and because the law doesn't exactly account for the supernatural, encounters of the kind you've recently experienced tend to get innocent people in big trouble. That's where I come in. I help people like you get out of trouble you can't explain."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, still lost. "What can't I explain?"

"Today on the morning news, your entire community watched you rob a convenience store at gunpoint and then escape in dust colored SUV," he said. "Meanwhile, you, the law abiding citizen, don't remember doing any of that. But you did. Your body did, at any rate. You however, had no conscious involvement in it."

"How is that possible?" I asked. "Was I sleep walking?"

"In matter of speaking," he replied, producing three pictures from his briefcase. Mugshots, to be specific. "Tell me, have you had any contact with any of these three men?"

"No, why?" I asked. "Who are they?"

"One of them is the ghost who possessed your body last night," my lawyer said. "They're the ones who really robbed that store."