She turned down the alley that was a shortcut to her tiny attic apartment above Corrie’s house. The tall buildings on either side blocked out the sun, leaving the alley in shade. In the narrowed space, the sound of her shoes hitting the pavement was magnified, distorted into echoes. Then she heard the sound of heavier footsteps behind her.

  A quick glance over her shoulder showed a man silhouetted in the entrance to the alley, his face hidden in shadow.

  Anxiety seized her in a viselike grip, tightening her diaphragm and making it hard to breathe. The alley was isolated. No one would hear her if she called for help.

  Rachel picked up her pace. The rhythm of footsteps increased in tempo. The man was close behind her now.

  She’d never make it up the steps to her apartment in time. So she bypassed the stairs and went straight for the highway at the end of the alley and the safety of being around other people. It was a busy street, with tourists driving through town at highway speeds. She was more likely to find other people there.

  Rachel burst out of the alley almost at a run. She looked over her shoulder again, still moving forward. Then she stumbled, almost falling into the street before getting her balance again.

  “Watch out.” A hand gripped her shoulder, pulling her back from the curb. A car flashed past, missing her by inches. She heard the strange man’s deep voice, close to her ear. “Some people drive through here like they’re still on the freeway.”

  Rachel twisted around to face him. Her heart was still racing, but she felt better now that she was out of the narrow confines of the alley. All the same, she took a few paces back, putting some sidewalk between herself and the stranger. He held his hands up. “Sorry if I startled you.”

  “If you don’t want to startle me, I suggest you stop stalking me.”

  “I wasn’t stalking you.”

  Rachel crossed her arms.

  “I just wanted to talk to you without your friends interrupting.”

  “What is so important that you have to follow me around town like this?”

  “I just want to know why. I need to understand. Then I’ll leave you alone, if that’s really what you want from me.”

  The man’s expression gave nothing away, but Rachel detected a hint of emotion with that last sentence. He almost sounded...sad? That couldn’t be right. All the same, she was curious. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why you left.”

  Rachel shook her head. “You’re not making any sense.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of bright color. She turned her head.

  A child darted across the road, pink jacket and flying blond hair. She was halfway across before a car horn blared. A red convertible was coming down the road fast. The child froze, hands going to her mouth in horror.

  The stranger moved fast, tackling the child and rolling with her to the curb as the driver slammed on his brakes in a shriek of metal.

  The car passed them, skidding to the side of the road. Then there was stillness.

  The stranger sat up, brushing dirt off the little girl. “Are you all right?”

  The girl lay there, looking up at him. She wrinkled her forehead, as if not sure whether to cry or not. Rachel knelt down beside him, her focus on the child. She touched her head with gentle fingers. “Lie still a moment. I’m sorry. I know it’s cold on the ground.” She patted her pockets and turned to the stranger. “Do you have a phone? I need a flashlight.”

  Without a word, the stranger flicked on the flashlight on his phone and handed it to her. Rachel directed the light into the child’s eyes, first one, then the other.

  The driver came up, red-faced and worried, trying to cover his embarrassment with bluster. “I never came near her.”

  “No thanks to your driving.” Rachel’s gaze never wavered from the child’s face, checking her reactions, but her voice was sharp and decisive as she addressed the man. “You need to slow down and watch for pedestrians.”

  The stranger asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Checking the pupil response,” she said absently. “No sign of concussion.”

  The driver said hopefully, “Are you a doctor, ma’am?”

  Rachel stared down at her hands as if she’d never seen them before. “I... Well, I just knew what to do.”

  The child’s mother came running up, wide-eyed and flushed, babbling out thanks and recriminations and admonishments all together. She wrapped her arms around the little girl. She kissed the child over and over and smoothed down her tousled hair.

  “I think she’s going to be all right,” Rachel told her. “The pupils are fine. But she did hit her head, so you need to get her checked out. I don’t see any sign of concussion, but your own doctor will want to verify that.”

  The woman wrapped her arms around her child, holding her close. “I’m just so thankful a doctor was here to help my little girl.”

  Rachel looked at her and blinked, as if coming to herself. She handed the phone back to the stranger. “No. No, I’m not a doctor.”

  The woman frowned in puzzlement. “Then why did you say your own doctor if you’re not one?”

  “I don’t know why I said that.” Rachel got up, hurriedly brushing dirt off her legs. “You need to take her to someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  The woman started to thank Rachel again, but the stranger held up his hand. “If she’s fine, we need to be on our way.” He took Rachel by the elbow and guided her away. Behind them, the woman went back to berating the driver, who was still trying to excuse himself.

  Rachel pulled her arm away from the stranger. “What are you doing?”

  “We need to talk.” He gestured up the road. “Somewhere quieter.” His loose trench coat shifted, showing a holster beneath. “Please, Nora.”

  “My name is Rachel, and I have no idea what you’re—is that a gun?” Raw fear tightened her voice to a squeak.

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Standard equipment for a US marshal.”

  Rachel blinked. “You are a marshal?”

  The man stared at her. “You really don’t know who I am.”

  “No.”

  Rachel had the strangest feeling that by saying this one word she had hurt him. If so, he recovered quickly, extending a hand toward the walkway. “Please. Can we find someplace a little quieter? I’m sorry if I frightened you earlier. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Oddly enough, Rachel discovered that she wasn’t upset any longer. As she fell into step with him, strolling down the street, she tried to analyze her feelings. The more she talked with the man, the more she found herself relaxing, the tension in her muscles ebbing away. It was as if something in the back of her mind were whispering that she was safe around him, that he would protect her.

  Then the man’s attention got distracted. He looked across the street and frowned. “Your guard dogs are coming. Why do they always follow you around? I don’t understand what’s going on in this town, not yet. Be careful, Nora. Something is wrong here.”

  Before Rachel could reply, Tony ran up, with a wide-eyed Corrie panting behind him. “Hey, what’s going on?” He had his gun out.

  Corrie reached past Tony and pulled Rachel away from the stranger. “I saw that man grab you.” For a mild-mannered lady, she was giving the man an amazingly fierce glare.

  The stranger belted his trench coat. “I just wanted to talk to the lady. No harm in talking. She looked like someone I used to know.”

  Surely if the man were a US marshal, wouldn’t he identify himself to Tony? Had Rachel misunderstood him? If she were imagining things, the last thing she wanted to do was admit it. She said, “It was a misunderstanding.”

  “Yes,” the stranger said. “Just a misunderstanding.” He turned to Rachel. “I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable.” Polite, as if meeting her at a church social.

  Rachel’s cheeks heated. What a fool she must look right now. “Thank you.”

  Tony let his breath out in a frustrated huff of air and told the stranger, “She’s not interested in talking to you.”

  The stranger’s eyes flickered from Corrie to Tony. Rachel thought for a moment he was going to reply, but he merely nodded and turned away. Then he stopped, extending his hand toward Rachel. “Here. You dropped your cell phone while you were checking on the child.”

  As he handed her the phone, his fingertips brushed across her palm. The touch seemed to alert every nerve ending in her body. An extraordinary feeling, as if he had woken something inside her that she hadn’t even known was there.

  The stranger himself appeared unaffected. He turned away and walked down the street with long unhurried strides.

  Tony looked her up and down. “You doing okay now, Rach?”

  “Yes.” She summoned up a shaky smile. “No problem.” She wasn’t sure if that were true, but there was no point in making Tony more protective.

  Corrie frowned, a deep V appearing between her eyebrows. It made her look sharp and shrewish, not at all her usual apologetic manner. “Tony, I thought you were going to escort her home.”

  Before Tony could respond, Rachel put in, “I wanted to walk by myself for once.”

  “Now, you know how we worry about you, Rachel.”

  Tony put his gun away, but his hand twitched toward it occasionally. “If that man bothers you again, Rach, you let me know.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said wearily. She appreciated that this was their way of showing they cared about her, but sometimes their protective nature felt like a burden too heavy to bear. It seemed easier to give in. “Right now, I just want to go home.”

  Corrie put her arm around Rachel. “Come to my place. I’ll make you some chamomile tea. You know that always helps you to calm down.”

  Rachel allowed herself to be led away. The whole incident had taken only a minute or two. She could still feel the sensation of the stranger’s fingertips brushing against her palm.

  And she could not shake the memory of the look in his eyes when he realized she did not know him from Adam.

  * * *

  Michael Sullivan strode down the sidewalk, scanning the quiet town on every side. There weren’t many tourists this time of year, though a few retirees pottered up and down, looking in the old-fashioned shops and Victorian houses. The whole place looked more like Mayberry than anything in real life. Innocent. Safe.

  Deceptive.

  He kept his hands in his pockets so no one could see them clenched into fists. He wanted to hit something. This might look like a typical small town, but something was very wrong here.

  Nora had stood there so meekly, her hands clasped in front of her and her shoulders hunched. Her features had been altered subtly—a straighter nose, a slightly higher forehead. But it was more than the surgical alterations; almost everything about her had changed. With her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail and wearing a drab sweater and baggy jeans, she was a far cry from the stylish, confident woman he had last seen. He would have thought her a different woman altogether—except for one thing.

  Michael had looked deep into Nora’s eyes. He could never mistake those. They were a warm brown flecked with gold. Beautiful.

  And they held not a shred of recognition in them.

  He hadn’t expected that. He had come prepared for a confrontation, an argument, an explanation. Michael needed to know why she had left, why she covered her tracks so completely and came to this tiny town. Why she had not left him even a note. But he had looked into her eyes and she had not known him. That threw him.

  He didn’t know what was going on here, and the uncertainty made him angry.

  Once he got to his SUV, he climbed inside and slammed the door. He took a deep breath, centering himself.

  Then he called his friend. Michael had met Greg Parker during his stint in the army. Once out of the military, Parker had settled in Portland, a few hours’ drive from this small town Michael found himself in.

  “Parker? What would make a woman lose her memory?” he asked without preamble.

  “Hello to you, too, Sullivan,” Parker replied. “I always had the impression women found you unforgettable. If you’re losing your touch, you need a matchmaker, not a psychiatrist.”

  “Very amusing.” Michael gripped his cell phone as though it would help him hold on to his patience, never his strong point. “I found Nora.”

  “Oh.” The levity dropped from his friend’s voice. “Is she all right?”

  “No. I can say that with one hundred percent certainty. She doesn’t have a clue who I am.”

  “Seriously? She’s not pretending for some reason?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well...you had said you two argued before you went on that last mission.”

  “We had an argument. But Nora would never pretend not to know me. Something is wrong. She’s cut her hair, she calls herself Rachel, works as a waitress and she’s even had plastic surgery. But before you ask, yes. It’s Nora.” He plunged into details, describing the situation.

  His friend listened in silence.

  Once Michael had finished, Parker said, “I’m not going to give a diagnosis of a patient I haven’t seen. But I think you might want to consider the possibility—just a possibility, mind you—that this is a case of dissociative fugue.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a rare condition, but there have been cases of people who vanish from their homes and appear hundreds or thousands of miles away. They often show up with a new name and a new profession and no recollection of their former life.”

  “That sounds a lot like people faking amnesia,” Michael said. “Nora wouldn’t have done that. She loved her work.” She loved him. Or so he had thought.

  Parker said, “It’s not something they do consciously. It’s usually caused by some kind of trauma. Agatha Christie is supposed to have gone through this. She disappeared for several days and was found living under a different name. She didn’t even recognize her husband when she met him. When she recovered, she had no memory of the intervening time.”

  “Still sounds like something fake.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. It’s not as easy as it sounds to fake something like that, not consistently over a long period of time. According to her authorized biographer, Christie was still going to therapists twenty years later, trying to reconstruct her memories of the time she was missing. You’d think if she were faking it, she’d have come up with a better story.”

  Michael said doubtfully, “So you think that she is going to now come back to remembering her old life?” Remembering me?

  “It’s possible. I’m not about to commit myself without having seen the woman. Can you bring her up to Portland?”

  “I can try. Parker, there’s something about this situation that doesn’t make any sense. I believed Nora when she said that she doesn’t remember me. But if she’s lost her identity, how did she acquire a new name? She’s holding down a job, so she had to have help getting a social security card and a driver’s license or some other kind of ID. And she’s always surrounded by people.” Catching her alone on the street had been a rare occurrence. “They don’t like it when she talks to anyone outside her little circle. They might be honestly trying to protect her...but what if they’re trying to keep her from recovering her memories? I’ve got to find a way to talk to her alone. If she’s really suffering from amnesia, maybe I can help bring back her memories.”

  Parker said somberly, “I should warn you. Treating someone with this condition, if they have not regained their memories on their own, is often futile.”

  “If the real Nora is still there, deep down she’ll want my help.”

  “Are you sure?” Parker said the words softly, but they sliced Michael with the precision of a scalpel. “People who suffer from this condition adopt a whole new identity. One theory is that it’s so difficult to help them because these people have run away from themselves and don’t want to come back. I do not think that anyone can help her if she does not want to be helped.”

  “I have to do something. I have to try.”

  Parker was silent a moment. Then he said, “Give me the name of her therapist. I’ll ask around, see what I can find out.”

  “It’s a Dr. Martha Green. I followed Nora to her place this afternoon.”

  “I’ll let you know what I learn. And be careful. Don’t fly off the handle.”

  But as Michael ended the call, he knew he was running out of time. This whole setup made no sense. What was Nora doing here? How had she ended up in a small town with no memory of him? It all made him uneasy.

  Michael checked his phone to determine Nora’s location. While she’d tended to the child who’d fallen, he’d taken the opportunity to slip her phone into his pocket and set it up to send out a signal. The blip of light showed that Nora was at her apartment. That middle-aged woman with the wild hair was always at Nora’s side when she went out about the town.

  Michael had to find a way to talk to Nora, tell her of her old life. He had to help her bring back her memories, and soon. Knowledge was the only thing that would protect her from whatever was going on in this town.

  Copyright © 2020 by Mary E.B. Carson

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