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  “Isn’t cash all right? Don’t you take cash?”

  “Oh, yes, of course we take cash. It’s just that we don’t often see it. Most people prefer credit cards.”

  She nodded, saying nothing, thinking that she was undoubtedly one of those people in her other life, and wondering how anyone could be born with eyes so impossibly blue.

  “Is something wrong?” the young man asked, the rest of his resolutely nondescript features arranging themselves into something of a question mark.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammered, “it’s just your eyes. They’re so blue!” She rolled her own eyes toward the ceiling. Whoever she was, she was an idiot! The boy would probably think she was trying to pick him up!

  “Oh, they’re not mine,” he said, and returned to his computer screen.

  “I beg your pardon?” The thought was beginning to form in her mind that she was a visitor from another planet.

  “They’re contacts,” he explained cheerily. “Two nights you said?”

  She was having great difficulty keeping up with the conversation. The familiar panic, which had temporarily subsided during the cab ride over from Beacon Hill, was returning. “Yes, no more than two nights.” And then what? Where would she go after that if she still didn’t know who she was? To the police? Why hadn’t she gone there directly?

  “I need you to fill this out.” The young man slid a piece of paper across the counter in her direction. “Your name and address, etcetera,” he said when he sensed her confusion. “Are you feeling all right?”

  She took a deep breath. “I’m very tired. Is this necessary?” She pushed the piece of paper back across the reception desk, untouched.

  It was his turn to look confused. “I’m afraid we do need a name and address.”

  Her eyes darted from the young man’s face to the revolving front door, then finally settled on the magazine she still clutched fervently in her hands. “Cindy,” she said a touch too loudly, then again more softly, more firmly in control, “Cindy.”

  “Cindy?”

  She nodded, watching him reluctantly take up a pen and write the name on the information card.

  “Is there a last name?”

  Why was he doing this to her? Hadn’t she told him she was tired? Didn’t he understand she was paying cash? Why did he have to know things that were really none of his business? She thought of the young couple and their two little boys crying for McDonald’s. No wonder the youngsters were whiny and impatient. Had he given them such as hard time as well?

  “McDonald!” she heard a voice exclaim before realizing it was her own. “Cindy McDonald!” She took another deep breath before continuing. “One twenty-three Memory Lane … New York.”

  His fingers stalled on the word Memory and she had to bite her lip to contain her budding hysteria, but in another few seconds the form had been completed and it was all over but for her signature and the cash exchange. She watched her hand scribble her new identity across the bottom of the form and was pleasantly charmed by the strength and swirls of the letters she produced. Then she reached into her pockets and pulled out a couple of crisp, new hundred-dollar bills, trying to keep her face from registering amusement at the young man’s growing discomfort.

  “Any luggage?” The wariness of his tone indicated he already knew the answer, so when she shook her head, he merely shrugged and handed over the key to her room along with her change. “Enjoy your visit with us. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, just holler.”

  She smiled. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  As soon as she was inside her room, she hurled the magazine toward the double bed and tore off her coat, throwing it to the floor. The blood that covered the front of her dress hit her square in the eyes, like a ripe tomato hurled at her face. Forming a giant, angry fist, it reached into her throat and dragged forth a low, unwilling scream. “No, oh, no. Go away. Oh, please, go away.”

  She scratched at the front of her dress like a cat caught on a high perch. In the next instant, the dress was on the floor and she was searching her skin for signs of injury.

  There were none.

  “Oh, God, what does this mean? What does this mean?”

  She spun around, as if the answer was located somewhere within these blue-and-white patterned walls. But the walls spoke only of floral prints and nothing of blood and injury. “Whose blood is this if it isn’t mine?”

  She ran to the armoire across from the bed and threw it open, catching sight of her frightened image in the mirror on the inside of the door. “Who are you, damnit? And whose blood are you covered with?”

  The woman in the glass said nothing, mimicking her as she frantically searched her body for cuts or wounds. But although there were a few stray bruises on her arms, there was nothing to suggest serious injury.

  She quickly reached behind her and undid the clasp of her flesh-toned lace brassiere, casting it aside, and staring at the small breasts that popped rather proudly into view. She wondered momentarily whether these breasts had ever fed a baby. They were nice enough breasts, she thought, in a conscious effort to calm herself down by concentrating on the everyday details of everyday existence. Would such concentration eventually lead her back to her own everyday existence?

  It didn’t. Her breasts told her nothing. Not whether they had ever nursed a child, not when they had first felt a man’s caress, not even if they had ever been admired. She scoffed, feeling a laugh catch and die in her throat, thinking that she must be losing her mind. Here she was in a hotel room in the middle of Boston, a city she knew but didn’t know what she was doing in, her pockets filled with money, her dress covered with blood, and she was standing in front of a mirror staring at her bare breasts and wondering whether they had ever been admired.

  Well, why not? she thought, grabbing at the elastic of her panty hose and pulling them off along with her beige bikini panties, staring at her now naked body. What information was she hoping to glean from her exposed flesh?

  Her body was a good one, she decided, studying herself from all angles. It was tight and muscular, almost boyish. Perhaps even athletic. Her calves were well developed, her legs strong and shapely, her stomach flat, her waist not particularly defined. More childlike than womanly, even at her age. It was a body that would definitely not make the cover of many magazines, she thought, glancing toward the discarded magazine on the bed. CINDY CRAWFORD stared back at her with a mixture of pity and indulgence. Eat your heart out, she seemed to be saying, and the woman in front of the mirror nodded defeat.

  She grabbed at the crumpled blue dress at her feet, her hands careful to avoid the blood-covered bodice. Could her dress tell her anything? The label identified it as a size eight, pure cotton, Anne Klein. It had a round neck and large white buttons to the waist, a simple A-line skirt, and was probably as overpriced as it was understated. Whoever she was, she obviously had enough money to buy the best.

  “The money!” She vaulted to where her coat lay discarded on the floor, pulling the cash from the coat’s deep pockets, thinking only briefly of how ludicrous a sight she must appear. The stream of hundred-dollar bills seemed inexhaustible. How much money did she have? Where had it come from? “What am I doing with all this money?” she demanded, trying to arrange it neatly on the bed.

  She was surprised to discover that most of the money was contained in thin, neat little stacks, as if straight from a bank. But why and how? Could it be possible that she was, in fact, a bank robber? That she had taken part in a robbery, pocketed the money, and then been splattered by somebody’s blood when something went hopelessly awry? Could she possibly have shot someone?

  She was seized with a terror so strong her whole body shook. Because it felt possible. The unwelcome thought that she might have been able to kill someone felt possible. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she moaned, curling into a fetal position on the blue-carpeted floor. Had she shot some poor innocent in the course of an ill-executed robbery? And had she acted
alone or with an accomplice? Was she some latter-day Bonnie, missing her Clyde?

  She heard herself laughing and the laughter brought her back to a sitting position. While it seemed altogether possible that she might have killed someone, the notion that she could have taken part in a bank heist struck her as just plain silly. Unless, of course, she was desperate. But what would make a well-dressed woman in her early to mid-thirties desperate enough to kill?

  Even without her memory, she knew the answer to that one. A man could make you that desperate. What man? she asked herself, no longer expecting any answers.

  She ran a shaky hand through her hair, grown sticky with nervous perspiration. She hoisted her upper torso back over the bed, the tips of her breasts grazing the nine neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills that she had shaped into a doll-sized bedspread.

  She grabbed at the first packet of bills, snapped off the paper clip that bound the bills together, and proceeded to count each one. After several false starts, she determined that there were ten hundred-dollar bills in each packet. Nine packets of ten hundred-dollar bills came to nine thousand dollars. That and the money she had already spent on the hotel and cab fare plus a few loose hundred-dollar bills and some change brought the total to just over nine thousand six hundred dollars. What had she been doing with almost ten thousand dollars stuffed inside the pockets of her coat?

  She felt chilled and saw that her arms were covered with fresh goose bumps. Forcing herself to her feet, she edged her naked body around the bed and retrieved her coat from the floor, noting the presence of dried blood on the inside lining as she wrapped it around her and stuffed her hands inside her pockets. She quickly pulled out some money she had missed and tossed the loose bills onto the bed beside the rest.

  Something was clinging to one of the bills. It was a scrap of paper, she realized, uncrumpling it and smoothing it out, grateful to discover that she didn’t need glasses to read. She recognized the bold, sweeping strokes as coming from the same hand that had earlier signed the name Cindy McDonald to the hotel registration form, so she knew that she had written the series of seemingly inconsequential words she now read. But when? Scraps of paper had a way of lying dormant for weeks, even months, in forgotten coat pockets. There was no telling when she had written this. Pat Rutherford, R.31, 12:30, the note read, followed by milk, eggs. What did it mean?

  Well, obviously that she had needed some milk and eggs—she was on her way to buy them when her memory failed, but how long ago had she left?—and that she must have had an appointment with someone named Pat Rutherford. Who the hell was Pat Rutherford?

  She repeated the name several times with growing frustration. Was Pat Rutherford a man or a woman? Maybe she was Pat Rutherford. But why would she write her own name and room number on a piece of paper and put it in her pocket? Unless losing her memory was something she did on a regular basis, and experience had taught her to keep a record of who she was with her at all times. Sure, and make appointments when she wanted to see herself. Enough of this nonsense!

  Had she kept her appointment? Had she gone to see Pat Rutherford at the agreed-upon time, collected just under ten thousand dollars, and then killed the unfortunate soul? Was it Pat Rutherford’s blood that covered the front of her dress? Had she been blackmailing Pat Rutherford? Had Pat Rutherford been blackmailing her? Had she completely lost her marbles? Where were these ideas coming from?

  “Pat Rutherford, who are you?”

  She located a Boston phone book in a night table drawer, and fumbled for the R’s: Raxlen, Rebick, Rossiter, Rule, Rumble, pages of Russells, Russo, Rutchinski, finally Rutherford, half a page of Rutherfords in the Boston area alone, forget about the suburbs. There was a Paul and two Peters but no Pats, although there were three unexplained P’s. She debated telephoning each one, then immediately dismissed the idea. Just what would she say to Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms. P. Rutherford? Hi, you probably don’t know me, and God knows I don’t know me, but did we have a meeting anytime lately in room thirty-one somewhere at twelve-thirty? And, by any chance, did I injure you severely?

  So much for that idea.

  She discarded the phone book, her eyes darting around the decidedly old-fashioned room, afraid to linger longer than a few seconds at any one place. “So, what am I supposed to do now?” she asked, staring up at the high ceilings, feeling exhausted and hungry. “Do I go to the police or do I try to figure this thing out for myself? Do I head straight for the nearest loony bin or to the nearest bathtub? Should I do anything now or wait till morning? What should I do?” She paused, absently fingering the large menu that room service provided. “When in doubt,” she heard herself answer, “eat.”

  Just where this philosophy had originated she wasn’t sure, but it seemed as good a solution as any, so she picked up the phone, dialed room service, and ordered a steak and a caesar salad. She needed only a moment’s pause to answer medium rare, sour cream for her baked potato, and mineral water instead of red wine. She eliminated the possibility that she might be a vegetarian, and prayed that she had no weird food allergies. She was too hungry for any such unnecessary complications.

  Twenty minutes, room service told her. Twenty minutes to get cleaned up before dinner. She made her way to the large white-tiled bathroom, discarding her coat on a high-backed wooden chair outside the bathroom door.

  How nice it would be to simply disappear, she thought as the water from the shower streamed across her cheeks like tears. My mind is gone: take my body too. Whatever I’ve done, whoever I am, perhaps it’s better that I don’t know. Maybe I’m better off. Maybe whatever it is I’m running away from is worth staying away from.

  Surely, she would be missed. Surely, someone somewhere was looking for her, not knowing where to look any more than she did. Her parents or her husband, if she had one; her boss or someone in her employ; her teacher or her students; her friends or her foes; maybe even the police! Surely, someone somewhere was looking for her! Why didn’t she just turn herself over to the police and find out?

  Because everything will have straightened itself out by morning, she told herself, emerging from the shower and hearing a knock at the door. She wrapped herself in a towel, then covered the towel with her coat and walked to the door. She knew who it was but asked anyway, her voice hoarse, barely audible.

  “Room service,” came the expected reply.

  “Just a minute.” The voice was firmer now, more in control.

  Her eyes caught sight of the quilt of money lying at the foot of her bed just as her hand reached for the door. She froze. For an instant, her mind played with the idea of leaving everything just the way it was, allowing the unsuspecting waiter to come inside and deposit her dinner on the table across from her bed, to test his reaction to the sight of all that money spread so nonchalantly in front of him. Would he pretend that the money didn’t exist, or that it was the most normal thing in the world to check into a hotel room and spread almost ten thousand dollars across the foot of one’s bed? Didn’t everyone?

  There was a second knock. How long had she been standing here? She checked her wrist, recalling vaguely that she had taken off her watch along with her dress, remembering that the dress was still in a bloody heap on the floor. “Just a second,” she called out, scooping up the dress and tossing it inside the armoire, snapping her watch back on her wrist as she pulled the towel out from underneath her coat and threw it across the neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills, at the last minute grabbing at one of the loose bills and squeezing it into her fist.

  She reached the door visibly out of breath, as if she had just completed a marathon run. It required almost super-human effort to pull the door open, to back away, and let the elderly gentleman inside. Her eyes darted between the waiter and the bed, but if he noticed her nervousness or wondered at the fact that she was wearing her coat despite the fact that she was obviously dripping wet, he said nothing, his eyes directed resolutely at the cart he was pushing.

  “Where would you like this?” he as
ked, his voice pleasantly nondescript.

  “Here is fine.” She indicated the desk by the window, amazed at how easily the words came.

  He deposited the dinner tray on her desk, and she quickly thrust the crumpled hundred-dollar bill into his hand and told him to keep the change. He seemed to hesitate, then glanced with disapproval at the bed.

  Her heart fell to her knees and she had to clutch the side of the desk to keep from falling forward. Had he noticed the money? Had it beckoned to him from beneath its damp confines like the telltale heart in the story by Edgar Allan Poe?

  “I’ll send someone to turn down the bed,” he said.

  Her own voice was sudden, shrill. “No!” she cried out, startling them both. She cleared her throat, heard herself laugh, mutter something about having work to do, not wanting to be disturbed. He nodded, pocketing the money in his hand, then made a hasty retreat.

  She waited until she was sure he had gone before reopening the door and throwing the DO NOT DISTURB sign across its handle. Then she walked to the desk, removed the silver lid from her dinner, and sat down to eat. After only a few bites, however, she felt her earlier exhaustion return, and she stumbled toward the bed, drunk with fatigue. Not bothering to push the money aside or to remove her coat, she tugged at the bedspread and crawled underneath the heavy blue blanket. Her final thought before giving in to sleep was that when she awoke, everything would make sense again, everything would be all right.

  But when she opened her eyes at six o’clock the next morning, nothing had changed. She still had no idea who she was.

  THREE

  THE first hour was the hardest. Opening her eyes to the knowledge that the supposedly restorative powers of sleep had done nothing to restore her memory sent her reeling into the bathroom to throw up whatever of last night’s dinner she had managed to get down. When breakfast arrived—the fresh orange juice, croissants, and coffee she had ordered when her hunger returned—she noticed it came with a complimentary morning newspaper. Her eyes moved restlessly between the newspaper and the television set, afraid to land on either.