“You’re sure it was her?”

Brehl didn’t hesitate. “Oh yeah. I mean, I might normally have forgotten, but she struck up a conversation with me. And she’s a nice-looking lady, the kind you remember.”

“What did she talk about?”

“I’m trying to remember how she put it. She said she’d never been up this way before, first of all, at least not that she could remember. I asked her where she was going, and she said she didn’t exactly know.”

“She didn’t know?”

“She said her husband wanted to take her for a drive in the country, up into the woods. She said maybe it was some sort of surprise or something, because he’d told her not to tell anyone they were going.”

Duckworth thought about that.

“What else did she say?”

“That was about it, I guess.”

“How was her mood?”

“Mood?”

“Was she happy? Depressed? Troubled?”

“She seemed just fine, you know?”

“Sure,” Duckworth said. “Listen, thanks for calling. I might be in touch again.”

“Okay. Just wanted to help.”

Duckworth hung up the phone, then looked down at his cereal. “You got some sugar or whipped cream I can put on this?” he asked.

Maureen sat down opposite him and said, “It’s been two days.” Barry knew instantly she was talking about their son, Trevor. He reached out and held her hand.

TWENTY

I woke early on the Richlers’ couch, but that was okay because they were early risers themselves. I heard Horace Richler banging around the kitchen shortly after six. From my vantage point, I could see him standing at the sink in slippers and robe. He ran some water into a glass and popped a couple of pills into his mouth, then turned and shuffled back toward the stairs.

Once he was gone, I threw off the crocheted blanket that Gretchen had told me she’d made herself. It was so huge I marveled that anyone under two hundred years of age could have stitched it. Even though I’d packed a small bag, I’d opted to sleep in my clothes, taking off only my jacket and shoes before I’d put my head down on an honest-to-God bed pillow, not a crocheted one, that Gretchen had provided.

“I’m sorry about not having anything better than the couch,” she’d said. “You see, no one sleeps in our son’s room. We’ve left it just the way it was. And the guest bedroom has kind of turned into storage, you know? We don’t get a lot of company.” She’d thought a moment. “I don’t think we’ve ever had any overnight guests, to tell you the truth. You might be our first, ever.”

I could have used a shower, but I didn’t want to push it. I grabbed my travel kit and went into the first-floor bathroom at the back of the house and shaved, brushed my teeth, and wet my hair enough to get the bumps flattened. When I came back out, I smelled coffee.

Gretchen was dressed and in the kitchen. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Pretty good,” I said. Even though I’d gone to bed troubled and on overload, my body had been exhausted and I’d conked out right away. “How about you?”

She smiled, like she didn’t want what she had to say to hurt my feelings. “Not so great. Your news, it was disturbing. And it brought back a lot of bad memories for us. Especially for Horace. I mean, we both took the loss of Jan hard, but when you consider how it happened, he…”

“I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry. I had no way of knowing.”

“Something like this, it touches so many people. Us, our relatives, the school Jan went to. Her kindergarten teacher, Miss Stephens, had to take a leave for a week, she was so upset. All the kids in her class were devastated. The little girl who pushed her… If it happened today, they’d have probably put her in therapy. Maybe her parents did, who knows. Mr. Andrews, the school principal, he got them to put up a little plaque at the school in Jan’s memory. But I could never go look at it, and Horace, he couldn’t bear to see it. He didn’t want the fuss, except he wished they’d have put him in jail or something, like he said. So a lot of people, they were affected by this.”

“And then me,” I said.

“And then you. Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Except with you,” Gretchen said, “it’s different.”

She filled a mug with coffee from a glass carafe while I waited for her to continue.

“You didn’t know our Jan. Not ever. You don’t know any of us. And yet, here you are, sitting here, connected to us somehow.”

I poured some cream into the coffee, watched the liquids interact without stirring, and nodded. “And I don’t know exactly how,” I said.

Gretchen put both hands flat on the countertop, a gesture that seemed to foretell an important announcement, or at the very least, a direct comment. “Mr. Harwood, what do you really think has happened to your wife?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’m worried that she may have harmed herself.”

Gretchen took half a second to understand what I was getting at. “But if she hasn’t, and you find her alive…” Gretchen was struggling with something here.

“Yes?”

“Let’s say you find her, and she’s okay, is it going to be the same?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Your wife can’t be Jan Richler. Isn’t that clear to you?”

I looked away.

“If she’s not the woman you’ve always believed she was, how are things going to be the same?”

“Perhaps,” I said slowly, “there’s just been some kind of a mix-up. Maybe there’s an explanation for this that’s not immediately obvious.”

Gretchen kept her eyes on me. “What kind of explanation?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would anyone take on someone else’s identity? Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why, of all the people whose identity someone could take, why take my daughter’s?”

I couldn’t say it again.

“Horace was right, last night, when he asked how someone could do that to our girl. How could someone use her like that? All she is to us now is a name, and a memory. And all these years later, someone tries to steal that from us?”

“I’m sure Jan-” My wife’s name caught in my throat. “I’m sure there’s an explanation. If, for some reason, my wife had to take a name that was not her own, I’m sure she would never have intended any harm to you or your husband or the memory of your daughter.”

What the hell was I talking about? What possible scenario was I trying to envision?

“Suppose,” I said, thinking out loud, and very slowly, “she had to change her identity for some reason. And the name she had to take, that she was given, say, happened to be your daughter’s.”

Gretchen eyed me skeptically. I looked down at my untouched coffee.

“Horace couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “It was more than just being upset. He was angry. Angry that someone would do such a thing. Angry at your wife. Even without knowing her.”

“I just hope,” I said, “that there’ll be a chance for you to tell her face-to-face what you think.”

Before I left, just in case Jan somehow turned up here, I wrote down my home and cell numbers and address, as well as my parents’ number and address.

“Please get in touch,” I said.

Gretchen placated me with a smile, like she knew she wasn’t going to have any news for me.

My cell rang on the way home. It was Mom.

“What’s happening?” she asked. “We’ve been worried sick, wondering why you haven’t called.”

“I’ll be home in a few hours,” I said.

“Did you find her?”

“No.”

“What about the Richlers? Did you find them?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did Jan go see them? Have they heard from her?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t want to get into it. I was almost afraid to ask how Ethan was, given his rambunctious nature, but did anyway.

“He’s fine. We thought a truck hit the house this morning, but it was just him jumping on the stairs. Your father’s got him in the basement now to-”