But that, of course, did not happen.

Not exactly anyway.

When Edna Rogers and I arrived at the casket, I made myself look down. And when I did, the floor beneath me fell away. I started plummeting.

"They did a nice job, don't you think?" Mrs. Rogers whispered.

She gripped my arm and started to cry. But that was somewhere else, somewhere far away. I was not with her. I was looking down. And that was when the truth dawned on me.

Sheila Rogers was indeed dead. No doubt about that.

But the woman I loved, the woman I'd lived with and held and wanted to marry, was not Sheila Rogers.

49

I did not black out, but I came close.

The room did indeed spin. My vision did one of those in-and-out, closer-and-farther things. I stumbled toward, almost landing in the casket with Sheila Rogers a woman I had never seen before but knew too intimately. A hand shot out and gripped my forearm. Squares. I looked at him. His face was set. His color gone. Our eyes met and he gave me the slightest of nods.

It hadn't been my imagination or a mirage. Squares had seen it too.

We stayed for the funeral. What else really could we do? I sat there, unable to take my eyes off the stranger's corpse, unable to speak. I was overcome, my body quaking, but nobody paid any attention. I was, after all, at a funeral.

After the casket was lowered into the ground, Edna Rogers wanted us to come back to the house. We begged off, blaming the airlines for the tight flight schedule. We slipped into the rental car. Squares started it up. We waited until we were out of sight. Then Squares pulled over and let me lose it.

"Let me see if we're on the same page here," Squares said.

I nodded, quasi-composed now. Again I had to block, this time muffling the possible euphoria. I did not keep my eye on the prize or the big picture or any of that. I concentrated on the details, on the minutiae. I focused on one tree because there was no way I could handle seeing the whole forest.

"All that stuff we learned about Sheila," he said, "her running away, her years on the streets, her selling drugs, her rooming with your old girlfriend, her fingerprints at your brother's place all that "

"Applied to that stranger we just buried," I finished for him.

"So our Sheila, I mean, the lady we both thought of as Sheila "

"Did none of those things. And she was none of those things."

Squares considered that. "Styling," he said.

I managed a smile. "Most definitely."

On the airplane, Squares said, "If our Sheila is not dead, then she's alive."

I looked at him.

"Hey," he said, "people pay big bucks to soak in this kind of wisdom."

"And to think I get it for free."

"So what do we do now?"

I crossed my arms. "Donna White."

"The pseudonym she bought from the Goldbergs?"

"Right. Your people only ran an airline check?"

He nodded. "We were trying to figure out how she got out west."

"Can you get the agency to widen their search now?"

"Sure, I guess."

The flight attendant gave us our "snack." My brain kept whirring. This flight was doing me a ton of good. It gave me time to think. Unfortunately, it was also giving me time to shift realities, to see the repercussions. I fought that off. I didn't want hope clouding my thinking. Not yet. Not when I still knew so little. But still.

"It explains a lot," I said.

"Like?"

"Her secrecy. Her not wanting her picture taken. Her having so few possessions. Her not wanting to talk about her past."

Squares nodded.

"One time, Sheila" I stopped because that was probably not her name "she slipped and mentioned growing up on a farm. But the real Sheila Rogers's father worked for a company that made garage-door openers. She was also terrified at the very idea of calling her parents because, put simply, they weren't her parents. I took it all to mean a terribly abusive past."

"But it could just have easily have been someone in hiding."

"Right."

"So the real Sheila Rogers," Squares went on, his eyes looking up, "I mean, the one we just buried back there, she dated your brother?"

"So it seems."

"And her fingerprints were at the murder scene."

"Right."

"And your Sheila?"

I shrugged.

"Okay," Squares said, "So we assume the woman with Ken in New Mexico, the one the neighbors saw, that was the dead Sheila Rogers?"

"Yes."

"And they had a little girl with them," he went on.

Silence.

Squares looked at me. "Are you thinking the same thing I am?"

I nodded. "That the little girl was Carly. And that Ken might very well be her father."

"Yeah."

I sat back and closed my eyes. Squares opened his snack, checked the contents, cursed them.

"Will?"

"Yeah."

"The woman you loved. Any idea who she is?"

With my eyes still closed, I said, "None."

50

Squares went home. He promised to call me the moment they got anything on the Donna White pseudonym. I headed home, bleeding exhaustion. When I reached my apartment door, I put the key in the lock. A hand touched down on my shoulder. I jumped back, startled.

"It's okay," she said.

Katy Miller.

Her voice was hoarse. She wore a neck brace. Her face was swollen. Her eyes were bloodshot. Where the brace stopped under the chin, I could see the deep purple and yellow of bruising.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She nodded.

I hugged her gingerly, too gingerly, using just my arms, keeping my distance for fear of hurting her further.

"I won't break," she said.

"When did you get out?" I asked.

"A few hours ago. I can't stay long. If my father knew where I was "

I held up a hand. "Say no more."

We pushed open the door and stepped inside. She grimaced in pain as she moved. We made our way to the couch. I asked her if she wanted a drink or something to eat. She said no.

"Are you sure you should be out of the hospital?"

"They said it's okay, but I need to rest."

"How did you get away from your father?"

She tried a smile. "I'm headstrong."

"I see."

"And I lied."

"No doubt."

She looked off with just her eyes she could not move her head and her eyes welled up. "Thank you, Will."

I shook my head. "I can't help but feel it was my fault."

"That's crap," she said.

I shifted in my seat. "During the attack, you yelled out the name John. At least, I think that's what you said."

"The police told me."

"You don't remember?"

She shook her head.

"What do you remember?"

"The hands on my throat." She looked off. "I was sleeping. And then someone was squeezing my neck. I remember gasping for air." Her voice fell away.

"Do you know who John Asselta is?" I asked.

"Yeah. He was friends with Julie."

"Could you have meant him?"

"You mean when I yelled John?" She considered that, "r don't know, Will. Why?"

"I think" I remembered my promise to Pistillo about keeping her out of it "I think he may have had something to do with Julie's murder."

She took that without blinking. "When you say have something to do with "

"That's all I can say right now."

"You sound like a cop."

"It's been a weird week," I said.

"So tell me what you got."

"I know you're curious, but I think you should listen to the doctors."

She looked at me hard. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you need to rest."

"You want me to stay out of this?"

"Yes."

"You're afraid I'll get hurt again."

"Very much so, yes."

Her eyes caught fire. "I can take care of myself."

"No doubt. But we're on very dangerous ground right now."