Mask of the Stranger  by  Joyce and Jim Lavene ["http://www.joyceandjimlavene.com"] http://www.joyceandjimlavene.com
  Published by  Awe-Struck E-Books ["http://www.awe-struck.net/"] http://www.awe-struck.net/ All Rights Reserved  (c) 2000  ISBN 1-5874-9002-1 
 


 Prologue
 
He was out there again. 

She could feel it. The proof would only take a step to the window, a careful lift of the blind. He would be there in the street. She was being stalked. 

Sometimes, he was obvious. Staring up at her window from the corner. Standing in the white halo of the streetlight. Sometimes he hid himself, wearing the shadows of the night like a cloak. 

But he was there. She knew by the faint prickle of her skin. By the sensitivity in her body, the restless movement of her mind. She always knew when he was there. 

But who he was or why he was stalking her was a mystery. 

So, she huddled in her apartment with its double locks and security system. She kept a phone by her bed with 911 dialed in already so she would only have to push the redial button. 

Of course, that was only when she could bring herself to go into the bedroom. Most nights she spent in a chair, watching the door. 

She'd bought a gun out of sheer desperation. But she hadn't been able to make herself load it. The bullets were still in their package, unopened. The gun was tucked into a drawer. 

The police had been kind, at first. Even sympathetic. They were courteous and efficient in their cold, dispassionate way. But after coming a dozen times to her call on 911 and finding no one, they'd begun to tell her to get help. 

Therapy. Not the kind with badges and uniforms. 

They'd even come up with a name for her. Call-in Kelsey. She'd heard them laughing about it in the hallway one night as they were leaving. 

"Not bad lookin'," the officer had joked, "but totally out of it." 

Kelsey knew that he was there but the police couldn't find him. He vanished like a wisp of smoke, only to return again when she was alone. 

She'd noticed him the first time about two weeks ago. It was late. She'd nearly worked past the time when the corner gas station closed, almost forgetting that her car had to have gas for the next day. 

It was bitterly cold. Snow swept through the streets with the icy wind from Lake Michigan. The station was bustling with people. She'd consoled herself that she wasn't the only one to wait until it was almost too late that night. She climbed from her car, shuffling through the new snow to the pump, taking off her brown knit glove so that the gas smell wouldn't ruin it. 

She had been thinking about the project she'd been working on that day. The gas gushed into the tank of her small, white car. Things had been going very well. Better than she could have guessed they would and she was feeling very pleased with herself. 

It was then that she felt it for the first time. The faint lift of the hairs on the back of her neck. The slight shiver of awareness. The feeling that someone at the crowded station was watching her. 

She looked around quickly, purposely, just in time to see him turn away. He had been watching her. 

He was very tall. The long black coat he wore only added to the impression of height. He had powerful shoulders. He glanced to the side and she saw that he had dark hair, worn tied back at his neck. Snowflakes fell against it. White crystals against the jet of his hair. 

He was willing to wait for what he wanted. 

She knew that now. After the long week she'd spent watching him. She felt as though he'd become an intimate part of her, never far from her thoughts. Her life measured in terms of when he would be on the corner and where she felt safe. 

Kelsey prodded herself out of her reverie to take those few steps to the window, abandoning the hollow safety zone her sofa provided her. 

She stood to the side of the window, concentrating on looking between the mini blinds. If she were careful, he wouldn't know that she watched him. It gave her a feeling of power, playing that game with him. 

He was there, of course. She knew he would be. She almost congratulated herself on the knowledge. She looked down at him standing there, watching her window, and she wanted to scream. 

Sometimes, she just wanted to go down the stairs and into the street. Demand to know what he wanted from her. Face him, for once. Bring his face into the light. 

But she couldn't. She didn't dare. When she thought she couldn't stand anymore, when anything seemed better than enduring another night with him out there, she took the pills the doctors had given her and fell into a dreamless sleep until morning. 

He looked up. Right into her face. 

She stumbled backwards from the window, tripping over the footstool behind her. She felt sure that he had seen her. Half-falling into the big chair that faced the door, she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. 

What had she done? she asked, rocking herself, crying. What had she done to him? 


["#TOC"] Chapter One
 

The alarm went off in the bedroom, startling her awake. Sunlight poured in from the windows behind her. She'd spent another night in the chair. A fine act of torture when she tried to stand on legs that had been asleep for hours. She arched her aching back and tried to focus her blurred eyes. 

If she kept going, the stalker wouldn't have to kill her, she condemned, shuffling to the bedroom. She would have done the job for him. 

In the daylight, things always seemed better. She could come close to laughing at her fears. She'd caught sight of him a few times in the daylight but he preferred the darkness to get close to her. Like an errant lover. 

By day, he was just a shade behind her. An insistent gaze that was gone when she looked up. A feeling of someone being too near her in the supermarket, even when she was alone in an aisle. 

Kelsey dragged her aching body into the shower, yawning. Trying to wake up. With her nights filled with terror, it was all she could do to make it to work each day. Fortunately, she didn't have rigid hours. Although the lab director frowned on late afternoon arrivals, he was flexible with anything before ten. 

She knew she was lucky to have the position at Barton. The pay was good, the benefits excellent and they thought her work was important. What more could she ask? 

She sighed. She had believed all of that until she'd spent her first sleepless night. 

She had no personal life. There was only her work. And the fear that ate at her in the night had begun to overshadow even that. 

Kelsey pulled on her loose fitting jeans and a soft white sweater. In the bright light of the bathroom mirror, she pulled her hair back from her face, securing it with a headband. 

She began to apply a light make-up base, stopping slowly as her fingers moved over her skin. Carefully, she touched the scar that ran from her temple to her chin. A delicate red tracery along her cheekbone. It was so fine, yet so distinct, that it could have been drawn there by a master hand. 

For just an instant, she didn't recognize that face. It was a stranger staring back at her; pale skin, gold flecked dark eyes and a cloud of short, dark hair. 

Her hair had been long once. She couldn't remember when, but she kept expecting to feel the swish of it against her neck. 

A braid. She narrowed her eyes on the reflection in the mirror, imagining what it might have been like. She allowed her hand to wander down her shoulder, trying to remember having a long, dark rope of hair. 

She closed her eyes and there were hands that set it free, sliding through its thickness. Hands that touched her. 

But that was all. She searched desperately in the recesses of her mind but it was all gone. 

Too fast, she groaned, resting her forehead against the cool glass. It always happened when she wasn't prepared for it. 

The doctors had told her it would happen, told her to be patient but it had been two months since the small plane she'd been in had crashed on its way from Orlando to Chicago. 

The same doctors had cut her hair because of her head injury, assuring her that it would be better for her to recall who she was that way. After all, the picture on her driver's license had short hair. Shorter, in fact, than they'd cut hers. It was apparently a fashion she'd favored at some time. 

She wondered, coldly impersonal, what had made her grow it longer. What had that Kelsey of three months ago been like? What had happened to her that had made her change? 

It had been two months of knowing who she was only because others told her. Two months of waking up every morning to a stranger's face that she tried daily to reconcile to her own. 

Kelsey freed her chin length hair from the headband so that it swung like a curtain around her face. She brushed it quickly, dispassionately, without focusing on her mirror again. 

She'd grown to be afraid of that face. Fear and emptiness lurked in those eyes; madness on that path. 

The only thing she could do was get on with her life. Her work. She could still remember that aspect. It was the only place she really felt safe. The only place she wasn't scared and uncertain. 

Putting on her jacket and gloves, she slid her glasses into an outside pocket. Her driver's license portrayed her in heavy-rimmed glasses, saying that she couldn't drive without them. The doctor couldn't explain it as yet but her head injury seemed to have corrected her vision. Her glasses made it impossible for her to see. 

Just one more puzzle piece to her old self. She carried the glasses in her pocket in case her vision suddenly went bad again. Or she was stopped for a safety check as she had been the week before on the way to the lab. 

It was strange. Eerie. She could feel that braid down her back but couldn't recall ever having worn glasses. She'd tried them on several times, looking in the mirror but the reflection was the same. A stranger staring back at her. 

Kelsey checked the street one last time before she left her apartment. He wasn't there. He wouldn't be so careless as to be seen in the daylight. The street was busy with late morning car and pedestrian traffic. 

It would take an extra few minutes to make it in to work, she mused, finding herself more reluctant to leave her apartment every day. She was terrified that one morning they would find her huddled in the corner, not able to do anything but stare at the window. She was more afraid of that than she was of the stalker. 

He had become so much a part of her life. He was a stranger, lurking outside. Like the stranger that lived inside of her. 

One hour, one minute at a time, she told herself, carefully unlocking the door. She rearmed the security system that would tell her if anyone had been there all day. She closed the door, locked it tightly, and was gone. 

Her drive to work was always the single most thought provoking time of her day. In her car, she felt safe. He might be able to see her in the car but he couldn't touch her. 

She couldn't remember even the smallest part of her past personal life before two months ago, but she knew how to drive. She knew how to dress herself, how to eat, but couldn't remember her name and age. Every aspect of her work as a botanist was clear in her mind but not a friend or a lover. Not even parents. 

If it hadn't been for Dr. Abrahms who got her the job at Barton's, she wouldn't have known anything about her previous existence. He had worked with her in Orlando and had recommended her for the position at the lab in Chicago. He knew her well enough to assure the hospital staff after the crash that she had no living relatives. She had been in Orlando only a short time. 

His description of her life had painted a bleak, lonely picture of her past that sometimes made Kelsey cringe when she thought of it. She'd left no friends or family behind. Not even any close co-workers. 

What sort of person was she that she attracted neither friends nor any close associate? Had her life always been that way? Hadn't there ever been anyone who cared if she lived or died? 

According to her driver's license, she was nearly thirty-two years old. It seemed like a very long time to be alone and it didn't feel right. Like the glasses. The loneliness just didn't fit her. 

Yet, she couldn't deny it. When the hospital had put out her name and face to cities across the country, no one had reported her missing. No one had called, wondering what had happened to her. Only the key ring Dr. Abrahms had given her, with the name and address of Barton's Institute, had brought him to her. 

Still, she wasn't satisfied with those answers to her questions. The questions themselves were frustrating circles. Her mind moved around them, constantly supplying possibilities and conclusions like they were part of an experiment in her lab. 

She couldn't actually remember the crash that had nearly killed her but it haunted her like a bad dream. 

Like the stalker. 

Suppose, she theorized, that the stalker was a part of her past life. A past she couldn't remember. It would have to be someone with a grudge against her, her brain categorized. He wasn't lurking out there waiting to congratulate her on her recent discoveries! 

Kelsey wanted answers. There were none in her hopelessly blank brain. It felt like the harder she tried, the more elusive they became, twisting away from her grasp. 

The green truck behind her tapped his horn and she realized that the light had changed. She snapped out of her musing and put the little car into gear, moving into traffic. 

The doctors had cautioned her against pushing too hard. It would come by itself. Time, patience, healing. Three commodities that Kelsey had in short supply. 

In fact, she wasn't sure that her life didn't depend on that information. Something locked in her mind might hold the key to the stalker's identity. Every night that he waited for her might be one less that she had to find the answer. Each night could be the one he chose to make his final move. 

And all she could do was stand by helplessly and tear through her mind, frantically looking for the clues to her past. But the fog was so thick. 

Like another time, she recalled, when the fog had been so thick, that she couldn't see. There had been a smell. Like fruit, sweet and ripe. It had enveloped her and she was smiling, laughing. Calling someone's name. 

"Dr. Lloyd?" the young guard at the main gate called her back. He had walked down to her car when she hadn't pulled up behind the red truck that was already through the gates. 

"Oh God," she groaned when she realized that the brief flash of clarity was gone, leaving her nothing in its wake. 

"Are you all right, Dr. Lloyd?" the concerned young man asked again. He took in her pale face and overly bright eyes and glanced uneasily around himself. He couldn't leave the gate unattended. 

"I'm fine," she mumbled, putting the car back into gear. She returned his brief, nervous smile. "I'm fine, Ellis. Thanks." 

"Yes, ma'am." He waved her through, wondering if he should alert security. He liked Dr. Lloyd and didn't like the idea of anything happening to her. Returning to his station, he made a mental note to check on her when the shift changed. 

He'd wanted to ask her out a few times but hadn't found the words as yet. She was a little older than him, it was true. But mostly, it was that something about her. An aura of strangeness, sadness maybe, that set her apart. 

Kelsey mentally gave herself a shake. What was she doing? There were safer times to wonder about herself than in traffic. She was becoming careless. Too caught up in her problems to be much good to anyone. 

She wasn't surprised to see other late morning stragglers coming through the security checkpoint entering the Barton parking area. There were very few early morning risers in the group of fifty researchers. Several worked late at night, leaving as the others came in for the day. Most came in as she did, around ten, and left at odd hours of the day. 

Barton was loosely run but untouchable in the material it had gathered in research technology. Scientists from all over the globe had worked there at one time or another, pooling their resources to work on the world's problems. 

That Kelsey had been asked to work there by the current director, Martin Abrahms, was an honor. Her work in micro-botany had been accumulated through a lifetime, spanning her earliest work in college through the work she was doing with Barton. 

It was the 'super plant' that had finally gained her recognition. Looking pretty much like an ordinary fern, the plant was being engineered to filter out pollutants. Not just carbon dioxide, as other plants, but harmful chemicals that were destroying the ozone layer. The super plant had possibilities for being an underwater variety as well and grew five times faster than most plants. 

With Barton's backing, Kelsey was making remarkable progress, despite her time off after the crash. The institute had flown all of her papers, her entire lab, up from Orlando to their own research facilities. 

All she had to do was make it work out. 

She parked her car in the back of the lot. A few of her colleagues waved from their cars. Kelsey pretended not to see. 

They'd invited her out for drinks and lunch. Once to a party. They'd tried to be friendly but she wasn't ready for it. She couldn't be part of a new life, she reasoned, opening her door to the lab, until she'd put the old one to rest. 

The heavy door swung closed behind her and clicked into place, locking automatically. 

"Lights," she called, putting down her purse, taking off her coat, switching on her computer. 

The lights, installed in the side-walls to accommodate the special glass ceiling she'd requested, came on around her. The sunshine was bright but weak from overhead and she switched on the special growth enhancing light cycle. 

The computer came up with the day's date and a notice from Dr. Abrahm's computer that he wanted to have a word with her when she was free. She frowned and punched in her work schedule. If she wanted to be free any time that day, she would have to get on with it. There were seventeen tests to be run and another twenty-six to be checked that were long-term projects. Kelsey picked up her notebook and set the computer to analyze and print the results from the day before. 

Usually she could lose herself walking through the forest of ferns. Hanging from the ceiling, growing from the floor, some as tall as she was herself, Kelsey found a certain solace in their company. 

They didn't ask questions. They only asked to be kept alive. She didn't have to pretend that everything was fine with them. Usually, their vitality and quiet was a comfort. That day, all she could think about was the blankness in her life. 

Like a black hole devouring whatever was left, it fed on her dreams and aspirations. A plant adapted finally after several hundred tries but her triumph was blighted by the emptiness she struggled with each day. 

Sometimes, in the past few months, she had been tempted to just let it overcome her. To sink back into the oblivion it promised. 

"Kelsey?" 

The voice made her jump, although the word was spoken quietly enough. 

"Dr. Abrahms!" She glanced at her watch, stunned to find that it was nearly six P.M.. "I'm sorry. I got -- " 

" -- caught up in your work?" He nodded, looking around himself at the plants. "I thought as much. Caught up in some bad dreams, too, the way your face looked just then." 

"A few." She smiled and pushed her hair away from her face only to remember an instant later and bring it back across her cheek. 

"Worried about the past, no doubt?" he speculated kindly. His quick, assessing eyes didn't miss the telling gesture. 

"I don't have a past to worry about," she answered, her voice catching on the words a little as she held her clipboard closer to her. 

"I have some good news for you on that front." He smiled and put his arm around her shoulder. "Come and have dinner with me. I know you won't eat unless you do." She started to protest and he waved her words away. "I won't take 'no' for an answer and you'll want to hear what I have to say." 

Kelsey looked into his thin, sallow face. It was a tired face. Lined with years of disappointments and the tragedy of his young wife's death. His eyes were a brown tinged with gray that reflected the sadness in his soul. 

To her, he had been kindness itself for the past two months. He had seen to her every need in the hospital, had found her the right place to stay. He had been there on more than one occasion when she had dissolved into tears of futility and regret. He had kept her living when she'd wanted to die. 

"All right." She owed him much more than she could ever repay. She put down her clipboard with the day's progress on it and found that she could move her mouth into at least the semblance of a smile. 

"Good." He patted her shoulder. "Come down when you're finished. The food's come in, so hurry." 

"I'll be there in five minutes," she promised him. 

"I'll be waiting," he responded patiently. 

Over Chinese food in cardboard boxes, they talked about the day's results on her plants, comparing data. She ate with the chopsticks that came with the dinner. He, with a fork he kept in his desk. 

"The strange thing is the growth rate." She explained a disturbing pattern that she was beginning to notice. "Some of the plants, the ones that thrive on the most toxic poison, grow much faster than the control plants on oxygen." 

"Why do you think that is?" he wondered. 

"I'm not sure." She shrugged. "But it's like they've mutated. Their DNA is very specific and it's changing rapidly." She looked up at him when he didn't reply and found him staring at her with an expression she couldn't readily identify on his long face. 

He blinked and it was gone as quickly. She wondered if she'd imagined it. But for just a brief time, it was the face she saw in the mirror each day. The face of a stranger. 

Or rather the way she looked when she pondered her own image. As though he had been looking at a stranger. There was a haunting presence of fear in his eyes. 

"Are you all right?" she asked. 

"Yes, of course," he answered easily. "Tell me more about the ferns' growth." 

Kelsey shivered but he was already off on another tangent. It was her imagination, she told herself, as she listened to him talk about other work going on at the lab. Her mind had begun to put that face on everyone around her. 

Suddenly, she couldn't find the energy to finish her dinner and set the box down on the counter between them. 

"I really should be going," she told him, standing. Her voice echoed back to her from the surrounding office. She looked around herself at the many awards he'd won in his lifetime. 

"My news," he protested, smiling, pulling her back down into her chair. "We've talked about everything but my news for you, Kelsey." 

She waited patiently, uncomfortable with him. Uncomfortable with herself. She felt queasy, as she frequently did after eating. But it was something more than just her stomach. It was as though she had looked around herself and found that she was in the wrong place. She didn't belong there and she had to get away. 

It was ridiculous, she argued with herself. She was losing ground. She was fighting the wrong person. He was the same man he had been for the past two months. The man who'd been there for her. The only reason she knew who she was at all. 

"Is he still there?" he asked quietly. 

She nodded mutely, miserably. Not comprehending her feelings, she wanted time to sit alone somewhere and try to sort through them. "I just need to be alone." 

He sighed. "You're alone too much as it is, Kelsey. You need people in your life. You need to get out of that apartment and the lab. Let me take you somewhere, just the two of us. You'll see. It will make a world of difference." 

They'd had the conversation before. It was always the same result. She didn't want to be there but she didn't want to go. She felt like she was waiting for something. Or someone. She couldn't leave until she knew. 

"I found someone who might be able to help," he said when her silence became deafening. "He's the best in his field. I wouldn't have been able to get him here except for a conference next week." 

"What can he do?" she felt compelled to ask although the words felt raw in her throat. She cleared it deliberately and drank a swallow of green tea. 

"He can help you find your lost self," he continued. "He's done this sort of thing many times before." 

"Drugs?" she guessed. She had flatly refused drug therapy, even to end her nightmares. 

"Hypnosis," he corrected. "He's a hypno-therapist. The best." 

She felt cold inside and wanted to run but forced herself to stay where she was, with her hand in his. It was what she wanted after all. To find those answers to her past. 

"I'll wager he's in there." He glanced significantly towards her forehead. "Your stalker." 

"You don't think he's real, do you?" 

"What do you think?" he countered. 

She shook her head. "He seems real." 

"How many other things right now seem real? But we both know, they're not." He squeezed her hand lightly. "Wouldn't the police have found him by now? Wouldn't someone else have seen him? I know you want all the answers to the real questions." 

"Yes." She nodded. "Yes, I do." 

"Then you'll do it." He nodded comfortably, relief apparent in his attitude as he sat back. "I wasn't sure." 

"Why?" The question was torn from her in pain. 

"Sometimes." He shrugged. "You get used to things even when they aren't good. They are safe. You don't know what's waiting for you in that darkness." 

"But I want to know," she assured him firmly. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering who I was, not knowing about the life I left behind." 

"He'll be here on Thursday," he informed her abruptly. "We should know everything after that." 

"I truly do want to know," she told him, sensing his withdrawal from her. She squeezed his hand. "It means everything to me. I want to move on with my life." 

"Do you?" He stood up, drawing her with him, and took her in his arms. "I admit that I'm insecure sometimes about us." He kissed her lightly on the lips and smoothed back her hair from the scar on her face. His gray/brown eyes looking deeply, soulfully into her own. "I want us to be free to explore our future together. I don't think we can do that until your past is resting in peace." 

"I know." She didn't know what else to say, lost for words. His eyes seemed to mesmerize her, quieting the need to escape that shouted inside her. 

He lifted her chin with his other hand and kissed her again. "You want to be with me, don't you, Kelsey?" 

"Of course." She replied slowly. "More than anything. You mean so much to me." 

"And you mean everything to me," he assured her gently. "Soon, we'll be married and I'll be able to show you how much." 

"That will be wonderful," she whispered. Her stomach rumbled and she put a hand to it self-consciously. "It must be that virus again. I'm feeling a little queasy." 

"Let me walk you out to your car," he offered, starting to get his coat. 

"Oh, I'll be glad to walk you both out, sir," Ellis, the security man from the morning shift, volunteered. "I just stopped by to make sure Dr. Lloyd was okay tonight." 

"Was something wrong earlier?" Dr. Abrahms turned to her. 

"No, nothing," she lied, feeling stifled in the office. The prospect of being outside in the freezing night air was becoming a frenzy in her. "I have to go, Martin. I-uh-I'm not feeling well at all." 

"It might have been the food." He looked at her pale face and fever bright eyes. "Maybe it was too rich. Have you been taking your medication?" 

"It's this 'flu bug'," she told him. "I just can't seem to shake it." 

"I can walk her out, Dr. Abrahms," Ellis offered. 

"Do you need a ride home, Kelsey?" 

"No, really." She waved the offer away. "I'll be fine. I just need some air." 

"Of course." Dr. Abrahms frowned but assented. "I just have a few phone calls to make and I'll be going as well." 

"I'll be right back, Doctor," Ellis promised, zipping up his jacket. 

"Good night," Kelsey said, "and thank you, Martin." 

"I'll see you tomorrow about setting up the time," he told her with a glance at Ellis. 

"All right," she managed before she fled down the brightly polished hall towards the main entrance. The janitor was getting out his floor cleaning machines as she ran past him. 

She barely made the parking lot before her dinner came back up. She stood in the snow by the tall shadows of the bushes that rowed the front entrance, trying to breathe deeply and ease the tension in her stomach. 

"Are you all right?" Ellis asked, handing her a napkin, waiting for the terrible sound of her retching to cease. 

She had forgotten that he was right behind her but accepted the towel thankfully. 

"I'm fine," she told him brightly. "I guess I just wasn't ready for almond vegetables." 

"I'd be glad to drive you home, Dr. Lloyd," he offered. He held her jacket that she had left in the lab and she slipped her arms into the sleeves quickly. 

"It's freezing out here," she sped by his question. "But it's just what I needed. I feel much better now." 

"You look awful, Doctor." He coughed and lowered his head, feeling like a fool. "I mean, you're very pale." 

"It's just a virus," she told him. "I might stay home tomorrow." 

They walked in silence to her car and he waited while she got in and started up the cold engine. 

"That might be a good idea," he counseled, watching her fasten her seatbelt across a body that he privately thought needed a few more pounds and someone to hold in the night. 

"Thank you, Ellis." She felt better with the darkness on her face, the light from the buildings obscured by the car. "I really appreciate your help." 

"No problem, Doctor," he replied. "I'd like to...I mean, I was wondering -- " 

"Yes?" she asked quietly from the safety of her shadows. 

"I just, well, have a good evening, Dr. Lloyd," he finished, stammering over the words. It just wasn't the right time. She was sick. Any fool could see that. It would be better later. 

"You too, Ellis," she returned and set the little car in motion, closing the window as she drove out of the parking lot. 

Snow had begun to fall lightly across the darkened city scape. The roads were clear, though, and salted heavily so that traffic was no more hazardous than usual. The windshield wipers slapped noisily across the cold glass and the lights from the oncoming cars seemed too bright. 

Dread began to settle in heavily, weighing her limbs, making her drive around the block where she lived three times before finally stopping in front of her apartment building. She had been in such a hurry to leave Dr. Abrahms and the lab only to come home to her nightmare. 

Kelsey waited in the car with the engine running, watching the snowflakes fall and dissolve on the windshield. Counting them to keep her mind occupied. 

There were still lights on in the foyer of her building. A couple, arms linked around each other, laughing with their heads tucked down close together, spilled out on the sidewalk. A woman with a little girl in a pretty red coat thanked the doorman with a smile as he held the door for her. A taxi stopped outside the door and a man in a dark suit darted out into the street. 

Maybe if she waited, she considered, until that door opened again. She could make a run for it. The stalker wouldn't dare try to harm her if she was in a crowd of people. It was too obvious. He liked things quiet and secret. 

She shut off the engine and the car began to get cold. 

There were still a lot of people out on the street, cars whizzing by despite the snow becoming heavier as the night darkened. The deli on the corner was still packed with people and the coffee shop beside it had a good crowd. There was a man between them collecting spare change as the people hurried by on the sidewalk. 

Like a caged animal, she waited, eyes trained on that door, waiting for the beginning movement of its opening. Her hand flexed on the door handle. Her muscles bunched for the run through the street. 

Finally, she could see the doorman's bottle-green coat coming closer to the steam covered glass door and she started to open the door to the car. 

The glass doors opened and she grasped her purse firmly in her hand, waiting until she saw the doorman's round, smiling face. He opened the door and held it for the couple that started out, seeing a slight figure run from across the street. He held the door as a car honked its horn and the traffic serged around the woman. 

"Good evening, Dr. Lloyd." The doorman smiled at her. 

She returned the doorman's greeting, smiled up at him, then stopped, puzzled by the look on his friendly face. 

"Excuse me, Doctor?" He glanced at the few other people standing there in the foyer. They looked at Kelsey then whispered among themselves. 

What had she said? It had sounded like 'hello' to her. 

"My grandmother spoke Yiddish when I was a child." An older man stepped forward and smiled up at her. He said something to her. Something she didn't understand. He waited for a reply. 

"I'm sorry." She shrugged. "I-I-uh- don't speak Yiddish." 

"Must be one of those new age things." John, the doorman chuckled and shook his head. 

"Yes." She frowned, just wanting to get away. He thought she was crazy anyway. 

What had she said? It had sounded like gibberish as she thought about it. But she had been so confident of her words before she spoke. She was certain that she was returning his greeting. 

The old man stepped back into the circle of his friends and they all looked at her as though she had grown another head. 

"Well." She smiled in a way that she hoped showed her bravado. "Good night then." She turned and fled into the elevator. 

Was she losing her mind? she wondered, clutching her purse to her chest, watching the numbers change as the elevator moved slowly upward. Was it too late for the help Martin Abrahms was offering her? 

The heavy smell of disinfectant and cigarette smoke in the elevator made her feel sick again. Maybe it was a virus, as she had suggested to Ellis. She felt light-headed, nauseous. Her brain didn't want to function. But if it was a virus, she'd had it almost since she'd left the hospital. She was fine, as long as she didn't eat. Martin had given her some medication to help but it didn't work. 

What was that she had said to John at the door? It had sounded correct, even as she thought about it. When she tried to recall the exact words, they fled from her mind. 

Maybe the old man was right. Maybe she did know Yiddish or some other language that sounded similar. Would she be able to remember if it were true? Wouldn't it make sense, as the doctors had suggested, that her memory would return in bits and pieces? 

Those people at the door meant nothing to her, she reminded herself. The important thing was that she had made it into the building safely. One more night. Maybe the morning would bring some crucial speck of knowledge that would save her from torment. 

The elevator announced that it had reached her floor. Her apartment was the third down the hall. 

She was safe here, she told herself, making her feet leave the elevator. Everyone was screened going in and out. The hallway was clean, well-lit. She could hear the sound of someone talking at the far end of the adjoining hall. She didn't know her neighbors, avoiding them as she avoided her colleagues at the lab. 

Keys in hand, she approached her door. Her heart was beating violently despite her own attempts to reassure herself. Until she was inside and the door was locked behind her, she didn't feel safe. Even then, she felt hunted, always afraid. Scared to look out of the windows. Afraid to answer the phone. 

The keys jingled in her hand as she unlocked the door. The sounds of the conversation down the hall started to break away. The elevator doors swished closed as it started its return trip to the foyer. 

She was so nervous she could scarcely open the door. She heard the stairwell door open, its peculiar squeaking noise as loud as a gong in her ears. 

But she was inside. Her purse dropped to the floor at her feet and she jerked the keys from the lock. She pushed the door closed, ready to set the alarm system when it was shut and locked. 

The door stopped, halfway closed. Not understanding what was wrong, she opened it briefly to check the handle. 

A man was standing in the hall. She knew him at once. He always wore the same long coat. His dark eyes pierced her soul. 

He had come for her. The long days and nights of waiting were over. 


["#TOC"] Chapter Two
 

"Leave me alone!"she hissed at him, turning to go into her apartment. 

"Sara!" He called out, catching her arm as she turned away from him. 

A wail of pain and anger started low in her throat, ending in "No!" as she fought the man and the door wildly, pushing and hitting at them both. 

She could avoid her fate, she thought dizzily. She wouldn't give up so easily. 

He was bigger than she'd imagined, like an immovable mountain standing against her closing the door. His strong hand held back her puny efforts against him like she might throw off a fly. 

He said something to her. It was clearly a question. There was the lift of the dark brow, an intense querying look to his face as he stared into hers. 

"I don't understand you!" She shook her head. Could she reason with him? Could she make him understand? Kelsey stared up at him. Her hand was caught in the steel grip of his own, her hair all down in her face. She couldn't breathe, couldn't move. "You have the wrong person." 

"I don't think so," he surprised her by replying. 

"I don't know what you want from me." She surprised herself by keeping her voice calm while she inched the pepper spray from her pocket. She had panicked at first but she was recovering. 

"I just want to talk," he answered with a quick glance over his shoulder at the empty hallway. "In your apartment." 

"All right," she said quietly as though she was giving in to his demands. 

She had her hand on the pepper spray, shielding her efforts with her body. When she felt his hold relax, she brought it up quickly, emptying the can in his face. 

He bellowed and let go of her. She was gone in a flash, pushing frantically at the elevator buttons but the old car was slow and he was already recovering from the attack. She didn't wait to see what he would do if he caught her. 

Running into the stairwell, she used her shoe to break the light at the top of the stairs. If she could make it to the lobby. She could call the police, she considered, frantically running and sliding down the stairs. If she could just make it to the lobby. 

She heard him come after her. It was black in the stairwell, no tribute to the building's fire readiness. But she could see where she was going and that was all that mattered. If it made it impossible for him, it gave her a few extra precious moments to escape. 

She slid down the final few steps to the next floor down and grabbed at the door handle. Before she could open the heavy door, he was on her. His black coat spread over her, choking her, suffocating her, as he grabbed her. She could hear the beat of his heart and the quick indrawn breath as she stepped down hard on his foot. 

"I won't leave without you," he said to her in an angry hiss. "You have to trust me." 

"Why?" She demanded. "Why would I trust you? I don't even know you! And you've been following me. I've seen you!" 

"I can help you," he tried to explain. "You don't remember what happened to you. You don't know who you are. I can help you!" 

"You don't know me." She fought him until there was no strength left in her body. Her arms ached and refused to move, muscles strained and useless. He held here tightly against him and there was nothing she could do. "Anything you could know about me, you got from the newspapers. I was in a plane crash. They printed my picture and my story. Is that why you decided to come after me?" 

He grew still, as though considering her words. She didn't understand why he wanted to play this game with her. Why didn't he just kill her and get it over with? 

"I know that you get sick every time you eat," he replied quietly. "It doesn't matter what it is. And no medication they give you can help." 

How could he know that? She wondered. No newspaper had printed that information. The only ones who knew that were Martin and herself. She hadn't even told the people at the hospital for fear they'd want to do more tests. 

Her stomach groaned loudly, as though to confirm his suspicion. 

"You're sick now, aren't you?" he demanded. "I can help." 

Her stomach cramped painfully. "Are you a doctor?" 

"No. I know you." 

His hold on her didn't loosen, even a fraction, and she wondered, irritated, what it took to wear him out! She had dissolved into a pile of jelly long before the battle was over between them. 

"If I can help, will you trust me?" 

"If you can't, it will be too late," she retorted. 

He bent his head close to her ear. "It's too late now. If I meant to hurt you, I could have done it already." 

His breath grazed her ear and made her shiver. There was menace in his voice but it was deliberate. He had made his point. Common sense whispered that if she was going to get away from him, it would have to be at another time and place. If nothing else, going back to her apartment would give her a chance to regroup and regain her strength. 

"All right," she agreed finally, seeing little else she could do in the circumstances. "I'll go with you." 

The apartment door was standing open. The stalker had released her but he had walked closely behind her, up the stairs and through the hallway. For once, there was no one coming or going. No one she could call out to for help. She was going to have to deal with the man alone. 

When they were in the apartment, he closed the door behind them. It shut with a ring of finality that made her cringe. She didn't trust him but she refused to fear him, despite her long, desperate nights. She stood, staring at him, while he looked around her apartment. 

"So, this is where you live," he said with a nod of his head. 

"You knew," she reminded him. "You've watched me." 

"And apparently, you've watched me," he responded. "But how much do you know about me?" 

She chose to ignore his remark. "You said you could help?" 

He took a small package out of his pocket then removed his coat. "May I?" he asked before putting his coat down on a chair. 

"Go ahead," she answered, unconsciously folding her arms protectively across her chest. 

"How do you feel now?" he asked, looking closely at her pale face. 

"My stomach is cramping and I'm a little dizzy. Is that stuff going to help me?" she questioned, glancing at the package he held. 

"Yes," he replied confidently. "I need water to mix with it." 

"Water?" 

"It's a tea. An herb tea." 

"What is it?" 

He shrugged. "I know it will help." 

"Because you know me?" she asked insolently. 

"That's right," he answered flatly. "You'll have to trust me." 

She tightened her resolve to bide her time. "The kitchen's over there. Water and a microwave to heat it." 

He followed her nod towards the kitchen. She didn't accompany him. She waited until he was in the kitchen, with the light on and the water running. Did he really trust her to say there and not run from him? 

"I'd find you," he guaranteed her, putting his head around the door. 

"What?" 

"You're thinking about running again," he supplied patiently. "I'd find you again. Make no mistake about it." 

She stared into his black eyes. "All this so you can make me well again?" 

"All this to make you well again," he confirmed with a nod of his head. "It's the only reason I'm here." 

She followed him into the kitchen. Not because she was afraid, curiously, but because she couldn't believe his sincerity. "Do you read minds, too?" 

He smiled slightly at the hard edge of sarcasm in her voice. "Only yours." 

"Because you know me so well?" 

"That's right." He pulled the steaming cup from the microwave. The tea he'd made was dark and smelled of dirt and rotten eggs. "Drink this." 

"Aren't you going to strain the leaves?" she asked, hoping something would take away the stench. 

"No, you need it as it is. It isn't pleasant but you will feel better." 

She looked at the tea again then up into his eyes. "Is this some weird game you're playing with me? You could've strangled me but you wanted to poison me?" 

He shrugged but didn't look away from her nervous gaze. "We both know that I could have killed you at any time in the last two weeks. If that was what I wanted. I didn't come here to hurt you. I came to take you home." 

It was the way he said it that convinced her. Home. As though she had a home where she could go and there were people who cared about her and a life worth living outside of the laboratory. Home. She wanted to go home more than she wanted anything. That was something Martin didn't understand. She wasn't sure she wanted to remember the life he'd painted for her. She wanted so much more. 

She took the tea from him because he offered her a home casually, as though he could truly see into her soul and knew what she wanted and needed. It was as foul tasting as it smelled but she drained the cup. Then she handed it back to him. 

"Is that it?" she wondered. Her mouth tasted like it had earthworms in it. 

"That should be it," he told her. "You might feel strange to begin with. It's been a while." 

Kelsey felt the tea go immediately to her head like hundred proof vodka. One minute, she was looking at the stranger who'd entered her life and the next, she was lying on the floor and he was lifting her in his arms. 

"You'll be all right," he reassured her, although his voice sounded less than confident. 

She heard him from the far end of a long tunnel. She tried to form words but she started to shake and a black curtain slipped down over her. 

Kelsey fought her way back to consciousness but always at the edge she found herself back at the crash. She could smell the acrid smoke and knew that there was a fire in the plane. She needed to go for help but the pain in her head and leg was horrible. She looked down and her clothes were drenched in blood. She had to keep going, had to bring someone back to help. But the plane. What would she do about the plane? 

The plane? She sat up quickly and looked at her clothes. They were the same white sweater and blue jeans she had worn to work that morning. Her jacket was gone, laying on the floor beside her. Her wet boots were still on her feet and on her sofa. 

There was no blood, no smoking plane. But once again, she was surprised to find that she was still alive. What happened? She remembered drinking the tea. She remembered him picking her up. Then nothing. 

She looked around for him, seeing his black coat across one of the chairs near the door. The light was on in the kitchen, the front door was closed and locked. A small lamp was turned on beside her but otherwise the rest of the apartment was in darkness. 

He was in the kitchen making more of that poison. Kelsey stood up slowly and looked for a weapon. He had lied to her. Whatever his sadistic game, she was going to beat him at it. 

Her legs were shaky and her stomach threatened to retch with every step she took. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep but every part of her sang out that she was in danger. He hadn't killed her at once but that must be part of a bigger plan. She should have known he hadn't stalked her only to help her. What had she been thinking? 

The gun that she had never loaded was in the bedroom. If she could make it in there. She was lightheaded and disoriented. She couldn't stand up straight without doubling over in pain. She finally got down on her hands and knees. Carefully, she crept from the living room into the shadows that separated her from her bedroom. 

She swallowed hard on the dizziness and nausea that made each movement precarious, trying to remember where she'd put the gun. It was her only defense against the man. A million thoughts raced through her scrambled brain as she tried to understand why he'd want to hurt her. She couldn't hold on to any of them long enough to make any sense of it. 

"You must be feeling better." 

He switched on the overhead light as she reached the bedroom and she winced, feeling it slam into her with the force of a sledgehammer. 

Her stomach heaved and she retched up what little she had in it. Almost too ill to care that he was going to kill her, she let him guide her into the bathroom, switching on the nightlight. 

"What do you want?" she gasped when she was able, taking the wet towel from his hand with a desperate anger. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," he replied carefully. 

"You told me that before," she reminded him. "You said I should trust you because you could help." 

"I can help," he repeated. "You'll feel better. Then we can talk." 

There was little she could do. He helped her walk from the bathroom to the bedroom where a fit of chills overtook her. 

"You're burning up," he said, putting a hand to her forehead. 

"Are you surprised? Didn't you know what that -- that poison would do?" She demanded through clenched teeth that she was trying to keep from chattering. 

In the darkness, she felt his hands as he helped her out of her clothes and into a heavy nightgown. She protested briefly as she felt him open the waistband of her jeans but the effort was too much. If he was going to rape her, he would have to do it while she was throwing up. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," he soothed in a low voice. "Stay here." He pulled the heavy comforter up on her. "I have more tea ready." 

"No more, please!" She begged, not imagining that she could ever sound that way. "What do you want from me?" 

He smoothed her hair back from her face. "I know it's bad right now," he reassured her. "But your system is so out of balance. It'll take time. You have to trust me." 

Kelsey recalled him waking her a few times that night for sips of the strong tea. Mostly the night was a haze of pain and sickness, visions of other places and people. Gentle hands held her head up when it was time for the tea and a careful touch guided her to and from the bathroom. 

Soothing words that had no real meaning were whispered in her ear. Once she thought she heard a soft voice singing something in another language. A lullaby, she thought, although she couldn't be sure. She was strangely comforted. 

But then she opened her eyes and it was morning. She was weak but she wasn't sick any longer. Her head felt clear and she was actually hungry. And she remembered with a stab of irony who had helped her through the long night. And who had put her through it. 

The gun was on the table next to the bed. The bullets were in the drawer. Kelsey hadn't loaded it even though she knew her life was in danger because the idea of hurting another being was totally foreign to her. It didn't feel so foreign anymore. 

He was still there in the apartment with her. She could hear him in the kitchen and she knew that it didn't matter that he had been there for her. He wanted something from her. 

He had tortured her for two weeks. She couldn't believe that he didn't mean her any harm, as he had whispered so often during the night. 

She heard his footsteps coming towards the bedroom and she quickly made her decision. 

"I made you a few eggs," he addressed her, coming cheerfully into the bedroom with the food on a plate. "I thought you'd be -- " he glanced up and saw the gun in her hand -- "hungry." 

"Just turn around and walk back out," she instructed, pointing at the door with the gun. She reached for the phone to call the police. For once there was proof. 

"Can I put the plate down?" he asked, dark eyes sweeping across her briefly, seeing the fear and the resolution to do whatever was necessary. 

"Over there." She gestured with the gun towards the shelf near the door. She followed him with the weapon, marking his movements. 

He didn't move quickly, taking his steps carefully. Obviously aware of the gun pointed at his back. He set the plate down on the table then turned slowly back to face her. 

"I need to explain," he said, holding her gaze evenly. 

"There's nothing to explain." She shook her head, pressing the re-dial that had been set for 911. 

His eyes dropped to watch her gesture. There wasn't much time. 

"My name is Daniel West. My wife, Sara, was on the plane with you when you flew up from Orlando. I've come to find her." 

"Liar!" She all but screamed at him. "I was alone on that plane." 

"You were alone when they found you," he corrected. "But Sara left with you to help you get set up here. I was supposed to pick her up in two weeks." 

"You must be crazy." She held the gun steadily on him. "I was alone." 

"Did she decide to leave me?" he asked, eyes dark with anguish. "Is that what this is all about? Where is she? Just let me talk to her." 

Kelsey wavered briefly, losing eye contact with him when his grief seemed too real to her and her own memory of what had happened, too indistinct. 

He was on her in that scant lapse of certainty. He wrested the gun from her hand with very little effort, holding her thrashing body on the bed with his own. 

"Look." His voice cracked, showing that there was some effort involved in keeping her there. "I know I should have come to you sooner. I know I scared you. But if I wanted to hurt you, wouldn't I have done it last night?" 

"Why are you here?" she demanded breathlessly, finally giving in to his much larger form. 

Face to face, he looked into her eyes with so much intensity that there was no doubting his sincerity. "I've come for my wife," he told her. "And I'm not leaving until I know what's happened to her." 

Kelsey stared back, her own eyes wide in her pale face. His eyes were so dark that they looked as though they didn't have a pupil. 

"I can't help you," she whispered finally, defeated. She turned her face away from his. 

"Can't?" he prodded. "Or won't?" 

"Can't. I can't help you. I don't know anyone named Sara. I don't know where your wife is." 

"But you must. She came up with you, didn't she? Didn't she tell you where she was going?" 

She looked back at him, grief and pain clearly etched in the depth of her own gaze. "I don't know. I can't remember." 

"What?" He stood up in a violent movement, pushing away from her. "Is that what the two of you agreed to say?" 

"I still don't remember anything about the crash." She shook her head slowly, letting her hair slide down into her face. "I don't remember anything at all except waking up in the hospital. If your wife was on the plane with me," she looked up at him, tall and angry, beside her bed, "I don't remember it." 

His face seemed a little less angry when he sat down on the side of the bed. "You lost your memory? Isn't there something that can be done?" 

"I've done everything," she confided, not adding the hypnotherapy that she was going to try Thursday. "It's not that I don't want to remember." 

"I'm sorry." He looked away from her. "I didn't know. I didn't know what to think. I waited for the first three weeks when I didn't hear from Sara. Then I came up here and I read about the plane crash. " 

Kelsey shuddered. "She could be -- " 

"Wasn't she in the plane when they found you?" he wondered, a dark fear growing in his face. 

"They didn't find the plane. I had wandered away from the crash site," she responded bitterly. 

"So no one knows?" 

Kelsey shook her head in silent misery. 

"Oh God!" He whispered. "Sara." 

The doorbell rang and they both jumped, looking at each other. 

"The police," Kelsey confirmed. They had come, for once. 

He looked at her, his dark eyes bleak. "I'll go." 

"No, wait." She put her hand on his arm then pulled it back as though it had been burned. She didn't know him; it was true. He could be lying. He could have just read about the crash in the paper and decided to torment her. Maybe he still meant to harm her. 

But his story, his manner was believable and there was no way for him to know that she had amnesia and couldn't call him a liar outright. If it was a con, it was a damn good one. She couldn't imagine why he would bother except that there were sick people in the world. 

Guilt, and something more, made her grab her green robe and walk slowly to the front door, cautioning him to stay in the bedroom. Something selfish that greedily clung to anything about her past, even if it was painful, made her tell the two police officers that it had been a false alarm. She might not actually know Daniel but he might hold a small piece of her empty past in his hands. 

And she might owe him something. Some explanation about Sara. If she had been with Kelsey, then it was possible she was dead. The only way to know was to remember where the plane went down. If Sara had somehow escaped that fate, when Kelsey's memory returned, she would know that as well. Along with any knowledge she might have about Daniel. It wasn't too far fetched that Sara had meant to leave Daniel and had trusted Kelsey with the secret of her whereabouts. 

But for the meantime, Kelsey decided, shutting the front door. She was going to trust the man who walked out of her bedroom. The police officers had muttered something about filing charges if she kept calling in false alarms. She could only hope this would be her last. Her stalker wasn't in the street anymore. He was there with her. She hoped her instincts were better than her memory. 

Instinctively she trusted Daniel. She liked something about his eyes and manner that made her feel comfortable. She hoped she would be able to feel the same when she regained her memory. 

"They're gone," she told him, leaning against the door. Her knees were shaking despite the fact that she felt better. She took a step forward and would have collapsed but he was there to catch her, picking her up in his arms as though she weighed less than the light flannel robe she wore. 

"You were very ill last night," he reprimanded. "You probably shouldn't be on your feet today." 

"But my work," she protested, despite the fact that her head was still spinning and she felt like Jello in his grasp. 

"Your work will wait," he said firmly. "You have to take care of yourself, not push so hard like you always do." 

"What?" She clutched his shoulder with a grip that made him wince. "What did you say?" 

He put her down on the bed. "Sara told me about how hard you work. Not resting, not eating. She was concerned about you. She wanted you to take a vacation before you set up in the new lab." 

"Really?" 

"Really," he answered, picking up the plate of cold eggs. "I'm going to get you some tea and toast." 

Kelsey couldn't help it. A sob broke through her defenses before she could stop it, followed by another. In only a moment, she had dissolved into a wet rag beneath her nightgown and robe, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. 

"I'm sorry." He sat down beside her. "Was it something that I said?" 

"Yes," she cried, tears streaming down her face. "Thank you." 

"Thank you? Thank you for making you cry?" he asked, puzzled. 

"They told me." She gulped air to speak. "They told me there was no one. No one that c-cared. No family. No friends." 

He put the plate on the bedside table and wordlessly, wrapped his arms around her. 

"Ah -- and I was wondering," she sobbed brokenly, "how I had lived that way for so long. It seemed like there should be someone. Ah -- and maybe there was. Sara." 

He muttered something inarticulate against her hair and rocked her gently, holding her tightly to him. He held her until she cried herself out and she was trying to catch her breath. Until she lay silent in his arms, her head against his chest. 

"I'm sorry I can't remember her," she murmured. "I hope she's all right." 

"Wherever she is," he told her in a hesitant voice, "she would want me to be here for you. She cared about you, Kelsey." 

There were so many questions but Daniel refused to answer any until she had managed to swallow another cup of the strong tea and a half slice of toast. 

"What is that stuff?" She frowned, finishing the tea. 

"An herbal blend," he answered, taking the empty mug. 

"Of?" 

"It's something you concocted, Sara said. You've always had a problem with indigestion. I brought some with me, in case you needed it." 

"Oh." She accepted the information and his care without much questioning. When she was better, not so weak, she would want to know more but for then, she fell asleep, feeling him settle the comforter around her as she slipped into unconsciousness. 

Daniel watched her for a moment. Her face was stained with tears and she sighed softly before turning into the pillow. 

He sighed himself before he left her there sleeping and crept into the living room to use the phone. 

When she woke up again, she knew the apartment was empty. He was gone. 

It was only a feeling until she got up and walked carefully around the four small rooms. The few dishes were washed and neatly stacked on the kitchen counter. The teakettle was in its place on the stove. 

She tried not to feel let down, a little more lonely than usual. After all, he probably had places to go. He might be making inquiries about Sara. 

Sara. 

Kelsey wished the name brought some memory, however vague, with it. That someone had cared about her and she couldn't remember what she looked like nearly broke her. She realized that she might have seen her die. 

The thoughts were too much to bear. She was still too weak, too confused. 

Kelsey sat down, took a deep breath. She picked up the phone and dialed the lab, asking for Dr. Abrahms after the receptionist answered. 

"Kelsey! We missed you," he told her quickly. 

"I've been ill. I don't know. A virus or something," she explained. "I'm going to stay home for the weekend and try to get over it." 

"I'll come by later," he offered. 

Kelsey smiled. "Thanks. Maybe tomorrow, though. I'm just going to go back to sleep." 

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" 

The key scraped in the front door lock and Daniel walked in carrying a few plastic bags of supplies. Kelsey thought about telling Martin Abrahms before she hung up. But she needed to know more before she shared it with him. 

"Kelsey? Are you sure you're all right?" he asked again. 

"I'm fine." She watched Daniel lock the door back. 

"Get well," Abrahms commanded. "You need to be at your best for Thursday." 

"I know." She considered that she might have more reason then they'd thought to try hypnosis. "I'll call you tomorrow." 

"I'll bring some chicken soup over," he promised with a laugh. "That will cure you or kill you." 

Kelsey put down the phone and looked at her stalker. It was like some weird dream to have him standing there in her living room. He still wore the black coat and knee high black boots that she'd described so often for the police. 

"Is something wrong?" he wondered as she continued to stare at him. 

The devil of her nightmares. The vision that had reduced her to tears and thoughts of madness. 

Actually, his eyes, so black and depth less, were also kind and concerned. There was a shade of sadness that left a ghost of pain in his gaze. 

"Kelsey?" 

"I'm sorry." She brought herself back to reality. "I was just thinking that it would have saved me a lot of trouble if you had just introduced yourself." 

"I'm sorry." He shook his head, putting down the bags he'd held. "I didn't know what to do, what was going on. But I'll understand if you want me to go." 

She watched the play of emotion on his strong features. He was an attractive man but she wouldn't allow herself to be swayed by that notion. Then there was something more. A vague memory flash. Not Daniel, but a building, low and gray, set deep in the woods near a mountain. And there were boxes. Crates of some sort. They were being stacked in the building. 

"Kelsey?" he called quietly. "What are you seeing?" 

But the memory was gone as quickly as it had come. She put her head in her hands and groaned. "It's gone." 

"But what was it?" he asked, coming closer to her. "Maybe if you wrote those things down, they'd start making sense when you put them together." 

It was one of the most sensible solutions she'd heard and she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it herself. 

"There's a notebook in the bedroom," she said, starting to get up. 

"Let me," he offered, crossing the small floor space in a few strides. 

He was a tall man, as she'd thought. Large, powerful shoulders, long legs. He made the rooms appear very small in comparison. 

He handed her the notebook that had been on the bedside table, emergency numbers scribbled on the cover, and a pencil with a dull point. 

"I meant what I said before," he continued as she took the pencil and started to scribble down her errant thoughts. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable with me being here." 

Kelsey looked up at him. He had taken the chair opposite and leaned forward towards her. His face mirrored the emotion behind his words. 

She couldn't help but notice that his hands were unusually large. Long, eloquent fingers splayed out before him as he spoke. It would have been so easy to have killed her with those hands and the strength of that body. But instead, he had gone out for groceries and come back, offering to leave when she wanted him to go. 

Did she trust him? She didn't know. But she did want to hear whatever he could tell her about Sara and her past. She was like a dry sponge waiting to absorb whatever liquid knowledge he could give her. 

She wasn't afraid of him. After the night before, fear would have been ridiculous. 

"I want you to stay," she said at last. "I'd like to hear about Sara." 

His smile was gaunt and tinged with a razor fine edge between pain and an attempt at pleasantry. "I'd like to help. Whatever I can do to make it easier." 

"Just being here instead of in the street helps more than you know." She smiled. 

"I'm so sorry, Kelsey," he apologized again, taking her hand briefly. "I didn't think about scaring you. I was just so worried." 

"Okay." She swallowed on a group of weak tears that threatened to overwhelm her. "Let's start again." 

He made her tea again while she wrote what she could remember. The tiny specks of information that made up what was left of her life seemed pathetic. Her memories barely filled two pages in the notebook. 

"What did you say this was?" She grimaced, putting the cup down. 

"It's an herbal mixture." He shrugged. "I don't really know. Sara told me about the digestive problem you have." 

She looked at the dregs in the cup. "I'll have to analyze it. There might be some notation of it in my diary." 

"Does it matter if it works?" he questioned then turned to her notebook. "Is that all you have?" 

"It's not much." She considered the two pages of her life. 

"It's a start," he observed, offering her a few wheat crackers. 

She shook her head, not feeling hungry. The tea was working, whatever it was. Breakfast had been one of the biggest meals she'd eaten in two months and she hadn't been sick at all. "Tell me about Sara." 


["#TOC"] Chapter Three
 

He sat down opposite her again. "Where do you want me to start?" 

"From the beginning. Everything. How did you meet? How long have you been married?" 

"All right." He nodded. The concept of talking about his wife was obviously painful. "We met five years ago. She was working. I was delivering supplies to the lab one night." He stopped and smiled up at her. "I delivered the wrong chemicals to her. She told me she wouldn't accept the shipment." 

The image she'd had of the gray building in the forest and the crates stacked high caused her to shudder. Was she just recalling something Sara had already told her? 

"What then?" She encouraged. 

"It was something about watching her standing there, refusing to sign for the shipment. I went back the next day and asked her to have dinner with me." 

"And she felt the same way about you?" Kelsey wondered. 

"She must have," he responded. "We started seeing each other and we were married three weeks later." 

"Three weeks?! You didn't waste any time!" 

He leveled his dark gaze to hers. "There was never a doubt in my mind that she was the right person for me. I've always loved her." 

Kelsey couldn't hold his eyes. She stared down at her hands. "You're very lucky." 

"I know." 

"Do you have a picture of her?" she asked. 

He nodded and pulled out his wallet. It was new, barely creased, and there was only one picture in it. 

Kelsey noticed that he had no money in the side slit, no credit cards. She considered that it was , but then thought about his circumstances. He had been looking for Sara for two months. That could take a lot of financial resources. She made a mental note to give him the money he'd spent on the supplies he'd bought. 

She took the picture from him. It was black and white, not very good. The kind that came from a picture booth in the mall. The woman had long, dark hair and a smooth, oval face. Kelsey touched her own short hair. It was impossible not to notice how much she looked like that woman. 

"She's very beautiful, isn't she?" He asked, staring intently at her. 

"She's looks a lot like me." Kelsey looked up at him. 

He continued to stare at her closely for another long moment then he looked away with a grimace of disappointment. "I-uh-I think that's what first brought the two of you together. Sara always said it was like you were sisters." 

What was he looking for? She wondered. Was he hoping the picture might bring back her memory? 

"Do you know how long we've been friends?" she asked, looking at the picture again. 

"Since before we were married. You came to our wedding." 

"So you knew me, too?" 

"I only met you briefly at the wedding and a few other times." He shrugged. "Before and after work when I came for her." 

"Do you know how long I've been wearing glasses?" she queried. 

"Glasses?" 

She returned the picture of Sara to him. "On my driver's license, my picture has me wearing glasses. It says I have to wear them to drive but when I put them on, I can't see." 

"Could I see them?" he appealed. 

"Sure," she agreed, starting to get up. 

"I'll get it," he told her. 

"No, that's all right. I do need to stand once in a while." She waved him back down. 

"I'll just take these into the kitchen," he said, taking her cup while she went into the bedroom. 

Actually, she felt much better. Her knees weren't wobbly. Her head had stopped spinning, and she felt like she could eat a supermarket. She got her license and the offending glasses and went back into the living room. 

Daniel was on the phone, talking quietly into the receiver. He glanced up as she came back into the room and quickly laid the phone back down. 

"You know, if I'm keeping you from something -- " 

"No, I just had to cancel my-uh-flight back to Orlando," he answered quickly. 

Kelsey nodded. "You're welcome to stay here with me. I mean, if you don't have anywhere else." 

"I've been sleeping in my rental car," he admitted. 

"I don't have much more room than that," she replied. "But you could stay." 

He smiled at her slowly. "I'd like that, Kelsey. Thank you." 

"I-I hope we can find out what happened to Sara." 

"I know we can," he agreed. "Can I see that picture?" 

She nodded and handed him the license then slipped on the glasses. She turned to face him. "Well, what do you think?" 

Daniel stared at her, not moving. "Oh God!" He muttered. 

She smiled self consciously. "I-I know they're terrible. But do you remember if I was wearing them the last time you saw me? I was thinking that maybe I had corrective surgery or something." 

"Well." He looked at the license she handed him. "I-uh-think you only wore them when you drove." 

"Really?" she wondered. "I can't use them at all to see in the distance. I did have a little luck reading with them but -- " 

"Could I take a look at your notebook?" he asked, changing the subject. 

Kelsey wasn't sure and the uncertainty was mirrored in her face. "I-uh -- " 

"I thought there might be something in there I might recognize." He suggested. "Maybe later, if you're more comfortable." 

"That's all right." She handed him the notebook and took back the license. "Take a look and tell me if anything seems familiar." 

She took off the glasses, folded them up and put them away, nervously fingering the edge of the chair. 

There was a worn place on the rug just under the tiny table near the sofa. There were a lot of small things that needed to be done around the apartment but she hated taking the time from her work. 

She watched him surreptitiously as he scanned her scrawling on the blue lined paper. He was a very attractive man, she considered, dark skin, thick black hair loose on his shoulders. It had been caught up behind his neck the other times. 

It probably felt like silk, she thought, rambling. She could imagine her fingers sliding through it. Pulling it away from the side of his neck before she put her lips to that smooth flesh. 

She caught herself up short and stopped, horrified. What was wrong with her? 

"Well." She cleared her throat nervously. "What do you think?" 

"I'm not sure." He shook his head. "Have you tried anything with these?" 

"Anything?" 

"You know, imaging, for instance," he suggested. When she looked blank, "Here, try this. Close your eyes." 

Kelsey did as he proposed. She felt uncomfortable, sitting there in her robe and nightgown, hair uncombed, her eyes closed. 

"Try to clear your mind." Daniel's voice was gentle. "Just relax. Try to imagine a picture of yourself with long hair." 

"I don't think -- " She opened her eyes and started to speak. 

"No, just wait," he persuaded. "Try this. What can it hurt?" 

"All right." She sat back again and closed her eyes. 

"Now, just think about it. You wrote here that you thought you remembered having long hair. How long?" 

Kelsey felt his hands on her neck just beneath where her hair hung. 

"This long?" He asked, his voice very near her ear. 

"N-no." Her voice cracked and she hastily cleared her throat. "No. Longer." 

"Here?" He put his hands alongside her neck at the base where her hair would have been shoulder length. 

"I remember a braid," she told him, putting her own hand up to the crown of her head. "Coming down from here. Braided strangely." She frowned. 

"Strangely?" he queried. "How?" 

"A double braid. No, that's not right. Complicated. I-I just don't know." 

"You do," he encouraged. "You can see it. Tell me." 

"It was crossed-uh-plaited." She put her fingers into her hair. "Each knot looked like an upside down 'A'." 

"And when it wasn't braided?" he asked quietly, stilling her busy fingers as they threaded her hair. 

"What?" 

"When your hair wasn't braided," he repeated. "When you came home and took out those knots. When you loosened those plaits and it fell down, floated down your back." He slid his hands down her hair across her neck as though she did have that cloud of dark hair that she had seen in the mirror. She shivered as he moved his fingers. "Do you remember what it looked like then?" 

Kelsey had a brief flash that made his words come to life. Long, dark hair sliding across her neck. A white, almost transparent gown pulling down on her shoulder. The warmth of someone's hands. Their lips -- 

Kelsey's eyes opened and she moved away from Daniel's touch. 

"What did you see?" he asked, putting his hands in his pockets. 

"Nothing. Nothing. Th-that doesn't work. There's nothing there," she raved. "I might as well let them hypnotize me." 

"What?" 

"A friend of mine," she explained, touching her neck with a quick hand to offset the warmth that still lingered. "He knows someone, a hypno-therapist. The best." 

"And they want to hypnotize you?" 

"To find the answers." She nodded her head. "Since we don't know what happened to Sara." She shrugged. "It's all the more reason to do it." 

"But you aren't sure about doing it." It was a statement, not a question. 

"I think it's time I got dressed," she told him, standing up. "I may not go in today but I've got to check in with DAR." 

"Dar?" He looked at her sharply. "Is that who you were on the phone with?" 

"No. That was Martin Abrahms. You've probably seen him. DAR is my computer," she replied carelessly. Then as she started to turn away, "Daniel? Should we tell the police or someone? About Sara?" 

"Tell them what?" 

"Well, no one else seems to know that she was with me. It must have been a last minute decision on her part." 

"I contacted the police here and in Orlando," he answered. "They said they looked but they couldn't find the plane and that you were the only survivor." 

"So unless Sara was leaving you and this was something we had planned -- " 

"I'm afraid we have to assume she's dead," he confirmed quietly. "But until we can find the plane -- " 

"I know." She breathed deeply, full of her own sorrow and their mutual loss. "I know." 

"Kelsey, did you see anything more in your mind just then? Anything that might make you think it was possible to learn more?" 

Her face felt hot and she stood there uncomfortably in her old robe and slippers. "No. It was just the same. I'm going to get dressed." 

Kelsey took her time getting dressed. She locked her bedroom door before she got into the shower. It was a strange feeling, knowing there was someone else in the apartment with her. Almost as strange as knowing he had been out on the street. 

She took her time as she dressed and considered the fascinating puzzle Daniel posed. The husband of a woman she couldn't remember. Kelsey had no trouble believing him. It was too vivid. Too real. That Sara had been on the plane with her seemed unlikely, at first. Kelsey had to admit that Daniel had made her a believer. 

But if she accepted that Sara existed, other questions came to mind. Why would it have been a secret from everyone, unless Sara was trying to sneak away from someone or something? Wasn't it possible that she had pretended to leave with Kelsey? Wasn't it possible Sara was still alive but didn't want to be found? 

Daniel, on the other hand, was sincere. She felt that strongly. He believed that his wife had been on that plane. 

But how could Kelsey know if Sara was trying to get away from her husband? 

The answer was simple. Regain her memory. Or find Sara. 

The means to either one of those answers wasn't readily available. She was frustrated with bits and pieces. Exhausted with tantalizing fragments that wouldn't add up to anything. 

In the meantime, all she could do was try to find out enough of the puzzle to begin to glimpse the whole. Nothing she had experienced so far had fit together with any of the other parts. 

From there? She looked at her face in the mirror. Still the face of a stranger. Or maybe a mask, she mused, beginning to feel different than she had before. If she could only tear it away. Her fingers went unconsciously to the line down her cheek. 

Would she like what she found underneath? Sara, it seemed was both salvation, balm to her tortured spirit, and torment. Obviously loved, the other woman was a mystery. She gave a hollow place inside Kelsey a special something to fill it up, even slightly. 

And in her way, she had sent Daniel to her. Daniel who loved Sara but would rather believe her dead than face the idea that she had left him. 

Kelsey sighed and pushed her long legs into soft cotton sweat pants, a dainty pink, with a matching sweatshirt. 

One thing was certain, she grimaced, looking at the clothes. Her taste in clothing had changed because of the crash. She wanted to wear colors, bright, beautiful colors. No more pale or somber hues. There would be other changes, the doctors had assured her. She was bound to be different after what she had gone through. 

Kelsey started to put on a dab of perfume and wrinkled her nose. She put the top back on the bottle. Maybe she had liked that at some time but not anymore. And it was almost a full bottle. It seemed a pity to waste it and yet she couldn't abide the smell. 

Taking a step towards her eventual freedom, she dumped the rest down the drain, running water behind to get rid of the remaining smell. 

There was a quiet knock on the bedroom door and she quickly ran a careless hand through her hair quickly. Whatever happened, each day she had to become more like the real Kelsey. Even if she was very different from the old Kelsey when she recalled the truth. 

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," Daniel said when she opened the door. 

"I'm fine," she reassured him. "And I feel really great. Better than I have in weeks." 

"It's the tea," he told her. 

Kelsey agreed although she wasn't sure if it was the horrible tea or the release of stress in meeting her would-be attacker. Maybe it was the knowledge that she hadn't been so alone. And the feeling that she would never be so alone again. 

Whatever it was, she sat down at the table with him and ate the soup and bread sticks he'd brought with a relish that she couldn't recall having before in her short life since the crash. 

Daniel talked to her about her work, not surprisingly knowledgeable since he was involved in supplying research labs around the country. 

Kelsey enjoyed talking to him about her project. He listened well and had a few surprising questions that made her realize that Sara must have talked to him frequently. 

"You must have been very close," she observed, taking her glass of lemonade and sitting back, replete, from the table. 

He glanced across at her. "We've always been very good friends. We've always been able to talk about anything. I always felt that she was interested in my passions and I've always loved listening to the sound of her voice." 

"Not many people have a relationship like that." 

"That's true," he agreed, watching her sip her lemonade. "What about you? Hasn't there ever been someone in your life?" 

"I -- " She had a clear picture in her mind of someone. She heard him laugh but it was as though the sun was in her eyes. She was blinded and couldn't make out his face. 

"Are you all right?" Daniel touched her hand. 

She blinked her eyes and looked away from his concerned expression. "I don't know. I have feelings but everything else is just too far out of reach." 

"It'll come," he reasoned. 

"So they say." She grimaced. "Trying to remember is exhausting work." 

"I'm sure there was someone in your life besides Sara," Daniel told her. "Who told you there wasn't anyone?" 

Kelsey shrugged, not able to meet his querying eyes. "Well, they told me I had no family. That I had never been married. There was no one that responded when they were trying to find out who I was. Martin, Dr, Abrahms, had known me before, when I was working in Orlando. He couldn't recall a single friend of any length of time." 

"He might not have known you as well as he thought," Daniel answered. "After all, he didn't know about Sara, did he?" 

"No." She looked up at him. "He didn't." 

"Who is this Dr. Abrahms?" he questioned. 

"He's the director of Barton's research lab. He got me this job, had everything moved up from my lab in Orlando. He came to the hospital after they found me." 

"I'm sorry I couldn't have been there," Daniel apologized. "By the time I figured out what happened, you were already out of the hospital. You had disappeared." 

"Martin was worried about my safety after the press had made so much of my amnesia," she continued. "I thought that was why you were standing outside my window." Her heart still beat a little faster just thinking about it. 

He nodded. "I saw you at the gas station that night and I realized that you weren't Sara. The two of you look a lot alike and from a distance, I couldn't be sure. That was when I realized that something was wrong. I kept expecting Sara to show up at your apartment but there wasn't any sign of her." 

Kelsey sighed. "I just wish I knew." 

"You will." He touched her hand on the table and smiled at her encouragingly. 

Not sure what to say in return, Kelsey smiled back then stood up quickly. "I'll just get these dishes into the kitchen then check in with DAR." 

"I can do that," he said, standing at the same time. 

"You made the food," she reasoned. "The least I can do is clean off the table." 

Without waiting for his reply, she went through the swinging door into the kitchen, soup bowls in her hands. There was a clear plastic bag on the counter filled with a dark, plantlike substance that she guessed must be the horrible tea. 

She smelled it after putting the bowls down. Its peculiar pungent odor was at once enticing and awful. She wasn't sure she'd ever smelled anything like it, although she was familiar with most herbs. 

As a student, she had studied herbs and ancient herbal remedies with zealous interest. She had even tried new formulas, feeding some of them to her friends. Sometimes ending up with less than desirable results. 

She could remember once when she'd been helping a friend get rid of an unwanted boyfriend, giving her an herb that had made her have an unsavory smell. Unfortunately, it had lasted much longer than the length of the date, keeping the girl from classes for a few weeks. 

What? 

Kelsey searched frantically for that short but powerful memory. It was still there. She cherished it, reliving it over and over in her mind. She could remember something from her past. An entire length of time as crystal clear as the day before was to her. She put down the bag of tea and hurried into the living room to tell Daniel. 

He was studying her notebook again. An intent frown was marring his profile and he was shaking his head. 

"Daniel?" She was almost bursting with the news of her singular experience. 

"Yes?" He turned to face her, frowning. He put down the notebook on the side table. It was so cluttered that the book slid to the floor. 

Kelsey picked it up and threw it on the chair as she approached him. "What is it?" she wondered, wanting to touch him. She pulled back her hand as she was about to put it on his broad shoulder. 

"Sara," came his less than steady response. "It's been so long. Seeing you, reading the notebook, made me realize how much I love her." 

"I'm so sorry," she cried, cruelly feeling that she was part of his misery. Why couldn't she remember where Sara was? Even if she had chosen to live without him, Daniel had a right to know the truth. Just as she did. 

"It's not your fault," he corrected her, turning back to face her. "You were the one hurt in all this." 

"I think we both have been." She smiled through a misty veil of tears in her own eyes. 

When he reached for her, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to go into his arms. He held her close against him. Just held her. She wrapped her arms around him, offering what slender respite her body held. 

She stroked her hand through his hair at his neck and soothed his sorrow quietly with words that were strange to her. 

"What did you say?" he asked, pulling back slightly from her. 

His face was very near hers. Her heart began to beat a little faster. 

"I don't know," she admitted, wanting to touch his dark cheek. "It's like my brain overloads sometimes and these words come out of my mouth. I don't know why." 

"They sounded beautiful," he murmured, pulling her close again. He slid his arms around her then buried his face in her hair, inhaling her subtle fragrance. "And you smell wonderful." 

She laughed a little, wanting nothing more than to stand in his embrace forever. "I don't know why. I had to throw out the perfume I had. I couldn't stand the smell." 

"It doesn't matter," he told her, holding her away from him slightly. "Just being here with you. That's all that matters." 

Kelsey smiled and touched a tear that had been caught on his eyelash. "We'll find her, you know. I-I just feel certain she's still alive." 

She knew he was going to kiss her. It was a close, personal moment. It would be a kiss of friendship and emotional release. His gaze never left her mouth and when his hand tangled itself in her hair, she let him pull back her head slightly. 

Her lips parted of their own volition. It was like being swept into a soft cloud of feeling. Warmth stole into her, tingling in her legs. A wash of need welled up inside of her. His hand moved down her back and she blossomed into him, arching delicately as any morning glory coming to life in the sun's warmth. 

She was drowning. Swirling dizzily until she wasn't sure she ever wanted to open her eyes again. His lips moved over hers and she instinctively turned her head to allow him better access, wanting more. Craving more. 

"Kelsey?" 

She opened her heavy lids and stared at him, seeing the tiny lines that ran from his eyes. Seeing that he was deeply affected by their kiss. His dark eyes were filled with fire. His breathing was erratic. When she looked at him, she knew he was seeing the same thing in her face. 

Embarrassed, she put a hand to her mouth that was sensitive from his kiss. 

"I'm sorry." She started to move away from him. "Really, Daniel." 

"I'm not sorry," he retorted warmly. "And you shouldn't be. It was a natural reaction. Stress, anger, fear. What's happened between us is innocent of any wrongdoing." 

"But Sara -- " 

" -- would understand. We were just two people consoling each other in a time of need." 

Kelsey wasn't so sure she would have understood if Daniel was her husband but she kept it to herself with the heat that had built up inside of her. She moved away and his arms dropped to let her go. 

"I should-uh-go to work now. Or at least just check in." 

"You were going to say something when you came in," he reminded her. 

"It wasn't important." She turned away with a smile. "The uh, shower's yours, if you want it. I don't have any clothes that would fit you." She followed the length of him with her eyes, flustered to look up and find him watching her.. 

"That's okay," he rescued her with an easy laugh. "I have a few things." 

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Or look at him, for that matter. Sara's husband. She was kissing Sara's husband. Sara, who loved her and presumably trusted her and she was kissing her husband. 

She reminded herself sternly that she might have always been, well, loose. Just because she didn't have one steady person in her life, didn't mean she didn't have many partners. She had just assumed that she was lonely. 

Kelsey sat down at the old, scarred wooden table that she'd set up as a workstation. She logged on her computer. DAR greeted her with the news that she was later than usual. 

Routinely, she began to check her daily information on the progress of her plants. The list scrolled down. Some showed progress. Others didn't fare as well. There were a few, larger, hardier ferns that progressed, no matter what she did to them. She stopped the data and made a space in the program for some random notes on those plants. 

And what if she was a loose woman? she thought as she wrote. What if seducing her best friend's husband was a commonplace thing for her? 

While she hadn't planned on liking everything about the self she couldn't remember, she hadn't thought it would be anything as deep as her own morals. Her hair, her perfume, even clothes, those were all superficial. 

But what if Kelsey Lloyd was some good time, party animal that didn't know how to say no to any man? Was that something she could change as easily as she dumped the perfume down the drain? 

Kelsey sighed and looked at the computer screen, recoiling back from it. 

"No!" She sucked in a shallow breath and looked at the writing that covered several pages. 

"What is it?" Daniel asked, coming across the room. His hair was still wet from the shower and his feet were bare. 

"I don't know," she whispered. "I'm going to get rid of it." 

She would have pressed the delete key but his hand was on hers before she could move. 

"No, wait!" He held her hand tightly. 

"Daniel?" She tried to take her hand from his but found that his grip was too intense to get free. "Daniel? My hand -- " 

"I'm sorry." He glanced at her then looked back at the screen before letting her hand go. 

"It's just gibberish," she defended. "Like those words that come out of my mouth sometimes." 

"What if it means something," he suggested, "and you can't remember what?" 

"What could it mean?" She shrugged. "I meant to say good evening to John downstairs and an old man said he recognized Yiddish when he heard it." 

"Yiddish?" He laughed. 

She threw up her hands. "I don't think I know Yiddish but I suppose I could have someone check this out Monday." 

"I don't think it's Yiddish." He shook his head, using the green towel in his hand to catch a few drops of water at his temple. 

Kelsey tended to agree with him. The language on the screen looked numerical. It was like nothing she'd ever seen, even though it was clearly a compilation of her thoughts on the plants. 

"Can you read what it says?" he asked, curiously. 

She looked at the strange writing and it occurred to her that she could read it. It was exactly what she'd set forth to write on the hardier growth of ferns. Even a sideline about the use of fertilizer. 

"I can read it," she told him, feeling as strange as the writing. She was afraid to look up at him, not wanting to see what had to be in his eyes. 

"What is it?" 

"My notes. It's my notes." 

"Maybe it's a kind of shorthand," he offered helpfully. "I've known scientists who developed their own way of taking notes." 

"Or maybe I've lost my mind?" She knew what he was thinking. Without another word, she pushed the key that wiped the screen clean. 

"Kelsey!" He sighed at the loss. 

"I-I don't want to know what it is." She shook her head. "I just want it to stop." 

"Maybe you have to understand it before it stops," he commented, moving to sit on the sofa near the window. 

"What do you mean?" she demanded, turning to face him. 

"Maybe there's something you don't want to remember. Maybe that's why it hasn't come back to you." 

"That's stupid." She looked back at the computer screen that was asking her if she wanted to continue. "That's really stupid. I wouldn't choose to forget my life." 

He put the towel down in his lap. "It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to get away from the past by forgetting it." 

"Not me. I want to know it all. I wouldn't create a smokescreen to hide anything from myself." 

"You just hid that from yourself," he retorted critically. "The fact that you can think and write in another language, that you're fluent, must mean something." 

"It's gibberish," she argued. "Anyone could tell that. It wasn't a language." 

"It was to you," he reminded her. "You could read it." 

"That doesn't make it real," she muttered, turning back to the computer screen. "Or sane." 

He seemed to cross the room in one stride, turning her abruptly to face him. "You lost your memory because of a trauma. You aren't insane." 

"These words," she told him, trying to explain her fear. "They mean something to me. It's almost like I translate everything from them rather than the other way around. Do you understand?" 

"No. But neither do you. You haven't shown them to anyone else, have you?" 

"No! They've slipped out a few other times but I've never written them before." 

"You have to stop being afraid of them," he told her. "You have to accept them for whatever they are if you want to find yourself." 

"Why?" she questioned, pulling away from him and walking to the other side of the computer table. "What makes you think they could be important?" 

"Because they're important to you." 

"I don't know," she admitted finally. "They just seem so alien yet I know they're a part of me." 

"It's possible, isn't it?" he theorized, appealing to the scientist in her nature. "That you have to accept each piece of the puzzle as it comes along? Each piece fitting into the other," he interlaced his fingers, "until you have the whole?" 

She considered his words. She had thought much the same thing. Pieces of a puzzle. She had to have one to build another. "Yes," she agreed at last, pushing her hair back from her face. "Anything's possible at this point. It runs around in my brain until I feel like I have a hive of bees buzzing in my head." 

"Too much work," he quoted, walking to the computer. "Too little play." 

"Don't touch -- " 

Too late. He had already hit a key and to her surprise, he escaped the program. 

"How did you do that?" She wanted to know, coming back around the table. "I set up that program. I'm the only one that knows what key to escape." 

"Luck?" he queried, laughing. 

"But -- " 

"Get a coat on, let's go out," he urged. 

"Out? Out where?" she wondered, glancing at the window to see the darkness outside. "It's probably snowing." 

"Just out. I don't know where. Out of here." 

"I don't know." 

"How long has it been since you went out for anything except work?" he asked quietly. 

"A while," she admitted. Then at his grimace, "Okay, a long while." 

"Right. So let's go out and think for a while. You've been cooped up in here for weeks afraid of me being down there." His face softened, dark eyes warm on her face. "Let me take you out for a while." 

"All right." She nodded with a reluctant smile. "I can be ready in a few minutes." 

With a curious sense of excitement that she didn't stop to analyze, Kelsey found shoes and jacket, pulling out gloves and heavy socks. She would probably need a hat as well, she thought, looking for something to keep her ears warm. 

"Ready?" he called from the living room. 

"Almost," she replied cheerfully. Daniel was right, of course. It had been weeks, months, since she hadn't been afraid and been well enough to do anything but work. The prospect was exhilarating. 

She finally found a hat, dark gray but it was woven closely and it would keep her ears warm. She would have preferred something red or green. But that could come later. Kelsey buttoned her jacket and went into the living room. She opened her mouth to tell him that she was ready but stopped short. He was scanning something quickly on her computer. The words were a blur on the screen. 

As she watched, Daniel took a disk out of his pocket and put it into the machine. In a few seconds, it was finished. He switched off the computer and pocketed the disk quickly, pulling out his gloves from his other jacket pocket. 

Kelsey bit her lip. What was he looking for? 


["#TOC"] Chapter Four
 

She put a smile on her face and walked out as though she hadn't seen a thing. "I'm ready!" 

"Okay, let's go." 

"What were you doing?" She asked just to gauge his response. Let him think she hadn't seen the whole thing. 

"Just looking for computer games," he answered quickly. "How do you get it to do anything?" 

"It's keyed in to my own personal code," she replied carefully, weighing his answer. "DAR knows when it's me." 

"I'm sure it does." Daniel smiled. "It knew I wasn't you, that's for sure." 

"There aren't any games." She shook her head, putting the top down on the computer. Kelsey looked at his pocket, knowing he had put the disk in there. 

But what did she think? He was spying on her plant growth program? As interesting as she thought it was, she was fairly certain no one else would find it so. 

"I should have asked your permission. I didn't mean to overstep my welcome." 

"It's all right," she returned stiffly. "I'm ready to go if you are." 

"Yeah." He opened the door and swept her out before him. "Let's hit the town." 

It was a skill she wasn't sure she'd used but one she knew that she had as she passed him...She delicately lifted the disk out of his jacket pocket. 

Kelsey smiled up at him as they waited for the elevator and she fingered the disk in her pocket. Whatever was on it, he had copied from her computer. Or used it to add something. She burned with the knowledge and wanted to go back inside to look at it. 

What had he planned on doing with it? 

The night was cold. Stinging ice crystals swept down from the blackened skies. Traffic was heavy on the slick roads. The streets were lined with cars all impatiently trying to make their way home to warm houses and hopefully, loving families. 

Kelsey tried to put the problem of the pilfered disk to the back of her mind. She couldn't decide suddenly that she didn't want to go out although that's what she wanted to do. 

The disk was burning the proverbial hole in her pocket. Until she could load it into her computer and take a look at it, she wouldn't know what to think of Daniel. 

Be patient, she counseled herself silently. What could he steal from her anyway? He wouldn't want her notes on the growth of the ferns. She didn't think he could access the Barton mainframe from her link, although she wasn't sure. 

But what, a nagging little voice questioned, if he could have? What if everything he'd told her was a ruse and he was some sort of technology spy? 

Kelsey had heard of research espionage. There were several other scientists at the lab who were in total isolation because of it. Other companies, working towards the same goals, as well as governments, paid for formulas to disappear or research data to be changed or stolen. 

But that was the important stuff. The big money research. There wasn't a lot of money from Kelsey's plant research, even if she did develop a fern that could clean up the air. Several environmental groups had written to her and expressed their support but it was unlikely that anyone else would be interested. 

But if he could get into the mainframe, that would be different. There were any number of military programs being researched at Barton. Not to mention the enormous ticket items in health and cosmetics. 

Daniel had made a disk of something he found on her computer. He tried to hide it from her. And she felt sure he had lied about looking for computer games. 

Who was he, after all? She had taken him at his word that he had been married to someone named Sara. That someone else had been on that plane with her. Suddenly, she wasn't so sure. What if he hadn't come there to hurt her but to use her? Or was she just being paranoid? 

They walked through the crowded streets, leaving their cars behind at the apartment in silent, mutual consent. The wind was freezing but it was invigorating. It blew away the stale leftover feeling of being sick for Kelsey. But it also made her think more critically of her partner. 

Daniel was wonderful to be with; funny, intuitive about where she wanted to go, what she wanted to do. They ate up the city blocks, finally coming to a park where the hills were lighted for night skiing and sledding. 

"Let's rent a sled," he said, the light in his dark eyes like the stars in the black sky above them. 

Kelsey stamped her feet with cold, blowing on her hands. "I don't know." She looked at the long way down the white hill. "We have to come back up." 

"It'll be easy." He laughed, taking her gloved hand in his. "I'll even let you steer." 

His laughter was beautiful and contagious. She had to touch the disk in her pocket again to remind herself that he was probably not what he seemed. 

Daniel rented the sled and they pulled it to the top of the tall hill. 

Looking down into the park was like a Christmas card. A dozen skaters slid by on a frozen pond. Skiers picked up their skis for the ascent back up. The snow had started falling a little more heavily with less of the icy bite to its touch, whitening the night around them. 

"Get on," he urged her, sitting at the back himself, long legs stretched out on either side of the sled. 

"I must not have done this as a child," she muttered, sitting down hard on the sled in front of him. 

"I'm pretty sure Sara said you were from a warm climate, California maybe," he brought his legs up on either side of her, put his arms around her. 

"So how do you steer?" she asked as the sled started moving slowly down the first gentle summit of the hill. 

"You won't get down there like that!" A young girl yelled, her friends laughing at the adults on the sled. With two very small hands in mittens, she gave them a hearty push against Daniel's broad back. 

They were flying. The snow was diamonds flashing up around them. Kelsey screamed and shut her eyes. 

"You have to steer," Daniel said loudly. "Use your feet." 

"What?" she yelled back. 

"On either side of that front part! Push to the right or we're going to -- " 

Kelsey saw the tree coming up in front of them and pushed hard, as he suggested, to the right. The sled moved away to the side but it hit a steep dip and was airborne for an instant before coming back down with a thud. 

"Remind me never to let you drive again." He took a deep breath. 

There was nothing for her to hold on to, so Kelsey found herself holding on to Daniel's legs as they came down faster. He held her tightly, his warmth keeping most of the cold air away from her. She smiled into his face that was just over her shoulder and they came to a crashing spill at the bottom of the hill. She forgot about the disk in her pocket. 

The sled turned sideways, throwing them off into the fluffy snow. Kelsey opened her eyes and saw that the disk had slipped out of her pocket. She grabbed it quickly and replaced it, she hoped, before he saw her. 

"What a ride!" he enthused and she felt safe. He walked over to her where she stood, self consciously hiding the disk in her pocket, and started brushing loose snow from her jacket. "Are you all right?" he wondered, taking off his glove and wiping snow from her cheek. 

"I'm fine," she answered confidently, putting a smile on her face so that he wouldn't investigate any more closely. 

"Let's do it again," he proposed, picking up the sled. 

"How do we get back up?" she wondered, looking back up the hill they had covered so quickly coming down. 

He looked around. "They have a tow line. It'll pull us to the top." 

"Will the sled hold out?" she asked, looking at the sturdy piece of metal and wood. 

"Probably better than we will," he answered, grabbing her hand. "Come on." 

After three more trips up and down the hill, Kelsey began to agree with him. She was pleasantly exhausted. She really couldn't remember feeling better than she did just then. 

"That's it!" she told him finally after they had coasted down the frozen hill the fourth time. 

"Once more," he pleaded, his eyelashes white with snow. 

"That's it for me!" She laughed, touching his cold face without thinking. "I'm going somewhere for something warm to drink!" 

"All right," he agreed reluctantly. "But I think we were just getting the hang of it." 

"I think that's the other way around. The hang of it was just about to get me," she retorted, knowing she was going to be sore the next day. 

Kelsey waited while Daniel returned the sled. Later night sled enthusiasts and skiers had packed the park even though the snow had become heavy. Or maybe because of it, she mused, looking at a white crystal on her glove. 

She remembered the first time she had seen snow. It was like a miracle. A frozen, perfect jewel that shone like a diamond in the sun. They had heaped mounds of it together and he had thrown his at her, laughing. But she had been too awed by the phenomena and had just held it in her hands, even though she was freezing. 

Kelsey, shaken by the revelation, almost sat down in the snow. 

There was a man. He was the one she recalled touching her, running his fingers through her long hair. She could remember the sound of his laughter. But not his voice. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall his face or his name. 

Frustrated beyond words, she stared out into the night as people laughed and played around her and the snow piled up on the already white ground. 

"Ready for that warm drink?" Daniel asked as he approached her. 

Kelsey looked up at him, not able to keep the anguish from her face. "I was so close," she told him. "He was right there, throwing snow at me. Then he was gone." 

Daniel didn't pretend not to understand. "What do you remember?" 

"His laughter." She hunched down into her jacket feeling colder than she had a few minutes before. "And his voice, in a way. Not like I can really hear it exactly. More like I can feel it." She looked up at him. "Does that make any sense?" 

"I don't know." He shrugged, taking her arm, steering her out of the park through the crowds of people. "I've never lost my memory. But maybe it's like a song that you can just recall but not enough to know exactly how it goes." 

"I don't know." She walked beside him into the street, finally looking up. "Where are we going?" 

"Someplace warm for something hot to drink," he told her. "Isn't that what you requested?" 

"Maybe we should just call it a night," she suggested, feeling deflated and worried again. The disk was laying heavily in her pocket. 

"It's on the way," he continued. "We don't have anything at the apartment to drink except -- " 

" -- the tea." She grimaced, finishing his thought easily. 

"Exactly." He nodded, retaining his gentle grasp on her arm. "And while it's good for you -- " 

" -- it tastes like dirt," she completed. 

"Are you going to let me finish a sentence?" He stopped and turned to her. 

The streetlight just above them made a halo around his dark hair and she thought about how many nights she'd gone to sleep with him standing on the corner just out of her vision. 

Had he been waiting for Sara? she wondered, looking into his face, shadowed by the light. Kelsey genuinely hoped so. She didn't want to think that he had put on this elaborate show just for something she had that he wanted. 

Only time and the insertion of the computer disk into her hard drive, would tell. 

"All right." She grinned. "You've convinced me. As for finishing your sentences -- " 

" -- we just won't let that become a problem," he concluded. "Right this way." 

The tiny cappuccino spot he led her into was dark and fragrant with the smells of chocolate and strong coffee. It was only two doors down from her apartment building. 

"Have you spent much time here?" she asked after they'd taken off their coats and the waitress had taken their orders. 

"More time than I like to think about," he told her seriously. 

"You know, we've talked so much about me and my problems." She twirled a sugar holder around on the table. "I really don't know anything about you." 

"Okay." He responded. "What do you want to know?" 

"Well, you said you deliver supplies?" 

He nodded. "To research facilities around the country. I took a six months leave of absence until I could find out what happened to Sara." 

"You work out of Florida?" she wondered, hoping that if he wasn't what he said, that she was asking the right questions to trip him up. Hoping that there were no right questions. 

"Sometimes. I go where I'm needed. I don't really have a home base. The company I work for is world wide and technically, I work for myself." 

"But you grew up in Florida?" she persisted. 

"I grew up all over." He smiled. "I'm the legendary preacher's son. My father was a missionary. He wasn't even sure where I was born." 

"I'll bet your mother knew!" She laughed, pleating the white tablecloth between her fingers. 

"I never knew my mother. She died a short while after I was born," he answered calmly. "Kelsey?" 

"Hmm?" She looked up at him across the small round table. 

"What's wrong?" 

"Wrong?" she feigned, wondering what she had said that gave her away. "What could be wrong?" 

"I'm not sure." He put his hand on hers to still the meticulous pleating motions of her fingers. "I know something is wrong." 

Their cappuccinos arrived just at that moment and she was quiet as the waitress told her to call for her if they needed anything else and recommended the chocolate chip cookies. 

Kelsey searched quickly for some plausible explanation, not finding one until she looked into his eyes again when the waitress had left them. 

Daniel was a very attractive man. There was no doubt that he struck a chord in her that was difficult to ignore. 

Discounting the possibility that she had been 'loose' before her accident, Kelsey knew that she wasn't overly experienced with men. There was only one man in her memories. Not a rack of them. 

"Kelsey?" he urged her out of her reverie. 

"I-I feel guilty," she confessed the half-truth. She looked up after studying the pattern in the tablecloth. 

Daniel's dark eyes were very concerned, intent on her face. "Guilty?" 

"About Sara," she continued, "and about the man in my memories. Here we are sitting and drinking coffee and we don't know what's happened to Sara. Or if that man is waiting for me to remember and call him." 

"Kelsey," he began, pausing as though lost for words. He stared at her, took her hand in his then sat back from the table. "I don't know what to say." 

"I know." She sighed. "It's an impossible situation." 

"Impossible," he agreed, sipping his cappuccino, avoiding her eyes. 

It seemed as though she had hit a nerve in him, she thought, sitting back herself with the steaming cup. 

They finished in silence, awkward, uneasy silence. They walked quickly through the city streets, heads bent against the wind. Carefully not touching each other. Her words had worked, she considered sourly. They had worked brilliantly. 

Kelsey touched the disk in her pocket. You don't know him, she reminded herself bleakly. If he is who he claims to be, you can apologize. If not, well, you can deal with it when it happens. All it would take is looking at the disk in her pocket. 

She glanced at him in the elevator on the way to her apartment. Guilt had made her trust him to begin with, guilt and the fact that she had been too sick to do anything else. And that hunger that had wanted to know anything about her past. 

"I'm not sure I should stay here," Daniel said sadly when they were inside her apartment. 

"Of course you should," she urged trying to find a light tone. "I mean, you have no where else to go." 

"But the way you feel," he began. "I don't think you'd be comfortable with me here." 

Kelsey finished taking off her jacket, hanging it by the door where it could dry. She might have outmaneuvered herself. If Daniel left before she knew the truth, she could be dooming herself to more nights of looking down at him in the street. At least if he stayed with her, the police could be convinced of his reality. 

"I want you to stay," she said finally. "Will you?" 

He looked uncertain but finally he nodded his dark head. "Yes," he answered simply. "I will." 

"Good." She nodded. "I'll see you in the morning then." 

It seemed like she waited forever. The time moved slowly, numbers flashing on the dark screen, her face pressed against the pillow. It was well after midnight before she felt confident going into the living room to get her computer. It was a laptop that could be set up anywhere. Just as easy to check the disk in her bedroom behind a locked door. 

Kelsey crept into the dark room carefully. The blanket and pillow she'd given him were spread out on the sofa. She tried not to breathe too loudly or move too quickly past it, hoping not to draw his attention. 

Maybe it was a little melodramatic, she thought scornfully. She could have told him she was taking the computer into her room. It was her apartment. But the thoughts she had about him and about the disk were better thought sneaking around in the dark. Was she being too suspicious? After all, he had only pocketed a disk, not tried to rape and murder her. 

Or had she been too trusting in the first place? Allowing him to stay with her, acting like they were long lost friends even though he was her self-confessed stalker. 

She was confused and more than a little scared. She hoped the disk was harmless, prayed that it was only games. But she knew the question would sit like lead in her stomach until she tried it. 

Kelsey retrieved the disk from the pocket of her coat, clutching it tensely, tucking the computer under her arm and creeping back into the bedroom. She locked the door behind her, wincing as the lock clicked loudly into place. 

The computer had been her constant companion for the past two months. She knew it better than her own stranger's face. She set it up in the dark and waited while the screen lit up. 

Kneeling on the soft, worn carpet in her bedroom, she slipped the disk into the drive and pushed in her code to call up her DAR program. 

"Okay," she whispered when the computer said that it was ready to display. "Let's do it." Kelsey pushed the button to enter and sat back on the floor, holding her breath. 

The disk came up on the screen. Kelsey gasped. 

It was an entire program written in the language she had used unknowingly on the computer earlier. She scrolled through the information quickly. She didn't stop to question how she knew the strange language, accepting that somehow, she could read it just as clearly as if it were English. 

And it seemed to be a recipe for a covered cheese and potato dish with scallions. 

Confused, she pushed the button to return to start. She read through it twice more but it was still the same. What could it mean? 

Kelsey was baffled. It was certainly not something Daniel had taken from her computer. But where had it come from? 

She exited the program, shut down the computer, then sat back against the wall in the dark. Her life, already confusing, had taken an even stranger turn. 

The disk was harmless. At least she couldn't see what harm a potato casserole could be to anyone. She leaned her head back against the wall, listening to the sounds of traffic moving slowly in the snow-covered streets below. 

She should be dancing, she considered. The terror that had haunted her nights and shadowed her days was gone. He was asleep on her sofa in the next room and wasn't the threat she'd imagined. 

She'd overdone it with the disk as well. Her imagination running overtime, throwing her into a state of panic because she'd seen Daniel put a mystery disk into his pocket. 

But if he'd had that disk and he'd known that the language on it was the same as the type she'd tried to identify earlier, why hadn't he pulled it out then? Why leave her in the dark? 

Maybe, she thought, tiredly, he was having a hard time dealing with her amnesia as well. Maybe it was hard trying to decide what he could say and what he couldn't say. Maybe he thought it would be good for her to have to think about it on her own. 

But he hadn't taken it from her computer. That was the basic thing. And he probably wasn't some sort of spy, stealing whatever technology he could find in the Barton computer. 

But despite the apparent innocence of the disk, Kelsey still felt uneasy. She couldn't go back to her simple acceptance of Daniel's story. Something didn't feel right. 

There was nothing she could do that night, however, she yawned, but she intended to check out his story the next day. Martin had friends in odd places. If necessary, she could ask him for help, although she would rather handle it alone. She didn't want to be sheltered from the truth. Even if it was something bad. 

One thing Daniel had said that made sense to her. She had to start wanting to find the truth, looking for her past without being afraid of what was behind her. 

She sighed, closing her eyes, willing herself to get up and get into bed. Personal revelation was exhausting. Her emotions felt as though they'd been through a wringer. And she didn't feel any closer to knowing the truth. 

She was thinking about the look on Daniel's face when she had told him her feelings about Sara and the man in her life. It was almost amazement then disbelief. And something else she couldn't quite put her finger on. There was something he wasn't telling her. 

Without meaning to, she fell asleep on the floor, the mystery potato casserole disk still in her hand. Sometime during what was left of the night, she barely recalled someone helping her up from the floor and throwing the comforter over her. 

And in the gray light of morning, Kelsey found herself in her bed. She was disoriented, slow to realize what had happened. 

The disk was on the bedside table. The computer was on the floor. There was a note taped to the top of it from Daniel. 

He'd had to go out, something about his job. She read with only one eye open. He'd be back later. 

She groaned and threw her head back against her lumpy white pillow. He'd forgotten to explain why he'd thought it was necessary to open her locked door and put the note next to her bed. 

She'd thought someone helping her into her bed was a dream. But she was too tired to care just then. She buried her head in her comforter and fell back asleep. 

The buzzer at the door woke her the second time. She stood up quickly, grabbing her robe and stuffing her feet into her slippers. 

It was Martin Abrahms. He bustled into her apartment, leaving her at the door staring at him. 

"Good morning, Kelsey!" He walked past her, taking off his wool car coat and laying it carefully over a chair. "How are you feeling?" 

"Fine." She glanced at the blanket and pillow neatly placed on the sofa. "I'm much better today." 

"That's wonderful," he exclaimed. "Did I wake you?" 

She looked at her worn robe and put a hand to her hair that was wrapped across her face. "I'll go and change," she told him. 

He nodded. "I'll just go into the kitchen and make us some coffee." 

"Great, thanks." 

When he was walking into the kitchen, Kelsey grabbed the pillow and blanket, taking it with her to the bedroom. She wasn't sure why she didn't want to discuss Daniel with Martin. After all, he was interested in helping her recover her memory. 

But if Daniel was telling the truth, why hadn't Martin known about Sara? He had claimed to know so much about her. Surely she would have mentioned that she was bringing another person with her to Chicago? 

But first, she had to be certain that Daniel was telling the truth. That's when she hoped to discuss him with Martin, she decided, pulling up jeans and a heavy gray sweater. 

Not when she walked into the kitchen and found Martin examining the plastic bag full of tea bark. 

"What is this?" he asked, looking up at her as she pushed open the swinging door. 

"It's tea," she answered, pushing back the dark hair from her face. She took the bag from him and set it in the refrigerator. 

"What kind?" he questioned, putting coffee into the filter. 

"Just some herbal blend," she replied as though it didn't matter. "I have some bagels." 

"None for me," he replied with a smile. "Is something wrong?" 

"No." She smiled. "Just not really awake, I guess." 

He swept a concerned gaze over her pale face. "Are you sure you're all right?" 

"I'm fine, really," she returned. "I've been drinking that tea." He looked at her sharply. "It's done the trick." 

"But you don't know what it is?" he questioned closely, clearly finding the wisdom lacking in that decision. 

"I-uh-read about it," she defended. "And that is my specialty," she reminded him. 

"That's quite true." He took two mugs down from the cabinet and placed them on the counter. "I guess I'm used to you talking with me about these things beforehand." 

"We have been very close," she acknowledged, leaning her hip against the counter. "I'm surprised you wanted to put up with me for so long." 

"There's no surprise to it." He smiled, taking her hand and kissing her fingers lightly. "We've been friends for a very long time, Kelsey. I don't take these things lightly." 

"I've been thinking about Orlando," she began, fingering the sugar dish as she spoke. "It seems like I remember someone there. Maybe a woman. A colleague." 

"Really? Anyone in particular?" 

She shrugged. "I'm not sure." She looked up at him carefully. "It almost seems like I remember her working with me on this project. She was dark haired, slender -- " 

"If there was anyone who might be able to shed some light on your amnesia, Kelsey," he assured her calmly. "I would have been the first to tell you." 

"I know," she replied quietly. "You've been so helpful to me." 

The coffee perked in the silence between them, the aroma spilling into the apartment. 

Something had happened, changed between them in a way Kelsey couldn't begin to explain. Whether Daniel was telling the truth or not, she had changed in some subtle way that made her relationship with Martin feel uncomfortable. 

"We're still on for Thursday at my house?" He confirmed, putting milk into his cup. 

"I'm not sure, Martin." 

"What's happened, Kelsey?" he protested. "I could tell when I walked in here today that there was something wrong." 

"There's nothing really wrong," she began. 

The front door opened. "Kelsey?" 

Martin Abrahms stared at her, twin points of ice in his eyes. 

"Kelsey?" Daniel walked through the swinging door into the kitchen and stopped at the sight of them. 

The coffee perked once more loudly then the orange light went on, signaling that the coffee was ready. 

"Martin Abrahms." He moved first, putting out his hand. 

"Daniel West," the other man responded, putting his hand in his from around the brown grocery bag. 

"You must be a friend of Kelsey's." Martin glanced at her. 

"A friend of a friend," Daniel agreed. "And you've been a good friend to her, I understand." 

Martin's face showed no emotion as he stared at the taller man. "I have tried to do what I could for her." 

Daniel nodded but Kelsey noticed that he didn't smile and his hands were tight on the grocery bag. 

"We were about to have coffee." Kelsey stepped into the ominous quiet between the two men. "Maybe we could all sit down together." 

"I just stopped in for a moment actually," Martin said quickly with a flourish of movement, walking towards the door. 

Kelsey followed him into the living room, leaving Daniel in the kitchen. "Stay," she urged. "I want you to meet him. Hear what he has to say." 

"Did you just pick him up off the street?" Martin hissed at her. 

"He's a friend of a woman I worked with," she replied quietly. "He's been trying to help me." 

"Help you?" he demanded. "Help you? That's what I've been trying to do, Kelsey. But you've turned from me, haven't you? This man!" He nearly spat out the word. "He's trying to change things between us." 

"Martin!" She put out a hand that he shrugged off. 

"You know where I am if you need me," he answered, sweeping his coat with him to the door. "Just remember, Kelsey," he warned. "I've been there since you woke up in the hospital. Where has he been?" 

Kelsey closed the door as he flung it back and stalked out of her apartment. She looked up and saw Daniel watching her from the kitchen doorway. 


["#TOC"] Chapter Five
 

"I have to go," she told Daniel. She put on her boots and jacket, taking a second to tuck the disk into her pocket. 

"I need to talk to you," he said, putting down the bag. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. 

The width of the apartment stretched between them. It was a chasm Kelsey didn't plan to cross just then. 

"I'll be back." She barely looked at him. "I won't be gone long." 

"Kelsey!" He tried to stop her but she was gone before he could reach her. He leaned his head against the door. "Don't do anything until we talk, please," he finished for an empty audience. 

Dr. Abrahms was right, she decided, as she ran down the stairway. He had been there. From the beginning, he'd been at her side. She owed him more than just a rational explanation. 

And where had Daniel been? Standing out in the street, scaring her witless. Looking more like a nightmare than a friend. She didn't owe him anything, she considered, following the ruts cars made in the heavy snow as it fell steadily through the morning. 

She wasn't even sure she trusted or believed him. He had come into her life when she was particularly vulnerable and she was trapped somewhere between trying to guess what reality was and trying to stay alive. 

But there was no denying that her feelings had changed for Martin. Not that she ever considered him in the light he seemed to consider her. He was just a good friend, a link to her past, and a shoulder to cry on. It had begun to appear recently that she was more than that to him. 

It made her angry that she hadn't seen it before and maybe if she hadn't been so wrapped up in her own misery, she would have. All she could do was explain to him, try to get their relationship back. Hopefully, she could convince him that she wasn't the right person for him. 

Heavens! she wasn't the right person for anyone since she had no idea who that person was! She was made up of questions and fleeting memories of a past she couldn't recall. Sometimes she felt as though she were made of sorrow. 

Last night had been the first time she'd felt alive outside the lab since the crash. 

No, that was a lie, she argued with herself. It had been the first time she'd felt alive at all since the crash. Her work was important to her. It was what kept her going. 

But that tingle of laughter and that rush of adrenaline had been wonderful! She hated to admit it but it was Daniel, too. Daniel laughing at her, his face red with cold, his hands warm around her as they slipped down the hill. 

He made her feel as though there might be something else. Something she'd forgotten or never had in her life. And while she wasn't sure she trusted him entirely, she felt guilty just thinking about looking into his eyes. 

Remembering the kiss they'd shared, Kelsey's face felt hot. She jumped when a car sounded its horn behind her going into the parking lot at Barton. 

Ellis wasn't at the gate and the taciturn faced man who did check her ID didn't invite any conversation. "Go on." He waved her in, his expression clearly telling her that she was a weird science person and that he was only killing time until retirement. 

Kelsey swung into a spot closer to the front than her usual. She got out of her car and looked around the parking lot but didn't see Martin's blue Cadillac. 

Not bothering to check in her lab before trying to find him, Kelsey entered the facility from the front lobby, nodding at the security man there. 

"Dr. Abrahms in?" she asked. 

"No, ma'am." He shook his head, his blue uniform bulging around his waist. "Haven't see him yet this morning." 

"Thanks." She smiled. "I'll just wait for him." 

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded and went back to his powdered donuts behind the counter. 

Kelsey started down the long hall towards Martin's office and lab, stopping as she passed Dr. Anders lab door. 

Dr. Anders was an iconographer, probably the best in her field. Kelsey hadn't spent much time talking with her but she seemed to recall that she was a friendly woman. It suddenly struck her that if anyone could tell her what language the disk was in, it would be Dr. Anders. 

Her specialty was cracking codes from ancient civilizations but she had also been part of the program that had created the intergalactic symbolism for the Voyager probe. 

Kelsey drew a deep breath and knocked heavily on the door. 

Many of the scientists at Barton were xenophobes, careful to avoid as much outside contact as possible. Kelsey honestly couldn't remember if that was the case with Dr. Anders. 

"Do come in," called a cheery voice muffled as though from a great distance yet keeping the cool British accent vivid. 

Kelsey looked around the lab curiously. It was covered from floor to ceiling in long paper printouts, graphs and charts. Paper obscured the floor between computers, dozens of them, set up around the long room. 

"Oh!" The voice that had hailed her from behind the door began. "I don't think I know you, dear!" 

"I'm-uh-Dr. Lloyd, biotech. We-uh-met at the tea a few weeks ago." Kelsey waded her way through the paper. 

There were also pictures of drawings, writings from caves, tombs, walls. 

"Of course you are," the voice continued though she still wasn't visible. "Come over for tea, dear." 

'Over' was the far end of the lab where a small table was set in the watery sunlight falling in through the high window. 

"Oh yes, I remember you," Dr. Anders said, taking her hand. "Kelsey, isn't it?" 

"Yes," Kelsey smiled, embarrassed. "I'm afraid I don't -- " 

"Not to worry!" Dr. Anders poured tea into a cracked mug. "My daughter's name is Kelsey or I probably wouldn't have recalled yours either, dear." 

"I-uh-was wondering if you might do me a favor, Dr. Anders," Kelsey asked, sitting down at the table with the woman. 

"Civil, dear, and what is that?" she asked, taking the disk Kelsey was holding out to her. She adjusted her strange, half-blue, half-clear glasses down on her nose. 

"I was hoping you could tell me," Kelsey confided. "It's something I found while doing some research." 

Civil Anders looked at the disk carefully as though it might lend some clue to what was on the surface. "Research?" she asked, glancing up at Kelsey. 

"I-uh-thought it was a disk written about plant care," Kelsey contrived artfully. "I still think it is but I can't read it." 

"Probably Chinese." Civil Anders bit into a cookie after offering one to Kelsey. 

Kelsey sipped at her cup of tea, thinking about the strange, terrible brew Daniel had her drinking. 

"If you could just take a look at it," Kelsey ventured hopefully. 

"Of course. Glad to!" Civil nodded, getting up and going to the closest computer. She pushed off the clutter, took out the disk that was already in the drive. 

Kelsey watched her put her program into place then slip the disk into the drive. 

"It'll be just a few, dear." She resumed her seat, crunching cookies. She adjusted her pale blue eyes on Kelsey, poured her some more tea, then drew her voluminous smock closer. "Are you married, dear?" 

Kelsey sipped her tea and silently urged the old computer to hurry. 

When there were no more cookies and the tea was gone and Civil Anders had asked every personal question she could think of, she looked up and noticed that the program was done. 

"It's about time," she said, putting away the pictures of her grandchildren then patting her obvious gray/white wig. "What's this?" 

Kelsey joined her at the screen while Civil did everything she could to verify that the disk was operational. 

The words scrolled down the pages, slowly at first then faster as Civil shook her head and tried to find some point of reference. "I don't understand," she kept repeating. "This is fascinating but I just don't understand." 

"What is it?" Kelsey asked. "Is it Chinese?" 

"I don't think so, no." Civil glanced at her over the top of her glasses. "Where did you say you got this?" 

"A friend at another lab found it and gave it to me because he couldn't read it," she lied, feeling as though she were getting in deeper with each lie. "What-uh-what does it look like to you?" 

"I'm not really sure." Civil shook her head. "Could you leave it with me for a bit? I have some writings on another computer that might match it but it will take some time." 

"Of course." Kelsey nodded. "I appreciate your help, Civil." 

"I should have it for you after an hour or so." Civil went back to work, writing some of the frequently used symbols on a yellow legal pad. "This is all how we do it, you know," she continued. "We find the same symbols over and over and they begin to form a pattern of sorts." 

"Does this look like some kind of shorthand to you? Maybe some scientific shorthand?" 

Civil spared her a dry smirk. "Shorthand? Possibly." She nodded. "If you're a mathematical genius!" 

"Oh!" Kelsey felt a little dizzy. "Can you read it, Civil? Can you tell what it says?" 

"No, not yet at any rate," Civil murmured. "And I doubt anyone else can either but not to worry." She smiled and shooed Kelsey out of her lab. "I'll know something about it presently." 

Kelsey found herself outside the lab door and heard the lock click into place. She was so dizzy she could hardly keep herself upright and her breathing had become labored. She bent over, keeping her head down so that she wouldn't faint. 

"Kelsey?" Martin found her standing there as he walked towards his lab. "Are you all right? Can I help you, dear?" 

"Martin," she gasped. "I'm so sorry. I just wasn't thinking." 

"Let's get you into my office." He glanced up and down the empty hall. "You'll be fine." 

He helped her into a beige pseudo leather chair and went to fetch her a glass of water. He watched with a puzzled frown on his face as she drank the water from the paper cup then looked up at him. 

"I'm fine," she told him with a half smile. "I just got so dizzy in Dr. Anders' lab that -- " 

"Dr. Anders?" he queried, half sitting on his wide desk. "Why on earth-? 

Kelsey decided to tell him the whole thing. She might not feel romantic towards him but he was a proven friend. She might not be certain about Daniel but she was about Martin. 

She told him about being so ill when she got home, about finding Daniel on her doorstep. And about the disk and the words she'd put on the computer. 

"And you say he had this disk?" Martin nodded. "And that you're sure the writing was the same?" 

"Out of the few symbols I recognized," she agreed. "There's more." 

He lifted one gray brow and sat forward to catch her words. 

"I don't know what it is but I can read it." 

"Kelsey!" 

"I know," she defended. "I know it sounds strange. It's true. But what does it mean?" 

"I'm not really sure," he admitted, sitting down shakily on the chair behind the desk. He ran his hand through his thinning hair then looked back at her. "What did this Daniel person tell you?" 

"That it was probably a form of scientific shorthand that I'd picked up." 

"And what did Civil say about it?' 

"She said she didn't know what it was. But she definitely didn't think it was shorthand of any kind." 

"And of course, here you are, unable to refute anything anyone tells you because you can't recall any of it." He spared her a kindly glance. "I don't know what to say." 

Kelsey, at a loss as well, sat mutely in her chair, willing her memory to come back at once. Finding only that strange emptiness where her life should have been. 

"And do you trust this man?" Martin asked carefully. 

"Not exactly," she answered. "But what about Sara?" 

"She could have been someone you worked with." He frowned. "I could make some inquiries. It's possible you didn't know her as well as this man claims you did but that she was trying to get away from something and hitched a ride with you from Orlando." 

"In a way, he suggested something very similar," she replied, thinking about Daniel's words. 

"Kelsey." Martin leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling for a moment then sat forward again, staring at her intently. "I haven't wanted to bring this up because it wasn't something necessary and well, quite frankly, you haven't been able to remember." 

"What is it?" she wondered. 

"You were working on another project besides this one when you came up here." He held up his hand as she started to speak. "You were only a member of a team working on this project but I wonder if all of this doesn't tie in together." 

"What project?" She could feel dread curling in her stomach like a snake. 

"It was top secret. Government work, you know? I'm not really sure how you got to be part of the team but it involved a shield of sorts. Actually, a new design for a shield that could so obliterate, confuse the atoms around it, that it could render anything it covered invisible." 

"What!?" 

He pressed his hand on hers where it lay on the desk. "I know it's a shock for you. That's why I saw no point in mentioning it sooner." 

"I don't understand." She jumped up from the chair and started pacing the room. "How could I have been part of something like that? My specialty is so different." 

"I don't know all the details," he replied calmly. "But I do know that it was a sticky point for the government to allow you to come here, even though the project was over." 

"You mean the device, this shield thing, is already created?" 

He nodded. "For some time." 

"Could this disk have something to do with it?" she wondered, turning to face him. 

"I don't know, Kelsey. Or whether this man thinks you might have information for him." 

"Daniel?" 

"I could check him out when I look for Sara," he offered simply. "It would only take a phone call." 

Kelsey dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. "Yes, please. And could you get me some more information on this shield project?" 

"I'll do what I can," he promised gently. "I'm sorry to have to spring it on you this way." 

"That's all right." She smiled, pressing her hand into his shoulder. "You've been a good friend." 

"And you can't recall any of it, can you?" He stood and put his arm around her. 

"Sometimes, I wish so hard to remember that I feel like I could explode," she told him through tightly clamped teeth. 

"You're pushing yourself too hard," he cautioned. "And it will all come out this Thursday." 

"Yes." She turned to face him, deciding to go ahead with the project. "We'll know it all." 

"You'll let me know when you hear something from Dr. Anders?" he reminded her. 

"Yes, I will. Until then I'll be careful what I say or what I write," she answered flatly. 

"Good." He nodded, smiled, and kissed her forehead. "I'll see you later then and maybe I'll have some information for you as well." 

Kelsey left him then, stopping by Civil Anders' lab but finding the door still closed and locked. The woman hadn't found the answer as yet, she decided, and walked down to the opposite side of the building to her lab. 

There was so much to consider. The thoughts raced through her brain. A military project that was considered top secret. How could she have been picked for such a thing? What part had she played? 

She found herself staring at her blank computer screen before she abruptly switched tactics. 

That kind of thinking was getting her nowhere. She knew from the past she could remember from the crash, that sometimes answers came to her when she was working intently on something in her lab. 

She put on her lab coat and picked up her clipboard. Work was the therapy she needed. She had two hundred and twelve ferns that needed watering, checking that day, dozens of solutions that had to be re-appraised. Throwing herself into her work, Kelsey began her tests, putting everything else from her mind. A few of the ferns had begun to wilt despite her care. She changed their feeding schedule. 

One group, she called them her super ferns, always looked fresh. They never lost leaves like the others. Never wilted no matter what she fed them or what environment she put them into. Their stalks were thicker, a richer green than the others. 

Most importantly, when she put them into a toxic gas chamber one night, the next morning, the air in the chamber was clear and well oxygenated. Only the super plants could accomplish this feat. The others wilted and died overnight. 

But no matter what she tried, she couldn't isolate what made those ferns different from the others. 

"Samples of organisms show an accelerated growth curve, more chlorophyll in the arterial supply," she spoke aloud into her tape recorder. 

The sample also showed an enzyme that wasn't present in the other ferns but it stubbornly refused to be accepted by a combination of the two plants. In short, though the plants should have been identical, a handful had developed traits that she couldn't recreate in the others. 

"Kelsey?" Civil Adams peered around the door when her knocks weren't heard. 

"Come in, Civil." Kelsey sat back from her microscope, rubbing her eyes. 

"Interesting." Civil looked at the heavy foliage that filled the room. "I wish I could make mine look like this at home. Is there a secret?" 

"I wish I knew." Kelsey sighed. "They've all had the same nourishment, are given equal amounts of ultra violet. Yet you can see." She lifted a frond from a nearby plant. "These are much healthier." 

" I should buy plastic, if I were you," Civil recommended. "They always look very good." 

Kelsey laughed. "I'll keep that in mind next time one dies." She glanced down at her watch. "Is that the time?" 

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't!" Civil shook her head. "It's taken me all day with this little gem, dear, and I'm still not sure that what I have is an answer." 

"I'll take whatever you have," Kelsey assured her. 

"Well then, here is a copy of a page of your disk. Notice the lines here and here." She pointed. "I thought at first that this was a simple transposition cipher. You see the geometric designs." 

"Yes." Kelsey looked at the text. 

"It could be concealment." She sighed and shrugged. "If we had something else to compare." 

"I appreciate your time," Kelsey told her. 

"There is one other thing," Civil replied, looking at Kelsey steadily over the rims of her glasses. "I had this faxed to me from D.C. just a few minutes ago. Take a look at it, if you will." 

Kelsey took the paper from her and looked at the short message. The script was plainly identical. 

The message was clear: Our study is far from complete. Request additional time. 

"It's the same." Kelsey put the two papers together even though her ability to read them both stated the obvious. "They're both the same." 

"I was hoping you could tell me, dear." Civil Anders removed her glasses and observed her steadily. "However did this happen?" 

"I wish I knew," Kelsey replied honestly. "Where did this come from? If you had seen it before -- " 

Civil held up her smooth, white hand. "This is something I saw twenty years ago. I wasn't sure until it came in that it was the same." 

Kelsey held her breath. "Where was it?" She looked back at Civil. "Where did you find it?" 

"When I was a student at George Washington," Civil continued. "They took us to see a strange code that had never been broken. It was at the Air and Space Museum in a small back room." 

She handed Kelsey a black and white shot, badly focused, obviously taken without permission. It was a fragment of metal, scorched and creased, bearing the code that was written on the disk. The message faxed to Civil. 

"They have never been able to discover what metal this is or where it came from. The code has never come close to being understood, even though some of the world's best cryptologists have tried." Civil took Kelsey's hand in hers, her face very close. "Thomas Edison was one of the first to examine this code. It was found just a few years before he perfected the light bulb," Civil continued. "Do you understand?" 

Kelsey looked at her mutely. 

"Whoever wrote this disk understands this code. They've known it since 1877." 

"That doesn't make sense," Kelsey blurted out angrily. "You don't know what you're saying!" 

"Kelsey. Whoever wrote that message might be long dead but there are others. This disk proves that there are others." 

The two women stood in the midst of the ferns. The faded sunlight from the skylight shadowed their faces. 

"I can read the disk," Kelsey whispered, barely audible. 

"What?" Civil breathed, watching the younger woman's face as she briefly touched the long, thin scar on her cheek. 

"I don't know how. I don't now what it is, what language it is." She swallowed hard then looked into Civil's pale blue eyes. "But I know what it says." 

"Kelsey, my dear girl." Civil touched her shoulder lightly. "Where does it come from? What does it mean?" 

"I don't know." Kelsey turned away abruptly, putting her hands to either side of her hot face. "I don't know what it is. I-I can't remember anything before two months ago." 

"What does it mean?" Civil's eyes burned. Her brain ached for the answer to the puzzle. "What does the message say?" 

Kelsey turned back to face her, torn between wanting to trust her and the fear that she didn't really have anyone she could trust. "It says." She made her decision. "Our study is far from complete. Request additional time." 

"Oh, my Lord!" Civil sat down hard on the stool beside her. "I need a drink. The answer after all this time! I definitely need a drink!" 

"What now?" Kelsey wondered, sitting down opposite her. 

"Now?" Civil focused back on the present, putting her glasses back on her nose. "Now we have to find out what happened to you, dear. Where you come from. If someone's looking for you." 

"I can't remember anything except a few remnants that don't seem to mean anything." 

"Well, that will be a problem." Civil pondered it. "But in the meantime, you can't be safe. Who else knows about the disk?" 

"Dr. Abrahms." Kelsey balked, touching a cool fern leaf. "And the man who gave me the disk." 

Civil's eyes widened until Kelsey thought they would fill her face. "You mean someone did give it to you? You didn't just make all that up?" 

"No, well, yes, someone did give it to me. A man. It's very complicated." 

"Do you know him?" 

"No, not exactly. He claims to be the husband of a friend of mine." Kelsey grimaced. "But I can't recall having any friends." 

"And where does Martin Abrahms fit into all this?" Civil wondered, trying to think past the most astonishing thing she'd ever heard. 

Kelsey told her everything about her relationship with Martin from the moment she opened her eyes in the hospital to their conversation in his office earlier. 

"Whew!" Civil pushed her white-silver wig back a little from her forehead. "This is quite a muddle!" 

"I know. I just don't know what to do to solve it." 

"I'm sure I can't quite imagine," Civil conceded. "The one thing I am sure about is that you need time to remember or for someone to locate you." 

Kelsey shrugged. "Well, that's about all I've been doing." 

"But don't you see, dear? Something is happening here, although I don't know I can tell you what it is right now. I do know one or both of these men are involved in it. They could both be after something. Well, just your knowledge of this code could be enough to start a riot." 

Kelsey thought about what Martin had told her about the shield project she had worked on in Orlando. Was there something there she'd forgotten that one or both men were after? And how would she know? 

"I have a little place. Nothing, mind you, but it's perfect for your needs right now." Civil gathered her breath and her courage, feeling as though she might have tumbled into an incredible adventure. "You could stay there until you can sort this whole thing out." 

Kelsey considered her offer. "I don't know, Civil. This could all get out of hand. I don't know if you should be involved." 

"Well, it's a little late on that score, dear. Anyway," Civil continued to plan. "You might be able to use your knowledge of the code, even if you can't recall everything, to contact your people." 

Kelsey wanted to ask just who Civil Anders thought were 'her people'. But she nodded, feeling as Civil had said, like she was being squeezed. Maybe if she could get away, it would help. 

"Kelsey?" 

"Martin," Civil whispered. "Not a word, dear, if you want the plan to work. I'll meet you in the parking lot in fifteen minutes." 

"Civil?" Martin Abrahms looked at the woman suspiciously. "I thought you'd be gone for the night." 

"I'm just on my way, Martin," she announced cheerfully. "See you later, Kelsey, dear. Sorry about the disk." 

"That's all right," Kelsey acknowledged, following her lead. "Thanks for trying." 

"Don't mention it, dear. Good night, Martin." 

"Good night, Civil," he returned smoothly, waiting for the lab door to close before speaking to Kelsey. "Well?" 

She shrugged, hoping she remembered how to lie. "There was nothing she could do. She couldn't find anything to compare it to." 

He seemed relieved. "It might be just as well. I got the information back on your friend, Daniel and his wife, Sara." 

Kelsey sat down on the stool again. "Does she exist?" 

"No, I'm afraid not. And he is the worst kind of con man, preying on women he reads about in the paper. In your case, using the fact that you can't remember anything." 

"But what could he want from me?" Kelsey queried. 

"The information on that disk no doubt pertains to the shield project. They probably can't decipher it. Someone, no telling who, hired him to get you to read it for them without realizing what you were doing." 

She didn't have to feign her concern. "What can I do now?" 

"You'll have to come out of the city with me. I'll hide you until Dr. Marshall gets here Thursday and you recover your memory." 

"Where would we go?" she questioned, feeling as though what little stability she'd had in her world was crashing down around her. 

"I have a little place in Wisconsin. We can hide there until then. Once you're yourself, you can read the disk and put everything to rights." 

He was convincing, careful with his words. Perhaps a little too smooth but then so was Daniel. 

Kelsey put her head into her hands. She was tired, feeling manipulated and a little scared. "All right, Martin." 

"I'll make the arrangements," he told her. "Wait here for me, Kelsey. Don't talk to anyone!" 

Martin wanted to take her away to Wisconsin and hide her until Thursday. 

Daniel was expecting her back at the apartment, probably looking for his disk. And that was a whole other angle. 

Civil Anders seemed the least of all the evils. She wanted to hide her out until her mysterious rescuers could find her. 

Kelsey just wanted a good night's sleep and dreams of who she used to be to come true. Civil Anders seemed to be the best chance for that. She grabbed up her purse and backpack, tossed in her computer and notes and snatched up her coat. She took a look at her research, feeling somehow that it might be the last time she would see her super ferns. 

Then she was out into the parking lot in the darkness to wait for Civil Anders. 


["#TOC"] Chapter Six
 

It was dark and the snow was still falling. Kelsey shivered as the wind swept by her, swirling snowflakes in the bright light from the parking area. 

She shifted her heavy purse and carry bag. Her feet were cold and getting wet. She didn't know if she should go to her car or wait for Civil Anders to come out of the lab. 

Her life, which had been stagnant for so long, was suddenly moving forward with the speed of light! All those nights since the crash that she wished something would happen that would make her feel alive! She would trade them all for feeling like her life was stable again. 

It was all happening too fast, she thought, grudgingly. She hardly knew which end was up. Since Daniel had come into her life, it had been a wild roller coaster ride. 

Martin Abrahms, the only friend she had been certain of in her strange, empty world, was teetering on the brink of uncertainty. Was he using her to get information that was on the disk? If so, she mused, snowflakes melting on her eyelashes, he was going to be painfully disappointed. Unless she was wrong about her reading of the disk and the cryptic message from the museum, the disk was only a cookbook. Nothing more. 

And if Martin's deception was a fact she had to accept, how had he known that she would have the disk? In all fairness, he had been taking care of her for months before she met Daniel. 

And that brought it all full circle again, making her head reel. 

There was an eerie sense of danger. A wrong-ness about the whole situation that Kelsey didn't trust and didn't fully understand it. 

Daniel wasn't telling her the truth either. She was willing to swear to that fact. Where his lying began and the truth ended, she wasn't certain. Did Sara exist? Had she been on the plane with her? Or had Daniel just seen something about her in the paper, as Martin suggested. If so, what did Daniel want from her? 

But there was the disk again. If Dr. Abrahms wanted the information on the disk, he had been gambling that Daniel would bring it to her. 

Civil, at least, was one person Kelsey had sought out on her own. She was the wildcard that neither man could have foreseen, if either had believed she could read the disk. It seemed that Civil was the one trustworthy person in the odd group. 

There was the hard crunch of a booted foot on snow covered pavement. Kelsey turned towards the sound, her nerves on edge. Strong hands pulled her back into the thick evergreen and covered her mouth. 

"Quiet," he whispered into her ear, holding her tightly against him. 

She had very little choice but to obey since the hold was absolute. She couldn't move or speak. The arm clamped around her diaphragm was making it difficult to breathe. 

The dark shadow of a tall man passed by them almost soundlessly. He stopped for an instant to die out a cigarette on the wet pavement then went on around the building. 

"I'm sorry to have to be so dramatic." Daniel apologized, releasing her. "We have to get out of here." 

"I'm not going anywhere with you," she assured him confidently. "If you don't leave, I'll call the police." She couldn't see his face in the shadows but she did hear his long drawn sigh of exasperation. 

"Haven't we gone through this already?" 

"And we'll keep going through it until I know the truth," she replied, wishing Civil would hurry. Her words were bravado. Her legs were trembling. 

"The truth," he repeated scornfully. "That's exactly what I've tried so hard to salvage in all this." 

"At least your version of it," she accused angrily. 

"Mine is the only version, " he told her with quiet forcefulness. "I know you don't want to believe me and I don't have time to explain right now. We have to get out of here." 

"I'm not -- " 

"Yes," he replied softly but with deadly menace, "you are." 

Kelsey started to run and opened her mouth to scream. He was on her before she could do either, tackling her in the snowy, wet ground, wrapping an arm around her. His hand clamped on her mouth. 

She bit down hard on the cold material but for nothing. The glove was too thick. The man was too strong. Kelsey struck out at him but he pinned her to him, catching her sharply just under the ribs until she was breathless. 

"We have to go," he told her again, while she struggled for breath. "I won't hurt you." He left her bags on the ground, dragging her limply with him through the parking lot to his waiting vehicle. 

Kelsey felt like a bag of fertilizer, trying to catch her breath, not able to yell or fight. Surely someone would see her from the lab? she thought frantically. 

The lighted windows remained impassive. There were no guards, no other researchers leaving the facility. 

Daniel put her roughly into the passenger side of the Jeep, grabbing a piece of rope. "I'm hate to have to do this." He took a deep breath. "And I know I'll never hear the end of it, but I have to tie your hands and feet. I don't want you to hurt yourself but I can't let you get away from me again." 

Kelsey kicked out at him weakly but it was too late. Hands together in her lap, her coat half dragged from her, she felt the spasm in her diaphragm begin to slack off. With her last burst of energy, she opened her mouth to scream as he finished tying her ankles. 

Daniel sighed, then stuffed a glove in her mouth. 

"I have to go back to the apartment for the tea," he explained carefully. "Then we'll leave the city." 

Kelsey stared at him with accusing eyes as he started the vehicle. She looked towards the lab once more but no one came out. Snow had already begun to cover her purse and the marks their short lived struggle had left in the parking lot. 

What had happened to Civil? She wondered even though the question was pointless. What would she think when she found her bags in the lot? 

Her last hope was shattered when she wondered what would happen when they tried to leave through the gate. Whoever was on duty was bound to ask questions. Maybe even stop them to investigate. 

Daniel simply shoved the car into low gear and the Jeep went out through the dense undergrowth that surrounded the outer edge of the property. There were no lights in the thin forest are except for the Jeep's headlights. The blackness was like a wall on either side of the twin beams cleaving their space into the night. 

"Actually, these are very useful vehicles," Daniel told her, talking to her as though she were a willing passenger, a companion. "They travel equally well through snow and mud, even shallow water and sand." 

Kelsey purposely turned her head and looked out the window into the night. She considered trying to move her fingers close enough to the door handle so that she could open it but even if she threw herself out on the ground, she wouldn't be able to get away. He would be on her before she could recover and she could even be injured in the fall. She had to be smarter than him. 

He had given her enough of his plan to know his immediate destination, she decided. All she needed to do was wait for the right moment. Lull him into believing that she was resigned to being with him. 

"Turn your head and I'll take that glove out of your mouth," he offered. 

Kelsey, thinking she could use anything to her advantage, turned her face to him. He snatched the glove out of her mouth and threw it on the dash. 

"I'm sorry this happened," he apologized. "I thought I could handle it but I didn't realize how complicated it would get." 

Kelsey used the guise of getting her hair out of her face to check on how tightly her wrists were tied. She found she could easily slide her hands in the rope. 

"It was probably naive of me," he continued as though she had acknowledged his conversation, "but I guess I thought you'd recognize me." 

"I might have, if we'd been closer," she retorted sharply, wondering if he had forgotten all the lies he'd told her. "After all, you're Sara's husband. Not mine." 

"I only said that because you had no idea who I was," he answered, eyes never leaving the dark field in front of them. His hands were busy with the wheel as the snow drifts pulled them back and forth between the trees. 

"Who are you then?" she asked. Anything to make conversation. Maybe she could even make him trust her so that when they arrived -- 

"I'm your husband," he replied, "for lack of a better term. We've been together for five years. You are Sara West. Not Kelsey Lloyd." 

"And you are crazy!" she mocked him, forgetting her initial plan to lull him into a false sense of security. It was an absurd lie. She was astonished and disappointed with him. "Did you think I'd believe that now?" 

"No," he admitted. "Not really. Hold on, here's where we meet the road." 

It was a rough climb even for the four wheeler to get from the low ditch where the forest ended and the pavement began. Kelsey was terrified that they would turn over at any minute and be crushed under the weight of the Jeep. There was nothing she could do but stare at Daniel's hands on the steering wheel and hope she had a chance to get away before she was killed. 

When they reached the top and the Jeep was cruising down the wet, partially salted road, Daniel asked her if she was all right. 

"So, if you didn't expect me to believe it," she pursued their conversation, "why tell me?" 

"Because it's the truth," he answered, glancing at her quickly in the pale green glow of the dash light. The windshield wipers slapped as the snow hit the glass and the words were lost in the sound of the tires on the road and the dull whine of the heater fan. 

She took a deep breath, trying to control her anger and the fear that bound her as surely as the ropes on her hands and feet. "The truth, Daniel? What do you want from me?" 

"I want to take you home. I've been trying to find a way to do that since I found you after the crash." 

"And where's home?" she wondered. 

"I don't think we should get into that right now." He shook his head. "You're not going to like the answer." 

"Try me," she encouraged, studying his profile, planning his downfall. 

"Okay." His gaze sideswiped her. "We're from another planet. Another world. Reaum, near the edge of this solar system. Earth probably won't even realize we exist for another dozen years or so but we've been here for over a hundred years." 

"Why?" She almost faltered, cleared her throat, then tried again. "Why?" 

"Studying them as a species. Getting to know them before we make contact." 

"Did we come by flying saucer?" she queried, a gurgle of hysterical laughter wanting to escape. She pushed it back hard into her throat. There was nothing humorous about someone who really believed they were from another planet. Daniel obviously needed help. 

"Sara." His voice was clearly condemning. "Don't make this any harder than it's been already. You wanted the truth, remember? I know with your belief of yourself right now that this sounds off center. But think for a moment. Remember the language you were putting on the computer screen, the words you spoke to me?" 

Daniel said something to her, ostensibly, she guessed in that other language. 

"You mean the language on the disk?" 

He nodded. "I wanted you to see that, take it from me. I was hoping it would spark some memory inside of you. Something that wouldn't make this so hard." 

"You mean I've seen the disk before?" she queried briefly, telling herself that she wasn't caught up in his fantasy, just trying to keep him talking. 

"Seen it?" He laughed. "You wrote it! You've always been more interested in this world than I have. To me, it's always just been a job." 

"What has?" she wondered then thinking quickly, "What does it say?" 

"You can read it," he said flatly. Then he looked at her face. "All right. It's a cookbook. All the recipes from Earth you could ever wanted, plus some." 

"And what," she managed weakly, "has your job been?" 

"Just what I told you. I tried to stay as close to the truth as I could. I fly supplies down here every three months. Not more often because of UFO sightings and so forth." 

"And what was I doing down here?" 

"You've been dying to come down here since we've been together. You finally had a chance when your vacation was at the same time as my flight down here. ReCon said it was all right." 

"ReCon?" She tried to keep up. 

"Reconnaissance Central. They weren't sure at first. Usually only researchers are allowed down here." 

"But I'm not a researcher?" 

"Not that kind," he replied. "Although you could have been down here for the examination of the plant life. I think that's what you told them." 

"And that's when I got in the crash?" she demanded. 

"No. It was your involvement with Dr. Lloyd and her ferns that almost got you killed. While I was in Colorado, you decided to meet this Dr. Lloyd and the two of you hit it off. She asked you to go with her to Chicago. Her plane went down. The rest, you know." 

"I don't think I want to hear anymore," she answered, wondering how far his story went. How far could a deranged mind take a fantasy? 

"You might as well," he responded curtly. "I looked for you. It should have been easy since you were wearing a locator. But you either lost it in the crash or it was destroyed. We can only assume Dr. Lloyd was killed in the crash. Like everyone else, we can't find the plane." 

"Surely with your obviously superior technology, you should have been able to find it?" 

"Our superior technology created a personal shielding device that you must have activated when you crawled out of the plane. ReCon is furious, and terrified, that someone from this planet will find it before we do. But the doctors said we had to wait. Any sudden confrontation with the truth could have scarred you forever." 

"Then why tell me now?" She turned on him angrily. "Aren't you worried about me anymore?" 

"Because we have to find that plane and that personal shield. Because your Dr. Abrahms was trying to force it out of you. We think Dr. Lloyd might have showed it to him before you left Orlando to prove that you were from another world." 

"You are insane!" she blurted out despite her best intentions. 

"I thought I was going to be," he reflected coldly. "Standing outside your window, night after night. Wondering if you were okay. Hoping nothing would happen to you but too afraid to walk up to you and touch you. Watching Dr. Abrahms put his hands on you." 

Kelsey turned her head away from him as they stopped at a traffic light near town. Her heart was racing. She tried desperately to slow down her thoughts. She needed a plan or nothing was going to save her. If she thought Daniel was insane, it would be bad enough. 

The mention of the shield brought a glimmer of light. 

Martin was right, in a way. Daniel's part in this might be trying to get the shield project she had worked on in Orlando. The disk might be some kind of test, she considered, to see if she could read it. Perhaps code for the project was written in that obscure language. It scared her to think of some terrorist group wanting the information she had in her brain. But not as badly as thinking that the man beside her was totally insane! 

"You're not buying this at all, are you?" he asked as the Jeep slowed down, coming close to Kelsey's apartment. 

"I don't feel very well," she answered, getting an inspiration at last. She bent over slightly in her seat as though she were sick to her stomach. 

"Sara." He stopped the Jeep and turned to her. "I hope you weren't eating without drinking the tea again?" 

"Why?" She grunted. 

"It's the greatest significant difference between us. We lack an enzyme humans possess for digesting their food. The tea provides that enzyme. Without it, it's like their version of lactose intolerance. That's why you've been sick after you ate for the last two months. Their food won't kill you but it will make you miserable. You used the tea when we first arrived and you had your first taste of native food. Watermelon." 

"I don't know." She moaned, holding her hands as close as she could to her stomach. "I think I'm going to throw up." 

"We'll have to go upstairs and brew some more tea," he told her, jumping out of the vehicle and going to her side to help her out. 

Kelsey kept herself bent over while he untied her feet, keeping herself from kicking him in the face by a drastic effort of will. If she moved too quickly and didn't wait for the right moment, she might never get away from him. 

She let him help her into the foyer, past the doorman, into the elevator. Moaning and leaning heavily on him, she kept her head down, planning her escape. 

He opened the door to her apartment then picked her up in his arms, taking her quickly to the bedroom. "I'll make the tea, Sara. Just lie down. I'll be back in a minute." 

He was obviously anxious about her health and for a heartbeat, that made her feel guilty. Until she stopped to think why he was so anxious about her. What if she should die? It would be worse than not having her memory, although that must have been quite an inconvenience to him. 

As quickly as he left her there, she was on the phone. She couldn't get in touch with Civil and the police didn't seem an option. Reluctantly, she called Martin. 

"Where are you now?" he asked when she had explained that she had been kidnapped. 

"My apartment," she told him quietly. "But I don't know for how long. Should I call the police?" 

"No," he advised her. "For matters of national security, the local police can't know about this. But I know who to call." 

"I'll try to slow him down," she promised, feeling better knowing help was on the way. 

"Do that. But be careful, Kelsey. He might be dangerous." 

"I will," she promised. "Hurry, please." 

"Hold on, Kelsey, dear. I'm on my way!" 

The line went dead and she quickly replaced the phone. Nervously, she searched the room for a possible weapon. Her gaze fell on a heavy metal rod used for weights. It was short, just a little longer than her hand. She fit it easily into the comforter beside her. 

"Here's the tea," Daniel announced, returning. "It's not as strong as it should be but I thought it would be better to settle your stomach as quickly as possible. I'll make more when we get out of here." 

His attention was touching. Carefully placing his hand on the back of her neck, he helped her drink the vile stuff. She wondered again what it was and hoped it wasn't poisonous, consoling herself that he wouldn't want her to die. Yet. 

"That's better." She breathed, making herself relax in his grasp. 

His hand was warm on her neck, soothing. Even though she knew him for what he was then. 

"Sara," he whispered, touching his lips to a spot near her ear, just under her hair. "I have missed you so." 

She kept herself still while he stroked her hair, kissed her forehead lightly. She didn't want to feel anything. Certainly not the spiraling warmth that filled her. But it was as though her body believed his tale of knowing him intimately. 

His hand curved on her hip. She moved, slipped closer to him. His fingers slid through her hair. She shivered, knowing again the sensation of someone stroking her much longer tresses. 

His kisses fell across her face and the secret place on her neck that made her spine tingle. He murmured strange, familiar words in her ears. His breath caused a swell of fluttering in her stomach. 

"Sara." He kissed her lips, barely touching her. Yet she was falling back against the pillows, her body weightless. Her mind was captivated by him. 

She was keeping him occupied, Kelsey told herself as she felt his body move against hers, pressing her into the mattress. The means had presented itself and she was taking it. 

Her arms were heavy weights that came to rest comfortably on his shoulders, folding him closer. She heard a small sound, like a sigh, as he lifted his mouth from hers. She realized that it had come from her. 

Daniel laughed, a low, husky sound, as he nuzzled her ear. "I wasn't sure if I'd ever hear that sweet sound again." His hands slid down her rib cage then up to cup her breasts. The flesh moved to swell against his palms and a point deep within her burned. 

Her body felt hot and restless. Aching. 

She reminded herself again that she was just killing time until someone could arrive to help her. The fact that his kisses were draining the strength from her, robbing her of any cohesive thought, wasn't part of the plan. It was a side effect. 

Kelsey moaned then bit her lip to keep from allowing any other sound from her traitorous mouth. 

But Daniel couldn't stand to see that beautiful, tender form so maligned and caught it in his own lips, freeing a surprised sound into his own mouth. 

"Daniel," she whispered, touching him despite herself as his kisses moved lower, beginning an erotic trail from her naval to her breast. 

"Sara." He smiled at her, pushing her sweatshirt from her hot body to the bed beside her. His fingers, so magically dextrous, slid down her hips just beneath the waist of her sweat pants. He kissed as he touched, coaxing, daring her to move with him, to return his kisses. 

Kelsey felt her back arch, thrusting her against him, mindlessly needing his touch against that part of her that felt on fire. She was melting, gasping, her body begging him for some release. 

She heard a sound, out of place. The room was dark but she opened her eyes. Something moved. A shadow on the wall disengaged itself and there was no time. 

There was a hard thud and Daniel fell heavily against her. 

"Kelsey?" Martin's voice called out. "Are you all right?" 

"I'm fine." She pushed out from under Daniel's inert body, searching for her sweatshirt with her free hand. She fought down guilt and shame, looking at him and remembering her response to his kisses. 

"Thank God we got here in time." Martin helped her up from the bed. "Are you sure you're not hurt?" 

"Yes," she replied breathlessly, finding her sweatshirt. She pulled it ruthlessly over her head. "What now?" 

"These gentlemen will take your friend to a holding cell where he'll be questioned and probably arrested on espionage changes." 

The two huge men were already moving forward with the plan, dragging Daniel's body from the room. Kelsey could see that his chest was bare. His shoes and socks were gone. He hung limply between the two men, his head bowed. 

"As for you, we'll have to get you out of here. You aren't safe here. If he could find you, there'll be others." 

"I'm ready." She wrapped her arms across her chest. Her nerve endings were still on fire but a cold void was beginning to fill her stomach. 

"We'll go to my house in Wisconsin until the government can arrange something else for you," Martin told her, helping her with her coat. 

Kelsey stepped into her boots. She heard a muffled groan then a series of dull thuds that led to silence. 

"He must have quite a hard head," Martin observed. "Ready?" 

She nodded then thought about leaving Civil at the lab. "I need to call Dr. Anders," she told him. "She'll be wondering what happened to me." 

"You can call her from the house," he insisted. "I don't want to be responsible for your safety here, Kelsey." 

Kelsey looked around the house as she threw a few articles of clothing into a case, a handful of toiletries into her purse. Martin had thoughtfully brought along her laptop and her purse from the parking lot at the lab. She could hear sounds from the living room again, wincing as she heard each cruel strike against Daniel. She knew she had to shore up her resolve. The man would have done no less to her if he didn't get what he wanted. 

On impulse, curiosity always being one of her strongest traits, Kelsey picked up a few of the tea remnants in the cup beside her bed. She emptied a small bottle of aspirin into her purse and put the dark, wet leaves into the bottle, replacing the lid. 

"Ready, Kelsey?" Martin asked. "Our part is finished here." 

"I'm coming," she answered, hanging her case and purse from her shoulder. They walked past Daniel and she tried not to look at him. She looked instead at one of the two men who were holding him. The other jerked his arms roughly behind his back and put handcuffs on his wrists. 

"Sara!" he said, barely able to hold up his head. "Get away from them. Don't trust them!" 

The man, double Daniel's size, pulled his head back by his long, loose hair and hit him hard across the face. Blood trickled from his mouth before his head slumped down again. 

"Do they have to be so violent?" Kelsey shivered, looking away. 

"I suppose they know their job." Martin shrugged nonchalantly. "We should leave." 

"I know." She bit her lip hard and started for the door. 

"What did he say, Kelsey?" Martin asked as they were going through the doorway. 

Kelsey shrugged, realizing that Daniel had spoken in the strange language that he insisted came from another planet. "I don't know," she replied, pushing the button for the elevator. "He was speaking in another language, wasn't he?" 

"Yes." Martin sighed heavily. Kelsey couldn't miss it. "He was." 

They rode down to the foyer in silence. Martin only broke the emptiness when he offered to carry her bag as the elevator door opened. 

"Thanks." She handed it to him. "Should I follow you to your house?" 

"No, I think we'd better just take my car. Yours could be traced." 

"That's fine." She smiled absently, trying not to feel as though she had walked into another trap. 

"Besides, mine will still be warm and the night has turned quite cold." He smiled back at her, touching the collar of her coat. 

Martin apologized for the inconvenience. He hadn't planned on going out again that night and he had to stop for gas. "I'll be right back, Kelsey. Just relax and stay warm." He left her there. 

Kelsey looked around the station, nearly deserted although it wasn't very late. She wasn't sure who she thought would be watching her. Getting paranoid, she considered. She saw the phone between the seats in the car and picked it up to dial information. 

She got Civil Anders' home number and tried to call her there, but there was no answer. As an afterthought, she called the lab and asked for Dr. Anders, only to be informed that she had left a long time before with Dr. Abrahms. 

Kelsey put the phone down and looked out the car window, feeling the first flutter of panic in her stomach. 

It was snowing harder when they left the city. The roads were dark and isolated, not plowed as well or salted like the more traveled Chicago city streets. It was only supposed to be only two hours to Martin's vacation house in Wisconsin. After the last remnants of toll roads and bright orange lights, there was nothing but rolling hills and tall forests. The trip seemed to stretch on for hours. 

Martin drove silently, the radio set for an all weather station. Every so often, he would look at her and smile, as though at peace with the world. 

Kelsey's thoughts were not so peaceful. But she was thankful not to have to make conversation with him. Jumbled pictures of Daniel on the floor of her apartment, unconscious, blood on his face, warred with the image of his dark eyes gleaming down at her, his dark hair falling across her face as he loved her. 

She closed her eyes, savagely thrusting those pictures from her mind. 

Daniel was not what he seemed, despite the fact that she felt something towards him. What she felt wasn't a real emotion. It was because he had woven those lies into a tapestry of what he wanted her to believe had been her past. What she had desperately wanted to believe was true. 

Somehow, she had to find a way to forget that he had come into her life. He had been kind and sympathetic. He had created a yearning in her to remember her past. 

But it had all been an act calculated to eventually take the information about the shield project from her. Martin had been right about him. He wanted her to remember only to destroy her when she did recall the information that he wanted. 

The terrible part was that she wasn't sure if Martin was any better. 

There was the discrepancy of the language. If what Civil said was true, how could she read a code that was a hundred years old? How could she and Daniel converse fluently in it? Daniel had known the disk was a cookbook. He even said she wrote it. 

She didn't have the answers to that puzzle. Daniel's answers were crazy. Martin seemed to be ignorant of it. Yet, she felt certain he was biding his time. He seemed disappointed when she told him she didn't understand the strange language. 

Maybe the answers were inside of her and the hypno-therapist would be able to set them, and her, free. As much as she fought herself about the process, she had to set her mind on the fact that it was necessary. 

While his words of warning still echoed in her ears, a part of her still wanted to believe that Daniel was everything that his dark eyes promised. She knew she had to face the facts that at best he was a thief. At worst, a psychopathic liar. 

With a shudder, she closed her eyes and turned her head aside, trying to get some sleep as the car sped down the long, black highway. 


["#TOC"] Chapter Seven
 

It was after two A.M. before Martin shook her to tell her that they had arrived at his house. Kelsey looked at her watch's lighted dial, opening the car door to let the cold morning air wake her. Martin was already treading through the heavy white snow taking her things into the house. 

"Coming?" he asked. "Don't be too long. It's nearly 30 below out here." 

"I'm coming." She yawned, sliding from the seat, shivering after the heat in the car. 

The snow had stopped falling and the sky was a clear dark backdrop for the diamond bright stars that were sprinkled across it. The Milky Way was clearly defined, a thick white band of smaller stars that stretched across the heavens like a sash of brilliance. 

Kelsey looked at them and thought about what Daniel had told her about being from another planet. Not that she didn't believe it was possible. If she could be standing there, looking at the stars from that point of view, it seemed feasible to her that someone else, her counterpart, could be standing on the other side, looking at the same stars. 

Even if she believed him, which she didn't, she didn't think it would be as simple as he'd outlined to establish observation posts on the earth. There would be radar to avoid and planes. Not to mention people around the sites. People would be forever reporting sightings of aliens and strange spacecraft. 

Kelsey shivered again and started inside. All right, so people were always reporting sightings of aliens and strange spacecraft. That didn't exactly prove that Daniel's story was true. Especially since it was common knowledge. 

"There you are, Kelsey." Martin met her halfway through the door. "Welcome to my home." 

"Thank you." She ducked past him and looked around the dimly lit rooms. "This is quite a unique place." 

"Do you like it? I restored it myself. It was an old hunting lodge my father and I used to come to when I was a child." He stayed at the door a moment longer as she started to take off her coat. She yawned again, trying to cover it so that he thought she was still half asleep. 

In reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. Every instinct was screaming at her to leave. Every reasonable impulse in her body was being superceded by the intense urge to run back out the door into the cold and escape. 

"The stars are so close here, they look as though you could reach out and grab a handful, don't they?" He turned to her, closing the door. "When I was a child, I used to think that on clear nights like this was when UFO's came down to earth from other planets." 

Kelsey smiled tautly. "I suppose it was the science fiction of the time that made everyone think so." 

"I suppose," he agreed. "Of course, there are still times that I think it might be possible." 

"UFO's?" she queried. 

"Aliens," he replied, smiling at her, coming to stand beside her, putting his arm around her. "You must be tired. I'll show you to your room." 

Feeling as though she were walking on shards of glass, Kelsey walked with him, accepting his easy companionship. 

"I've never really upgraded the lighting in here," he explained as they walked down the long hallway. "I spend so little time up here in the winter and in the summer it's very light, you see." He pushed an antique light switch but nothing happened. "It must be turned off at the lamp," he said, trying to peer into the total blackness of a bedroom. 

"I'll get it," Kelsey volunteered, seeing the lamp on the oak table at the far corner of the room. It was shaped like a moose. She pulled the string on the side to turn it on. The light was very dim, barely illuminating the thick darkness. The heavy curtains were pulled closed on the small window. 

"You have very good vision, Kelsey, dear," Martin complimented. "The bathroom's off to the left there. There are extra blankets in the closet, if you need them." 

"Thanks," she rasped, just wanting to lie down and sleep. 

"I had my man, Jorge, come up a few hours ago and get everything ready. He'll be along with your bags in a minute. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask." 

"I'm sure I'll be fine," she retorted, surprised. 

"Then I'll see you in the morning and we'll have a chance to talk." He nodded. "Sleep well and be assured, no one will find you out here. Good night, dear." 

He closed the door and Kelsey shuddered, glad that he hadn't tried to kiss her good night. She wasn't sure she wouldn't have screamed and pushed him away. Her nerves were raw and she felt ready to explode. 

She sat down on the bed carefully, as though it were a bed of nails, barely perching on the edge. The lodge was very quiet around her. There were no city sounds, no cars. It created a vacuum that she didn't find particularly peaceful, preferring the noises of people and traffic around her. 

She wondered what had happened to Daniel, picturing him in a cell, his face looking like it had when she'd left him at the apartment. She thought about Dr. Anders again and tried to use the phone on the bedside table near her but the line was dead and she returned the receiver to its cradle. 

It was a very old, heavy phone, like so much in the lodge. It had a rotary dial whose numbers were all but erased, worn away in usage. 


Jorge, an unpleasant man with a dirty shirt and shaved head, entered the bedroom without knocking then tossed her bags carelessly on the floor. "Anything else?" he demanded. 

"No." She stood quickly, not feeling comfortable sitting on the bed with the man there. "Thanks." 

He grunted and left her there, slamming the heavy door behind him. 

Jorge didn't seem to be the sort of man Dr. Abrahms would hire to cut his lawn and care for his home. Kelsey decided she would ask him about the man in the morning. For then, she locked her door and climbed into bed in her clothes and fell asleep. 

During the night, she dreamed about the plane crash. 

Kelsey and a woman she didn't know were flying in a small plane. The weather was clear. There were white fluffy clouds below and around them. 

"Only another fifteen minutes and we should be hearing from Eastridge control tower," the woman told her. "I don't know what happened to the radio." 

There was a muffled boom. The plane shook a little like thunder shaking a house. 

"What the -- " 

Smoke bellowed into the cockpit and the plane abruptly began to lose altitude. 

"Fire," the other woman yelled, coughing, trying to right the plane. "The engine's cut out. Get the extinguisher!" 

The plane shook through another, more jarring explosion. There was a whistling sound as the air raced along the thin sides of the plane's rapidly descending body. 

Kelsey didn't see herself fall but she was on the floor of the plane. She was climbing across supplies that had pulled loose from the sides. She was trying to reach the extinguisher through the odd angle of the plane. Her hands were cut and bleeding but she managed to get a grip on the red cannister. 

"I'm coming," she called through the smoke. 

It was easier to reach the cockpit. The plane was nearly angled straight up and down through the sky with the nose pointed towards the rapidly approaching ground.. 

She snapped off the safety control and pointed the white foam at the worst of the fire, snuffing it out in seconds. 

"I think I can get her level again," the woman at the controls told her, her voice husky from the smoke. 

Kelsey cleared her own throat and sat back down in her seat, connecting her seat belt. "What can I do?" she asked, pushing her hands against the front panel to hold herself in her seat. 

"Pray," the woman intoned as she pulled up the nose of the plane. "And help me look for an open space to land." 

There seemed to be trees everywhere and snow, blinding white snow. 

"Over there." Kelsey pointed. "There's a clearing." 

The other woman nodded and turned her face briefly to look at Kelsey. "Okay. Brace yourself. Let's hope it's deep powder, huh?" 

The wide, white field came closer and closer as the plane raced faster towards the ground. Kelsey wasn't a pilot but she could tell the plane was going too fast. The angle was right to land but they wouldn't be able to slow down enough not to do the plane serious damage. 

A small fire had broken out again in the cockpit but they were too close to the ground to do anything but hang on until the plane landed. The smoke was too thick to see and Kelsey was coughing- 

She gasped and sat up in bed, a sharp pain in her head. She put her hand to the scar on her face and fought to draw air into her lungs. 

Was that what had happened? She wondered, crawling from the bed, lying on the cold floor, unable to get up. Were those her real memories? Or had they been colored by Daniel's stories? 

It had been so real. But could she trust what seemed real to her anymore? She wasn't certain she knew reality from dreams, even horrific ones. 

She lay flat on her back on the hard, old wooden floor, feeling the cold seep into her bones. God, she was tired. Tired of not knowing, of wondering. Most of all, she was tired of being afraid. She couldn't believe it was a part of her personality before the accident. She didn't believe anyone could live that way for long and survive. 

Whether she was Kelsey Lloyd, scientist -- or Sara West, alien -- she just didn't feel as though she was the kind of woman who panicked all the time and jumped at the sight of her own shadow. 

And she wanted that old self back again. She had laugh lines running from her eyes. The corners of her lips were turned up at the ends. She believed that she was a naturally happy person, that life had been good to her. All she had to do was to find the threads of her life again. But it wasn't going to be easy and she was going to have to conquer that fear that surged through her, sapping her will. When she reached for the truth, she would have to be strong. 

The door opened into the bedroom. It was just the barest squeak. Almost the beginning of sound. But in the quiet room, it might have been an explosion to her fragile ears. 

"She's sleeping," a man's voice whispered in the blackness. 

It was impossible to tell by the rasping words who was speaking. Kelsey rolled over carefully to her stomach and lifted her head, tensed for any movement. 

"Careful, come back," another voice cautioned. "She has incredible night vision." 

"Once we've given her the drug, it won't matter," the first man's voice rejected his warning off hand. 

Kelsey crawled to a place where she could see the doorway. It was true. She did have better than average night vision. She hadn't questioned it but just assumed heredity had played its part. 

Jorge was one of the men at the door, she realized when she could see them clearly. The other man was someone she'd never seen before. He was thin and short, well dressed. He had a decided accent, although she couldn't quite place it. 

He came towards the bed holding a needle and syringe in his hand. Jorge came through the room on the other side, stealthily approaching the bed. 

Kelsey simply moved out of the room between them as they converged on what they thought was her sleeping form on the bed. She wasn't sure what room was Martin's but she knew he had to be warned and that she didn't have much time. Apparently his trusted houseman was working with the same group that Daniel had come from and thought they could get information from her about the shield project. 

Would it never end? she wondered, running silently as the snow, her feet barely skimming the cold floor. 

The hallway was black but she could see it clearly defined; the pictures on the walls, the separate closed doors. She started trying those doors, knowing it wouldn't take the men long to find out that she wasn't in her bed. 

Most of the rooms were empty. A few had furniture that were covered by ancient sheets. Dust fell like snow as she passed them. 

Towards the front of the lodge, the rooms were better cared for and she began to wonder why Martin had put her in the back. The heating system was better closer to the kitchen and great room as well. 

Perhaps there wasn't enough space, she reasoned, the warm air finally keeping her from seeing her own breath in the darkness. They had decided to come spur of the moment. 

Or perhaps it had all been part of Jorge's plot to have her off by herself. Martin, a little absent minded at times, simply didn't think to question him. 

Martin's room was empty though the bed had been turned down and there was a small fire glowing in the hearth. Kelsey looked back down the hallway, didn't see anyone coming yet, and ran for the kitchen. She knew there wouldn't be anything Martin could do to protect her but she couldn't just leave him there. If they couldn't find her, he might become their target. 

"Martin!" She reached the large kitchen breathlessly. "We have to get away from here." 

"What's wrong?" he asked, seeing her genuine distress. He stopped pouring the milk into the copper pot on the stove. "Kelsey, what is it?" 

"Your houseman, Jorge, must be involved in the whole scheme," she told him in a careful whisper. "He came into my room a few minutes ago with another man." 

"What?" Martin peered at her then looked down the dark hall outside the dimly lit kitchen. "I don't understand." 

"There's no time to explain now," she told him impatiently. "They'll be here any second. Do you have the keys to your car?" 

"Of course not." He smiled, shaking his head. "They're in my jacket but - " 

Kelsey heard the sounds of rapid footsteps on the wooden floors and knew they had run out of time. "I'm going to get your keys," she explained briefly. "You run out to the car and -- " 

"Kelsey, I have no shoes on my feet and I'm in my bathrobe. I don't think this would be a good time to leave." 

"You don't understand!" 

"There she is!" Jorge growled, emerging from the darkness into the kitchen. 

"What are you doing?" Martin demanded, pulling his burgundy colored bathrobe closed. 

Kelsey didn't see any weapons and backed closer to the counter. She opened the drawer, hoping there would be something there she could use to protect them. 

"We just came for the girl," Jorge explained, stalking her. 

Kelsey grabbed a small, sharp paring knife from the drawer and when the man advanced close enough, she quickly struck out with it, grazing his arm. 

"Bitch!" he bit out, grabbing his arm where a faint red stain was growing on his blue shirt. "I'm gonna kill you!" 

"I don't think so," Dr. Abrahms said clearly. 

"There was another one," Kelsey reminded him, glancing past the door. 

Jorge glared at him, ignoring her momentarily. "She cut me! I owe her for that!" 

"You owe me for chasing her in here instead of taking care of it!" Martin told him angrily. "Must I do everything?" 

"She was gone when we got there." The second man entered the room. "There wasn't much we could do." 

"I told you to be careful. I warned you that she could see very well in the darkness." Martin turned on him. "So you chase her in here to me and ruin any rapport we had." 

"Rapport?" Kelsey stared at him in horror. "Rapport? How much rapport did you think we would have once I discovered that you were the one behind all this?" 

"I think I might have been able to convince you that we were both being held against our will," Martin said, his eyes confidently on her face. "Now, all that is lost. Something I won't easily forgive." 

The second man shrugged. "As long as I get my share." 

"So! Now, we have a problem." Martin sighed heavily, reaching out a hand to touch Kelsey's dark hair. 

Kelsey jerked her head back from him and would have run but Jorge had come up behind her while they'd been talking. His hold was strong, biting into her arms, straining her back as he pushed her head forward. 

"Kelsey, we mean to have this information from you," Dr. Abrahms told her, looking into her face. "You can cooperate or we can sedate you." 

"Get away from me!" She spit at him, twisting her face away, hurting her neck even more. 

"As you wish, although I don't mean to hurt you." He smiled. "Actually, I mean to help you. By helping you remember everything. Then you can share some of those things with me." 

The man with the syringe and needle advanced purposely towards her and Kelsey grew alarmed. "Wait!" she yelled. "I'll cooperate. Just don't hurt me, please." 

"That's much more like it." Martin patted her head, staying the man with the needle. "It's better for us this way as well. When Dr. Marshall gets here, the information will be that much easier to retrieve." 

Kelsey wondered if the hypno-therapist was involved as well. If so, she was lost. But at least, she reasoned, if she were conscious, she would have a fighting chance if one came her way. Unconscious, she was just meat for the hungry lions. 

Jorge led her back to the bedroom. He seemed to enjoy the dark hall where his hands could move over her freely, taking what revenge he could with Martin Abrahms just behind them. 

There would be a few bruises, she thought biting her lip, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing her cry out. He shoved her roughly into the bedroom and she stumbled to the floor. 

"There's no reason to abuse her, Jorge," Martin told him. "And you do so at your own risk, I might add. She is the reason we are all here." 

"Yeah." The other man smirked. "She's the meal ticket, you ape." 

"I could get that information from her without any hocus-pocus stuff!" Jorge snarled, grabbing Kelsey by the front of her shirt. 

Kelsey, looking into the man's dirty face, tried not to breathe in the obnoxious fumes from his mouth just inches from her own. She heard the empty barrel of the gun click. Jorge released her and she fell back on the floor. 

"The next chamber isn't empty," Martin told him coldly. "Now go out and make sure the furnace is stocked for the rest of the night." 

Jorge looked as though he might rebel, but muttering an oath, he left them there. He slammed the door as he went out into the night. 

"Leave us a moment, Mr. Tremain," Martin advised the other man. 

Not so ready for a fight as Jorge, the other man left them, closing the bedroom door behind him. 

The dim light was a halo in the center of the dark room making the old knotty pine paneling a dreary yellow. Martin Abrahms looked old and somehow evil in the strange light. His mouth was a loose leer and the look in his eyes was a greedy gleam. 

Why hadn't she seen it before? She wondered, looking at him. How could she have been so blind? She shook her head despondently and sat down on the bed, not looking at him. 

"Don't be so pathetic, dear. It's not like I want to kill you. I just want the information in your brain. I'm sorry it came to this." 

"Everyone is," she retorted. "Daniel?" 

"I'm not sure just who Daniel is. Or rather was, I suppose, by now." He smiled and touched her hair. "Not part of the game, I can assure you." 

"You killed him?" she demanded, turning to stare at him. 

"No, I didn't touch him," he answered safely. "That's why I hire these persons. Of course, none of this would have been necessary if your memory had returned and you would have given me the information just because I asked you." 

"I-I don't understand." She pressed her hands to her head. "What can I possibly know worth all of this?" 

"I told you, Kelsey," he replied naturally. "It's the shield. That's all I want." 

"Fine." She stood suddenly and walked across the floor. "It's yours. Just let me go." 

"I will," he agreed. He seemed unnerved by her sudden movement. "As soon as Dr. Marshall has unlocked those answers. Believe me, I mean you no personal harm." 

"And what will you do with this shield when you have it?" she asked angrily. 

"Why sell it, of course." He rubbed his hands together for warmth in the chilly room. "Make my million dollars and buy a South Seas island." 

Kelsey sat down on the bed again. "When will Dr. Marshall get here?" 

"Our unexpected trip out here will cost him a day, I'm afraid. He won't be here until Friday. But you'll be comfortable here. You can work or whatever you like." 

"So long as I stay in this room," she emphasized. 

"That is Daniel's fault, dear. He rather forced my hand. But it won't be long." He glanced at the heavy wooden door. "I should be getting out there. Try not to worry and get some sleep, Kelsey," he advised. "I'll send John Tremain in with your breakfast later." 

Kelsey didn't bother to answer. She looked away from the door as he walked out. The key turned in the lock, rasping loudly as the bolt dropped into place. 

The wind howled outside, brushing the skeletal leaves in the dead trees as it rushed by the lodge. Kelsey turned off the yellow light and sat on the bed, her legs pulled tightly to her chest. 

How much more could she take? She was responsible, not only for her own errors in judgement, but Daniel's death. And what if she did have information about a shield project that Martin Abrahms could sell to the highest bidder? If he managed to help her regain her memory, information she had in her mind could be used against countless others. But what could she do? She was trapped like a very stupid fly in Martin's sticky web. She couldn't get out the door without Jorge enjoying bringing her back. 

There had to be another way. 

Sitting on the floor again, she rummaged through everything she'd brought with her. There wasn't much. A few clothes, a hairbrush, an extra pair of shoes. 

She took out her computer and set it up. There was only her own research without being tied into the mainframe at Barton. She sighed, sitting back against the side of the bed. 

She looked at her watch, it was nearly four in the morning. It was Wednesday. Only two days away from Dr. Marshall coming to pick her brain. And it looked as though she was going to be there to greet him. 

Martin came at six to bring her breakfast, oatmeal with dried fruit and coffee. He refused, of course, to let her use the phone but he did allow her access to his small lab in the back of the lodge. 

"You aren't a prisoner, after all," he told her gently. "More a patient waiting for the doctor." 

"An unwilling patient," she reminded him, glancing at Jorge at the door. 

"But not one to turn aside an offer to work, I'll wager." He tapped her computer with his finger. 

Kelsey agreed, unwillingly, but boredom won her over. After sitting up most of the night with nothing but her thoughts, she admitted that she was ready for almost anything else. She'd showered quickly in the freezing bathroom and changed her clothes for clean jeans and a warm flannel shirt. She pulled on clean socks and her dry boots, hoping to be ready for anything. 

Martin returned when she'd finished eating. He led her to a small room with no windows. The only door led back into the house where Jorge waited. 

The equipment was top notch. Once she adjusted to the feeling that she was a prisoner. There were no hook ups to the outside. After a few moments, she gave up searching for a way out and found her research work. 

It was when she was examining the strange enzyme from her super ferns that she remembered the tea she had in her pocket. Eager for something to take her mind from her problem, she brought it out of her pocket and laid it out on the counter. 

The room was cold. She rubbed her hands together and blew arm air on them before taking the sample and setting it up for analysis. The tea leaves were still damp in the bottle. She recalled seeing the cup of tea in Daniel's large hand. The memories of him were jumbled and confused in her brain. Why he had told her that they were from another planet? Had he really believed it? Or was it part of a game to get what he wanted from her? 

With the information she possessed about Dr. Abrahms, she had to wonder what Daniel had been doing there. Who was he? What had made him say those things to her? 

She adjusted the focus as the machine worked to separate the various components of the tea leaves. The weight of the snow made the roof above her groan. It was the only other sound in the room besides the slight whirring sound of the analyzer. 

Kelsey tied her computer into the analyzer so that the information could be fed directly to her program. DAR greeted her then proceeded to work on cataloging the analysis of the tea. 

Maybe Dr. Abrahms was right about Daniel, she mused, allowing her thoughts to wander while she was waiting. Maybe he was an odd piece of the puzzle that really had no place. 

Except, she reminded herself, for the disk. While it was true that she could read it, so could he. He knew about the shield. Or at least guessed accurately that Martin was after the shield. But he had also tried to convince her that she was his wife. His alien wife. 

She closed her eyes, tired of the questions and wishing for some answers that she could hold on to for more than twenty seconds! If Daniel wasn't part of the plot to get the shield information, then he was crazy. If he was part of the plot, why had he acted insane? 

Not that it mattered, she reminded herself gruffly, brushing the back of her hand against her cheek to stem the tear that slid down her cheek. Crazy or devious, he was probably dead. A victim of Martin's greed for the information. He was going to have what he wanted and no one was going to stand in his way. 

Kelsey understood what that meant as far as her future was concerned. Despite appearances, she knew that she was as dead as Daniel when Dr. Marshall finally got what they all wanted from her. 

Another tear fell and she blinked hard to clear her eyes. She wanted to pretend that it didn't matter to her that Daniel was dead. But it didn't work. He had only been in her life a few days but those few days had been important to her. He had made her feel as though there was hope. He had made her laugh. And for a short time, he had made her glad to be alive. 

In a way, it would have been wonderful if his fantasy had been true. If he had been her husband and he had finally found her and had come to take her home. If he hadn't believed they were from another planet! 

The analyzer hummed and beeped, letting her know that the process was finished enough to draw the beginning information. She put her eye carefully to the microscope then told DAR to record what she found. 

She drew ger head back abruptly. It wasn't possible. 

Kelsey repeated the process then waited impatiently for the results. She put her eye carefully to the microscope again. The results were the same. The tests couldn't be wrong. Not twice. 

She checked and rechecked her equipment but everything was functioning perfectly. She fed the information into the computer and let it make a judgement, but she knew what that judgement was before DAR reported back to her. 

The enzyme that she couldn't identify, the one she thought she'd found and bred into the super ferns was present in the tea. And that wasn't all. The remainder of the tea was not compatible with any recorded herbal or botanical listed in her records. She had DAR check twice. 

Kelsey looked around the makeshift lab, wishing there was someone to share her results with, wishing there was someone who could start to make sense of it for her. 

There was only one hypothesis, her analytical brain told her. The ferns and the tea had come from the same place. Either a laboratory, where they were created, or -- or. 

.. The 'or' was not something she wanted to think about. 


["#TOC"] Chapter Eight
 

Kelsey decided to go for broke. After all, what did she have to lose? Martin was probably going to kill her after he got what he wanted from her. There might never be anyone else to impress with her discovery. 

And, yes, she hungered for someone, anyone, to look at the findings. And whether he was a despicable human parasite or not, Dr. Martin Abrahms possessed one of the finest minds in the world. He was acknowledged by other scientists as being a great theorist. 

Stamping her feet with cold, she hugged her hands to her waist and walked the room nervously waiting for him after she'd sent Jorge to get him. The little lab room had grown progressively colder. A trick she thought they might have been using against her until she heard Jorge outside the door, swearing at the furnace. 

Of course, they wouldn't stand to gain anything by hurting her. Not yet anyway. On that score she felt safe. At least until Dr. Marshall got there. Her mind, or what was trapped inside of it was valuable to them. Probably even Jorge, with his amoeba-sized brain, could see that much. 

But locked in a room, knowing that she was only alive until people made use of her, didn't make for confidence. 

Kelsey jumped when the door opened and Dr. Abrahms walked through the door, carrying her lunch tray. Jorge grinned at her and winked, licking his lips and letting a slow drool form on his chin. She looked away slowly, trying not to let it bother her. Not letting him see her shudder. 

"Hungry?" Martin asked, setting down the metal tray on the cabinet top near the door. 

"Not really," she replied carefully. "I sent for you because I have something to show you." 

"Very good." He glanced around the lab. "You know I'm always interested in your work." 

"I knew you were before," she answered, not looking at him. She traced the lines of the old wood on the floor with her eyes. "But it was all a trick, wasn't it?" 

Martin touched her chin with the tip of this finger and smiled gently down at her. "It wasn't all a trick. In fact, I never had to pretend to find you easy to be with or enjoyable to look at." 

"Then -- ?" 

"Why?" He uncovered the cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread and straightened the napkin. "For the money of course, my dear. I appreciate that you can't recall the device, but this shield is quite extraordinary. Once I prove its validity to my contact, it could be worth billions." 

"Billions?" She speculated, rolling a pencil between her fingers. "I suppose that's quite a temptation." 

"It doesn't have to be this way," he insisted, taking her hand. He touched it to his mouth. "I never wanted it to be this way. I wanted us to end up together on that South Sea island." 

"But at what cost?" She pressed him. "What will these people do with the shield?" 

He shrugged. "Who cares? Really, dear, it's probably just a matter of time until someone else has it anyway. We're just precipitating their acquisition. Then they'll all develop weapons or other shields to counteract the device and in a few years time, it will be worthless. Why hold on to it that long?" 

"What about the people who know I helped develop it?" She wondered. "Won't they be looking for us, ready to put us in jail?" 

He laughed and touched her face with a tender hand. "Indeed they would be! If they knew where we were or even that we had sold the shield. But that's part of the game, Kelsey! You have to be willing to play it." 

"It scares me." She shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself, not knowing what to say. It was wrong. She had no choice. With or without her consent, they were going to have the information from her. Once they knew where the shield was, she could join them and live. Or fight them and die. 

Where was the better part of valor in that case? Did she run to fight another day? Or boldly stand her place? 

"What do you have for me?" he asked, smiling at her then putting his eye to the microscope. "Hmm. This is the super fern enzyme?" 

"It is," she told him then put in the next slide. "This is the unknown." 

"It looks to be identical," he agreed with her. "The analysis?" 

"The system insists that both organisms contain the extra enzyme that I believe makes the plant able to withstand the high temperatures. Possibly what makes the fern able to synthesize poisonous gases into oxygen." 

"Did you germinate this sample from your super ferns?" He wondered aloud, frowning. 

"No," she replied breathlessly. "That's the odd part. This sample came from that bag of tea in my apartment. Daniel brought it with him. I don't know what it is but it didn't come from my lab." 

Martin looked at her strangely then looked back at the sample in the analyzer. "All of the answers will be apparent soon enough, I suppose," he told her in a hushed voice. "Eat your lunch, Kelsey. You need your strength." 

Kelsey wasn't sure what she expected from him but his reaction set her back. The lab was too cold to work. The sandwich he'd brought lay uneaten on the plate. She sat in one corner until she couldn't flex her cold fingers around her pencil. Then she got up and knocked on the door, telling Jorge she wanted to get out. 

He was only too happy to escort her back to her room. His groping hands pressed her roughly into a dark corner of the hall as they walked back towards the main section of the lodge. She felt his hot, wet mouth cover her own and tried to find the willpower to fight him off. 

What difference did it make anyway? she asked, hearing the sound of her shirt ripping. She felt his rough fingers pinching her sensitive skin, trying to get some response from her. 

She was looking out a small window with a crossed wooden brace. It was dark already and there wasn't enough light in the hallway to reflect back on the pane. She felt as invisible as her own image. She heard Jorge curse her and saw another man's face in the outer blackness. 

The man burst through the window like some vengeful night demon, dragging the wooden brace with him around his broad shoulders. It was too dark to clearly see his face. He picked Jorge up and away from her, tearing her shirt a little further in the process. The demon pummeled Jorge, not giving him an instant to breathe or offer any resistance. 

Jorge was down, unconscious on the floor, something black running down his face. Kelsey realized, with a start, that she would be next. She picked herself up and began to run down the corridor. Her mind formed a thousand plans. 

If she could elude Jorge's attacker, she might be able to escape and find a main road. If she could get back to Chicago, she could find Civil and get away from everyone while she tried to decide on her next move. If she could find the shield, she could get it to the authorities. 

But before she could make it to the end of the corridor, the man was on her. He dragged her down on the damp, cold floor while she fought him with her feet and her hands. It was no use. He pinned her easily with his hands and his body. She waited for the terrible blows she knew he'd inflicted on Jorge. 

"Sara," he whispered breathlessly. "It's me, Daniel!" 

Daniel! Her heart sang his name but her brain rejected him. She managed to hit him one last time. "What do you want?" 

He gulped in a quick breath. "I told you, I'm not going home without you." 

"You're crazy," she hissed. "I don't know who's worse, you or Martin!" 

"It doesn't matter," he told her flatly. "You don't belong here." 

Kelsey groaned. "You're right! I belong in Chicago!" 

"I won't argue with you," he replied, his voice laced with tension. "We have to get out of here now!" 

"You're no better than Martin," she continued, refusing to move. "At least he's honest about it!" 

"One way or another," he promised her. "If I have to drag you across the snow!" He grabbed her up under the arms and pulled her across the floor. 

Where the window frame had broken through was a space big enough for him to push through then pull her after him. The rough wood splintered and tore at her shirt, ripping his jacket and pants leg. He ignored it, getting them both out into the night. 

The temperatures had plummeted once the snow had stopped falling but the wind continued to blow. A hard crust had formed on the snow. It allowed them to travel lightly across the top most of the way. He ran, half dragging her after him, sometimes sinking in up to his thighs in the white powder. 

Kelsey was cold and numb, running where she could find her feet, sliding sometimes, across the ice, when they failed her. She looked up into the black sky. The moon was big and bright as a sharp white light shining down on them. 

A part of her mind told her that she had to fight -- had to get away from him. He was insane. He wanted the same thing as Martin. He was going to use her then throw her away at his convenience. 

But wasn't Daniel the lesser of the two evils? 

She fought him still but her arms were leaden and her blows had no more effect on him than if she were a moth beating her wings against a windowpane. She had forced him to drag her against her will when they'd first started across the white mountains of snow. Suddenly, her legs refused to obey her commands. He was half dragging/half carrying her along the ridge of frozen snow because her limbs were too frozen to move. 

She heard him tell her again and again that they were going someplace warm. He told her that she had to hold on and she would be safe. He promised that she'd remember everything and that she'd be whole again. She had to keep going. 

It seemed to her as though they ran on forever. She knew that he had lied to her because they were never going to stop. They would never be warm or safe again. She closed her eyes and moved blindly through the night until she realized that her eyelids were frozen shut to her cheeks and she couldn't open them. 

Like a swimmer trying to drown her savior, she pushed at him, tumbling them both down a steep hill. She broke away from him and started to run on her own, tripping over a pile of loose rocks, half blinded by ice crystals that she tried to push out of her eyes. She picked herself up and finding she couldn't draw a full breath, gasped in the harsh icy air and kept going. She had no idea where she was running or if it made any difference but she knew to stop meant death. 

"Sara, please!" She heard a voice call out of the blackness that was beginning to fill her inside as well as out. 

"No!" She responded, half-turning to face him. 

"Sara!" he yelled again, his own breath nearly frozen in his lungs. "I love you. Please don't run. We can make it out of here together!" 

Anger and frustration built inside her. The night stars trembled in their glittering delicate patterns, whirling over her head like a kaleidoscope. Words failed her. Emotion rushed from her lungs and her brain until she was consumed by one long, horrible scream that rent the frozen night. 

She wasn't sure what the word was that eventually formed in her throat but her brain knew it was a name. She screamed it until she was hoarse and on her knees in the snow. The wind whistled around her on the hill. 

"I'm here," he said simply, taking her hands, kneeling before her, touching her face. "I'm here. No one will separate us again." 

"Daniel!" She opened her eyes and touched his face in the death white light of the moon. She had to be dreaming. 

"Sara!" He laughed and kissed her. "Just a little further ahead. Hold on to me. We're going to make it." 

The last stretch of ground held no icy crust and the walking was impossible. Every step was agony. Every breath was white stabs of pain in lungs that were ready to collapse. 

She looked at his face and it was frosted white, gleaming silver in the moon's light. Only his eyes were dark, persistent, not letting her give up when every fiber of her body just wanted to lie down in the welcoming snow. 

"There it is," he told her. "Just over the hill." He pointed but the motion was lost to her. 

"Never," she breathed out painfully, her chest wheezing with the effort, "never -- want to see snow again." 

He laughed, a hoarse, hacking sound that ended in a deep cough. "I thought we'd take some home." He panted, dragging them both across the silver, shimmering hill and down the other side. "I thought we'd keep some. As a reminder." 

They slid down the hill, rolling down a large part of it, a tangle of arms and legs. Brush cut at their frozen faces. Stones cut into pants and shirts, exposing already numb flesh to the deadly night air. 

There was a car on the empty road, too far ahead to really see well. One of the doors was open and a figure was emerging. The yellow light poured out into the darkness. 

Kelsey raised her head, not able to brush the snow from her face and saw the welcoming light. She looked for Daniel but couldn't find him. Then she closed her eyes and lay back on the ground. 

 *** 
 
When she opened her eyes again, there was sunlight streaming in through a small round window near the top of a wood paneled wall. The glass had been cut to form the picture of a flower. The petals were delicately pink. The stem was the pale green of early spring. 

Kelsey looked at the picture pattern on the floor for a long time. The room she was in was warm and well lit. The golden daylight poured in through other, larger windows. But the one small window held her attention. 

She was warm. She stretched luxuriously beneath the heavy cotton flannel sheets and down comforter. And she appeared to be safe. The tiny room with its huge four poster bed was as far as she could imagine being from those long hills of snow in the cold Wisconsin night. 

As her mind began to function more clearly, the memory of her escape began to reassert itself. 

Where were they? She wondered, starting to get out of bed, throwing back the comforter. What had happened? 

"Not a bit of it!" A familiar voice cautioned. Dr. Anders followed the sound of her voice into the bedroom. 

"Civil!" Kelsey beamed, tears filling her eyes. "I thought something had happened to you. After we left the lab, I tried to call but there was no answer." 

"I know, dear." Civil set down a tray with a steaming pot of tea on it. "Life does take some queer tricks and turns, doesn't it? Tea first," she concluded. "Then I have these delicious scones. Almost like my mother made when I was a young girl. I'll never be the cook she was, of course, but I do love to play with it." 

Civil poured them each a strong cup of tea and situated Kelsey so that she could sit up in the overstuffed bed without spilling it. Then she proceeded to stuff her charge with jam cakes and butter rolls. 

"Enough!" Kelsey finally came to an end of her patience. "Tell me what you're doing here! Tell me what I'm doing here!" 

"Well, I must admit that I was a bit frightened at first when Dr. Abrahms warned me off. Before I could leave the lab to meet you in the parking lot, he was all over me, telling me that you weren't my concern. He scared me, I don't mind admitting." 

Kelsey shrugged. "I think it might have been best for you not to be involved." 

"Nonsense." Civil smiled and patted her hand. "But I had already missed you. By the time I reached the parking lot, Martin and his goons were picking up your things and starting the search for you." 

"The search I helped by calling him and telling him where to find me," Kelsey guessed. 

"Exactly!' Civil confirmed. "Then I decided that I couldn't stand by even though I wasn't certain just what I was standing by, mind you. So I looked up your address in the directory and guess what I found coming out of your apartment?" 

"My-er-husband and Martin's thugs?" 

"You're very good at this, you know," Civil complimented. "I helped Daniel get loose and we had a great talk. He is a delightful man." 

Kelsey glanced up at her carefully. "Did he tell you that he's an alien?" 

"An alien?" She laughed. "Of course, dear. He told me you both were from another planet. But that didn't surprise me, really." 

"It didn't?" Kelsey questioned. 

"Not after the disk you gave me and what little you told me." Civil shook her huge white hairpiece. "Not a bit." 

Kelsey wondered why it had surprised her. Was she the only one that found his explanation a little hard to swallow? And why hadn't Martin mentioned that she was from another planet? Surely with all he seemed to know of her, he would have that information. 

There was a sound from the open doorway that drew their attention. Kelsey looked up. Daniel's eyes were pinned on hers, refusing to let her look away. 

Civil Anders jumped up, flustered, picking up her cup of tea and offering to leave them alone. 

"Thanks," Daniel acknowledged. "I just need a few minutes." 

"Take all the time you need." She patted his shoulder as she passed him. "I'll be finding something to do in the kitchen." 

The room was the same. Filled with sunlight and the warmth of the wood heater in the basement of the house. But Kelsey put her cup down on the bedside table, missing the edge. Her heart was beating in her throat. She was uncomfortably aware of him beside the bed. 

"It's all right," he told her, saving the white china cup from its graceless fall to the floor. 

She wished she had something to do with her hands. Wished there was someplace to look in the quiet room besides his dark face. 

"How are you feeling?" he queried politely. His eyes agonizingly raked her face and form. 

"I'm fine." She returned with a little nod. "A little sore and stiff but alive. Thank you." 

He paced the room, his long legs returning in only a few strides from the far corner. "I don't know how much you remember," he began, taking refuge in facts and details. "We're about one hundred kilometers from where they had you. Not a great distance but we're in a valley, pretty well hidden from the air." 

"But he'll be out looking for me," she continued, knowing that was the point he was going to make. 

"Yes," he agreed quietly. "What can you tell me?" 

She shrugged. "That he wants the shield. That he believes I can tell him where to find it." Like you, she wanted to say to him. "He's hired a hypno-therapist to dissect my brain on Friday." 

"That's today," he verified. 

Suddenly, she was tired of all of it. She wanted the truth. "I guess you don't have to worry about him getting to the shield before you now. Maybe you can come up with some other way to make me tell you where I hid it." Her hand tugged nervously at the threads of the comforter. 

He put his hand over hers. "We're leaving," he corrected her. "I don't care about the shield." 

Kelsey stared at him. "What are you saying?" 

His dark eyes fixed her intently. "That I don't care if the humans find out that we're here. I don't care if they ban me from ever coming back down here again. I just want to get you home." 

"Leave me alone!" She yelled at him, throwing his hand away from her. "You're insane!" 

Civil Anders came running into the bedroom, her eyes wide with alarm. 

"It's all right," Daniel told her. "Just a misunderstanding." After soothing Civil's ruffled feathers, he closed the door and locked it. Then faced Kelsey. 

She was out of the bed, pulling on her stiff, dry jeans, looking for something to wear instead of the thin cotton nightgown Civil had helped her into when they'd reached the house. 

"Listen to me!" He walked towards her. "You have to listen to me!" 

"You'll have to kill me to keep me here," she promised him angrily. "That's the only way anyone's going to keep me in a room again." 

"I don't want to keep you in a room." He shook his head. "I know this is difficult for you, Sara." 

"Kelsey!" 

"Sara," he repeated, bearing down on her, impatience darkening his eyes. "I don't want to force you to do anything but I am going to take you home. There has to be something they can do to help you remember!" 

"So that I can take you to the shield?" She raged, pushing her hair back from her face. She snapped the jeans closed on her slender waist. 

"You're wrong," he returned, advancing closer to where she stood. 

She looked up at him coming closer. "You want more, don't you?" 

"I want you," he said plainly. "I told you before, I'm only here for you." 

"No," she said faintly at the new threat, backing away from him as far as the close limits of the room would allow. 

He continued slowly until he was a breath away. He put his hands on either side of her face but didn't touch her. She could feel the power in him. There was strength in his big hands that could easily crush her. 

"You knew me," he said in strange words that flowed into her brain as he kissed her forehead, her chin, her eyes. "You called my name. Please don't tell me you've forgotten me again." 

He kissed her, whispering those words, begging her to remember. He picked her up in his arms, cradling her as though she were a baby, holding her close to his chest. His deep voice reverberated through her. 

He laid her on the high bed, stroking her, loving her. Promising her things she smiled at because she knew they could never be true. And when he moved away from her, she saw the strain of the long weeks clearly etched in his face. She looked into his black eyes, so like her own, and she knew that much of the truth. 

He was waiting, as he had for so long. Watching her and hoping that some small spark would pass between them. Something that would cause just a ghost of recognition in her eyes when she looked at him. 

"Sara," he spoke her name sadly, yet with all the passion so long denied between them. 

"Daniel," she responded quietly, reaching her arms up to him. 

In disbelief, he caught her fiercely to him. The silk of her arms slid around him. Her body pressed fiercely against his. He hugged her to him until she thought her ribs would crack. Her fingers rushed through the thick, dark hair to pull him closer still. 

There were tears staining his cheeks. She realized how thin he was, how hollow his eyes, the welts on his face, the tiny cut at the edge of his lip. She pressed her lips there carefully. "Oh God, what I let them do to you," she cried on a ragged sob. 

"You couldn't have known," he reassured her with his words, his touch. He pulled the oversize cotton nightgown from her and kissed her breasts. 

"It was like being another person," she told him. Her tears fell like warm rain between them. 

"Kiss me," he whispered, half ripping the shirt from his chest. "Touch me, Sara." He put her hands to his chest and was on the brink of ecstasy when he felt her gentle caress. He buried his face in her sweet hair and rubbed against the warm, damp curves of her breasts. 

"Daniel." She sighed, his hands arching her back, stroking persuasively until she felt weightless and pliant against him. 

"This is probably not the right time," he said, unfastening the jeans she had worked so hard to fasten just a few moments before. 

Sara caught her breath as he moved his hand down her body, pulling the jeans with it. "The right time," she repeated, kissing his shoulder. 

"And probably not the right place." He felt her body wiggle against his and all but shredded his own pants in a effort to be free of them. 

"Definitely the right place," she assured him, daring him to ignore her need. 

"But Sara." He joined them smoothly. "I need you so much." 

"Daniel!" she cried out, urging him closer, wrapping her legs around him. 

The tiny bedroom was warm and the big bed was a haven from the weeks of loneliness and sorrow. Civil Anders smiled as she closed the door more firmly on the couple wrapped in the comforter and their love. 

They would no doubt be hungry when they awoke, she mused, recalling a few times she had shared the experience as well. She was certain she had a recipe for shortbread cookies that wouldn't require a trip out in the snow. She watched the time carefully and hummed as she sifted her flour. 

The wonderful scent of cookies baking awakened Sara who shifted slightly under her husband's weight. He was lying across her. His long legs and strong arms were entwined around her as though he were afraid she might not be there when he awoke. 

She couldn't remember all the details yet but her mind was starting to fill in the gaps with fuzzy images and badly needed answers. Sara looked at the man sleeping beside her. His dark eyes were closed, long lashes fanned on his lean cheeks. She knew him. She could remember their wedding and most of their lives together. But the details from the time they'd left for Earth were still shadows in her mind. 

"What are you thinking?" he asked, touching her cheek with his long finger. 

"I was thinking about our wedding," she replied warmly, allowing herself the luxury of letting her eyes linger on his handsome face. 

"Our wedding," he replied, pushing himself up a little against the bed, bringing her with him. Her head snuggled against his chest. "Can you remember?" 

"I remember how you had the boat covered with flowers and that they smelled so sweet. I thought I'd remember that moment for the rest of my life," she answered, smiling at him. 

"Sara." He kissed her again, losing himself in the silk and warmth of her. 

"And I remember that the boat was skimming along when Donnie's brother shot an energy dart at it, almost tipping us out, and you wanted to kill him!" She laughed. 

"That day, yes," he admitted with a wry smile. "Today, I could kiss him for having a memory there in your mind. The doctors said those memories would be the only things that would bring you back to me." 

"Five years," she murmured, still stunned and frightened at how easily she had forgotten it all. 

"It's over now." He kissed her gently. "We're going home." 

"My locator." She looked at her wrist and realized that her personal locator was gone. "No wonder you couldn't find me." 

"I think it must have been destroyed in the crash," he answered, kissing her wrist where her locator should have been. "If the signal was still going, we would have been able to trace the wreckage of the plane." 

She sat up and looked at him. "You mean you can't find the plane?" 

He shook his head. His dark hair slid across his bare shoulder. "I think you set your personal shield to cover the plane when you left it there. We've been all over the mid-west and can't find a thing." 

"Oh my God!" She remembered something else. "ReCon must want your head." 

"They've measured it for their trophy room," he quipped then smoothed back a lock of her dark hair. "Never mind. We're catching the next transport off planet. I've had all the espionage I care to have for one lifetime." 

"But your job!" She sat up straighter. Information began to pour through her like a flood of summer sunshine. "You are a supply pilot." She searched her mind. "You do fly supplies to research labs. But to Reaum's outpost labs here, not Earth labs." 

He nodded. "And you've always been the Earth expert. Not me. I only know what I have to know to survive my missions. You've always been the one with the customs and taboos." 

"And you brought me with you this time because I found a way around the ReCon clause that excludes civilians!" 

"And you got attached to the Earth woman." 

"Kelsey Lloyd." She murmured. Kelsey was the woman in her dreams who was flying the small plane. "She was so close, Daniel. Her experiments were where ours had been years ago. She only needed a little help." 

"Unfortunately," he told her, stroking her hair. "I think she tried to prove to Dr. Abrahms that she knew an alien. ReCon believes that she showed him your personal shield. They believe that the crash wasn't an accident." 

"You tried to tell me this before." She frowned, realizing that she had made a mess of everything in her eagerness to befriend Kelsey. 

"And you wouldn't listen. Then you didn't know who I was." 

"Well, Daniel." She shook her head, "I really believed I was Kelsey Lloyd." 

"I know." He grimaced. "I wish I could have been there when you woke up instead of Martin Abrahms." 

"I didn't think we looked that much alike," she considered, recalling Kelsey's face at last. 

"Only superficially," he replied. "You both have dark hair, dark eyes. When there weren't any relatives or friends, I suppose the authorities thought it was sensible to believe Dr. Abrahms." 

"And Kelsey didn't tell anyone except Martin that I was going to fly up to Chicago with her." 

"Although I'm assuming you told her not to tell anyone? I suppose it could be worse." He shrugged, kissing her again. 

"Really?" she wondered. "How?" 

"The entire crew of their news show, Sixty Minutes, could be here right now." 

There was a discreet knock on the door and they both turned to look at the portal. 

"I have something to eat just finishing up out here," Civil Anders' singsong voice told them without opening the door. "I hate to disturb you but it's nearly four P.M." 

"We're coming," Daniel replied. "Thanks, Civil." 

"We can't just leave things like this," Sara told him. 

"We can just do exactly that," he answered stubbornly. "I have been through Earth's mythological hell for the past few months, Sara. All I want to do is take you home." 

"Me, too." She kissed him, lingering only slightly over the touch of his mouth. "But I have to know for sure what happened to Kelsey and I can't let ReCon fire you because I made a mistake." 

"Letting you talk me into this is a mistake," he groaned, looking at her. 

"But you know I'm right," she pressed. 

"And I've always hated it when you're right," he told her angrily. 

"I know." She smiled, buttoning the three buttons left on his shirt when he had pulled it back on. "That's why I love you." 


["#TOC"] Chapter Nine
 

"Let's try it again." Daniel backtracked. He thanked Civil as she poured him another cup of tea. 

"I don't remember the plane actually landing," Sara told him again. "There was a small fire. The engines went out. Kelsey told me to help her look for a place to land." 

"You have to think," he continued. "You had specific training to notice landmarks, anything out of the ordinary. Even though you aren't a pilot, there was something around you that you looked at before you set the shield. Rocks, trees, something." 

Sara strained her thoughts towards those last few seconds that she could recall as the plane was going quickly towards the white ground. "I know there was a field. We were falling down into it. Kelsey told me to pray that there wasn't anything hidden under the snow that would rip at the plane's belly." 

"All right," he encouraged, hating to push her but needing to know the answers if they were ever going to leave the planet. "The plane was coming down. Fast. There was a field. Were there trees on the edges of the field?" 

Sara considered his question carefully. "I remember seeing some trees but they were off in the distance. I don't think there were any trees close to where we went down." 

"So, no trees. We know the basic area that you were found in. The chances are you didn't walk far or fast in your condition. It was cold. The snow was probably pretty deep. Do you remember seeing any houses? Any buildings?" 

Sara strained again but there was nothing there. Just a terrifying blank that made her draw back quickly. It was too much the way her whole life had been just a short time ago. In truth, she was afraid that she might lose it all again. 

"You know that we might not be able to find it," he told her gently, taking her hand in his when he saw the lost look on her pale face. "We can go home. Let ReCon take care of its own problems." 

"Let you lose your job," she answered. "And let Martin Abrahms find the shield." 

"The chances aren't very good," Daniel explained. "The shield will continue to make its own power every day as long as there's sunlight." 

She looked at him across the crowded table. "Until the battery wears out." 

He ran his finger around the edge of his glass. "If they haven't gone out yet, they must be right on the verge." 

"So, someone, maybe Martin Abrahms will be out in that field and the battery will be dead and they'll have the shield. Just add battery." 

He shrugged. "That's what he's waiting for and he doesn't even know it." 

"Then we have to get there first," she decided. "Maybe there'll be something there that will remind me exactly where the plane went down. We can't just sit here." 

"There's no doubt about that," he agreed. "We've been here too long now. As you told me earlier, Abrahms and his friends will be looking for you." 

"Can't we get help from ReCon?" she asked. 

"I'm afraid the only help they're willing to give me right now," Daniel admitted, "is help off planet. Bringing you down here could be the breech they've feared for a hundred years." 

"So anything else, we're on our own?" 

He nodded. "We can go home." 

She smiled and touched his hand. "We can," she agreed. "After we have the shield." 

"Dr. Abrahms must know where you were found as well," Civil conjectured while they cleaned out the house and got ready to leave. "Won't he be looking for you in that field?" 

"I wouldn't mind being ready for him once," Daniel replied. 

"In fact," Sara was quick to add, "we'll have to hope that's exactly what he's done." 

"Why?" Her husband asked, glancing up at her across the room. 

"Because I left a sample of black rose tea at his lodge," she told him, feeling foolish. "I was studying it. Comparing it to the super ferns." 

Daniel groaned. Civil looked between the two, puzzled. 

"Why does it matter?" 

"The tea is from our world," Daniel replied. "We drink it to add the enzyme we need to digest your food. Anything left here would corroborate his story." 

"My extra enzyme that I was so proud of was just a mutation from our world to theirs." 

"I destroyed the ferns," Daniel told her grimly. "And all the research Civil and I could find." 

"All that's left of my input to the project is at the lodge," Sara told him. 

"Then we'll just have to go and get it," he replied, kissing her lightly. "I got in and out once." 

"I'll drive you in as close as I can," Civil volunteered, understanding the importance of what they were trying to do. 

"And you can wait with her in the car," Daniel told Sara plainly. 

Sara didn't reply but took a package of Civil's food and linen out to the car with her. 

"I don't know what I'm looking for without you, do I?" he asked, putting a suitcase into the trunk of the car. 

"No." She squinted out into the last dim light of afternoon where the sun was falling low along the hills of snow. 

"That's what I thought," he muttered. 

"We're ready when you are, Civil," she said to the woman still in the house. 

After their dramatic escape, they were going back the same way they had come. Civil could take the car a few miles from the house without being seen. Sara and Daniel would have to walk the rest of the way but they were better prepared. Sara wore one of Civil's old coats and a pair of shabby but warm boots. 

It was dark already when they arrived there, pushing open the rusty old gate to allow Civil to park her car just inside the grounds. They pulled down some snowy branches from the heavy trees near the entrance and covered the top of her car. 

"They probably wouldn't see you in the darkness but let's not take any chances," Daniel told her with a smile in the beam from her flashlight. 

"I won't," Civil answered with a convincing click from her small revolver. 

"I don't know how to thank you for all this," Sara began but Civil brushed her words away. 

"Go on, you'll have to do the hard part, dear. I'm just sitting out here waiting for you. But be careful." 

"We'll be back," Daniel promised, closing the car door behind her. The resounding thud of the lock dropping into place was clear in the silence of the night. 

"Let's go." Daniel looked at Sara. 

She shrugged, agreeing, and they set off down the indistinctly marked path that constituted the driveway. The wind had died down but it had left the snow in mounds, drifted across fences and tree trunks. 

It was beautiful in the moonlight but it was also deceitful. There was no way to see if anyone was around them. The snow baffled all sound until they were walking in a cocoon. Their only guideposts were the half buried tire marks in the snow. 

"All right?" Daniel touched her hand, making her jump. 

"I'm fine," she returned quickly. 

"I don't think I've done so much walking since I was a child," he whispered, the trees sighing around them. 

"This is what I do all the time," she informed him. "You can't find plant samples flying through the air." 

"I knew there was a reason I was a pilot," he quipped and she smiled. 

A bat flew past them as they approached the darkened hulk of the lodge. There were no lights in the windows, no smoke coming from the chimneys. It looked deserted. 

"No car," Daniel observed quietly. 

"They're probably looking for us," she replied, glancing uneasily around the lodge while he used a small knife to pry open the lock on the door. 

"Great," he echoed. He shut off the flashlight as his hand found the light switch just on the inside of the door. He switched on the light. The great room flooded with it. 

Suddenly, the flat butt of an axe swung out, landing him a glancing blow on the forehead that stunned him, knocking him to his knees. 

"Jorge," Sara whispered in terror, realizing their mistake. 

Daniel wasn't unconscious but he wasn't able to get to his feet either. 

Jorge smiled and brought the axe down in his hands, changing positions so that the gleaming blade was ready to swing down on Daniel's head. 

Daniel put up a hand to ward off the blow, deflecting it away from him but Jorge used his position to deliver a kick to his side that left the other man gasping. 

Sara looked around the room. Jorge too involved with subduing Daniel to pay attention to her movements. She only had a few seconds to do something that would make a difference. 

The gleaming wooden bust of a Lakota chief caught her eye from where it sat on a pedestal only a few feet away from the door. Without thinking, Sara picked it up and turned around with it in her hands. She brought it down hard on Jorge's shaved head. The man made a convulsive movement once, then lay on the floor, silent and still. 

"Are you all right?" she asked, falling on the floor beside Daniel. 

"I will be," he assured her. "Get what you need and let's get out of here." 

Sara agreed, running back through the lodge in the darkness. She didn't bother with the lights that she didn't need anyway. There were really only two samples that made any difference to their position on the planet. She had left those in the small lab. 

There was a note on the analyzer addressed to her. She read Martin Abrahms's broad scrawling handwriting. He knew the truth. He was holding the samples ransom. Waiting for her presence in the one place that would make any difference. The field where they all had conjectured that the plane was being hidden by the shielding device. 

But he was holding them for the wrong reason. He believed that her work was too precious to her and that she wouldn't leave it for him to destroy. He still had the samples and that was all that mattered. 

Sara showed Daniel the note, helping him to his feet as he read it. 

"So he still thinks he can get you there to find the plane for him," he ground out savagely. 

"He's right, of course," she added blankly. 

"We can't go there like this," Daniel told her harshly. "This isn't a joke or a good deed, Sara. He means business, as they say. There are too many of them and they're waiting for us." 

"You said it yourself," she answered him. "We have to get the shield back before we can leave." 

"ReCon didn't mean that they expected us to be in danger to retrieve it," he argued. "We can't fight these people." 

"We haven't done too badly," she reiterated. 

"Sara," he pointed out as they started the long walk back. "This man has kept us apart for nearly three months. He's tried to kill me, tried to use you. Which part haven't we done badly on?" 

"We're alive," she reminded him. "And we're together, despite everything." 

"With my head nearly split open and your hands and feet almost frostbitten." 

"Have you always been so pessimistic?" She wondered, sliding down a slick patch on the drive then pulling herself back up again. 

"I'm a pilot," he retorted. "Not a soldier. Get me a shuttle and I can deliver supplies with the best of them. I can even fly some stunts. But I'm not a fighter, Sara. And neither are you." 

"You're right," she acknowledged slowly. "But I'm not going to let this man beat me. You say he's lied and used me. You don't know what I suffered all those nights when I thought you were stalking me. I lay there at night and cried because I didn't think there was anyone. That I had lived my life alone. There has to be some way to beat him, Daniel." 

"Sara, I don't have a master plan." He shook his head, immediately sorry because the knot on it started throbbing. "I don't even have an idea." 

"How far are we from the sight where I was found?" 

"I'm not sure," he answered her, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. "Probably a few minutes by shuttle, a few hours by land vehicle." 

"Do you think Martin Abrahms knows that we're together? He didn't think you were important. And he always acted like he had plans for us. Him and me." 

"What?" Daniel turned to her, stopping his lengthy stride. 

"I don't think it was just part of what happened between him and Kelsey," she continued on, ignoring him. "I think he really cares for me." 

"In a perverted, user, probably murderous way." Daniel caught up with her. "What are you getting at?" 

"I don't think Jorge knew what hit him when you came through the window at the lodge." 

"So?" 

"So Martin Abrahms still believes that you're dead. And I don't think he knows that we're specifically together since I called him to get you. He didn't mention you in the note." 

"I'm not sure where this is leading," Daniel said as they came closer to where Civil Anders was hiding in her car. 

"Simple," she defined, knocking on the car door. "If you can get a small shuttle." 

"I don't have a small shuttle yet but I don't like the idea." 

"You said you didn't have a better one," she reminded him briskly. 

"Find it?" Civil asked, opening the car window. 

"It's a long story," Sara said, getting in the car as Civil opened the door. "And we have a long drive, if you think you can manage it." 

"I'm ready," Civil replied perkily. "Just point me in the right direction." 

"Daniel?" Sara asked him when he was in the car beside her. 

"All right." He closed the car door. "Start at the beginning and tell me what you're thinking." 

Sara smiled at him in the dimly lit car. The engine purring to life under Civil's ministrations. Daniel gave Civil directions to reach the first highway connection. 

"Okay, let's hear it." He sat back, listening. 

They drove through the night. The sky hung leaden above them. The cloud cover got heavier as they traveled further south. The snow held off, though, and they made good time on the Interstate. 

Sara and Daniel argued out of Wisconsin and through most of Illinois. Sara's plan was risky and dangerous. There were too many things that could go wrong, from Daniel's point of view. 

Sara took out a map when they stopped for gas and spread it on her lap. "Where did they find me?" 

"Here." Daniel pointed to the highway that ran from Gary southward. "From the news reports we picked up afterwards, a farmer found you on the side of the highway and they took you by helicopter to the county hospital in Gary. The whole area is dotted with small farming communities that break down into huge sections of farmland that's covered with snow." 

"Any of them where the plane could have gone down." Sara nodded. 

"What about witnesses?" Civil asked, glancing over at the map. "Surely someone would have seen or heard something." 

"If they did, they're very close mouthed about it," Daniel answered. "We had agents in the field covering the area. There were no reports of planes going down. No one saw or heard anything. That agrees with what your government agencies found as well." 

"I do remember that it was daylight," Sara said, trying again to recapture those last few moments. "The snow was white in the field and the sky was blue with big white clouds." 

"If we look at the area you managed to reach before you collapsed." Daniel marked on the map with a pen. "You couldn't have been further than a few kilometers one way or another. That was the idea we went on but we still couldn't find any variances that would indicate a shield in usage." 

"You mean you can trace them?" Civil asked, fascinated. 

"A little," Daniel responded. "They have an energy signature. The snow acts like a reflective base though, and ReCon thought it might be warping the energy reading." 

Sara stared thoughtfully at the map, trying to envision a place that had to be there in her mind. She could see the white field clearly. The plane dropping quickly towards the ground. She could hear Kelsey's voice as she told her to pray and she could smell the acrid smell of the smoke from the small fires in the plane. 

She couldn't really remember the landing but she could feel the bumpy run across the field. The snow flew up in a tall arch on either side of them. The plane stayed together. Kelsey was still at the controls. It looked as though they were going to make it, despite everything. 

There were no trees, not even any bushes, Sara recalled thinking, glad that the field was flat and empty since there was no real control. She glanced down for an instant at the sparks from the wires that had burned in the control panel. Kelsey yelled a wild curse. 

"Snow blind!" she screamed. 

"There was a rock," Sara mumbled, feeling the jarring impact again that shattered the nose of the plane. It had pushed her through the windshield, cutting her face, injuring her head and leg. 

"Sara?" Daniel asked, not sure at first what she was talking about since she was staring at the map. 

"There was a rock," she repeated, drawing in a shallow, gasping breath. "We couldn't see it because it was covered by snow and it blended in with the landscape. Just at the last minute, Kelsey saw but it was too late." 

Daniel and Civil exchanged glances across Sara's dark head as she stared blankly out into the night. 

Sara had awakened, half in and half out of the plane. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there unconscious but the sun was starting to set and she was freezing. "I looked around myself. I didn't think I could get back into the plane. I called for Kelsey but she didn't answer. I couldn't see her in the cockpit. There was blood all over my face and my hands." 

"Did you find her?" Daniel asked quietly, putting his arm around her. He drew her against him. 

She nodded. "I crawled back into the plane. The fires had all gone out but the metal was crumpled. Kelsey was lying on the floor of the cockpit. There was a piece of metal, something shaved off the plane, sticking through her chest. There was blood everywhere." 

Sara had tried to find a pulse even though common sense had told her that there was no way the woman could have survived the trauma. 

Kelsey had died quickly. Sara knew she was going to do the same if she didn't find shelter from the coming frozen night. She was bleeding steadily from the cuts in her head and the groove along her face. Weak and dizzy, she crawled back out of the plane, falling to the frozen ground. 

"I knew I had to set up the shield to cover the plane. I thought it had just enough power to go that range. My locator was in the wreckage along with some black rose tea I brought with me. I kept thinking of what ReCon had said about not leaving any evidence." 

"So you set up the shield," Daniel encouraged her. 

"Yes." Sara nodded. "I knew I needed a point of reference so I looked around myself. There was a tower of some sort. It was painted blue, bright blue, and had the words Brightberry written across it with a small red light blinking on the top." 

"Brightberry?" Daniel repeated, looking down at the map. 

"Sounds like a water tower," Civil supplied. 

Daniel pinpointed the tiny town of Brightberry on the map. "Just to the southeast of where you were found, off Highway 65." 

Sara had expected to feel release. After all, hadn't she fought through the nightmare to learn what had happened to her? And wasn't part of that knowledge learning what had happened to her friend, Kelsey? 

Instead, grief hit her in a wave, as though the crash had just happened and she had just been informed of Kelsey's death. As though she were standing in that cockpit again, hoping against reality that the woman on the floor would still be alive. 

She tried to block the sobs that rose up in her throat. Tears slid down her face noiselessly until she thought she might drown in them. She tried to catch her breath and found that a sob came out in a strangled gasp. She choked and Daniel let go of the map to hold her trembling body. 

"Sara, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize how this would hit you. You haven't really been living with it, even though it's been there the whole time." 

"Daniel," she wheezed, trying to stem the flow of tears. "I'm sorry to be s-so -- " 

"Never mind." He brought her close to him, stroking her hair. "You've been through a lot. You can't expect all of it to just go away." 

Sara closed her eyes and listened to the steady beat of his heart under her ear and the hum of the car's tires on the highway. Kelsey was dead. Sara had stepped into her life briefly but they were very different people. 

While Sara loved her work, to Kelsey it was all consuming. She had made her plants her family, the lab her home. Kelsey had been raised by distant relatives when her own parents had died. They had never been close, letting her know from the beginning that they raised her because the state paid them to do so. She had never forgotten that experience and she had never let herself become close to any other person. 

Sara was probably the closest friend Kelsey had ever known. While Daniel made his supply runs around the planet, Sara spent her time getting to know the other woman. She wanted to understand her work and her life. 

But it was difficult for Sara to imagine life as Kelsey lived it. Sara had been married to Daniel for five years. Her life was full with her work and her big family, ten brothers and sisters as well as assorted aunts and uncles. She worked and she enjoyed what she did but it had never been her life. 

It was a cruel satisfaction for Sara to realize that the empty life that she had mourned was not her own. Kelsey had been philosophic about it. "A plant never hurt my feelings." She had shrugged, laughing, as they had climbed aboard her small plane. 

Sara knew she would never understand what had possessed Kelsey to show her personal shield device to Dr. Abrahms. Sara had cautioned the woman many times after she'd revealed her identity to her. But there was no doubting the evidence. 

Dr. Abrahms knew that the device existed and that she had it with her on the plane. 

Had he been responsible, as Daniel conjectured, for the plane crash? 

Thinking back over the crash, Sara agreed with him. There was no bad weather, no warning of equipment failure. Just the sudden explosions from the engines and the demolition of the plane. It seemed likely that Martin Abrahms had killed Kelsey hoping to retrieve the shield. 

Sara sniffed hard, trying to rein in her emotions. It was more imperative than ever that Abrahms not get the shield at the expense of her friend's life. "I'm all right," she told Daniel in a watery voice, pulling back slightly from him. "It was just a shock at first." 

"I love you," he told her in a quiet voice that still rang with a sincerity she couldn't doubt. "I never want to live without you again." 

"I never want you to." She smiled, kissing him thoroughly. "It was terrible to think that you weren't there." 

"When you told me that Abrahms had told you that you were alone, the look on your face nearly broke my resolve. I almost told you the truth whether it made you unbalanced or not." 

"Thank you." She laughed, sniffing a little. "I think." 

He touched the tears that remained on her face. "You can do the same for me if I ever forget you. Only harder." 

"I love you," she returned. "Let's get through this and go home." 

"Sounds good to me." He kissed her hand. 

In the beginning of dawn spreading across the sky, Sara could see the question in his dark eyes. The answer was as clear in her own as they raced down the highway. Civil Anders discreetly watched the road. 

Daniel sighed, kissing her slowly then running his hand through his hair. "If we're going to pick up a shuttle, you'll have to drop me off in Gary." 

Sara nodded. "At least you have some idea of where to look for the plane. Do you think they'll let you have a shuttle?" 

"If not, I'll steal one," he answered. "How will you know where to meet Abrahms?" 

She shrugged. "I suppose he'll be in the area, on Highway 65, since I was found there, Daniel. Don't underestimate him. He's greedy, not stupid." 

"It's going to take close timing." 

"I'm relying on the fact that you have the faster transportation and can be there before any of us." 

"It could be dangerous," Civil added cautiously. "Martin is obsessed by this thing. I could see it in his eyes when he warned me away." 

"So long as he needs me to find the plane for him, I should be safe," Sara told them both. "And by the time we find it, Daniel will have the whole thing in hand. Right?" 

"Right." He nodded. "I hate this, Sara." 

"Right." 

"Let me off at the next public phone booth we come to," Daniel instructed Civil. 

"Can we-uh-wait to see the shuttle?" Civil wondered aloud, her eyes bright with eager anticipation even though she was exhausted. 

"I'm sorry." He touched her shoulder in sympathy. "You wouldn't be able to see anything. They're very...discreet." 

"You mean they'll just come and pick you up and no one will notice?" 

"That's usually pretty much the way it works. The shuttles are shielded. This looks like a good spot." He pointed to a phone booth. 

It was in a secluded part of the city, off the highway, beside a huge smelting plant. The sun was barely up. The streets were quiet along the railroad track in the back of the industrial complex. 

Civil glanced doubtfully at the shattered glass in the doors of the kiosk. The black phone was nearly pulled from the wall. "I don't think it works," she observed. "We should look for another." 

"It doesn't matter," Daniel told her with a smile. 

"Oh? Oh! Of course! How silly of me!" She gushed nervously. 

Daniel got out of the car. He stretched his back and legs from the long drive from Wisconsin. Sara followed, asking Civil for just a moment. She looked at the sun, a small pale disk in the overwhelming haze that hung over the city. 

"I don't want to leave you," Daniel told her. He swept her up against him in his arms. "I just found you again, Sara." His voice was raw. The pain grated in his chest. 

She hugged him with all the strength she had in her slender body. "I don't want you to leave me either." 

He pulled back from her. His dark eyes scanned her face. " Sara?" 

She closed her eyes, praying he wouldn't ask her again because she didn't know if she could let him go. She didn't know how she was going to drive away and leave him there when they had come so close to never seeing each other again. 

"I love you," he repeated, burying his face in her hair, kissing her face and lips. 

"I love you," she whispered, wondering how she could cause them both so much pain. 

"Take my locator," he insisted. He moved the band from his wrist to hers, snapping it in place. 

"How will they pick you up?" she wondered, daring to look at him. 

"They're already here," he told her grimly. "Don't worry. Just take care of yourself." 

"I will," she promised. "Don't be long." 

He wanted to kiss her, wanted to hold her, but knew he couldn't and leave her. "I'll be there," he said, opening the car door for her. 

"Be careful," she advised, climbing back into the car. 

They didn't say good bye. Civil turned the car around across the railroad tracks and they headed back the way they had come. The sun began to burn through the clouds and the ever increasing traffic spread sludge along the clean white snow that had fallen during the night. 

Daniel watched the car leave, a word of prayer on his lips. Then he was gone. 


["#TOC"] Chapter Ten
 

It had stopped snowing an hour before but the roads were full of drifts as the wind blew what had fallen during the night into heaps. Sara had switched places with Civil so that the other woman could get some badly needed rest. Her own eyes felt like sandpaper as she watched for the cutoff sign on the highway that marked the area where she was found. 

She glanced down at the map again, seeing Daniel's broad handwriting in their own language. I love you, it said. Watch for me. I will be there. 

Sara touched the writing and smiled wearily, knowing one way or another it was almost over. Maybe she had been too stubborn, demanding that they had to stop Dr. Abrahms from getting his hands on the shield. They could be on their way home already. Instead of apart again, hoping that nothing happened to either of them. 

But as much as she loved Daniel, as much as she wanted to leave the Earth, she couldn't let Martin win. Kelsey had given her life without knowing why. Sara couldn't let that go. 

"Are we there yet?" Civil stirred in her seat and looked out at the road sleepily. 

"No," Sara replied. "We've probably got about another mile or two, if I read this map accurately." 

Civil looked at the map and grimaced. "It looks a little further than that. I hate to ask but could we stop?" 

Sara saw the gas station coming up on the left and pulled over, parking the car at the pumps. 

"Thanks." Civil nodded, getting her shoes on and trying to get out of the car on rubbery legs. 

"I'll get some gas while you're inside," Sara replied. "But please, don't thank me again, Civil. You're the one who's made this all possible." 

Civil blushed becomingly. "It's been such an adventure. I wouldn't have missed it!" 

"Anyway, any delay can only benefit us," Sara answered. "If Daniel didn't have any trouble getting a shuttle, we're fine. If he did." She shook her head. "Then I don't know." 

Civil studied her face, her cheeks getting red in the brisk, cold wind. "Would you ever come back? To Earth, I mean?" 

Sara looked out over the highway where the snow was swirling up in little whirlwinds as the big trucks roared past. The sun had risen much earlier but it was a barely visible white disk in a leaden sky. "On my world, the study of the Earth and its customs is a specialized science." She smiled looking back at Civil. "I took it every year in school then I taught it myself for five years at the university. I think I'd have to come back." 

Civil smiled in return. "Well, at least you know we aren't all greedy pigs like Martin. I should very much like to think that you are out there and look forward to your return." 

"Thank you, Civil." She touched the other woman's hand. "I would like to think about you being here as well. Maybe next time, I could come down and stay with you." 

"That would be wonderful," Civil remarked, tired eyes sparkling. "You and Daniel both. I look forward to it." 

Civil left her there, pushing on the gas pump, putting the hose into the tank. Sara thought about how many things she'd learned being Kelsey that she wouldn't have experienced just staying in the rarified atmosphere of the research lab. Not all of her stay had been bad. And the things she would have to tell her friends and family! She smiled thinking of them and their endless discussions about any and every subject. 

"It's good to see you have something pleasant to think about, my dear," a familiar voice entered her thoughts. 

Sara stopped the gas pump and stared at him. He was flanked by two henchmen, and a newcomer she had to assume was Dr. Marshall. 

"Civil's car?" he guessed. "They told me she'd become involved." He indicated the two men behind him. 

"I have what you want," Sara told him quickly, not wanting to involve Civil and take a chance on her life. "Let's go before she gets back." 

"An eminently practical solution," Martin agreed. "We really don't have room for her anyway." 

"Where?" Sara asked, glancing around the parking area at the cars stopped there. 

"Towards the back, Kelsey." He took her arm and started to walk around the station. "You know, I find that we haven't really been introduced." 

"I don't see any reason for you to know my name," she answered tautly, moving her arm away from his grasp. "I'll take you to the plane but let's not pretend that you didn't kill Kelsey or that I feel anything for you but loathing." 

"Why so vehement?" he wondered, his gray eyes puzzled on her face. "I would have thought an advanced culture such as yours would have admired initiative." 

"Initiative?" She stopped flat and stared at him angrily. "Is that what you call killing someone to get what you want?" 

"I didn't necessarily plan to kill her. Or hurt you, for that matter," he tried to explain. "I simply wanted the shield device she showed me before she left. I offered to buy it from her." 

"It wasn't hers to sell or to show you, for that matter," she retorted, starting to walk again at the urging of the man behind her. 

"Kelsey trusted me." He smiled serenely. "She was just trying to prove her point. And until that moment, I didn't believe that aliens had ever visited the Earth. She convinced me." 

"And you planned for the plane to go down before we reached Chicago, thinking you could just step in and take what you wanted," she concluded. 

"Never dreaming that she would die and that you would survive only to lose your memory about the whole incident." 

"On my world, we call that murder. Just as you would here," she told him darkly. "It was incredibly inconvenient of me to set the shield up before I left the plane." 

"I'm sure your superiors thought you did well," he replied calmly. 

"Superiors?" she challenged. "The only other person from my world that knows anything about it is stranded here just like I am." 

They all climbed into the four wheel drive vehicle. Sara was pressed between the group. 

"I think you're trying to throw me off," Martin said, sitting in front of her. "Where to?" 

Sara hated to have the words come out of her mouth but she knew it was part of the plan. "Brightberry." 

One of the men who'd enjoyed kicking Daniel around so much in the apartment, drove the vehicle and they took off down the highway towards the town of Brightberry with a squeal of the wide tires. 

Civil Anders, just coming out of the station, saw Sara being ushered into the carrier and pushed her hands over her mouth to keep from yelling at them. There was nothing more she could do to help. She could only make it worse from where she stood. It was up to Daniel and Sara. She looked towards the skies. She hoped the plan would work. Getting in her car with a sigh for not having been there for the end, she turned back the way she had come. 

"Why would I bother?" Sara defended, seeing Civil standing beside her car as they left the station. She hoped the other woman wouldn't try to follow. She was sure Abrahms wouldn't hesitate to kill her. 

"I'm not really sure. Perhaps to protect your group." 

"Or perhaps there is no group," she retaliated. "Just two aliens stranded here with no way off the planet and no hope of rescue." 

"Is that the truth?" he asked, looking back at her intently. 

"It would only take one shot to find out," Dr. Marshall entered the conversation briefly. 

"If there was a group," Sara answered simply, holding Martin's gaze. "Wouldn't I have appealed to them for help? Wouldn't they have done something before now to get me out of here? Or to keep you from finding the shield?" 

Martin absorbed her words slowly, watching the smooth lines of her face. "So you and your friend are stranded here. Alone. What are your plans?" 

"I hope to go on and finish my work," Sara bluffed. Let him think it was his holding her work hostage that brought her out there. 

"Of course. Your work." He nodded. "I would be pleased to protect your secret. For a small percentage of the profits from whatever you come up with." 

"You understand, I didn't invent the shielding device," she cautioned. "I brought it with me. I am a botanist." 

"What about your friend?" he questioned. 

"He worked on the shuttles," she answered truthfully. What was that Daniel said about staying as close as he could to the truth? 

"A mechanic? I did notice that he didn't seem particularly bright," Martin agreed easily. "But the two of you -- " 

" -- are two strangers, stranded on the same world from a place we can never return to." She held his gaze easily. "We were never anything more than that." She had to try to make him believe Daniel wasn't coming for her. 

"Where is he now?" Martin wondered. 

"Yeah," the driver added, looking at her in the rear view mirror. "I'd like to know that, too. I owe him a little something." 

"Then you'll have to find him." She shrugged. "When things got tough, he deserted me. I think he would've stayed if it wasn't so complicated. We are exiles from the same world." 

"I find it difficult to believe that he just left you, dear," Martin returned quietly. 

"Think about it," she urged him. "How much would you be willing to go through for someone you barely knew? He can fit into your world without my help." 

One of the men uttered something crude about when he'd leave her. 

"Shut your filthy mouth," Martin upbraided him roughly. 

Sara put her head back against the seat, closing her eyes as though she were tired, plans seething through her mind. 

"I'm sorry," Martin tried to soothe her. "Where is the plane?" 

"Brightberry," she answered without hesitation. "I remembered seeing the Brightberry water tower before I set the shield." 

"Very good," he commended. "Have you remembered it all now?" 

"I think so." 

"Dr. Marshall would still like to explore inside your mind," he informed her with a nod at the doctor. 

"Not every day you meet a real live alien," Marshall confirmed, looking at her as though she had two heads. 

"Brightberry's not a very big place," she explained, "but it will take you a long time to find the plane without my help." 

"Is that a threat?" Martin asked, smiling admiringly. 

"Not a threat." She sniffed. "But I've been poked and prodded too much since I came to this world. I won't do it again." 

Martin glanced meaningfully at the doctor who nodded and subsided in his seat. 

"No one's going to do anything you don't want them to," he assured her. "Let's just get the shield and then we'll go back to your place. You can resume your work at Barton. No one need be the wiser." 

"That would be wonderful." She beamed at him with gratitude and happiness that she put on her face like a mask. "That's really all I want." 

The vehicle drove along the highway until they spotted the turnoff for Brightberry. The water tower was no where in sight. They drove through the quiet streets, looking for the blue column. 

Sara touched the band on her wrist. It was well covered beneath Civil's old jacket but its familiarity kept her from panicking. As long as she wore it, there was no way Daniel couldn't find her. She could only hope with all the distractions and the extra time, that he had found a shuttle. If he was denied access and had to steal a craft, he would be in more trouble than retrieving the shield would help. 

"Really, dear." Martin waved his hand in front of her face. "Knowing your name would be quite useful when getting your attention." 

"Sara," she answered, refocusing her gaze on his face. 

"Well, Sara. There doesn't seem to be a Brightberry water tower." 

She frowned. "Maybe we should stop and ask for directions. There is a water tower here painted bright blue with a single red light on the top." 

"Stop." He nodded at the driver. 

The man pulled the vehicle off the road into a small convenience store. An old man was just leaving with a brown bag and a case of soda. He stopped to talk with them and point to a road back out off the highway. 

Sara realized how relieved she was when he told them where to find the water tower and smiled his toothless smile. Until then, that field was only a scene in her mind. Part of a shaky memory that she was still piecing back together. But it was real. She hadn't imagined it. Her training had held up under the stress of the crash. 

Now if they could actually find the crash site from what she remembered. And if she could keep from knocking that smug smile from Martin Abrahms' face! 

Daniel, she called out silently. Be there! 

Finding the tower from the old man's directions was easy. If they had gone just an exit up from the one that said Brightberry, they would have seen it from the road. It was surrounded by the industrial area of the town. There were a few factories and a distribution headquarters. They drove through the parking lots but the plane hadn't come down in that area. 

"There has to be a field off the other direction," Sara insisted. "We came down in an open field. No trees, no buildings." 

"Go around the back," Martin told the driver who gave Sara a menacing look in the mirror. 

But there were too many trees just behind the factories and the land was covered with white houses in various states of disarray. 

"We might have to go up one more exit or follow that road." Sara pointed out the dirt road that ran from the highway. "We have to be in position to see the top of the tower without seeing any houses or trees." 

"Are you sure she's not making this up?" the man from the lodge asked Dr. Abrahms. 

"Can you think of any reason she wouldn't want this to be over as quickly as possible?" he inquired. 

"Only if she was stalling for time," he answered with a short glare at Sara. 

"Keep your eyes open," his employer recommended. "And follow along that road." 

The driver shrugged but did as he was told, following the snow covered dirt road carefully. 

Sara realized that the plane had to be in a field to the left of them to see the tower so clearly. She ignored the others and kept her gaze on the roadside between houses and fences that were in need of repair. Without realizing it, her own intensity convinced Abrahms that she was sincere. Her devotion to finding the plane was palpable. What else could he assume but that she really believed she could put all of it behind her and go on with her life? 

For the first time, he began to consider what he could gain by keeping her alive. The thoughts were awe inspiring. 

"Stop!" Sara called out to the driver, not realizing that she was the object of Martin's fantasies in the ominously quiet car. "Pull off here." 

"Four-wheel drive or not," the driver told them all. "We aren't going through that snow and stuff." 

"Then we'll park here and walk in," Martin decided. "The two of you, stay here with the car and keep your eyes open. We'll go down into the field and see if we can find the plane." 

He was almost solicitous in his careful hand on Sara's arm, helping her across the rough spots in the field as they left the road. The wind was bone chilling, whipping around them without the benefit of anything to hamper it. The drifts, thigh deep, pushing down under their booted feet, making their progress slow and difficult. 

Sara kept her eyes pinned on the top of the water tower, looking for the right angle to follow across the field. She only had to find the rock jutting up from the ground to pinpoint the crash site. Even if it was still covered in snow, they should be able to see it walking towards it on the ground. If they had just been so lucky coming on it from the air. 

"I don't see anything," the driver exclaimed, flapping his arms to keep warm. "I think she's wasting our time." 

"Keep walking," Martin suggested, following Sara. His breath puffed out before him in the cold air. "She knows where she's going." 

He put his hand on the cold metal of the gun in his pocket and surveyed the huge open field. There was no hint that anything had been there for months and there wasn't a house in sight. Yet he felt as though someone or something was watching him. It made his skin crawl and his nerves set on edge. With a quick movement of his finger, he clicked the safety off his gun. 

Sara kept going. She forgot about the men with her. She forgot about Daniel. She was looking for an end to her nightmare, knowing instinctively that she had to return there to find it. Kelsey was out there somewhere. In the cold shell of a plane, waiting for Sara to return for her. She had been patient. Sara had been injured and had taken time to heal but she didn't intend her secret to stay hidden forever. 

It began to snow again. The sky felt so heavy that it hung over them like a canopy. The snow made it difficult to see, taking out what little light was left, leaving them in a veil of shadows. 

"It's no use." Martin tried to catch up with Sara, afraid suddenly that they would get lost in those fields. "We'll come back later when the weather has cleared." 

Sara didn't hear him. She was lost in her own thoughts, intent on only one thing. She called out to Kelsey in her mind, reassuring her that she hadn't forgotten and that she was coming to take her out of the plane. 

"Sara!" Martin called out again. His voice was louder. He beginning to feel distinctly ill at ease, looking around himself for his hired help. "Come back." 

Sara couldn't see the water tower anymore through the shadows and the heavy snow flurries. But she could see the red light blinking through the dimness. She used it as a guide, keeping her head down to the wind, pushing through the accumulating snow. She looked up, hearing a noise, thinking immediately of Daniel, and stopped in her tracks. 

She had to squint to peer through the snow blowing around her. In the distance was a faint, almost transparent image. It seemed to appear, a ghostly shadow, from the snow around it. Sara stared, horror stricken. It was as though it had been conjured from her thoughts. A phantam image of the plane, crushed against the huge boulder, sitting squarely in the field. 

"What is it?" Martin asked, appearing beside her. He brushed snow from his face. "Is this a trick?" 

"A trick?" She glanced at him then back at the plane. She shook her head to clear it of the impression that what she saw wasn't real. The image appeared to float before them on the ground. The veil of snow created its own ghastly appearance. 

"It's the shield giving out," she told him in a painful whisper. "The battery must be almost gone." 

Martin turned to call out to his hired help. The snowstorm was blinding in its intensity. There was no one in sight. Repeated attempts to locate the others proved futile. No one replied to his calls. 

"What the hell's going on?" he demanded, pulling the gun from his pocket and backing away from Sara. 

"I told you," she responded, confused by his behavior. "The battery is almost gone. It won't really hold a full charge so it can't totally hide the plane. What are you doing?" 

Martin grabbed her roughly by the waist, pulling her backward towards the plane. "I don't know what's going on," he answered brusquely, his eyes scanning the heavy snow falling around them. "But I won't be done out of this, you know. I mean to have this shield." 

"I'm taking you to it," she argued, trying to pull away from him. "I found the plane." 

"Yes, you did," he agreed. "Now keep still, dear, or I'll be forced to hurt you. And just when I was having such thoughts about us." 

"What are you talking about?" 

"You appeared to be just like us," he told her, glancing back to be certain they were moving towards the plane. "But you've got powers, don't you?" 

"Powers?" She laughed. "You're an intelligent man, Martin. If I did, I wouldn't let you hold me against my will." 

"Shut up!" he yelled. "Just shut up, will you! Let me think." His hold had changed from her waist to her throat, tightening uncomfortably until she was forced to gasp for air. 

Sara tried to see through the snowstorm. She was as blind as Abrahms in that awful whiteness. She tried to breathe, pushing against her captor, wondering if Daniel was there. Wondering if she would ever see him again. 

"We'll see what the bloody hell this is," Martin promised, turning towards the plane. 

They were only a few feet from the open doorway at the side when Sara looked up and saw the figure coming out of the plane. What little air she had left gurgled out of her throat and she felt herself losing consciousness. 

"No!" Martin shouted, holding his gun up towards the plane and the shadowy figure. 

The only recognizable part of the dark form was the red scarf flapping in the windblown snow. 

Sara knew that scarf. It was Kelsey's. It had been soaked with her own blood when she had left her in the plane. Kelsey had told her that she never flew without it. It was her good luck charm. 

"Don't come any closer!" Martin shouted and fired the gun. The figure continued to advance down the ramp from the plane. 

The snowstorm and the figure were receding from Sara's vision as she closed her eyes. The gurgle of air caught in her throat was loud in her ears. 

Martin yelled again, firing his gun over and over at the apparition that approached him. He heard laughter through the wind and he fired his last shot. The dark figure continued towards him and he screamed, dropping Sara's inert form to the ground. He ran out into the snowstorm and the endless Indiana fields, not looking behind him. He threw his gun to the ground as he ran. 

Sara coughed and drew a deep breath of cold air into her lungs. She opened her eyes. 

"Sara!" Daniel knelt beside her on the cold ground. "Are you all right?" 

"Daniel?" she asked, putting up a hand to touch his face. "What was that?" 

"It was all the stories you've told me about Earth's legends and myths. I saw the way he reacted to the image of the plane and I took a chance." 

"The ghost of Kelsey Lloyd," she murmured. "And I thought you never listened when I rattled on about Earth." 

He took her hands to help her up. "Can you walk?" 

Her throat a little sore, she nodded her head. "What happened? When did you get here?" 

"I picked up on Civil's vehicle after they took you at the station," he answered. "I came ahead and found the water tower the way you'd described it. Then I used your locator. It's the only way I could have found you in the blizzard." 

"I wonder what happened to the others?" She tried to see through the snow. 

"I happened to them," he replied with a laugh. "I took them out at the car." 

"But where could Martin have gone?" Sara asked, glancing around them. 

"Out there." He nodded towards the fields around them. "Let's get the shield and get out of here." 

Sara agreed. "I'll go and get it." 

"I'll come with you," Daniel volunteered and when she would have argued, he shook his head. "I'm not letting you out of my sight again." 

"All right," she told him, touching his arm. 

They walked up the ramp and into the plane together but it was Sara who remembered the crash as she went. She heard Kelsey's warning to pray as they tried to land. She heard Kelsey's laughter during the times when they had been far away from that snowy field. 

She was still there in the plane. What was left of her. The shield had kept predators away from her but natural decomposition had taken place. Sara looked at the dry, blood soaked scarf still wrapped around her friend's neck. 

"She wasn't like anyone I've ever known," Sara told her husband. "We were from different worlds but we were of the same heart." 

Daniel shivered in the cold of the silent plane. "We'll send someone for her." 

Sara picked up Kelsey's little pearl handled revolver and put it into her pocket. It was a memento of her friend and the time they'd spent together. Kelsey had insisted on showing her how to fire it. They had laughed together at Sara's ineptitude. 

"Your specialty is Earth customs?" Kelsey had joked. "Look up 'you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!'" 

Sara smiled and picked up her own belongings, telling Kelsey good bye, promising to send someone for her. She pressed the button to deactivate the shield unit and the plane became visible in the field beside the rock. Her own locator was on the dash of the cockpit, its energy unit destroyed, but she took it with her as well. 

It was where it had begun and it was where it ended. Sara turned and saw Martin Abrahms crack the fire extinguisher against Daniel's head before she could speak to warn him. Daniel crumpled at his feet and didn't move. 

"I'll take that," Martin told her. When she didn't move, he crouched down and lifted Daniel's head, holding a gun to his neck. "Your people seem to be remarkably strong and agile," Martin continued. "But I don't think your friend would walk away from a bullet in his throat, do you, Sara?" 

Sara looked at Martin's face, frosted with white from the snow. It was as cold as his heart. "Is this what you want?" she asked quietly, holding out the shield and the locator. 

"I'll take it all," he replied. "Toss it down here. There's a dear. No tricks. We both know you don't have any death rays with that bit of technology." 

"Sara!" Daniel growled, beginning to come around but still groggy. 

Sara smiled. "You're right, Martin. We don't have death rays." She tossed the locator and shield on the floor in front of him. She watched for the moment when his greedy eyes left the gun at Daniel's throat to gaze at his prizes. "But you do." 

She shot the pearl handle revolver at him. The blast was muffled by the heavy snow around the plane. Martin looked at her in such surprise that she nearly laughed out loud. He crumpled slowly forward, a spreading red stain covering his chest. Kelsey would have been proud! 

"Where did you learn to use that?" Daniel asked in a breathless voice. 

"Kelsey taught me," Sara assured her husband. 

"Local weapons," he muttered. His head dropped back on the floor. 

"Daniel!" Sara yelled. She rushed to his side when she saw the red liquid pulsing down his shirt. 

"I think it went through my shoulder," Daniel told her from between his teeth. 

"That's how it killed Martin," she theorized, gauging the space between the two men. "Don't worry. I activated my locator. I'm so sorry, Daniel. Daniel?" 

For just an instant, if someone had looked out into the snowstorm, they might have seen a flash of light in the gray shadows. Closer inspection would have revealed the outline of the shuttle Daniel had confiscated from ReCon, disappearing again after he and his wife were both on board. 


["#TOC"] Epilogue
 

Civil Anders stood beside the grave of a woman she had never known. Yet she felt as though they had met in a strange, haunting way. 

Kelsey Lloyd had been laid to rest in the Tremont cemetery just the day before. She'd been found dead in her plane in a field in Indiana. No one was sure how the crash had been overlooked and numerous investigations were taking place. Including one that was looking for the mysterious caller that had reported the plane and the death. 

Civil felt the same sense of loss and sadness she always felt when one of her contemporaries died without finding the answers to the puzzle. Kelsey had been so close even though she had enlisted the aid of a stranger from another world. There was no one to take over from her and most of her work had been destroyed. 

Civil pulled her coat a little closer and placed her flower wreath on the grave. She shivered when she imagined her own end and hoped it wouldn't be as tragic as this young woman's. 

Walking across the snowy cemetery was a couple dressed in black coats. Their hair was a shade of dark that was rare and beautiful. They were both tall, thin, and had an elegant way of moving. There was something about the way they walked that made it clear that they were together. 

"Oh my!" Civil whispered as they approached her. "I never thought to see you again." 

Sara smiled and glanced at Daniel. "I wanted to come and be sure everything was right before we left." 

"And we wanted to thank you one last time," Daniel told her. 

"You both look wonderful," Civil approved looking at their happy faces. "Your cheek, Sara -- " 

Sara touched the place where the scar had been, healed now by their own medicine. "Thank you, Civil. We won't forget you." 

"And I certainly won't forget you," Civil shared. "Kelsey would have been glad as well, I'd wager." 

"At least she's not out there in that field." Sara shuddered and Daniel held her a little closer to him. 

"They found Martin last week, too, you know," Civil said, looking at the gray tombstone. "Although it's better than he deserved. They said he froze to death." 

Sara glanced at her husband who touched his newly healed shoulder. 

"No one deserves to die a terrible death," she said. 

"I agree with you, Civil." Daniel was less sympathetic. "He deserved what he got." 

"Yes, well, it happens so rarely." Civil smiled, a beam of sunshine dancing through the tall trees around them. "It'll be spring soon. They're going to name me director of Barton in April. I don't know how I'll do." 

"You'll be wonderful," Sara encouraged. "And we have a gift for you." 

She handed the other woman a black computer disk. "It will only show up once on your screen then it will destroy itself." 

"What -- ?" Civil wondered, taking the disk. 

"It holds the key for the piece of metal in your museum," Sara told her. "We wanted you to have it." 

"I don't know what to say." Civil felt tears gather in her eyes. She looked again at Kelsey's grave and thought about her own ending. 

"Of course, no one will believe aliens gave it to you," Daniel told her gently. "I have noticed that tendency on the planet." 

"That's true!" Civil laughed, hugging the disk close to her ample bosom. "But I'll know. And there will be those that will believe and want to follow my work." 

Sara nodded, understanding. 

"We have to go." Daniel sighed, taking Sara's hand. "It was wonderful to know you, Dr. Anders." 

"And you, Daniel. Take care." 

Civil watched as the couple appeared to walk away into the distance before they vanished in a single flash of light. Daniel was right, no doubt, she considered, leaving the cemetery. But it was enough to keep her happy for what years were left to her. And who knew? They might be back. 

 *** 
	
 
Daniel was glad to see the last of planet Earth fade into the distance as their ship left the atmosphere quickly and quietly. They had managed to book a small private cabin for the trip home. It was an unusual thing to happen but he suspected ReCon was relieved and grateful that they were going home to Rheuam. 

Sara stirred at his side and glanced with one eye open at the receding earth. "Nice place to visit," she murmured, snuggling in closer to his side. 

"Not ever again." He kissed her then looked at her face. "I want you to take up something else as a hobby when we get back. Moon rocks or something." 

"How about a baby?" she asked, kissing his chin. 

"I like that idea." He slid down close against her. 

"Then we could bring him or her back down here for a vacation at Disney World," she finished. 

"Sara," he groaned, burying his hands in her silky hair. 

"Kiss me, Daniel," she commanded with a smile, making no promises. "We have a few months to make up for, you know." 

He agreed and lost himself in her touch while the blue Earth continued to grow more distant and the promise of warm Rheuam welcomed them home. 	
	
 The End	

------------------------------------
This document was converted by AportisDoc Converter(tm) from Aportis Technologies Corp.
Visit www.aportis.com for eBook readers, free eBooks and conversion tools.