EIGHTY-SIX

“BOSS, you’re back!”

Esther Best had ducked into the Village Blend pantry for supplies when she saw the back door open and me and Mr. Dante walk through. Before I could utter a word, the barista poet was squeezing me like a Sunkist orange.

“Take it easy,” Mr. Dante told her. “She just saw a guy get his head blown off!”

“What?! Omigod! Omigod!”

Pushing up her black-framed glasses, Esther went from completely freaked to mother-hen mode. Taking me by the arm, as if I were physically and mentally unstable, she insisted on “helping me” up the stairs.

“Esther, I’m fine,” I assured her.

And I really was—which did little to douse my burning skepticism about Dr. Lorca’s so-called diagnosis.

Seeing Toby Mullins shot to death had been highly disturbing. It had rattled my nerves, filled me with fear and dread, and sent adrenaline through my molecules. What it didn’t do was make me woozy or forgetful. It didn’t block any memories, either, at least no more than the original “emotional trauma” that Lorca claimed I’d experienced.

Traveling back here tonight with Mr. Dante, I recognized the streets of my West Village neighborhood and my beloved century-old Village Blend. But I still had no memories of living and working here—not lately.

In my mind, it had been a long time since I’d managed the place and roasted coffee in this basement. Though I was being told differently, I still felt as though I should have been returning to the suburbs of New Jersey, where I was a single mother raising my young daughter, Joy, and writing a column for the local paper.

“Do you want me to call Madame and let her know you’re here?” Mr. Dante asked.

“Yes,” I said, “but be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t use your name. I’ll be cagey, like your boyfriend.”

My boyfriend? I was about to ask, and stifled the question. He was talking about Detective Mike Quinn. To everyone around me, Quinn and I were a couple, even though it still felt as though we had met days ago, instead of years.

As Mr. Dante made his call, I climbed the back staircase with Esther, and waited as she unlocked the duplex door.

Madame’s furnished guest apartment above the coffeehouse looked as elegant and tasteful as I remembered, though I had no personal memories of living here. When Matt and I were married and raising Joy, we lived in our own little apartment nearby.

But that was long ago (so everyone told me), and this was my home now. I barely had time to settle in, meet my two cats (whom Esther introduced as Java and Frothy), pull off my blond wig, and freshen up in the bathroom before I heard someone arriving at the front door.

It was Madame, thank goodness. She was here already, greeting me with open arms.