Sean Connor is waiting for me when I arrive at the coffee shop.

He’s sitting at a table near the back, while the half dozen other diners in the place are up near the front. That will give us some privacy, which is what I think Sean wants. He looks even more nervous than he did yesterday; what he has to say may turn out to not be a big deal to me, but it certainly is to him.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” he says, standing slightly and then sitting back down when I get there.

“No problem.” I take the chair across from him and pick up the menu. “What’s good here?”

“What?” he asks, as if surprised by the question. I have a feeling he never actually considered the possibility that we might be eating breakfast at our breakfast meeting.

“What’s good to eat? Have you been here before?”

“Oh … sure. Everything’s good.” Then, “Get the pancakes.”

I don’t ever have to be convinced to get pancakes, so I don’t even bother to look at the menu. The waitress comes over with some much-needed coffee, and I order blueberry pancakes.

“Short stack or full?” she asks.

“I don’t know; I haven’t fully thought it through.”

She takes a step back and looks at my body, focusing on my stomach. “You look like you can handle the full.”

I laugh. “Okay, thanks. That’s the best compliment I’ll have all day. Go for it. But sugar-free syrup.”

Sean says he’s good with just coffee, and she frowns slightly but goes off to put in the order.

“So what’s on your mind, Sean?”

“I know you’re doing me a favor by coming here, and I appreciate it more than you could know … but I need some assurance first.”

“Assurance of what?” I ask.

“Confidentiality. I need you to promise that my name will not be attached to this, that you will not mention my involvement to anyone.”

“Sean, if you’re confessing to a crime, I can’t give that to you. I’m not your priest or your lawyer. So if that’s the case, you might want to reconsider.”

“I understand that. I’m not confessing to a crime, and if you find out that I committed one, you’re free to do with it whatever you want. But until that point, my name stays out of it. Please.”

I can’t imagine where he’s going with this, but it’s getting interesting. “Fair enough.”

“Thank you. Does the name Rita Carlisle mean anything to you?”

I think for a moment. I have that disconcerting feeling again, the one where it feels like something is familiar, and I should know it, but I don’t.

“Not at the moment, no.”

“She went missing three years ago, and was never found. It was a big case around here.”

I’m searching my memory bank, which in terms of size is not exactly Goldman Sachs. I come up with nothing. “It must be in one of my blank periods,” I say. Since it happened three years ago, and my memory loss covers the last ten years, I’m not surprised.

He smiles a humorless smile. “Believe me, I understand.” He pulls a briefcase from near his feet up onto the table. I hadn’t noticed it was there. He opens it and takes out what seems to be a newspaper clipping, and puts it in front of me. “Here’s a picture of her.”

It’s a story about the kidnapping, and the photo is of a young, pretty woman. It looks like it could be a college graduation photo, or maybe one that was originally part of a marriage announcement.

I look at it and don’t say anything, and he starts taking out other clippings. “Here’s another … and another … and another.” They’re all stories about the kidnapping.

“What about her?” I ask, looking through them.

“I’m hoping you can tell me, that you can find out what’s going on. But I’m getting ahead of myself,” he says.

“Yes, I think you are.”

“If there are levels of memory loss, I have it worse than you,” he continues. “I remember almost nothing about the last four years of my life. It’s a clean slate. I’ve pieced a lot together, of course. I had a very good job; I was a financial counselor, and I made a lot of money. I lived in Westchester.”

“Why did you move here?”

He points to the briefcase. “I’m getting there. After my accident—I was in a car accident and suffered a head injury, that’s how I lost my memory. Once I came to terms with my condition, I spent a lot of time and effort learning as much as I could about myself. I’m sure you know how that is.”

I nod, because I certainly know how that is, and he continues.

“I actually searched my own house to look for clues, and at one point I went into the attic. There was a lot of junk up there, but I went through it all. Eventually I found this; it was in a plastic bag, tucked under some things. Almost like it was hidden. Sorry … exactly like it was hidden.”

He takes what looks like a scrapbook out of the briefcase and puts it in front of me. I slowly turn the pages, but I already know what I am going to find. Every page is another media story about the Rita Carlisle kidnapping; whoever put this together, and I have to assume it was Sean, was obsessed with the case.

“Did you know her?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I have no memory of it.”

“You want me to take this?” I ask, meaning the scrapbook.

He shakes his head. “I’d rather hold on to it for now, if you don’t mind.”

“Is this all you have that connects yourself to this woman?”

He shakes his head. “There’s one more thing. Apparently she was at a bar in Paramus with her boyfriend the night she disappeared. They had a fight, and she stormed off.”

“So?”

“I went back over my credit card records; I was there that night. The bill is a small one, probably just two drinks, or a drink and an appetizer, so I was probably alone. But obviously I can’t know that for sure.”

“Maybe that’s why you became obsessed with the case.”

“Maybe,” he says, obviously doubtful about it. “Or maybe I had a more direct involvement.”

“That’s unlikely, Sean. You were there, you saw her, then you read about what happened and it hit you really hard that she went missing. So you followed it closely, you clipped out articles. These kind of things happen all the time.”

“I clipped the articles and then hid them in my attic? Why would I do that? I wish I could believe you.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

“You’re a cop, and you also understand what I’m going through with my memory loss. I want you to find out if I kidnapped that poor woman. And if I did, I want to pay the price for it.”