Dryden turned to her. “My name’s Sam Dryden. This is Danica Ellis. Do either of those names mean anything to you?”

He watched Lauren Coleman’s reaction to the question. Saw her eyes narrow, not only with lack of recognition, but with confusion as to why he was even asking it.

It couldn’t have been clearer: she had never heard of them.

Dryden traded a look with Danica, but before he could say anything more, Lauren spoke up:

“You’re FBI agents?”

The question caught Dryden off guard. For a second he couldn’t imagine where it had come from—and then he remembered the windbreakers. He hadn’t given them a moment’s thought since he and Danica put them on.

“Oh,” Dryden said. “No, we’re not with them. We just came with them. We’ll explain that with the rest of it.”

But the damage was done. He could see it in Lauren’s expression. That momentary confusion on his part—that momentary lapse—had come across as the faltering manner of a liar.

Lauren Coleman took an involuntary step back from them, folding her arms. Just like that, she looked scared of them again.

“Wait,” Danica said. “Look, this is strange for all of us. Let’s just talk. Can we do that?”

Lauren stared at her a long beat, then nodded. Still, she was the picture of distrust.

“Good,” Danica said. “Can you tell us why you came here? Like, what happened that made you come here now? Are people after you?”

Lauren’s reaction to that was complicated: surprise, fear, interest.

“How can you know about that?” she asked.

“They’re after us, too,” Danica said. Then: “Did you live here when you were a kid? Maybe just for a little while?”

For two or three seconds Lauren only stared at Danica, still unnerved and worried. Then she nodded. “Yes, I lived here—I mean, my family said I lived here. I don’t remember.”

“Were you drugged?” Danica asked. “Back then, the summer of 1989? Did they use the memory drugs on you?”

At this Lauren looked merely confused. Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

Danica looked at Dryden, then turned back to Lauren and spoke as if playing a hunch: “Were you in a coma that summer? Did you lose a few months’ worth of your memory because of it?”

Lauren Coleman’s arms uncrossed themselves. One hand rose to her mouth, which had fallen partly open.

“How do you know all this stuff?” she asked—her voice had softened to almost a whisper. “There’s no way…”

Danica took a step toward her. “We were kids here in 1989. We had those drugs used on us. We’re trying to figure it all out too. Hell, maybe we knew you back then. Maybe we were friends.”