He saw his exit and rolled off the freeway, picking his way through traffic. He wondered if he’d find another disturbing, dark photo of his wife waiting for him back at his dive of a motel.

“Just keep her alive,” he said to the car’s interior. The dash lights glowed on his face as he glanced in the rearview mirror and caught his reflection. The man staring back at him looked older than he remembered. Haunted. By the ghost of a dead woman.

He pulled into his parking spot, yanked the keys from the engine, and looked in the mirror again.

This time, he saw past his own face to a person behind his car, standing on the far side of the parking lot.

Jennifer!

No way. She wouldn’t appear now. He swung around to look.

She was gone.

Shaking inside, he slid out of the car and stood next to it, hearing the ticking of the rental’s engine as it cooled and the night closed in.

Where had she been?

Under the streetlamp?

Near the ficus tree?

He started walking faster and faster across the dusty, uneven lot, beneath the flickering, humming neon lights of the So-Cal’s advertising board offering free wi-fi and cable TV.

Was that a movement on the other side of the planter?

Someone running?

It might not be her.

But he was jogging now, his eyes trained on the image ahead, a fleeing woman with dark hair.

Déjà vu.

The eerie sensation tugged at his mind. He remembered following her down the steep trail over the sea, how she’d turned and blown him a kiss before leaping from the cliff to the ocean below. He recalled chasing her shadow through the decrepit mission in San Juan Capistrano. Following her earlier today in the woods beyond the cemetery.

What do you want, you bitch? I know you’re not Jennifer. You’re a fraud.

He broke into a sprint, barely aware of the traffic lights glowing red and green, or the cars whipping by. Keeping her in his sights, he crossed traffic against the light, heard a horn honk in protest, and someone shout. But he ignored the driver and picked up his pace. He felt the pain in his leg. Gutted it out. He was gaining on her now, but she was still a block ahead, running full out.

What the hell?

An old memory surfaced and a feeling of déjà vu settled over him. Another time. Another place.

He remembered chasing Jennifer, through the sun-dappled park at Point Fermin. How he’d caught her, breathless at a pergola, where he’d kissed her madly, both of them sweating, her breasts, beneath a thin blouse, pressed up against him. He’d hoisted her hands over her head, pushed her back against the rough trunk of a tree, and proceeded to strip her and make love to her in the shadows.

Oh…

Hell…