Squinting against the bright sun, he flipped down his visor and spotted several motels that could well have been one of the spots where Jennifer and James had met for their trysts. Unfortunately, there would be no records to prove that any of the stucco-faced buildings had been the private spot where they had met.

And so what if they had?

It had been over twelve years.

In that span of time places had changed hands, old buildings torn down and new ones sprouting up. He was just about to turn toward Culver City when he caught a glimpse of a slim, dark-haired woman in a yellow sundress and dark glasses standing at a bus stop.

So what? he thought initially. But as he drove past, he saw her profile and his heart stopped. The nose and chin…the way she held her purse as she stood near a bench, her eyes trained down the street where the approaching bus lumbered and belched blue smoke. She lifted one hand to her forehead, shading her eyes even further.

Just as Jennifer had always done.

Shana’s words rushed back to him: “In her own weird way, Jennifer loved you.” He’d been stunned then and was still.

This is crazy, his mind warned. It’s not her. You know it’s not Jennifer. Power of suggestion, that’s all it is!

With one eye on his rearview mirror and the other trained ahead, he searched for a parking space as the bus slowed to a stop.

“Oh, hell.” Gunning his car into a parking lot for a strip mall he nosed his rental into the first available space, an area that warned that the lot was for customers only. The doors to the bus were open. Two teenaged boys plugged into iPods laughed and pushed each other as they hauled their skateboards onto the bus.

Bentz threw himself out of the car and hitched his way across the street.

She was gone.

The woman in the yellow dress was nowhere to be seen.

The doors of the bus closed and the driver turned on the flashers to signal that she was heading into traffic.

“No!” Bentz pushed into the street, his bad leg aching as he hobbled after the city vehicle. He reached the stop just as the bus rumbled noisily away.

Was she aboard?

As it pulled away from the curb, Bentz stared through the dusty windows. He scanned the face of every passenger he could see, but recognized no one. There wasn’t anyone remotely resembling his ex-wife.

Bentz took note of the bus number and the time, then studied the surrounding landscape. No dark-haired woman in a lemony sundress was strolling along the sidewalk or walking quickly around a corner or climbing into any of the vehicles lining the streets.

He felt a prickle of déjà vu run through his soul.

As if he’d been here before.