The gloomy skies above watched the Boat maneuver along the pine-needle-strewn trails as Ilse made her way along the winding roads. Raindrops began to tap staccato against her windshield, pattering away against the glass.

Droplets of wet splashed through the open window, flecking Ilse’s cheeks, and she allowed herself a soft little smile. Some people hated the rain—Ilse, though, liked nothing better. Florida and California could keep their sunshine; rain and clouds were more Ilse’s speed. Rain would chase people indoors, clearing roads and sidewalks. Ilse liked the solitude.

She gave a soft little sigh of satisfaction, the water still pattering through her open window as she moved through the small town and pulled into the parking lot outside the nearest diner: The Seven Dwarfs.

She double-, then triple-checked the locks, before turning and, head ducked against the pattering rain, she hurried into the diner.

The restaurant was one of those that served everything and anything at all hours, with waitresses pushing sixty, at the youngest.

She paused for a moment, waiting for the host to return to his position behind the cash register. While she waited, her ever quickening thoughts darted back to the meeting with her new client.

Abducted as a child. A serial killer at large. Escaped before anything could happen. Foggy, hazy memories. Ilse winced—all of it was so similar to her own story. Spooky.

She shook her head, muttering beneath her breath, “Unknown. Brown hair, missing eye… Six victims. Still at large…”

“Becks!” called a voice from the far side of the diner, in a window booth.

A slender man with an impressive white beard was sitting straight-postured in the booth, waving her over and smiling. The host, who’d finally returned to the register, nodded in familiarity at Ilse. “Dr. Beck,” he said.

“Hey, Horace,” she replied, with a nod and smile of her own.

“Usual spot?” the man asked.

“Thanks,” she returned.

Then she maneuvered through the tables, pausing for one particularly slow waitress to move past before joining Dr. Donovan Mitchell in the booth he’d reserved for them.

Dr. Mitchell wasn’t just her own psychologist—as most therapists were in therapy themselves, and had their own shrink to mentor them—but he was also, in Ilse’s case, a friend.

“Don,” she said, quietly.

“Becks,” he returned, patting a plastic hand against one of the place mats.

She glanced from his bushy white beard to the artificial appendage of his amputated arm. He reached up, delicately pushing with his prosthetic fingers against his glasses, moving them up his nose, and raising eyebrows nearly as white and bushy as his beard. “Good day so far? How was that reference I sent you?”

Ilse slid into the booth, huffing a breath and brushing her hair in front of her ear. “Fine,” she said, softly. “A strange case. Obviously I can’t get into it.”

Dr. Mitchell nodded, waving a finger toward one of the waitresses and flashing his million-dollar smile, causing his eyes to light up and the corners to crinkle. He returned his full attention to Ilse.