And now, her client was gone, abducted.

And it was Ilse’s fault.

She had to make it right. She had to help however she could.

But how was that, exactly?

And how could she help before it was too late for Samantha?

“I’ll help in whatever way I can,” Ilse repeated, more firmly. “Just tell me what I can do.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

They no longer sat in the interrogation room. Ilse felt like that room was much like Agent Sawyer’s personality. Rigid, cold, straightforward, and uncomplicated at first glance.

Now, though, they were in a break room, with two vending machines against the wall; one filled with energy drinks and the other with small snacks pretending to be healthy. Agent Sawyer had a thin, wiry physique, suggesting he likely didn’t partake in either. Or eat much at all. He had a firm, dogged look in his eyes were he stood across from her, refusing to sit, leaning against one of the vending machines and watching her quietly, waiting.

For her part, Ilse’s eyes were half hooded; she stared into the reflection off the glass of the vending machine, cycling through the notes she kept for her clients.

She didn’t write the notes down. Not like Agent Sawyer in that little notebook of his. Rather, she cataloged them, memorizing them and placing them like building blocks in her mind. She thought of the memory device as an apartment complex. Each floor housing certain, organized memories. She could sometimes take the elevator, moving swiftly from one floor to the next, sifting through recollections. Other times, she took the stairs. A slower, weightier venture in knowledge retention.

Now, she moved along the imagined pathways of her mind, moving through the two sessions she’d had with her client. She swallowed once, and then, uncomfortably, beneath the watchful gaze of Agent Sawyer, she mimed reaching out with her hand. In her mind’s eye, following a path of hypnagogic imagery, her fingers closed on the imagined door knob. She could almost feel how cold it was. She mimed, above the table of the break room, turning the door knob.

She pushed it in.

Organized, sorted, arranged. The memories of the two sessions came flooding back. She watched them play out, picking up on marker moments—shorthand more than anything—for recollecting rapidly. An eidetic memory. Not so much for facts and numbers, but for words and faces. For emotions, especially.

Sawyer cleared his throat, but Ilse ignored this gentle jostle.

Instead, she closed her eyes fully now, sifting through the memories of their last session.

Samantha had apologized at the start of the meeting. Marker one. Shame. She had then moved into explaining her reasoning. Marker two. Justification. She had continued into holding the piece of printed paper. Marker three. Courage.

And then…

Then she’d remembered. Bits and pieces. Fragments. The sorts of memories Ilse kept in the basement of her mind, unsorted, hidden, lost and buried.

But now, in this case, Samantha’s own worn thoughts were kept cataloged in Ilse’s mind. She watched in her mind’s eye, picturing the frown, the grimace, then the words.