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  85. 81
  86. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“I have locks on the doors. I have surveillance cameras. I have electronic sensors on the perimeter.” He lifted his wrist and showed her his watch. “When someone crosses onto my land, I am warned. No one will surprise us.”

He did allay her fears, but why would someone who lived in such a lonely spot take such precautions? Did something or someone threaten him? Who haunted Adam’s nightmares?

“I am going to take you to the doctor I used when I was injured and needed to be put together long enough to get to a hospital. Dr. Brocklebank is sensible and trustworthy, and he’s not required to report your case to anyone except a ewe.”

“A you?” she repeated cautiously.

“A female sheep.” He was, she realized, being funny. Or at least...funny for him. “Dr. Brocklebank is the area veterinarian. He deals with all kinds of animals—sheep, cows, hamsters, dogs, cats. Whatever ranchers raise and people keep as pets. I’d like his opinion about that bump on your head and your amnesia.”

“Okay. We’ll risk that.” She turned her hand under his and pressed his fingers in return. “Thank you so much. You never signed up for this.” She meant it with all her heart.

“When you live in the City of Lost Souls, you take what life excretes.”

Wow. After being choked, drowned and now basically called a big ol’ pile of poo, she felt special. Maybe she didn’t know her full name, and maybe she didn’t know her background, but she did know some things about the bedrock of her nature: she was a fighter, a survivor, and somehow she would get to the bottom of who tried to kill her, where she came from, and what was going on with Adam Ramsdell and his buttoned-up version of reality.

After all, she was a scientist. She knew how to ask the right questions.

10

“CITY OF LOST SOULS? Calling it a city is a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t you say?” Elle observed.

“I’m not the one who named it. And yes.” Adam drove his ATV through Gothic, up the main street with its seven curves, past Ye Olde Antique Shop, featuring the finest junk in Gothic, past Mrs. Santa’s Gifts and Tea Shop, past the Hair on Your Chest Coffee Shop and Firm Buns Bakery. And past what seemed like every person in town standing on the street, staring, mouths open.

“Everybody’s staring,” she observed. “Don’t you ever have company?”

“No.”

“Relatives? Friends?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.”

She was looking at him, he could tell.

He didn’t look back.

“Do you not like these people?”

“Like them? I suppose. Why?”

“You’re not exactly smiling and waving.”