Angelica followed her in. She hesitated at the door, looked left and right, shook her head as if bewildered.

Elle placed her palms on the table and hefted herself up. “Rune, we’ll meet tomorrow.”

“Yes.” Rune watched Elle go into the store and turned to Adam. “That woman is in need of empathy, and I worry you’re not the person to—”

“I’m not. But I will keep her safe.”

Rune ruffled the tarot cards. “You have good instincts. Follow them.”

Also irritating. “They’re not instincts in some woo-woo portents that float through the atmosphere. They’re observations, usually peripheral, filtered through my experiences and presented to my mind as warnings.”

“Right. Not instincts. How dare I suggest such a thing?” Rune did sarcasm well. “Do you have any gut feelings about the violence that drove her to Gothic?”

“Better than that. This morning, she told me what wakes her screaming. Her memory of that is clear, if limited.”

“A starting point.” Rune shuffled the cards and placed three on the table. “Excellent. And why didn’t I ask that?”

“Because you were surprised by the news of the amnesia.”

Rune looked up. “Do you feel comfortable sharing what she told you?”

Adam repeated, word for word as far as he was able, what Elle told him this morning. A man’s hands gripping her throat, her screams trapped within. Square lights rolling as the floor beneath them rose, fell, tilted. Music throbbed inside the house, masking the violence outside from her friends who partied, drank and sang. And the storm, wind and rain lashing her face as he killed her.

Rune leaned back. “A ship? A boat? A dock on the water?”

“Or maybe her lack of oxygen created the illusion of square lights on a rolling floor. When I pulled her from the water, she had a flotation ring with her.”

“Boat, ship, dock. These days they hang those things on railings everywhere. Did you research missing persons or—” Rune caught sight of Adam’s face. “Of course you did. Something capsized out there?”

“Possibly. That would explain why there’s no person-overboard reports to the coast guard, but that doesn’t explain the marks on her neck. Someone tried to throttle her. Maybe he was interrupted and, to finish the job, he threw her in.” Adam lifted his hands. “Suppositions. What I know for sure is that she’s afraid of a big, hulking man.”

“In general, women are afraid of men. Some are brutes with a tendency toward violence.”

“I know. She’s been traumatized by the attack on her. Yet I see flashes of the woman she was before. There’s a spine of steel beneath the terror.” Adam walked to the stairs, stood at the railing and scanned the hills. A shadow grew in his mind, an awareness of danger, a sense of being watched.