There it was again, on the tip of his consciousness, just that side of recollection. He knew he’d met them but could not recall any specifics. He tried not to derail this train of thought, tried to keep his mind on that narrow track, but other thoughts intruded, expanding his concentration outward, and his brief tenuous grasp of the past slipped, any hope he had of pinning down those memories gone. There remained only the certainty, not backed up by detail, that he had once met Doneen and Mr. Billingsly, and that Tony had too.

He started the car, pulled out into the street. Rather than back up or execute a three-point turn in the rain, he drove down to the end of Edgecomb and turned left, intending to drive around the block and return to their street.

He was halfway down Edgecomb when he saw it.

There, in the rain, in the middle of the street, a small shadow, the same shadow he’d seen before in the alley.

Doneen?

He braked to a halt, jumped out of the car, but it was gone. The street was empty, the sidewalks vacant, no sign of anyone or anything out of the ordinary. The rain chose that moment to stop entirely, and through a thin curtain of white amid the dark clouds above, the light of the sun poked through, illuminating the neighborhood.

Nothing.

That was it, the last straw. This was enough. He had to know. He’d had his fill of these half remembrances and partial sightings and nebulous portents. He wanted to know about the House. He wanted to know what had happened to him there and what it had to do with Margot and Tony. He wanted to know why he couldn’t remember his past. He wanted to know what the hell was going on.

He’d talk to Margot about it, call a psychiatrist tomorrow, one that specialized in hypnosis and regression therapy. Her insurance had to have some type of mental health provisions. He could say he suspected that he’d been molested as a child. Hell, he could just tell the truth, explain what he’d been seeing and hearing and thinking, and he’d have no problem finding a shrink willing to uncover the dark secrets of his past.

He didn’t have to go to a psychiatrist, though.

It came back on its own.

All of it.

TWELVE

Laurie

Laurie dug through the box of her parents’ photographs looking for a clue, trying to find some documentation of her previous life, some hint of her pre-adoptive days. Josh sat next to her on the floor, sorting through additional piles of pictures, attempting to help her reconstruct a past that neither of them knew anything about.

She stared at a photo of herself and Josh at Disneyland, waving and smiling in front of It’s A Small World.

She was adopted.