The clouds parted a few blocks away, and a brilliant light shot down to welcome another soul, to embrace the fortunate spirit that had reached the expiration date of its corporeal form.
That happened fairly often, even in a town the size of Sleepy Hollow. What happened less often, thank goodness, was the opposite. When the ground cracked and parted to reveal a cavernous chasm, to deliver a less fortunate soul – a less deserving one – into darkness.
But not just any darkness. An endless, blinding void a thousand times blacker than the darkest night and a million times deeper.
And the doctors swear there is nothing wrong with me. They can't see what I see. Feel what I feel. Even in my state of absolute amnesia, I knew the world before me was unreal. Unearthly. Unnatural. And I knew to keep it to myself. Self-preservation was a powerful motive.
Either I had some kind of extrasensory perception or I'd done a lot of LSD in my youth.
"He's a doll," the stripper said, her sultry voice dragging me away from the fierce world that raged around me.
She leaned her voluptuous body into him. I wanted to point out the fact that he was old enough to be her father. I could only hope he wasn't.
"His name is Bernard," she said, running a finger down the side of his face, a spaghetti strap slipping down a scraped-up shoulder.
I actually had no idea what she'd done for a living, but from the looks of it, she was either a stripper or a prostitute. She'd caked on enough blue eye shadow to paint the Chrysler Building, and her little black dress revealed more curves than a Slinky. I was only leaning toward stripper because the front of her dress was being held together with Velcro.
I had a thing for Velcro.
Sadly, I couldn't talk to her in front of Mr. P, which was unfortunate. I wanted to know who'd killed her.
I knew how she'd died. She'd been strangled. Black and purple splotches circled her neckline, and the capillaries in her eyes had burst, turning the whites bright red. Not her best look. But I was curious about the situation. How it had evolved. If she'd seen the assailant. If she'd known him. Clearly I had a morbid streak, but I felt this tug at my insides to help her.
Then again, she was dead. As a doornail. In winter. What could I do?
My motto since Day One was to keep my head down and my nose clean. It was none of my business. I didn't want to know how they died. Who they left behind. How lonely they felt. For the most part the departed were like wasps. I didn't bother them. They didn't bother me. And that was how I liked it.
But sometimes I felt a tug, a knee-jerk reaction, when I saw a departed. A visceral desire to do what I could for them. It was instinctual and deep-seated and horridly annoying, so I crawled into a cup of coffee and looked the other way.
"Bernard," she repeated. "Isn't that the cutest name?" Her gaze landed on me in question.
I gave her the barest hint of a nod as Mr. P said, "I guess I'll have the usual, Janey."
He always had the usual for breakfast. Two eggs, bacon, hash browns, and whole-wheat toast.
"You got it, hon." I took the menu from him and walked back to the server's station, where I punched in Mr. P's order even though Sumi, the line cook, was about five feet from me, standing on the other side of the pass-out window, looking slightly annoyed that I didn't just tell her the order since she was about five feet from me, standing on the other side of the pass-out window, looking slightly annoyed.
But there was a protocol in place. A strict set of guidelines I had to follow. My boss, a sassy redhead named Dixie, was only slightly less procedural than a brigadier general.
The stripper giggled at something Mr. P read on his phone. I finished up the order so I could move on to other vexations.
Vexations like LSD, Slinkys, and capillaries. How was it I could remember words like capillaries and brigadier and, hell, vexations and not remember my own name? It made no sense. I'd been going through the alphabet, wracking my brain for a candidate, but I was running out of letters. After S, I had only seven left.
I sought out my coffee cup and picked up where I left off.
Sheila? No.
Shelby? Nope.
Sherry? Not even close.
Nothing felt right. Nothing fit. I just knew if I heard my name, my real name, I'd recognize it instantly and all of my memories would come flooding back in a shimmering tidal wave of recollection. So far the only tidal wave in my life resided in my stomach. It did flip-flops every time a certain regular walked in. A tall, dark regular with jet black hair and an aura to match.
The sound of my coworker's voice brought me back to the present.
"Lost in thought again, sweetie?" She walked up to stand beside me and gave my hip a little nudge. She did that.