custom pipe fittings. He worked at Achilles for twenty-eight years, the last ten in management. He’d lived in the same house for twenty-five of those years.
Alan had been thin on family. An only child, he’d lost his father when he was forty-two. His mother was in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer’s and his wife died five years ago. He was survived only by two cousins— one in Denver, one now living in Belize—and by his aunt and uncle.
And by his daughter, Mary.
Mary Debrett was twenty-seven years old. She had a thyroid condition, a heart condition, an IQ of 30, and many friends, both in her neighborhood and at the training center where she went once a week. She remained in ICU in a deep coma.
None of Alan’s coworkers remembered him.
One was among the amnesia victims. Upon closer questioning, several more coworkers reported gaps in their memories. A few of them had been concealing this out of fear—no one wants to think they’re losing it. Others had simply not been aware of the gaps. Yes, they knew someone used to work in that office. Couldn’t think of his name right now. Was it a he? Might have been a woman. Odd, now that you mention it, but they simply didn’t remember.
None of Alan’s neighbors remembered him.
The couple on one side had only lived there for four months and said they didn’t know any of their neighbors; the family on the other side was out of town. The SDPD was tracking them down. But several of the others remembered Mary and a few recalled Alan’s deceased wife, but not Alan. The house across the street belonged to his aunt and uncle, who were in their seventies. They’d been in bad shape when the officers knocked on their door. Both were in the hospital now, suffering from dehydration and severe disorientation. Questioning them was difficult, but it was obvious neither remembered their nephew . . . or large parts of the last fifty-seven years.
None of Lily’s family remembered Alan Debrett, either. But she did.
Not his last name, nor had she ever met him or seen a photo of him . . . at least she didn’t think so. But her mother had once talked about her high school boyfriend, Alan, when trying to impress upon a teenage Lily the need to date nice Chinese boys.
Alan hadn’t been Chinese. Julia’s father had been furious when he found out. He and her aunt had forbidden the relationship—with little success, Julia had admitted. She and Alan had gone steady for nearly two years, using any number of subterfuges she had refused to divulge to her curious daughter. His parents hadn’t approved, either. “In the end,” Julia had said, her lips tight with remembered anger or pain, “Alan came to agree with them.” And that was all she’d been willing to say on the subject.
Shortly after seven o’clock on the night after she found Mary, Lily was at her new home, which was currently a bit crowded. In another half hour they needed to leave for Isen’s house. Karonski wanted everyone to meet there for a combination briefing and brainstorming. But for now, for once, for just the next thirty minutes, Lily wasn’t doing a damn thing.
They’d turned the TV off. Someone in the insurance building on the east side of the parking lot had gotten video of almost the entire battle with the dworg. Lily had watched it all the way through online, which may have been a mistake. She didn’t want to see it again, but all the news programs kept showing snippets from it. No TV news for her for a while.
Music was better, anyway. Yo-Yo Ma was making love to his cello at the moment, and Lily was curled up in the chair-and-a-half that had been her total seating in her old apartment. Their current living area was composed of the original second-floor landing plus one of the tiny bedrooms with one wall removed. There wasn’t much room for a couch, but her old chair fit nicely.
Most of her sat in the chair, anyway. Her legs were draped across Rule’s lap. “I was so curious about my mother’s big youthful rebellion,” she said softly. “I didn’t think she’d rebelled at all, you see.”
“Mmm.” He combed her hair with his fingers. “She wouldn’t tell you more than that?”
“No, so I asked my father about Alan. I was sure he’d know. It didn’t occur to me she might not have told him about an old boyfriend . . . these days, cynic that I am, I’d probably assume every married couple had secrets, but it turned out I was right to think she’d told him about Alan. He knew who I meant, but he pretended to think I was trying to shop for a different dad. Teasing me, you know, in that dry, straight-faced way he has. When I pushed—I was pushy back then, too—he said something about letting the past stay in the past.”
“Bah,” Grandmother said.
Lily paused to see if that was addressed to her. Grandmother, Li Qin, Toby, and Julia were playing mah- jongg in the “office”—the room with the dining table. Grandmother had brought her mah-jongg set with her. Not the good one, which was over two hundred years old, but her everyday tiles. In spite of that “bah,” Grandmother was undoubtedly winning. She always did, and she didn’t believe in cutting any slack based on trivialities like age or experience.
When no further comments came, Lily went on. “So when I saw his name on the papers in his home office, I felt this little tug, as if I ought to know who he was. The memory didn’t float up to the top of my mind until we found his high school yearbook, though. There was a picture of him with my mother, and bam! I remembered that whole conversation. It had left so many questions unanswered—that’s why it stuck, I think.” She looked at Rule. “Only I shouldn’t have remembered, should I?”
“Something protected you from the memory loss others suffered.” He was winding one strand of her hair around his finger. “Whether it was the
“Probably the mate bond.” Lily wanted her mysterious protection to be the mate bond. If it could protect her, it ought to protect Rule, too.
“We don’t know enough to say for sure. Whichever it was, I’m very glad you have it.”
Trying to get Rule to agree with her wouldn’t make it so . . . but she wished he had. “I wish Drummond would show up again. And that’s something I never expected to say.”
“No sign of him?”
She shook her head and shoved her hair back from her face. And winced. She’d taken the elastic bandage off her wrist after supper to let it breathe, but maybe that had been a mistake. It was pretty tender still. “What would you do if I cut my hair?”
His eyebrows went up. “Do you want to?”
“Thinking about it. I don’t usually let it get this long. It takes forever to blow it dry these days.” And when she was one-handed, doing anything with her hair was a bitch. Rule had washed it for her that morning.
“It’s your hair, so it’s your choice.”
“The way you’re always playing with it, I thought you might go into shock or something.”
He smiled. “I think I could cope if there were less hair to play with. As long as you don’t decide to shave your head.”
“Not going quite that far. Maybe I’ll wait until after the wedding, though.” Her mother had been happy Lily had let her hair grow out, thinking she’d done it for the wedding. Mostly Lily just hadn’t had time to mess with it.
That reminded her. “I meant to tell you earlier. My father called this afternoon.”
“Did he?”
“At first he wanted to know about the wedding, if we’d postponed it. But then . . . he’s sorry he said that about not wanting to hear from me. He . . .” Tears stung, making her feel foolish because this was good news. “He said cutting himself off from me was both wrong and stupid. It was like he’d had his foot amputated and decided to blame his hand for that and cut it off, too.”
Rule pressed a kiss to her hair. “Like I said, he’s a good man. What did you—”
“Did not!” Toby cried, indignant.
“Did so!” That was Julia, very loud. “You’re always bragging—‘my dad
“I just said you didn’t need to be all scared because Dad is here, and it’s true! He killed the dworg and kept us safe and—”
“What do you know? You’re just a stupid little kid!” Julia’s voice rose to shrill, but Lily could hear the tears in it. “Too stupid to be scared when there are monsters that want to
