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  “It worked on Casablanca.”

  “What worked?”

  “The actors were operating on the fly. They didn’t know the ending. And in your case, I’d consider it well advised not to want to know anything more than necessary.”

  Scarecrow’s tone didn’t change, but the threat was still unmistakable. Froke took a deep, steadying breath, cleared his throat, and nodded. Scarecrow said nothing, but there was a reason for that. He was gone. He had vanished like a ghost—or a CIA spook. So why was it that his threat seemed to linger?

  After making sure there was no one in his condo, Froke sat down at his writing desk; in what felt like a defiant gesture, he gulped down his gin and tonic. Then he began reading the file and taking notes. Now that he knew his session with Stella had been monitored, Froke couldn’t help but wonder if someone was watching him now.

  This feels like an episode from Mission Impossible, he thought, with the secretary of state ready to disavow everything. He wondered if his message would go up in a puff of smoke, and on an impulse he got up and went to his briefcase. Inside, he looked for the paperwork Scarecrow had given him, but there was nothing there. Froke had gone directly from the Pierce house to his Solana Beach condo, but somewhere along the way all his paperwork had disappeared.

  He returned to his desk. He was even more aware of the time than before, and managed to get to the end of the file before the two hours concluded. Finishing the work, though, didn’t make him feel any better. Scarecrow, and whatever he represented, cast a long shadow. Froke wondered if he’d been right about the actors not knowing how Casablanca was going to end. He had sounded very sure of himself, but he sounded sure about everything he said.

  Froke looked at his phone’s display. There was nothing there. Then he looked at his e-mail. As Scarecrow had promised, the file had vanished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  After the death of his daughter and the disintegration of his marriage, Cheever had never expected to fall in love again. His relationships had become few and far between, and he had assumed he was so habituated to being single that no person or thing would ever change that. Being in his fifties, he had thought the doors to his heart couldn’t be breached. Passion, he was sure, was a thing of the past. All that had changed when he’d worked on what had up to then been the strangest case of his life. Holly “Helen” Troy had been a witness to a homicide, or perhaps had committed the homicide. Cheever had never dealt with a witness like Holly. Because she was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder—once known as multiple personality disorder—she offered up the perspectives of multiple, and sometimes contradictory, witnesses. In navigating the riddles of that case, Cheever had consulted with her therapist, Rachel Stern, to try and understand what Holly had seen and experienced.

  Initially Cheever had been skeptical of the doctor. At the time he viewed psychiatry as being akin to quackery. But Cheever soon discovered Rachel’s intelligence and humanity. Like him, she hadn’t been expecting love to come into her life. Cheever thought himself lucky that as accomplished and smart as Rachel was, she had chosen him to be what she called her “special someone.” The detective was more informal, referring to the psychiatrist as “my gal.”

  Rachel had made a late dinner so that the two of them could dine together at her Point Loma home. Usually they ate outside on the porch to take advantage of her ocean view, but because of the late hour and the evening chill, they had decided to sit at the dining-room table. Rachel made pasta primavera, and brought out a bottle of Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon for their celebration of the return of Stella Pierce. In the time she and Cheever had been together, the psychiatrist had become well acquainted with the name Stella Pierce. She had seen how the case still haunted Cheever, and could always tell when he was ruminating about Stella’s disappearance. Cheever’s faraway look, furrowed brow, and frown lines told her what he was thinking about, and how it still bothered him that he couldn’t make sense of what had happened to Stella.

  “When the Falcon called me with the news that Stella was back,” Cheever said, “I pulled the car over to the side of the road because I felt so overwhelmed. And then after our conversation, I began crying.”

  “Seven years of bottled emotions needed a release,” Rachel said.

  “I can’t even remember the last time I cried.”

  “One day I hope to understand the male aversion to tears,” she said.

  “They were happy tears,” Cheever admitted.

  “I would hope so.”

  They smiled at each other. Rachel extended her hand, and Cheever grasped her fingers in his own.

  “I’m wondering if the doctor has time for a consultation,” said Cheever.

  “Can you afford my fee?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

  “I look forward to it,” he said.

  Rachel reached for her glasses and put them on. Cheever wondered whether she was aware of her “tell.” Whenever she put on her glasses, it was time to work. She wore them for her clients and for business. Rachel ran a hand through her salt-and-pepper hair, pushing it away from her eyes.

  Cheever justified his talking to Rachel as “patient-client privilege. In this case she was also his “consultant.” That allowed him to speak freely to her. “At the onset I should say that prior to my talking to Stella, she was seen by a medical doctor,” said Cheever. “Although the doctor’s prognosis was qualified and she wants to do further tests, it’s her belief that in Stella’s time away, she did not suffer physical or sexual abuse.”

  “What wonderful news,” Rachel said.

  “That wasn’t the only surprise,” said Cheever. “When asked where she was for the last seven years, Stella said she was with a group she called the Travelers. According to Stella, the Travelers are not from Earth. They’re aliens.”

  Cheever was watching Rachel’s face. When he’d heard about aliens, he’d been incredulous; Rachel’s features indicated only interest.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “When the two of us talked, I didn’t press Stella for too many details about the Travelers. I thought it better to go easy with her at first. I was thinking she was protecting someone, and that her story might be a result of Stockholm syndrome, so I did my avuncular thing with her, talking about everything and anything. That’s when I discovered her seven-year blank. From what I could determine, Stella has no knowledge of world events during her time away. Even more striking for someone her age is her lack of familiarity with pop-culture figures. She seemed not to know any films, music, or TV shows from the last seven years, and judging by her answers, she was totally out of touch with current events.”

  “Interesting,” said Rachel.

  “Despite that, what I think I found most surprising was how well adjusted she seemed to be.”

  “Why did that surprise you?”

  “From what I know and what I’ve read, in the aftermath of being released from captivity, victims usually exhibit a host of symptoms, including anxiety, suspicion, depression, mood swings, and PTSD. But Stella doesn’t seem to be experiencing any of those things.”

  “She didn’t act like someone who’d been a prisoner for seven years?”

  Cheever shook his head. “And my gut tells me it wasn’t an act. She came across as both an innocent and a wise old soul.”

  “So what’s your explanation?”

  “I’m working on that. You’ve taught me not to jump to conclusions.”

  “And who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks?”

  “They brought in a therapist,” said Cheever, “a young-gun children’s psychiatrist named Benjamin Froke. Do you know him?”

  Rachel raised her head and pursed her lips, something she often did when searching her memory. Finally she shook her head and said, “He’s no one I’ve met or that I’ve heard of.”

  “Good,” said Cheever. “In that case I can bad-mouth him.”

  “He wasn’t to your taste?”

  “He struck me more as
an actor than a shrink.”

  Rachel’s nod encouraged him to continue.

  “Maybe I’m just used to the way you work,” he said. “You listen carefully, and then ask pertinent questions. Before making any pronouncements, you analyze everything, and even then you don’t speak in absolutes. That wasn’t his way. Froke acted as if he was Moses coming down from Mount Sinai bringing with him the word of God.”

  “So if I’m to judge from what you’re saying, you thought Dr. Froke was full of himself.”

  “Young men shouldn’t be that smug.”

  “Could your disliking him be a case of two alpha males actively marking their territory?”

  Cheever shrugged. “There might have been a little of that going on.”

  “Tell me about Dr. Froke’s pronouncements.”

  “He said that Stella had created her story of the Travelers as an ‘elaborate paradigm’ of avoidance so she wouldn’t have to deal with what really happened to her. Froke is convinced the whole Travelers thing is a defense mechanism, and given time and therapy, she’ll one day abandon the story and be able to tell what really happened.”

  “And you didn’t agree with his take on the situation?”

  “I am not certain of it one way or another. What I didn’t like was how definitive he was. I am a great believer in gut instinct, but I know better than to think my hunches are infallible. I try and let the facts guide me. Froke acts like he already has all the answers.”

  “It’s possible he was trying to reassure Stella’s parents with his observations, as well as offer them a suggested course of action. For the sake of the parents, he would have wanted to appear confident and not have them overreact, especially to her story of the Travelers. His offering up potential explanations for the Travelers probably reassured the parents and gave them some guidance on how to deal with the situation.”

  Cheever thought about that and slowly nodded. “He did caution the Pierce family about their need to be patient with Stella, and used the example of settler children being abducted by Native Americans and then raised in their ways. Froke said when those children were returned to their biological families, they had a terrible time readjusting.”

  Rachel nodded without commenting.

  “If you had been brought in as a consultant,” asked Cheever, “what would you have told Stella’s family?”

  “Please don’t ask me to second-guess a colleague,” she said.

  “I don’t want you to do that. But I do want your take on the situation. And I want your advice to help me going forward.”

  “Okay. Well, you might be surprised to learn that I’ve had clients who have also been convinced that they were abducted, or perhaps, more accurately, had dealings with aliens.”

  “Really?” said Cheever.

  Rachel nodded and considered her words. She’d never violated doctor-patient confidentiality, even with her special someone, and wasn’t about to start now. But there was plenty of background she could offer Cheever. “The belief in having experienced alien contact is not as rare as you might think. It’s estimated that three million Americans—or roughly one in one hundred adults—believe they have had an encounter with aliens. That doesn’t mean that all those individuals are claiming to have been abducted, but it does mean they are certain they have had contact with aliens in one form or another.

  “Some of the stories are quite graphic, and could be labeled surreal. There are women who believe their eggs have been harvested, and men who claim the same of their sperm. Other accounts sound less bizarre, although the majority of those interviewed said they remembered feeling paralyzed while being examined naked by the aliens. You would think you could discount those kinds of claims by saying that most of these individuals are mentally ill or psychotic. For the vast majority, though, that simply isn’t the case. These are individuals who tested out as being mentally competent.”

  “If they aren’t crazy,” said Cheever, “then what are they?”

  “It depends on who you’re asking,” she said. “The majority of doctors and mental health professionals suspect the claimants have experienced a form of sleep paralysis. I don’t know if you’ve ever awakened before your body has, or fallen asleep and found yourself unable to move. Sleep paralysis occurs when your brain and your body aren’t in sync. That might not sound scary, but imagine being awake and being unable to move or to speak. Even if this paralysis doesn’t last long, because the individuals have no control of their bodies, they often feel panic and fright. To use a horror-film analogy, they’ve experienced the invasion of a body snatcher. Maybe that’s why many who experience sleep paralysis feel an insidious unseen presence nearby. Some report a weight on their chest, as if from being pinned down. It’s possible that the notion of a succubus or incubus came as a result of sleep paralysis. And that invasive feeling isn’t only confined to Western culture. Eastern cultures have their own words and traditions describing this phenomenon. The Japanese call it kanashibari, which translates to ‘being bound hand and foot with an iron rope,’ and the belief is that a devil is perched atop a sleeper’s chest; in China the notion of nocturnal suffocation is referred to as bei gui ya, which translates to ‘held by a ghost.’”

  “So if I understand you,” said Cheever, “you’re suggesting that in modern times, extraterrestrials have supplanted ghosts and devils.”

  “That might or might not be the case,” she said. “What can’t be argued is that sleep paralysis often produces vivid hallucinations that seem absolutely real to the individual affected. Some say this interruption of the REM cycle can produce what’s called the ‘hag phenomenon’—during the limbo between sleeping and waking, you are at the mercy of a ghost, or a demon, or yes, an alien. This REM interruption might explain the bright lights reported by many of those who believe they’ve had an alien encounter.”

  “When I sleep, I probably snore so loudly that I scare off ghosts, demons, and aliens.”

  “I never had any idea your snoring was protecting me.”

  “No need for thanks,” Cheever said.

  “My sawing-wood hero,” she said.

  Cheever gave a half bow, then picked up his wineglass and took an appreciative sip.

  “In all of this,” he said, “the most important thing I need to remember is that Stella is back safe and sound.”

  “Amen.”

  “But that doesn’t mean her case is closed. Care to offer up any other insights?”

  Rachel thought for a moment. “I’ve always found it interesting that most of those who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens feel special, and are glad they were abducted.”

  “They like to think they were chosen?”

  “Yes,” said Rachel. “And reports of alien abduction are commonplace enough that mental health professionals have a name and an abbreviation for it: Alien Abduction Experiences, or AAE.”

  “It sounds like a sorority: alpha, alpha, epsilon.”

  “Maybe it is. Some in the mental health field also call it ‘Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind.’”

  Cheever took another sip of wine and thought about what Rachel had said. “There is still one significant difference between Stella and those who claim to have undergone AAE.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Those people were not missing persons, and their supposed encounters didn’t last for very long. Stella’s situation is different. She claims she was with the Travelers for seven years.”

  Rachel nodded. “I believe it was Obi-Wan who said, ‘Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.’”

  “And that’s what makes you so exceptional,” said Cheever. “Any shrink can quote Freud. But how many of them can quote Yoda?”

  “It’s not something I typically advertise,” she said. “Implanting false memories is far easier to do than you might think—especially with an impressionable young child. There have been many studies showing this, with the bottom line being that the individual with false memori
es is absolutely sure that what they are saying really happened, even though it never did.”

  “Let’s assume Stella’s Travelers are a false memory. How did it come about? And why did it come about?”

  “Those are good questions,” said Rachel, taking off her glasses. “And I’m afraid you’ll have to find the answers.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Stella greeted Cheever at the front door. Her pale face looked that much more ghostlike because it was sprinkled with flour.

  “We’re making chocolate chip cookies!” she said. “Do you want some?”

  Cheever sniffed the air. “My sense of smell says I want a dozen, but I think I’ll listen to another sense and only have one or two.”

  “What other sense?” she asked.

  “Common sense,” he said.

  Duncan rose from his chair in the living room and came to shake Cheever’s hand. “Let’s see if your willpower equals your common sense,” he said. “Mine surrendered many cookies ago.”

  “You better quit before you begin looking like a fat-cat politician,” said Eleanor, emerging from the kitchen.

  As she gave Cheever a hug, the detective tried to hide his surprise. Eleanor looked like a different woman, young and vibrant. The couple put their arms around each other’s waists. They were more animated than Cheever had ever seen them.

  Stella returned from the kitchen and extended two warm cookies toward Cheever.

  “You’re not trying to bribe a police officer, are you?” he asked.

  The girl looked to her parents, and Eleanor said, “He’s only kidding.”

  Cheever thanked Stella for the cookies, then took a bite of one. As he chewed, he began nodding appreciatively. “These are”—he paused and reconsidered before saying out of this world—“really good.”

  Eleanor turned to Stella. “I promised Detective Cheever that he could chat with you before dinner. Why don’t I take out that last batch while you and the detective have a talk?”