by Juniper Hart
Was he heading toward her friend’s house? A boyfriend’s house?
He realized that he wouldn’t even care if this was another man’s house, as long as Sabine was safe.
Yet as the GPS indicated he was nearing the spot, Dex knew it was not the house of Sabine’s lover. In fact, it was not a house at all.
He pulled up to a massive storage facility and Dex was sure he was in the right place.
She has a storage unit, he thought excitedly. That’s where she’s keeping whatever it is she found.
The problem was finding the number of the unit.
He peered at the keys he had taken from her house and exhaled when he saw what he was looking for.
A piece of masking tape sat on one gold key with the word “SEE!” written on it with Sharpie. Dex hoped that meant what he thought.
533. That’s the number of the unit.
It was another long shot, but long shots had gotten him that far.
With shaking hands, he used the key to open Unit 533 and his knees almost buckled with relief when the lock gave way in his hand. Inhaling sharply, he pulled up the garage style door and stepped inside the tiny box, his eyes shining brilliantly through the dark. Once again, his heart stopped as his gaze rested on a dark, dried puddle on the floor beneath his feet.
Blood. That’s blood. That’s Sabine’s blood.
He jerked his head up and looked around again, his eyes raking over the empty walls in disbelief. The unit was completely empty. Someone had taken great care to ensure that nothing remained of whatever Sabine had put together. Pieces of tape stuck to the walls where something had been hanging but whatever had once been there was long gone.
Long gone, just like Sabine.
6
Klaus came to the café the following day, much to Sabine’s delight.
“Looks like you have an admirer,” Hans muttered, his voice disapproving.
“Do you know him?” Sabine asked, slightly surprised by her employer’s observation.
“Nein and neither do you,” Hans told her firmly. “Don’t go off with strangers.”
A prickle shot through Sabine at the warning but before she could ask him about it, Hans hurried off toward the back room.
How does Klaus know we’re planning a date for Sunday? she wondered but she didn’t think about it too much. In a town that size, she was quickly learning that no secrets were sacred.
Before she could approach the table, the front door opened again and Frau Schiller entered, shaking her head.
“Oh scheisse,” Sabine groaned, knowing that the woman was there specifically for her.
“Oh shit is right,” Maria Schiller growled, perching at the counter, her eyes narrowing. “You still haven’t made an appointment with Dr. Schwartz.”
“I meant to,” Sabine protested but Frau Schiller shook her head.
“I’m tired of your excuses, Sabine, so I made an appointment for you. I already spoke to Hans about it and he told me you’re off at three tomorrow. Your appointment is at three-thirty.”
Sabine balked.
“Y-you told him about…?” she whispered, her face ashen. Frau Schiller snorted.
“Of course not,” she retorted. “I’m not a gossip, Sabine. You will tell him when the time is right, but you must go and see Dr. Schwartz. I am sick of reminding you.”
“All right,” Sabine agreed. “I’m sorry—and danke.”
Frau Schiller’s face softened slightly. She spun around and left without another word.
“Your mom?” Klaus asked brightly when Sabine ambled toward his table.
“She thinks she is,” Sabine sighed. Immediately she felt guilty for her ungrateful statement. “I shouldn’t say that. She…she helped me out a lot when I needed it.”
“Did she say something about a doctor?”
Sabine’s head jerked back and her eyes narrowed.
How could he possibly have heard us from that distance?
“That’s private,” she said coldly. Klaus immediately looked contrite.
“Of course it is,” he agreed quickly. “I was just worried that something was wrong.”
More shame shot through Sabine and she stifled a sigh.
I need to let my guard down a little, she thought. She’d almost bitten his head off twice now and he was only trying to be decent.
“I was… I was in an accident a few weeks ago,” Sabine mumbled, darting her eyes away. “Frau Schiller found me and she just wants me to have a follow-up.”
Relief seemed to color Klaus’ face.
“You look well. It couldn’t have been that serious,” he offered. Sabine blinked and studied him without seeing him.
Wasn’t it? I was left bleeding to death on the side of a road.
Instinctively, she reached up to touch the spot where her head had been split open, but it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t even sensitive. It had healed up in days, without even leaving a scar.
“I’m fine,” Sabine replied, eager to change the subject. “Coffee?”
He nodded.
“Ja, bitte.”
She turned away to collect his order but as she did, she heard him call out, “I’m really looking forward to this weekend with you, Sabine.”
The words had an unexpected effect on her. She didn’t respond as she hurried around the counter toward the coffee pot, feeling Klaus’ stare on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
Am I feeling guilty because of the baby or is it something else? she wondered.
She had been unable to shake the picture of the man she had seen in her mind’s eye the previous day, the one with the pained eyes and soulful words.
Who is he? What does he have to do with my past?
She knew that the harder she pushed herself to remember, the further the memory would slip away, but that didn’t stop her from trying to grasp it.
Sabine returned to the table with Klaus’ coffee and gave him a warm smile.
“It’ll be fun,” she told him lightly, hoping that he understood that they were only two friends going out as friends. He nodded, his eyes shadowing slightly.
“I’ve been looking into some things to do around here,” he offered. “There’s quite a bit.”
Sabine nodded absently, her eyes trailing around the dining room to take in the rest of the diners.
“Sabine?”
Her gaze moved back toward him and she stared at him expectantly.
“Hm?”
“Any thoughts on what you’d like to do?” A note of impatience crept into his voice. She flashed him a half-smile.
“I’m sure it’ll be fun, whatever we do,” she said without any conviction. She was already thinking of ways to cancel their date.
It was a mistake to have agreed in the first place, she thought warily. I had no business saying yes to him when I’m pregnant by another man.
“Sabine, are you having second thoughts about our date?”
She blinked, slightly aghast that he had picked up on her thoughts so easily.
“I…” her instinct was to deny it, but she didn’t. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Klaus looked hurt.
“Oh,” he said, his shoulders deflating. “I see.”
“It’s not you, Klaus,” she said quickly. “I-this isn’t a good time for me to be dating anyone. I…”
She pursed her mouth together before the words could fall out. She had yet to tell Hans about the baby. She wasn’t going to tell Klaus first.
“It’s just not a good time. I’m sorry.”
Oddly, she felt a great sense of relief wash over her as the words left her lips, despite the pained look on Klaus’ face.
“It’s never a good time to start a new relationship,” Klaus offered. He was trying to keep his voice light but there was an unmistakable edge to his words, one that put Sabine’s guard back up again.
“Please don’t push the issue, Klaus,” she said quietly. “The answer is no.”
As if she’d flipped a swi
tch, Klaus’ fair face darkened and she barely recognized the man before her as he rose from the booth.
“Fine,” he hissed, his eyebrows knitting into a terrifying vee shape. “I’ll be back.”
He stormed toward the door as Sabine gaped after him in disbelief.
“Did he pay for his bill?” Hans demanded, appearing behind her. Sabine shook her head but held up a hand as Hans went after him.
“It’s fine,” she murmured. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Verdammt damon…” Hans growled, throwing a dishtowel over his shoulder and grabbing the untouched cup of coffee. Sabine turned and looked at her boss quizzically.
“He’s not a demon,” she told him, shaking her head. “He’s just upset because I rejected him.”
Hans stared at her for a long moment, his face betraying nothing.
“He is a demon,” Hans replied slowly, his eyes fixed on her, and Sabine sighed.
“It’s only a cup of coffee, Hans. Seriously, take it out of my pay.”
Hans’ eyes became slits as he watched Sabine, but her stare was following Klaus out into the street where she saw him climb into a black BMW.
That’s the trouble with handsome men, she thought, shifting her focus back toward the tables. They aren’t used to hearing the word “no”.
“Sabine…”
She turned at the sound of her name and looked at Hans.
“Ja?”
“You don’t remember anything about your life from before the assault?” he asked, his voice filled with puzzlement. Sabine frowned.
“I thought Frau Schiller had already explained that to you,” she replied slowly. “Is that a problem now?”
“She did but I didn’t realize that she meant everything everything,” Hans replied. It was Sabine’s turn to be confused.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like…” he cleared his throat and looked around nervously. “Like who you are.”
“I…I remember my name,” she offered lamely. “The doctor said my memory would start coming back in pieces.”
His steadfast stare was beginning to make her uncomfortable.
“What, Hans?” she demanded when he didn’t speak. “What do you know about me?”
The question seemed to knock Hans out of the paralyzed gaping he had taken on and he abruptly shook his head.
“Me? Nothing. What would I know about you?” he growled, spinning away.
“Hans!”
He either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her plaintive call, leaving her alone in the dining room with only more questions.
This town was probably weird even before I got here, Sabine reasoned but the explanation did little to alleviate the sense that everyone around her knew more than she did.
There you go again, being all paranoid, she chided herself. You did Klaus a favor by canceling that date. He seems like a nice enough guy, no matter what Hans said. He doesn’t need a basket case like me on his hands. A demon. Honestly, Hans. What drama.
Sighing, Sabine moved behind the counter and decided that she wouldn’t focus on anything but work for the rest of the day. The distraction would do her good.
At five o’clock, Hans’ niece, Elena, came in to take over the evening shift and Sabine reluctantly turned in her apron. She wasn’t looking forward to another restless night alone in her cramped apartment, but she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. She didn’t have the means to do anything else distracting.
There had been nothing in the way of morning sickness, but her body was exhausted, making Sabine wonder if she wasn’t further along in the pregnancy than she thought.
What am I going to do once this baby is born? I barely have enough money to eat as it is now, she wondered for the hundredth time.
There were social service programs available but not for a woman without identification. For all Sabine knew, she hadn’t remembered her real name properly. All she had to offer the government was a first name, the possibility that she might have been born to an English-speaking family, and fingerprints that had already come up empty. No one was looking for her and she was blank from every standpoint.
Adoption?
The thought of giving up a child was painful, even if she had no idea who the baby’s father might be.
I can go through all this with the doctor tomorrow, she decided, pulling out the keys to her three-story walk-up. As she entered the bottom landing, her heart picked up slightly although she wasn’t sure why. The feeling was strong enough to keep her from moving for a moment, her gray eyes adjusting easily to the dim light of the stairwell. Something simply felt wrong, but she had no idea what.
Slowly, she ascended the stairs and when she reached the second-floor landing, her breath caught in her throat.
The door to her flat was wide open.
Without stopping to think about her safety or that of her unborn child, Sabine charged forward, her blood boiling with fury. There was no fear in her, only unadulterated rage as she realized that she had again been violated.
She threw the flimsy wooden door back so hard, it smashed against the wall and she glowered at the ransacked apartment.
“Mein Gott!” someone breathed behind her, causing Sabine to spin around, assuming a low crouching martial arts position, her arms extended into a fighting pose.
“Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, groin, throat, knee, Achilles tendon…”
The words reverberated through her head and then died as Sabine recognized Mikkel Milner from the unit below.
“Are you all right, Sabine?” Mikkel asked. Sabine dropped her hands and shook her head in disgust.
“Who robs someone who has nothing?” she groaned, making her way through the trashed apartment. “Did you hear anything?”
Mikkel shook his head apologetically.
“Nein, I’m sorry. I just got home myself and I heard you throw open the door. Would you like me to call the police?”
Sabine swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat.
No. Never call the police. Blend in. This is not blending in.
There were a combination of voices in her head, familiar and yet foreign at the same time.
“There’s no point,” Sabine muttered, darting her eyes away from Mikkel’s face. “They didn’t take anything and the police don’t care.”
“They could dust for fingerprints,” Mikkel offered optimistically but Sabine shook her head again.
“It’s not worth the hassle,” she said softly. “Danke, Mikkel.”
He eyed her worriedly.
“After what happened to you a few weeks ago, Sabine, are you sure—”
“Danke, Mikkel.”
She gently ushered him out of the apartment and closed the door in his concerned face, her blood still boiling at the injustice of it all.
She would have no certain answers unless she called the police, but she wasn’t willing to do that, not when something in her subconscious was telling her not to.
It’s coming back to me, she thought, a burst of excitement surging through her. Slowly but surely, I’m piecing together what happened.
Her only hope was that she could figure it out before she wound up hurt again—or worse.
7
Dawn found Dex at a quaint inn on the outskirts of Bremen. He hadn’t slept all night, his eyes poring through every newspaper article he could find from a month previous. Nothing led him to Sabine and the more he looked, the more his gut twisted.
He had since disposed of the burner he’d used to call the yoga school and hadn’t bought a new one but that had more to do with not wanting Anatoli to find him sooner than necessary. Eventually, he would need to call and loop her in but for some reason, he held back.
She has resources I can use, he thought and yet he refrained from making the call. He considered Anatoli a last resort, despite his mounting panic.
Calls to local hospitals had given him nothing and hacking into Bremen police files had offered him no clues as to what m
ight have happened to Sabine.
His eyes burning, Dex fell back against the fluff of pillows piled against the headboard and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.
For a fleeting moment, he caught a whiff of Sabine on his skin. It wasn’t the first time that had happened over the past months. It would occur at the strangest of times, his body responding like she was with him, telling him that Sabine had not forsaken him despite the distance between them.
He was missing something, something crucial.
It struck him suddenly and his eyes popped open.
Someone took the tracking chip out of her. Someone who knows about her chip. Someone…
He choked suddenly, realizing that only someone from within the compound could know about it. Someone like Anatoli?
The idea was appalling and didn’t make much sense. The Sleepers were her pet project, her baby. She wouldn’t sabotage her Sleepers, would she?
He shook his head.
No, she wouldn’t have told me about the tracker and sent me looking for Sabine if she had something to do with this. This has to be someone else. I need to know who else knows about the trackers.
Reluctantly, he pulled his exhausted body off the soft mattress and shoved his socked feet into a pair of running shoes.
It was time to get another phone.
Halfway to the local Saturn store, Dex had another epiphany, one that he hadn’t entertained until he caught a red-light camera snapping a photo of a car.
Traffic cams. I need to look into traffic cams!
He abruptly did a U-turn, circling his way back to the Black Forest Inn, and rushed back to his laptop, pulling open his air-gapped computer to hack into the municipal video database.
As he worked, he prayed that the footage hadn’t been erased. He knew German efficiency all too well. They might not have the images he needed stored in their files but if they existed, they had to be somewhere, didn’t they?
