Chapter 3

By the time I got back into the city, it was eight in the morning.

I circled the building three times and didn't go up.

Instead I turned and headed for the police station.

Rose had said an officer brought her home, so I decided to take the gamble and dig for a lead there.

Better to risk it than to sit shut in one apartment with a woman whose story I couldn't place.

The moment the female officer at the desk heard my name, her eyes lit up.

"I know you. Your wife's missing-persons case—I'm the one who closed it."

"We joked about it around the office at the time. Said your wife was hopeless in love. Four years with no memory, and the first thing she remembers is you."

I gave an awkward laugh.

I hesitated a while before I worked up the nerve to ask:

"Can I ask—how did you confirm she was my wife?"

She kept working, not lifting her head.

"For anyone claiming memory loss, we've got a full verification process."

"There's no way we'd match the wrong person."

"Are you having some kind of trouble?"

I hesitated again and again, then landed on a vague answer.

"Just curious, that's all."

"So many missing people every day. How do you officers tell who's real and who isn't?"

She laughed, a bright, crisp little sound.

"In this day and age, finding someone is easy."

"She came in and reported herself, said the only thing she remembered was your name."

"We found the missing-persons report you'd filed and compared her against the ID database photo."

That was when I couldn't help blurting out:

"Plenty of people look alike. Going off a photo—couldn't that be wrong?"

She stopped what she was doing and glanced up at me.

"It's not just the photo. We check fingerprints too."

"We only notify the community to come claim the person once everything matches."

My eyes went wide with surprise.

"The database has my wife's fingerprints too?"

She nodded, and there was more scrutiny in her look now.

"Not just hers. Yours are in there as well."

"Everyone gets fingerprinted when they get their ID card."

"What's this about? Afraid you got the wrong wife?"

Even then, a sliver of wishful thinking still clung to me.

"Could someone fake a fingerprint?"

"Technology's so advanced these days, after all."

Across the desk she went quiet, fixing her eyes on me, her tone wary but held in check.

"Sir, the fingerprint equipment here at the station is very advanced."

"It reads subdermal prints. Anyone trying to forge one would trip the alarm on the spot."

"Are you running into some kind of difficulty?"

I froze, and my heart sank straight to the bottom.

Something like fire lodged in my throat, with nowhere to go.

I could hardly tell her the wife I'd buried had come back.

Walking out of the station, the officer's parting words still rang in my ears.

"Don't worry. Every piece of information was cross-checked."

"She's definitely your wife."

But no one knew better than I did.

Even if the photo matched, even if the fingerprints lined up perfectly.

This woman could not possibly be Rose Dickerson.

Because the real Rose Dickerson had been buried by my own hands four years ago.

I drifted through the streets in a daze.

Passing a fortune-teller's stall, an absurd thought even rose up in me.

Could this be Rose's ghost, come back for revenge?

But the cold wind hit my face and scattered the ridiculous idea soon enough.

If ghosts were real, Rose would have come for me four years ago.

Not waited four whole years, and then dressed it up with an excuse about amnesia.

The question circled right back to where it started.

The woman in my home now—who exactly was she?

I climbed the stairs weighed down with dread, and at my own door I ran into the last person I expected.