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everything I accepted as the truth now a lie?”

Chapter 8
    Seeing the confusion and fear in her eyes, Michael wanted to reach out and comfort her, sympathetic to her distress. The phone rang, startling them both. “Yes, Ada, what can I do for you?” Michael asked his secretary. Listening, he frowned, his gaze shifting to Mariah.
    “Not necessary, she’s here with me ... can’t it wait until she’s more rested?” He sighed. “No, I suppose they’re right, or at least they’re following procedure. Tell them she needs about twenty minutes to powder her nose.” Michael hung up, his tone an attempt at reassurance. “Two agents from the FBI are downstairs requesting an interview with me. They were pleased when they discovered you were still here. I tried to put them off—she nodded, having heard his end of the conversation—but they insist on talking to you before you leave.
    “Off to the washroom and take your time,” he said. “I’m going to find some food for you. They can jolly well let you eat while we talk.”
    “This is going to be a dilly, trying to explain to them how I knew where Amanda was.” Mariah sighed. “What kind of odds are you giving they think I had something to do with it?”
    With a shake of her head, she grabbed her purse from the couch where she threw it last night, and left the room. Michael rose, stretched the kinks out of his back, and headed for Ada’s office.
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    She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to find visible signs of change. Her face looked pretty much the same: maybe a little weary, her eyes sticky from having slept in contact lenses, hair messy from being smushed against the pillow. But nothing to mark what happened. What did she expect—lights blazing from her eyes? A halo around her head, proclaiming her divinity? She chuckled. If she had seen gleaming eyes or a bright halo, she’d be looking for Rod Serling.
    Mariah combed her hair and continued to inspect her face in the mirror. Not paying attention, she set the comb down too near the edge of the sink. It balanced for a second, and slid off. Catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, she made a grab for it and straightened quickly with the comb in her hand.
    Her image in the mirror frowned at her. Where was that old familiar pain that felt like electric shocks running down her left thigh?
    When Mariah was a teenager, an orthopedic surgeon had cut a piece of bone from her hip and fused it to the misaligned disks in her lower lumbar spine, thus alleviating the pain in her leg caused by a pinched nerve. The procedure had to be repeated three years later because the fusion had dissolved, her body identifying and destroying something out of place. (Naturally, Rachel said. If it was going to happen to anyone...) Years later, she experienced pain in her knee which proved to be referred pain from the advanced arthritis in the disks above the fusion. There was nothing that could be done apart from cutting her open and cleaning out the arthritis, so to avoid additional surgery, she did muscle-strengthening back exercises, kept her weight under control, and tried to avoid any motion that would set it off. Like the one she just did to retrieve the comb.
    Perplexed, she decided to repeat what just happened. Holding her breath, she let the comb fall, reached down to grab it, and straightened up.
    No pain. Nothing. Not even a twinge .
    Her reflection looked confused then frightened. There was no doubt in her mind that this was related to having found Amanda. There could be no other explanation. It could not be a coincidence.
    To take her mind off it, she thought about the upcoming confrontation with the FBI agents. They were not going to believe how she found Amanda—she barely believed it herself. Mariah Carpenter squared her shoulders and straightened to her full height of five feet four inches. You, young lady, are not going to be intimidated by some civil servant whose salary, by the way, you