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obscenities at the detectives as they led him down the corridor.
    “Good God, they sure did a bang-up job of screening him,” she heard one of the doctors mutter. “What were they thinking?”
    The other doctor was asking if she was all right. She felt Sherita hovering over her.
    “Yes, yes, I’m all right,” she answered, eyes still closed. She was shaking inside. She just wanted everyone to leave—except maybe Sherita.
    As if reading her mind, Sherita announced she would clean up the mess Lon Phelps had made. “It’s okay, you go on,” she told the doctors. “You better dry off. I’ll look after our girl.”
    After the doctors shuffled out the door, Jane Doe opened her eyes. She took a couple of deep breaths. She was still trembling.
    Sherita came from the bathroom, then wiped the water off the floor with a towel. Retrieving the tumbler, she set it on the night table and stepped up to Jane Doe’s bedside. She stroked her hair. “Well, hon, if that was your husband, I’ve got news for you. He’s as crazy as a road lizard.”
    Jane Doe managed to smile up at her. “I guess that was kind of a bust, huh?”
    “Not totally,” Sherita said. “Who’s Charlie? In the middle of that fiasco, you said to psycho-man: ‘You’re not Charlie.’”
    “I did?” she asked.
    “Is Charlie the guy in your dream?”
    She stared up at Sherita, then let out a little laugh and nodded. Tears stung her eyes. “Charlie’s my husband,” she heard herself say. “Charlie Ferguson. I met him my freshman year at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Charlie Ferguson. And—and our son’s name is Brian.” Suddenly she had a hard time getting her breath. The flood of memories and facts were coming at her. She remembered her mother and father. She married Charlie in Las Vegas. They were both still in college at the time. Her mother was furious.
    “We live in Seattle,” she said, sitting up in the bed. “On Cascadia Avenue. It’s not far from Lake Washington. That’s where we were in my dream. We were walking along the water’s edge.”
    “Are you still Tammy?” Sherita asked. “You said the name was familiar.”
    She laughed and shook her head. “No, no. Tammy—Tammy was my best friend in junior high school. Tammy Lampley. We both had a crush on Brad Reece, the cutest guy in our class. We were in Ms. Hockins’ homeroom. I remember it all.” She was smiling and crying at the same time. The recently applied mascara ran down her cheeks. “God, Sherita, I remember everything. I know who I am. My name is Claire…Claire Ferguson.”
    Sherita grinned, then took her hand and squeezed it. “Nice to finally meet you, Claire Ferguson.”
     
    “God, you’re such a goodie-two-shoes. I can’t believe you won’t even tell me her first name.”
    Sherita pressed the button for the elevator again. She wore her tan raincoat, and had a big purse hanging from her shoulder. She shook her head at her coworker, Angie, a stout Korean nurse in her early forties. “Sorry, hon, I’m sworn to secrecy,” she said, glancing up at the numbers over the elevator door. “A handful of doctors, the cops, and me—we’re the only ones who know about it. To everyone else, she’ll stay Jane Doe.”
    “At least tell me what the husband’s like.” Angie nudged her. “Weren’t you there when they brought him in today?”
    “Yeah, but it wasn’t her husband,” Sherita said. “It was some whacko.”
    The elevator finally arrived, and the doors opened. Sherita and Angie stepped inside. No one else was in the elevator, so Sherita felt free to talk. “I knew something was wrong with those photos he gave the cops. From what one of them told me, I guess this guy’s wife took a hike with their kid five years ago, and…well, someone on the force will have his ass in a sling for letting that looney-tune in to see her.”
    “So—do they know who her real husband is?” Angie asked.
    The elevator stopped on the first floor, and two people