Yet here was Eve, lingering, ill at ease, judging from the tapping of her left foot. Her arms were folded across her notebook, which she was pressing to her chest. Her expression was tense. Rina knew the young woman needed to talk. It took twenty minutes for the other students to file out. Finally, it was just the two of them.

Rina stacked the loose papers spread across her desk. She smiled. “Hi, Eve. Is there something I can help you with?”

“You look busy.”

“Not at all.” Rina pointed to an empty chair. “Please. Have a seat. What’s up?”

Eve sat and placed her notebook on her lap. She licked her lips. “I don’t know where to start.” Her voice was a whisper.

“How about if you begin at the beginning?”

“That’s just it, Mrs. Decker, I don’t…”

A pause. Rina said, “Don’t what, Eve?”

“I don’t know the beginning.” Another hesitation. “I don’t know the beginning or the end.” She locked eyes with Rina. “I don’t know anything, because I don’t know who I am.” She held back tears. “I mean that literally. I have no memory of the past.”

Slipping under the covers, Rina enjoyed the warmth of the blanket, the softness of the pillow beneath her head. She looked over at Peter, then took his hand. “I’m not a neurologist,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s anything like a brain tumor. Eve’s mental acuity is fine. At the risk of sounding psychobabbly, I’d say maybe it’s some kind of dissociative state.”

“Very psychobabbly.” Decker marked off the page of his book, placed it on his nightstand, and turned off his reading lamp. He ran his fingers over his ginger mustache. “She needs to be checked out medically, Rina. And as soon as possible.”

“Absolutely,” Rina agreed. “I told her that.”

“And what did she say?”

“She insists her problem isn’t physical. She’s sure that her memory loss means she’s escaping something psychologically painful.”

“So why doesn’t she see a shrink?”

“She’s too scared.”

“Pretty swift insights, Rina,” Decker said. “ To me, it sounds like a bad movie. Are you sure she’s not snowing you?”

“Maybe.” Rina gave her husband’s words some thought. “But why would she want to do that?”

“For attention.”

“I don’t know, Peter. She seems so genuinely upset.” Rina paused. “For the moment, can we assume that her amnesia is legitimate?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“How would you go about searching for her true identity?”

“How would I do it?” Decker smiled. “I’d send her to a psychiatrist, let him or her do all the work.”

“I meant as a detective.”

Decker lifted his eyebrows. “I can see you’re determined to suck me into this. Okay. First tell me what you think.”

“For starters, she sounds educated.”

“Why?”

“Her use of language. Her syntax and vocabulary.”

“Some college?”

“I think so.”

“Does she remember going to college?”

Rina shook her head. “Her personal slate is blank, Peter. Except for her name. She thinks her actual name was something similar to Eve Miller. Also, she told me she liked the name Eve because Eve was the first woman.”

“Also the first person to commit sin.”

“She’s aware of that fact.”

“Yet she doesn’t know how she picked up her knowledge of the Bible?”

“No. Just that she knows it in the same way she knows how to work a calculator or read a book. She says that was why she came to my class in the first place-to hear me speak on Jewish laws and customs. She felt it might trigger something.”

“And?”

“Nothing. The Jewish rituals are foreign to her.” Rina turned over on her side to face him. “My guess? She had some kind of religious upbringing, like a churchgoing family.”

“A college-educated person with a religious upbringing,” Decker said. “But you don’t think she’s Jewish, because although she knows Bible, Jewish customs are alien to her.”

“Exactly.”

“So if she isn’t Jewish, what religion is she?”

“My first thought was Catholic. But I think that most Catholics are taught more catechism than Bible.” She looked at Decker for some kind of confirmation.

He said, “Beats me.”

She sighed. “I’d say that she could have been raised as a fundamentalist Christian, maybe Baptist or Evangelical.”

“Amish?”

Rina thought for a moment, then said, “She seems too worldly.”

Decker nodded. “And she came to you for help… to find out who she is?”

“Someone must have told her that my husband is a police detective. Maybe she figured I was in a position to help.”

“So why didn’t she go directly to the police?”

“I told you, Pete-she’s scared.”

Decker rubbed his jaw. “On the professional side, it’s a snap to plug the name ‘Eve Miller’ into the Missing Persons Network.”

“A good place to start.”

“You think so?” Decker smiled at his wife in the dark. Rina was anxious to help, but there was always a flip side to do-gooding. “You know, once I start this process, I’m going to find out things. Does she know she may learn information that could be very disturbing to her? Does she know that once the facts are out in the open, she can’t take them back? And do you know that you may get blamed for everything if this turns into a mess?”

Rina took in his words. “Why don’t you talk to her?”

“How did I know that was coming?”

“Because you’re prescient,” Rina answered. “Just hear her story. Then you can make an informed decision.”

“Suddenly you’re out of the picture?”

“I’ll bring her in.”

“You bet you’ll bring her in. And I’d like you to stay during the interview.”

“Don’t you think it would be better if you talked to her in private? You’d probably get more out of her.”

“Rina, the woman is disturbed, possibly a nutcase.”

“I don’t think so.”

Decker shook his head. His wife was so naive. “I’ll need a witness during the interview. Tag, you’re it.”

“It wasn’t like I woke up one day and didn’t know who I was. It was more… gradual.”

Silence.

Decker nodded encouragingly. “Go on.”

Eve wrinkled her brow. “It was like I was returning from a deep sleep. Things drifting in and out, then slowly coming into focus. I found myself in a strange apartment.” She looked down and took in a deep breath. “I must have ordered lots of take-out food, because there were empty pizza boxes, Chinese-food cartons, empty McDonald’s wrappers.”

Eve was pale, and her hands were shaking. Rina took her hand. “You’re doing great,” she said. The young woman gave her a grateful smile.

Decker persisted. “And you didn’t have any ID on you?”

“No, sir.”

“No traces from your past?”

“Nothing. Even the clothes in my closet had been recently purchased. The price tags were still on.”

“You don’t remember buying them?”

“No, sir.”

Calling him “sir,” Decker noted. Respectful. “You must have had money to buy food and clothes.”

“Yes, I must have had.” Eve averted her eyes. “I don’t have anything now except what I earn from my job.”

“You work?”

“Yes, sir. I do invoicing for Anya’s Accessories. It’s a midsize manufacturing company. They make all kinds of small leather goods, things like wallets, key holders, belts.”

“She’s been working at Anya’s for three months,” Rina added. “They love her down there. She’s already gotten her first raise.”

That was Rina-everyone’s mother, Decker thought. He said to Eve, “You’ve worked there for three months. And how long have you had the memory lapse?”

“As far as I can tell, I’ve been like this for around six months.”

“So what were you doing before you got your job?”

“Trying to adjust.” She let out a mirthless chuckle and clasped her hands tightly. “That’s a joke. How do you adjust to something like this? But the will to survive is great. I needed to live. And to live, I needed money.”

The will to survive is great. To Decker’s ears, she sounded as if she was quoting somebody. “How’d you manage to get a job, Eve?” he asked. “You had no ID-no driver’s license, no Social Security number, no credit cards, no past job history. Most companies ask for references. How’d you fool them?”