Stolen Memories. Liz Johnson

he was at her mercy. “Whatcha got?”

      “I need to identify a victim, and I was hoping you could help.”

      “Which one?”

      He paused, questioning his decision. Maybe this was a bad idea. It wasn’t too late to keep this out of the papers and off-line. But then how was he going to figure out who she was and why she’d been attacked? He’d been checking the missing-persons database every day, but still hadn’t found anything. If no one noticed Julie was gone, then he had no clear indication of how much danger she might really be in. “The one from Webster Park. She woke up.”

      “And she can’t tell you her own name?” Tabby laughed like it was a funny joke, but stopped at his grunt. “She has amnesia?” Her words ran together, her tongue moving faster than she could enunciate.

      “Uh-huh.”

      Measured breaths were the only sound coming from the other end of the line. Finally she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

      Zach chewed on the inside of his cheek and scratched at his chin. “Any chance you could run an article and a picture? See if anyone can identify her?”

      “You think this was a mugging?” She sounded hopeful, and he hated to dash that theory, but all the evidence pointed away from that simple of an explanation.

      “Well, her purse was missing and hasn’t been located yet. But she was wearing a gold tennis bracelet and diamond earrings that weren’t touched.”

      “And?” Apparently she could hear the unstated question in the tone of his voice.

      “And she was dragged about fifty yards into the park to conceal her body between trees.”

      A rush of air slipped through Tabby’s lips. “I should guess not, then. And you think it’s safe to run her picture? If we post it on our social media networks, it could be seen by anyone in a matter of minutes. You want her attacker to be aware that she can’t remember her own name?”

      “I don’t know.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, curling his fingers into a fist and pulling on it. Why couldn’t this be an easy case? Nothing about it was black-and-white. Nothing was straightforward. Nothing really made much sense.

      Then again, most of his cases started this way.

      They just didn’t usually start with a live victim.

      Clearing his throat, he glanced at the blank computer screen. He had to do something to help Julie find her memories. Whatever it took.

      “You run her prints?” Tabby asked.

      “Of course. No hits on the regional database, and the feds said there’s a backlog for IAFIS right now. Who knows how long it’ll take? Two weeks. Maybe three. What if we don’t have that long?” The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System was the largest database of its type in the world. It was also managed by the FBI, and Zach had no clue where his case fit into the thousands of others looking for information from the system. Julie’s case certainly wasn’t at the top of their list, even if she was at the top of his.

      “What if the dirtbag is still out there? How are you going to keep him from coming after her?”

      “That’s why I called the best writer in the state.”

      She laughed. “Don’t go blowin’ smoke, young man.”

      “Hey, if anyone could write up a story that conveniently left out the details of her location without making it sound like that’s exactly what they’d done, it’s you.”

      After another chuckle, she agreed to meet Julie the next day. They hung up, but the tightness in his gut didn’t alleviate.

      He had to find Julie’s real name and her family. Someone had to be looking for this girl. And after at least three days, they would know she was gone. Why hadn’t she shown up among the listed missing yet?

      He flipped on his monitor and the computer hummed to life. The keys on his keyboard clacked as he hammered on them, opening up the missing-persons database for the fifth time since that night in the park. He narrowed the search down by her age—about twenty-five. Except it wasn’t easy to tell under all the scrapes and bruises. He widened it to anyone between the ages of twenty and forty just to be sure he wasn’t missing her. He continued to narrow it down. Female. Caucasian. Long brown hair.

      Well, it had been long when he’d found her. At the hospital they’d chopped off most of the hair in front to get a better look at that gash.

      And those eyes. Enormous and brown like a doe’s in spring.

      The database searched its information, pulling from every corner of the state. Only two names reported missing within the past month popped up. AnnaBeth Doorsey, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of five from Duluth, and Elsie Sorenson, a twenty-one-year-old college student from Saint Paul.

      Neither one looked like Julie.

      Slamming his hand on his desk, he almost missed the sound of his name ringing through the bull pen. “Jones!”

      He jerked out of his thoughts to stare at Lucas Ramirez, the new guy in Homicide. “What’s up?”

      “The chief got a call today from the U.S. Marshals Service, asking if we had any reports of missing kids or babies.”

      Zach stared at the man, squinting as he tried to shift his thoughts from the image of Julie in his mind. “Babies?”

      “Yeah.” Ramirez looked at his notepad and read from his scrawls there. “We don’t have any active cases involving unidentified or missing kids right now, but the marshal who called, Serena Summers, said that they think there might be a Minneapolis connection to a witness they’re protecting.”

      “Not that I know.” Shaking his head, Zach turned back to the only two women who matched his search but didn’t match his Julie. And then he added over his shoulder, “Any word on those security camera videos I requested?”

      “Oh, yeah. I got those.”

      Zach jumped to his feet and took the discs from the younger man. “You look at these yet?”

      “Just this one. From out in front of Jack and Julie’s.” Hope bubbled in his chest. Until Ramirez popped it. “Nothing on it from the night of the attack. The manager said the camera is on a rotating recording system. It was recording the back loading docks during the night delivery after ten.”

      Perfect. “What else did you get?”

      “A few more restaurants, an ATM camera and the street camera from the corner of Thomas and Gavel.”

      Zach kept the videos from two restaurants and the street camera and handed the others back to the other detective. “Do you have time to take a look at these?”

      “Are you just looking for the dark-haired girl who was attacked?”

      “Yes. And anything else that seems unusual or out of place.”

      “Sure.” Ramirez sat back down at his desk, sticking the first disc into his computer.

      Zach matched his motions, settling in to watch the silent black-and-white clips. The first two videos showed nothing but the evening crowd, bustling in and out of popular restaurants near the park. The gaggle of men and women jumbled together and made any specific face or feature indistinguishable. Even when he slowed the images all the way down, he couldn’t make out anything beyond gender.

      After two hours, his eyes burned and head throbbed from staring so intently at his screen, hoping to see something he wasn’t even sure was there. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he got up and walked to the water fountain. Bending over, he took several long sips, then stretched his back as he returned to his upright position.

      “You find anything?” he said as he strolled by Ramirez’s desk.

      “Nope. Nothing yet.”

      Zach