“Hey, Dad, is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know, Rob, I can’t get her to wake up. Go make some hot tea. Let’s see if we can get it down her.”

Not five minutes later, his son came into the living room cradling a cup of tea between his palms. “It isn’t too hot so she won’t scald her mouth.”

“Good.” Dix lifted her, pressed the edge of the cup to her bottom lip. “Come on, smell that Lipton’s, best tea in captivity. Rob made it just right so you can open up and take a big gulp. It’ll warm your insides.”

To his surprise, her mouth opened and she sipped it. She opened her eyes, looked at him, and drank more tea.

“Are you in pain?”

She slowly shook her head. Her voice came out thin as thread. “Only my head.” She tried to raise her hand, but Dix held it down.

“You’ve got a cut on the left side, above your temple. I’m going to leave it for the paramedics to do it right.”

Brewster jumped onto the sofa and hunkered down next to her. “This is Brewster and he found you in the woods just before the snow started coming down hard.”

“Brewster,” she said, reaching out her hand to his little face, “thank you.”

“I’m Dixon Noble, sheriff of Maestro. The guy who made the tea is my son Rob. Can you tell me your name?”

“I’m . . .” She nuzzled her chin against Brewster, who was licking her. “This is very strange,” she said after a moment, turning back to look up at him. “Do you know, I really don’t have a clue.”

Dix stood slowly. She looked suddenly scared and the last thing he wanted was for her to freak out. He said calmly, “Whatever else happened to you, you got a big whack against your head. Maybe that could account for you not remembering. The doctor can tell us what’s going on. I’m sure it’s temporary, so try not to worry, okay? Let me check the pockets of your jacket for ID.” He heard the ambulance sirens in the distance. “You don’t seem to have anything at all in your pockets. Did you have a purse or a wallet with you, do you remember?”

He saw her eyes were dilated and that concerned him. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe you’ve got something in your jeans pockets. They can check at the hospital. I don’t want to move you around. Tomorrow I’ll check the woods for a purse.”

“This is nuts,” she said, and he saw her wiggling beneath the afghans. She was obviously searching her jeans herself. Then she lifted her hand and checked the jacket herself. “I can’t find anything. That doesn’t make any sense. Where’s my cell phone? Did I have a purse? No, that’s not likely. I never take a purse.”

He waited patiently.

“Never.”

“But you know you had a cell phone?”

“Yes. Oh dear, I think so.” She started humming.

Rob said, “Why are you humming?”

“I don’t like to curse so I hum when I’m unhappy about something.”

“That’s cool,” said Rafe, who was standing behind the sofa, looking down at her.

“That’s my other son, Rafer. Okay, things are coming back. Don’t push it. There’s always an explanation for everything.”

“What you just said—that sounded really familiar, like I say that to people.”

The paramedics followed Rob into the living room. Ten minutes later, Dix and the woman were in the ambulance headed to Loudoun County Community Hospital, some twelve miles away. It was snowing really hard, so it took a good thirty minutes to get there. She was pale and her eyes looked glassy. He held her hand. She wasn’t wearing any rings, only a no-nonsense multifunctional black watch. The emergency room wasn’t a zoo yet, but everyone was preparing for the worst.

Dix sat himself in the nearly empty waiting room after they had wheeled her away, and prepared to read his way through a National Geographic magazine dated 1997.

He heard her cry out. He rose automatically, took a step toward the curtained-off cubicle.

“Sheriff, we need to do some paperwork here.”

He did his best, but since he had no clue who she was or what her medical history was, there were mostly blank lines left on the forms after her name, Jane Doe.

Dix pulled out his cell and called Emory Cox for a status report. “This is weird, Sheriff, we’ve only had one call. It was a wrong number if you can believe that.”

“No, I don’t believe that. It was probably an abuse call, and chances are the wife will show up tomorrow with a broken nose and bruises everywhere. We’ll see.”