Prologue
I don't think about the past if I can help it. It was a long time ago and doesn't change anything about the here and now, so unless I have to, I don't dwell on it. I think even less about attachments from the past. There are people we've all left behind, for one reason or another, people we couldn't save...or didn't want to. People we made promises to, people we broke promises to, people who watched you leave with the ache of betrayal in their eyes. Yeah...I see 'em. Faces in the dark that call out a name I've nearly forgot. I'm not heartless, you know. By God, I wish I was. It would make it easier.
So when one of those voices from the life I left behind was on the end of the line, I thought I was hallucinating. I didn't know how she'd gotten the number, but I had a few hunches. I'm not a man who tends to be found by upscale means, if I'm found at all, that is. The frailty of her voice was obvious, the weight of a thousand lifetimes heavy in her accented words, an accent that brought me flashes of memory I would spend the next few days burying again.
"Mischa...please come. I don't have much time. I'm calling in my last favor."
I hung up the phone.
Four hours later I left a bewildered Matt asking questions and catching a flight back to the place I began. I settled back against the seat and closed my eyes, already remembering too much.