In the fall of 2006, Jeff Ingram, a Canadian native living in Washington State, left his house to drive north and visit family in Canada. He didn't come home that night, nor the next, nor the next—in fact, he didn't come home until over a month later, and then it was only because his fiancée identified him on a television report. Somehow, in a mysteriously missing four days, he travelled all the way from Olympia to Denver. In Denver, he woke up on the ground outside an office building and ended up in a hospital where he was diagnosed with an acute form of amnesia. He'd experienced the same thing eleven years earlier and disappeared for nine months before being found just a few hundred miles away in Seattle.

Currently, the case file of this man was the only thing standing between Lisa Rippner and insanity, and her mother knew this very well. Since Carol and Joe had arrived from their respective states four days earlier, neither of them had seen Lisa do much besides sleep and read, every now and then mustering the strength to come downstairs and sit with her children for a little while as they tried to keep their normal schedule with the help of their reinstated nanny and their grandfather. Augustine and Joe had been taking them to school every day and helping them with their homework every night, and both Carol and Augustine were doing what they could to keep Lisa comfortable as she lived her days in a depressive haze.

'Augustine,' Lisa murmured, her face partially buried in her husband's pillow.

'Hm?' asked Augustine, not looking up from the game of checkers she was losing to Joe.

'Can you get me some grapefruit juice?'

Augustine looked up from the checkers, propping her chin up on the palm of her hand. 'It'll be a few minutes—you drank the last of it earlier.'

'I'd really like some,' Lisa replied in a half-voice, keeping her back to her father and the nurse.

Joe and Augustine looked at one another from across the table as Augustine stood, grabbing her purse from under her chair before walking to the door and out into the hallway. Once she stepped into the elevator, Joe stood and walked over to the other side of the bed. Pulling a chair from the corner, he sat down in front of Lisa's face. Her eyes were red and puffy.

'Is she gone?'

'Yes,' he said, reaching out to wipe away some residue from dried tears from her face. Carefully, he pushed her hair behind her ear. 'Don't worry, Leese. We'll find him and he'll be just fine.'

'Fine is a very relative term in our family, Dad,' Lisa replied pessimistically.

'Jackson kept a lot of secrets to try to protect you,' said a voice from the door and Lisa immediately sat up, looking wide-eyed at the woman leaning against the doorframe. 'Some things ended up being out of his control.'

'What do you know about this?' asked Lisa.

'It has something to do with the Society, that much I can tell you,' replied the woman, walking in and sitting on the edge of the bed a foot or so from Lisa. 'What I can not tell you is what the Society wishes to do with Jackson.'

'Can't tell me or won't tell me?'

'Can not tell you,' she replied honestly, meeting Lisa's eyes. 'If you really wish to know, I have been released from my contract.'

Looking between the two women, Joe awkwardly stuck his hand out. 'I'm Joe Reisert, Lisa's father.'

The woman gave him a dry smile, reaching out to take his hand. 'Lyna Melinyshyn, I used to work with your son-in-law.'

'Why did they release you from your contract?' asked Lisa, grabbing up handfuls of her duvet and holding them to her chest.

'Restructuring,' Lyna said simply. 'The rumour going around the European circuit is that the patron is working on shutting down the entire Society.'

New tears gathered at the edges of Lisa's eyes. 'Do you have any idea where my husband is?'

'I have already told you,' Lyna spat, leaning in to get closer to Lisa. 'I do not know what the patron has in mind for your husband. Best guess, he is dead or he is alive. Does that narrow it for you?'

Rather than crying, however, Lisa just narrowed her eyes at Lyna, dropping her hands and holding taut the duvet cover over her lap. Her jaw set, she breathed very carefully.

'As stubborn as always,' said Lyna, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. 'I came here from Kiev to tell you that I know someone who saw your husband with another woman the night he disappeared.'

Lisa and Joe's hearts skipped beats in simpatico, but for different reasons. Immediately, Joe became enraged, reaching out to take one of Lisa's hands, but Lisa was more interested in Lyna continuing. She stared at her.

'On his way home from his office, he was talking to a woman on the subway,' Lyna continued, tapping a long nail against her bottom lip before biting at it lightly. 'They had a conversation that left Jackson very flustered, and my contact told me that the woman stole Jackson's phone from him when he got off the train. It was suspicious to her, but what made it more suspicious is that Jackson seemed to know her and responded positively to her presence.'

'Who was this woman?' asked Lisa as Joe set his jaw. 'The one who saw Jackson?'

'She was Jackson's secretary in Miami,' Lyna replied sleekly, suddenly concentrating more on Joe's response to what she was saying. 'She was laid off at the same time as I was and has recently moved up here to New York.'

'We need to talk to her,' Lisa said frantically, taking her hand from her father's and pulling the sheets off of her. 'Where is she?'

The elevator dinged and Lyna turned around, looking wordlessly at the woman who was walking in with a grocery bag. Augustine seemed surprised to see her, dropping the bag on the floor and raising her eyebrows. What was more surprising to all of them, however, was the fact that Augustine was followed by two members of the New York City Police Department dressed to the nines in their uniforms. Joe stood, trying to make it to the door to talk to the police officers, but Lisa grabbed at him. Lyna moved aside, her arms crossed as she watched the police follow Augustine into the bedroom.

The shorter of the two officers flipped open his badge. 'Mrs Rippner, we're with the NYPD.'

In any normal situation, Lisa would have cringed at the obviousness of what he said, but this time, she just stared, terrified.

'Your husband was recently reported missing,' said the other officer. 'There have been some developments in the case and we'd like for you to come to the main precinct with us.'

Lisa's heart dropped down into her stomach. Slowly, she moved her mouth around, but words didn't form.

'Ma'am, we need you to stay ca—'

'No, no no,' said Augustine, grabbing at the man's arm. 'Can we please go talk down in the living room about this?'

The two officers looked at each other questioningly, but neither made a move to fight Augustine's advice.

'Mr Reisert, stay here with Lisa, okay?' Augustine asked as she started to turn around and head for the stairs, but Lisa quickly threw her legs over the side of the bed and strode over to the group of people at the door.

'I want to know what you found out,' Lisa said strongly as she smoothed down her hair, her brows knit. 'I need to know this.'

The taller officer took charge. 'At six o'clock this evening, a couple of kids in Brooklyn were walking along the banks of the East River down the way from the Williamsburg Bridge. Around the Navy Yard, they started looking for things that had washed up on the bank and they found, well...'

The man drifted off and gave Lisa a sympathetic look. It took a long moment for what he'd said to set in, but when it did, her hands flew to her mouth and she gasped for air.

'I'm sorry, Mrs Rippner,' said the other officer as Lisa stepped back, shaking her head jerkily.

'Lyna,' Joe said, his tone very straight as he stepped forward and grabbed his daughter by the shoulders. 'I need you to go down to the kitchen and get Lisa's mother.'

For a fleeting moment, Lyna had that 'I'm not a gofer for you' look, but it faded quickly before she slinked past the policemen and down the stairs. Once she was gone, Joe pulled Lisa back to sit in the chair as she started hiccoughing in her attempt to stop herself from crying. As Joe crouched down in front of his daughter, Augustine gestured the policemen into the hall and closed the door behind her. They walked down the hallway and almost to the master bath before Augustine turned and looked at them very seriously.

'How do you know it was him?' she asked in a hushed voice.

'The body fits the physical description of Mr Rippner,' said the taller officer, reaching into his breast pocket to pull out a small stack of photos. 'And he's wearing Mr Rippner's wedding ring.'

Augustine paused for a moment before reaching out and taking the photos from his hand. She looked at each one slowly, gnawing at her lip as she did so. 'Shit.'

Before she was able to look at all of them, there was the thumping of people coming up the stairs and Carol appeared, quickly going into the master bedroom and shutting the door loudly behind her. A few seconds later, Lyna walked up, still looking more than moderately put out rather than upset. Looking between the glass door and the group at the bathroom, she walked towards the police and Augustine, who immediately held out the photographs to her.

'The cadaver?' Lyna asked flippantly as she took the photos. She only looked at a few, however, before pressing the pile to the shorter policeman's chest. 'This is not Jackson Rippner.'

'What?' said Augustine before the policemen could respond. 'Lyna, it looks exactly—'

'It is not Jackson,' replied Lyna sternly. 'I know him intimately.'

The taller policeman raised an eyebrow, looking through the glass at the crying woman sitting in the bedroom and back at the sultry Ukrainian woman. 'And you are...?'

'A work associate,' she answered simply.

'You work for Crédit Suisse?' asked the shorter policeman gauchely.

'The World Society,' Lyna replied harshly. 'We worked together when Jackson was in high school and college. He was under me as an intern.'

Augustine scrunched her face at the connotation of what Lyna said, but the policemen didn't seem to catch it. The taller one spoke again. 'How do you know this isn't Jackson Rippner?'

With a little smile, she took her finger and poked at the top picture of the body. Looking down at her finger on his chest, the shorter policeman tried to see what she was pointing at before finally taking the photograph and letting the others fall to the floor. It was a full shot of the body, and both men looked at the picture before Lyna stepped between then and pointed directly at the penis of the corpse.

'Jackson Rippner, I assure you...' she started, her voice soft but with a slight erotic edge to it. 'Is uncircumcised.'

'Oh Jesus,' said Augustine, burying her face in her hands.

'Despite what you've, um, told us, Miss...?'

'Melinyshyn.'

'Miss Melinyshyn, we need to have members of the family of the missing person come down to precinct and ID the body.'

As if on cue, the door behind them opened and Lisa stepped out shadowed by her parents. She seemed moderately composed, had her hair tied back and had thrown a large sweater over her tank top.

'Augustine, Lyna, I'd like for you two to stay here,' she said softly, rolling the ends of the sleeves of the sweater in her palms. 'You two take care of the kids, and my parents will come with me to the station.'

Augustine nodded, walking away without a word. Lyna waited until she had started down the stairs before walking to Lisa and looking her straight in the eyes.

'That is not your husband. Do not go in there thinking that it is him or that is all you will see. I did the same thing with my mother, and I will not let you do it. It is not him.'

Lisa nodded as she looked at the other woman, who leaned over after a moment's pause and kissed her on each cheek before turning and following Augustine, who was looking up at them from the landing below. Once they were out of sight, Joe spoke.

'Do you mind if we follow you in our car?'

'That's no problem,' replied the shorter police officer as Lisa walked over and pressed the elevator call button.

---

People say that existence is circular—déjà vu, reincarnation, straight repetition, circle of life, all of that. People are born at the same time that people die; when something horrible happens, something good usually comes from it; and, in the case of Dr Chitose Wakahara, sometimes you do the autopsy on both the victim and the would-be killer, and sometimes it even happens a few years apart. What wasn't at all normal, however, was managing to autopsy the wannabe killer before the victim, especially because the victim happened to be very fresh.

As she stood over their John Doe, assumed to be Jackson Rippner from the wedding ring sitting on the metal tray next to the body. The man was still wet, his hair plastered to his forehead. A white sheet was pulled to just below his chin, brushing up against a few days of rough, dark stubble. Just a few minutes earlier, she'd received word from the cops sent out to inform the family that Jackson Rippner's wife would, in fact, be coming in that evening to identify the body. Her task was to make him look passable by doing things like making sure the possible widow couldn't see the gaping gunshot wound on the back of the man's head or the fact that his rib cage was basically shattered even before she came in with her bolt cutters and finished the job to access his organs. Her assistant had sprayed the blood from the floor and assured that the gurney was clean before throwing a crisp sheet over the one already over the body.

Picking up the wedding ring with a latex-covered hand, he looked up at his superior with a raised eyebrow. 'Should we give this to his widow?'

Dr Wakahara looked up from her notes, her hand paused in mid-air as she flipped a page. 'We don't know she's his widow yet.'

'It's a custom-made ring,' he said with an uncomfortable smile. 'The detective said that the jeweller even faxed the work order for it and identified the markings on the inside of the ring. I mean, we're just prolonging this woman's suffering.'

She just stared at him for a few seconds before looking down at her notes again. 'Just take the body to the viewing room.'

He shrugged, dropping the ring back onto the metal tray with a clatter. Dr Wakahara jumped a little and gave his back a dirty look as he walked out pushing the gurney. He took it from the autopsy area into a small room that on one side was a reinforced glass window covered with blinds. On the other side of the window, he could hear approaching voices, so he took his stance beside the body and waited for the blinds to open.

Out in the hallway, Dr Wakahara stepped out of the morgue and made her way toward the little group of people. A detective was talking in low tones to a couple older people who were supporting an ashen younger woman between them. The younger woman's eyes stayed focused completely on the ground, and it was very obvious that she wasn't listening to a single word the detective was saying. When she finally stood straight up in front of the window, Dr Wakahara felt a little gnawing pain in her stomach upon seeing that the poor woman was very obviously pregnant.

'Ah, here she is now,' said the detective. 'Dr Chitose Wakahara, our lead forensic pathologist.'

'It's a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it were under different circumstances,' she said, holding out her hand for Lisa to shake. The younger woman did so, and Dr Wakahara let the tips of her fingers pause upon the ring on Lisa's finger after finishing the shake. 'Mrs Rippner, the body was found with this on his left hand.'

Reaching into her lab coat pocket, she grabbed up the ring before taking Lisa's hand and placing it into her upturned palm. Lisa stared at it for a moment before picking it up, holding it between her thumb and index finger as she studied it. Tears gathered at the edges of her eyes, and all at once she just collapsed to the ground sobbing. Everyone with her followed her down in a panic except for the detective, who mumbled something about getting some water and then wandered off.

'Oh God,' Lisa sobbed, grabbing at her father's shirt. 'Daddy, I can't do this without him!'

'Honey, honey,' Joe said, holding her close as Carol rubbed Lisa's back. 'It's just the ring. The ring could have been stolen from him and used on another body. When your mom and I got divorced, I was able to take my ring off, see?'

He held out his ringless hand, but it didn't seem to calm Lisa down as much as he'd hoped.

'Remember what Lyna said to you,' said Carol quickly. 'Don't let yourself get worked up thinking it's him. You need to take a serious look at the body before making any future decisions. Now take a few deep breaths and calm down—your father and I will look at the body and you can look at it after us, all right? Just stay right here as we go look.'

Lisa nodded, licking her lips before putting her hands protectively around her stomach. Her parents looked at one another before standing and going to where Dr Wakahara was already standing, her hand on the pull for the blinds. She tapped the glass with her clipboard before starting to lift them.

'As you probably know, he was found over in the East River earlier this evening,' she said in very low tones, getting as close to Lisa's parents as she could. 'We figured that the cause of death would be drowning or injuries from impact, but instead, we found that the person,' she paused to lean in further and speak in an even softer voice. 'Committed suicide. Probably got to the top of the bridge, put a gun in his mouth and shot. Body fell down to the river, shows injuries from impact like a crushed ribcage and broken neck.'

Carol and Joe both looked at the body, Joe rubbing at his beard the whole time.

'I just don't know,' Carol finally said to her ex-husband. 'I mean, it looks a lot like him, but I think only Lisa would know whether or not that's her husband.'

Joe just nodded before turning around and helping Lisa to her feet. With his arm around her waist, he led her to the window, and she placed her hands on the glass, leaning in as far as she could. Her breath made little condensation rings on the surface.

'I need to see the entire body,' Lisa said in a strained voice, her entire body noticeably shaking.

'Do you think this is a good idea?' Dr Wakahara asked Lisa's parents, and both of them nodded.

With the affirmation, Dr Wakahara tipped her head to her assistant and he lifted the sheets, pulling them slowly back until they were gathered in a folded pile at the man's feet. He picked it up and threw it over his arms, looking down at the body rather than making eye contact with Lisa.

At first, Lisa let out a strangled cry, but then remembering what Lyna had said, she composed herself and began critiquing the body. It was impossible to see the scars on his neck and chest because of the damaged caused by the fall; the hands looked the same if not a bit swollen; he had nearly the same amount of freckles she remember Jackson having, but they stood out much more against the pallid skin; there was something off about the facial hair, which made her squeeze together her eyebrows questioningly.

'What is it?' asked her father.

'Jackson's facial hair grows in red,' Lisa replied, poking at the window. 'That doesn't look very red, does it?'

Joe took off his glasses and wiped the lenses on his shirt before taking a step forward and looking where she was pointing. 'No, it doesn't look very red to me.'

A little flutter of hope appeared deep in Lisa's being. Fortified by this, she continued her scan of the body, pausing just at the place where Lyna had.

'It's not him,' she said strongly. 'I know it's not him.'

'You're certain?' asked Dr Wakahara, looking from her clipboard to the body beyond the glass.

'How do you know, honey?' asked Carol.

Lisa's face turned red and she refused to make eye contact with her parents, even in the reflection. 'Wife's intuition?'

'Wife's intuition doesn't make the wife blush,' said Joe with a smile, patting his daughter's back.

Awkwardly, Lisa pointed through the window. 'Jackson isn't circumcised, and this guy is.'