Grabbing my jacket on the way out, I found Cookie in the alley behind the café, very close to the spot where I woke up. The Firelight Grill sat on a corner lot on Beekman Avenue, in an old brick building with dark inlays intricately placed to create gorgeous arches and carvings, to the utter delight of the tourists. It had a very Victorian feel.

Right next door sat an antiques store, with a dry-cleaning business beyond that. A white delivery van had backed up to the cleaners, and Cookie was busy watching the men haul boxes out.

“Hey, you,” I said, walking to stand beside her.

She smiled and wrapped an arm in mine to pull me closer. Our breaths misted in the chilly air. We huddled together, shivering as I scanned the area for the disturbance I’d felt the moment I stepped outside. A smattering of unease rippled in the air around us. A strong emotional dissonance. A pain.

At first, I thought it was coming from Cookie. Thank goodness it wasn’t. That couple clearly did not take offense. No need to worry about the incident overmuch. But now I was curious about the source.

“How are you doing, sweetie?” Cookie asked.

I refocused on the closest thing to family I had. “I’m more worried about you.”

She chuckled. “I guess if that’s the worst thing I do today, it will be a pretty good day.”

“I agree. On the bright side, after the way you saw to that customer, I see a promising career on a street corner for you. You got skill, girl. We have to work with what God gave us.”

Completely ignoring what I said, she leveled a bright cerulean gaze on me. “And?”

It was almost like she was used to inappropriate, X-rated ribbing. Weird. I nudged a rock with the toe of my ankle boot. They were my very first score with my very first paycheck, and I’d quickly realized another truth about myself. I had a thing for boots.

“I’m good,” I said with a noncommittal shrug. When she narrowed that arresting gaze on me, I added, “I promise. All is right with the world. Seriously, though, you need to at least consider selling your body for profit. I can be your pimp. I’d be a freaking awesome pimp.”

Though she didn’t quite believe me – the I’m-good thing, not the pimp thing – she dropped it. Or pretended to. She oozed concern. After everything that had happened to her, she was still worried about me. I could tell. No, I could feel her concern, her desire for me to be well and happy. And I was grateful. Really I was, but there were times when I could feel deception swell out of her as well. It snaked into our conversations. A microsecond later she would change the subject. Yet I could tell she genuinely cared about me.

Then again, lots of people cared about me. From the moment I’d woken up in the alley behind the café a month ago with no recollection of how I got there, many of the residents of Sleepy Hollow, New York, had banded together to help me out. A total stranger. Some dropped off clothes while I was at the hospital. Some gave me gift cards to this store or that.

The outpouring of goodwill had waned after a couple of weeks – a fact for which I was also grateful – but people still stopped in to check on me. To see how I was doing. To find out the latest. Did the cops have any leads? Did I remember anything? Did anyone claim me?

No, no, and no.

Just like with Cookie, I felt their concern, but I felt something else from them that I didn’t feel from Cookie, nor from several of my other regulars: a freakish curiosity. A blistering desire to know who I was. If I’d really lost my memory. If I was faking it.

The doctors found nothing wrong with me. According to them, I was perfectly fine. Perfectly normal. But normal? Seriously? What they would think about my ability to see into a supernatural dimension? Was that fine? Was that normal?

But maybe they were right. Maybe the only thing wrong with me was psychological. If I couldn’t remember anything about my life pre-alley-awakening, was it me? Was I blocking my own memories? If so, what the hell had happened that was so awful? What made me not want to remember my own past? My own name? And did I really want to know?

Yes, I suppose I did. The struggle, the constant tug-of-war, the pull of wanting to know was stronger than the bliss of ignorance. In the meantime, there were people like Cookie who stood by me and kept me semi-sane.

There were the skeptics, of course. Not everyone believed I had retrograde amnesia, and I knew it. I felt doubt leach out of the occasional customer. I felt disbelief hemorrhage out of a random passerby, and with it, a revulsion.

For most, however, it was just a small suspicion. They wondered not only if I was faking it but why. And they were right. Why? Why would I fake something as horrific and agonizing as amnesia? For the attention? For the money? There were easier ways to get attention, and the money sucked. I now had a gazillion dollars’ worth of debt thanks to the hospitals and doctors and endless tests.

So my fifteen minutes were proving costly. I lived tip jar to tip jar. I could never pay all the bills I’d accumulated, not unless I got that major book deal I’d been angling for. At least, that was one theory floating around. According to some more aggressive skeptics, I had an angle that would lead to a huge payoff. Sadly, I didn’t. But their doubt, their certainty that I was faking it, kinda sucked. As far as I knew, I’d never faked it.

But that brought me to my second superpower. I could feel things. It was awesome.

No. It was beyond awesome!

If a deranged serial killer who uses control-top pantyhose to strangle brunettes ever attacked me, I’d be able to feel how much he wanted me dead.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. It did have its perks. Like, I knew when anyone lied to me. I absolutely could-bet-my-life-on-it knew. No matter how good they were. No matter what tricks they’d adopted to conceal their deception, I knew. So there was that.

But along with the perk came the drawback. I felt other things as well. Otherworldly things. Sometimes I felt like I was being watched. Hunted. I felt the cold gaze of a stalker I couldn’t see. The hot breath of a predator fan across the back of my neck. The searing touch of a stranger’s mouth brush across mine. Of course, I only felt those things after my seventh cup of pre-noon coffee. The moment my customers’ faces started to blur, I switched to half-caff.

“Cold enough yet?” I asked her just as Dixie, the owner of the café and my savior – in the nonreligious sense – stuck her head out the door. Her hair was very much like Cookie’s only a bright, almost neon, red. Though I had yet to confirm my suspicions, I was pretty sure it glowed in the dark. It made her pale skin look vibrant and youthful despite the fact that she had to be in her late forties.

She raised her brows at us. “You two planning on waiting tables today?”

Cookie drew in a deep breath, preparing to face the music. Probably disco. Disco seemed more penitential than other forms of music. Except maybe thrash metal.

I decided to practice for my new calling in life as we turned to walk in. Whispering under my breath, I said, “Where’s my money, bitch?”

“I’m not going to be a streetwalker.”

I rounded my eyes in innocence. “I’m just practicing. You know, in case you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“Damn it.” I wilted beside her, all my hopes and dreams of being a pimp dashed against the cruel rocks of reality. And an unwilling ho.