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machine to boot up. Bookshelves full of paperbacks lined the walls. Boxesteetered in stacks piled all around. A hot plate and an electric teakettle sat atop a minirefrigerator tucked in the corner next to a chaise longue that commandeered the lion’s share of the room.
    I barely had space to walk around. The clutter, the towers of boxes, the dimness, the smallness of the room seemed to curl around me like a cocoon—not a bad thing, although oddly unfamiliar. I scanned the titles on the bookshelves and picked up one of the dog-eared novels. Clancy. I put it down and eyed some of the others. Fleming. Brown. A set of TV tieins for
Alias
. All of them I remembered reading. So this was definitely my collection. But . . .
    In some way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I was a stranger in my own home. In my own skin. All I could think was that the prior night had affected me on a much deeper level than I’d first imagined.
    The whirring and clicking from my computer’s booting hard drive eased up. I opened my calendar and, still standing in yesterday’s bra and underwear, I scanned it. The entire month was blank save for two entries. A couple weeks ago I’d turned in a project. Today I was apparently supposed to go to the agency to discuss getting a new one. The rest of the dates were squares of plain gray before today and plain white after.
    We had everything before us; we had nothing before us
.
    My hands hovered over the keyboard. I stared down at them as though they were part of someone else’s body. Then I ran for the shower.
    I don’t know why I moved so fast. I don’t know what I expected would happen. Absolutely nothinghappened. I showered. I got out. I headed for the closet still drying myself off. I slung the wet towel over the doorknob. Nothing happened.
    I pulled a clean pair of underwear and a bra from the top dresser drawer, even managed to laugh at myself a little. Until I opened the closet. It was filled with black. I pushed the hangers around. There must have been ten pairs of black jeans and twice that many black T-shirts of all shapes and necklines. There were a couple pairs of black sweats piled unceremoniously on the top shelf and one pretty cute jacket—all in black. Other than a single dress that was mostly black with some red satin detailing, there were absolutely no Saturday-night clothes—unless one included the incongruous presence of a barely-there pink negligée in that category. Assuming Saturday night went well, of course. No skirts and no other dresses. I looked down at the floor. I saw a second pair of black Converse Los exactly like the ones I’d pulled off in the hall, a pair of black flip-flops, a pair of black slippers, and a single shoe box with an illustration of ridiculously high heels on the side.
    Slipping into a random selection of the black clothes, I stared down at the box. I didn’t know what to worry about more: the fact that I had no memory of having a taste for such a limited palette or that I had no memory of a desire to wear shoes so tall they had the potential to put me in traction.
    I flipped the lid off the box with my toe and immediately lurched backward, coming down funny on one of the slippers. My legs slipped out from under me and I hit the ground. I sat there propped up with my elbows behind me and just stared. Two admittedlyattractive black satin high heels nestled in the box, alongside a handful of bullets and a gun.
    Huh?
    I don’t own a gun. I’ve never owned a gun. I don’t even know anybody who owns a gun
.
    Actually, the truth was that I couldn’t even think of too many people I knew at all, which I suppose would reduce the number of guns likely to be owned.
    There was something kind of dirty about the idea of a gun in my closet, something dirty and dangerous and scary about not knowing why it was there or how it got there. Mason? But I hadn’t let him inside. Not that he was