The Syndrome by John Case

for an ambulance. Hospitalized, she remained unconscious for the better part of a week and, when she awoke, remembered almost nothing. Weeks went by, and then a month. Finally, she was removed to a clinic in Switzerland where they had a doctor on staff who’d had success with cases similar to her own. The clinic also treated substance abuse and since Nikki’s troubles had started with an overdose, it was considered the ideal place for her rehabilitation.
    While her doctors expected the amnesia to pass of its own accord, she remained Patient X to herself and everyone else. Meanwhile, queries to the U.S. Embassy in Bonn—Nikki’s English was clearly American—proved fruitless. According to embassy officials, no missing persons reports had been filed that would fit her description. Neither had anyone found a passport with her picture on it. Which meant that her nationality could not be established.
Next!
    And then it happened. On a warm spring day, as she walked from the clinic toward the marina and its restaurants, Nikki saw a poster on the wall emblazoned with an ad for
Far and Away.
Cruise and Kidman were locked in an embrace,and …
Nicole.
It all came flooding back. She remembered her name. She remembered Carsten Riedle. She even remembered the music that was playing on the CD when the scumbag shot her up. Alanis Morissette.
Jagged Little Pill.
    Two days later, she had a lawyer, and two weeks after that, a settlement: in exchange for the fräulein’s agreement to disappear from their son’s life and to forgo legal action against the family, the Riedles would establish a trust fund in her behalf. And so it was done: half-a-million dollars. Exit the Riedles.
    The elevator opened on the lobby, and Adrienne stepped out, still thinking about Nikki. She’d always wanted to ask her,
When did you remember me? Was it there, in Switzerland, or later?
And:
why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you come home?
Not to mention the questions she had for the clinic, such as:
Who was the idiot they talked to at the Embassy?
Because Deck and Marlena had called the State Department repeatedly. Knowing that Nikki’s last known address was in Germany, they had made several inquiries, asking if an American woman of her description had run afoul of the police, or been in an accident. Somehow, Nikki’s plight had slipped through the cracks. It was infuriating, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it.
    And, anyway, it wasn’t the same Nikki who’d come back—not really. It was like, Nikki-Lite or something.
    Almost furtively, Adrienne glanced around the lobby, half expecting to see her sister—and feeling a guilty rush of pleasure when she did not. Crossing the lobby, she reflected on the fact that her affection for her sister was more nostalgic than real, her contacts driven as much by duty as they were by affection. That was wrong, but she wasn’t going to beat herself up about it. Nikki wasn’t just disturbed; she was
disturbing.
    What was always revealed between the kiss hello and the appetizer was something that Adrienne preferred to forget. Nikki was not getting better, she was getting worse. And this shrink she was seeing was not helping. Quite the opposite, infact. During the time that Nikki had been seeing him, she’d gotten loopier and loopier, ranting about things that not only had never happened—but never
could
have happened.
    And seeing her sister like this, Adrienne wanted to do something about it, but—
    “You leaving?” The doorman was holding the door open for her.
    Adrienne shrugged. “I guess she went out.”
    The doorman looked puzzled. Shook his head and frowned. “I don’t think so—I would have seen her. You check the laundry room?”
    Adrienne paused in front of the door, then turned around. “No—what a good idea.” Forcing a smile, she took the stairs down to the basement, where she could smell the room before she saw it. The heated sweetness of the fabric softener, the sharp tang of the