Free On Borrowed Time by David Rosenfelt

way or the other. Not exactly suspicious stuff.
    Allie came over, having finished with her own calls, and watched me make the rest of mine. As I always did, I took meticulous notes as I did so.
    “What are you writing?” she asked, trying to read them over my shoulder. My handwriting is indecipherable to anyone but me, so she didn’t have a chance.
    “Nothing important, I’m afraid.”
    “So why the notes?”
    “I’m a journalist. That’s what we do; we write everything down, and then we write about what we wrote.”
    My last call was to a 212 area code, which meant it was located in Manhattan. An answering machine picked up.
    “This is Dr. Philip Garber. If you are calling between the hours of nine A.M. and five P.M. , I am likely in session and unable to come to the phone.”
    The message then went on to list numbers to call if it was an emergency, and then an invitation to leave a message for a return call. I left my name and number, and hung up.
    I didn’t have that much to base it on, but based on the tone of voice, the reference to a possible emergency, and the use of the word “session,” I had a hunch that I had reached a psychotherapist’s phone, which was intriguing.
    All I had to do was Google Dr. Garber’s name to know that I was right. Not only was he a shrink, but he was apparently a shrink of some stature: the head of a psychoanalytic institute. There were also a bunch of articles about him being the keynote speaker at some international conference of shrinkdom.
    By this point it came as no surprise to me that I had no recollection of ever talking to, or even hearing of, Dr. Garber. It had already become crystal clear that I only remembered those things that did not happen, while completely blocking out everything that did.
    Nothing else eventful came out of the phone numbers, which was a disappointment to me. I guess I was hoping to reach a number where a receptionist would answer with the perky message, Welcome to the Explanation Institute. Please hold for a counselor who will explain all the insanely bizarre things that have been happening to you .
    Allie had a decidedly different point of view about the day’s events. “I really feel like we’re getting somewhere,” she said.
    It was good for me to have someone with that level of irrationality around. Ever since Jen disappeared, I’d been the lunatic in whichever room I’ve been in. Comments like Allie’s gave me the opportunity to play the cynical realist, which certainly helped me widen my range.
    “Where might we be getting?” I asked.
    “If Julie was with you all that time, then you’re the key. We need to know what happened to you. And now I think we’ve got some leads.”
    “We do?”
    She nodded vigorously. “Susan Donovan and that shrink, Garber.”
    “You realize that they could have nothing to do with this?”
    She looked at me like I was nuts; it’s a look I’d come to recognize. “What good does it do for us to spend time and energy thinking like that?”
    I didn’t have a good answer for that, so I didn’t offer one. Instead, I asked, “Do you need help checking into Susan Donovan?”
    She shook her head. “Not right now. I’ll get started looking online right away. I’m really good on a computer.”
    “Okay; find out why Susan Donovan is afraid of me. You want to grab an early dinner?”
    “You don’t have to babysit me, Richard. I’m not here to take over your life.”
    “Is that a no?”
    She smiled. “Of course not. I just don’t want to become a burden.”
    “That doesn’t seem to be a clear and present danger.”
    “Good,” she said. “So where’s all this great Italian food I hear New York has?”
    I took her to Peppino’s, a terrific Italian restaurant down on Hudson Street in the West Village. It is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of New York restaurants that are simultaneously popular and undiscovered. By that I mean that most New Yorkers have never heard of them, yet they’re