“With your recent change of plans, you would have gone through customs here.”
She jumped, startled by the way Dexter spoke, close to her ear.
“What?”
“You’re making it a point to look at the cameras. Your presence here will neither be considered odd nor unusual.”
Nat took a breath and spoke in a low voice. “No. I shouldn’t be in customs until France. I don’t want my plans to change.”
“My bug, that’s no longer an option.” He nodded toward one of the custom booths. “See that woman, barely more than a girl really, the one who just passed this checkpoint?”
Natalie saw her. She was young, tall, and slender. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that flowed through the back of a cap. Her clothes were expensive yet average: jeans, boots, a dark green top covered by a light brown sweater. Just before the woman disappeared into the crowd, Natalie noticed her bag: it was one identical to the bag she carried.
And the cap…Natalie wasn’t wearing it, but she had one exactly the same.
Suddenly, the room grew warmer and her skin prickled.
Nat’s mouth dried as her knees grew weak. “Why? Why did you point her out?”
“I thought you were smarter than that. You’re disappointing me.”
There were only a few more passengers ahead of them before they would reach the front of the line. The tears returned as she swallowed the bubbling bile. “She’s me?”
“Now there’s something you probably didn’t expect to say. Who expects to see herself walk away and disappear into a crowd?
“Technically, no, she isn’t you. You are you. However, the identity you may be contemplating telling to the man or woman we approach in one of those booths has been cleared to enter Germany. The name you had when you boarded is already officially in Munich. That woman has her—or should I say your—old passport, your boarding pass, all your information.” Dexter pressed the small of her back, forcing her to take a few more steps, moving with the line. “The government officials won’t believe you if you claim to be her.”
Nat’s heart thundered as the room teetered. What would happen if she fainted?
“Do you know the kind of mental facilities they have in Germany?” Dexter asked. “Not exactly as luxurious as the resort where your mother stayed.”
She looked up to his face, her mouth agape, as her already-twisted stomach formed another knot. “How do you…?”
Her mother’s episode had been ages ago, after her sister was born and before her brother. It was part of the family history no one mentioned. The time before was how it was referenced. By all Nat’s accounts, there was no need to bring any of it up. Throughout all of Nat’s life, her mother was steady and stable, kind and loving. The story Nat had been told was that a traumatic event, combined with an injury she’d suffered in an earlier accident, had sent her mother into what the professionals called a break with reality.
What would happen to her mother if Nat disappeared? Could it send her back?
Dexter continued to whisper, “I can’t help you if they take you away.”
Help me?
Studying his expression, Nat assessed her captor. Could she simply outrun him? He was tall, taller than she, possibly as tall as her father, and he was a large man—not fat by any means but solid and hard. Those same adjectives could be used to describe his expression. Solid and hard, as if he were discussing the weather, not her mother’s mental health or her own. “But if I disappear, my mom…”
“You won’t,” he said reassuringly, tenderly rubbing her lower back, his large hand beneath her sweater, yet above her top. To the casual observer, it was a kind, encouraging gesture. “Don’t worry, bug. Behave as we’ve discussed and the other you will send your parents a planned text message. You won’t disappear. You simply decided that Munich was as far as you would travel and changed your flight.”
“Why would I do that?”
They were nearly at the front of the line.
“Which do you think would be easier for your mother? Her baby girl missing the Christmas holiday because she’s embarrassed about her failing grades or her baby girl in a foreign mental hospital after a breakdown brought on by the same thing?”
How did Dexter know about her grades? She hadn’t even told her parents. Neither her sister, Nichol, nor her brother, Nate, knew. “I-I…”
“Come, dear,” Dexter said, tugging her hand, “it’s our turn. Nellie Smithers,” he reminded softly as they approached the booth.
Chapter Six
Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Reason for your visit?” the man with a heavy German accent asked as he scanned the passport barcodes over a light and looked from the small documents to their faces.
Dexter answered, offering their forms and then quickly encasing Natalie’s hand in his own. He confidently explained, with just the right amount of detail to sound convincing, that he and his new wife were on holiday—a delayed honeymoon, something about her passport coming with her new name, about castles, snow, and magic. With each word, the gravity of the situation settled around them with the doom of a suffocating cloud—the opposite of his answers—invisible to everyone but her, imprisoning her body and soul as it dazed her vision and stole her rebuttal.
His words sounded innocent and benign. No one but Natalie heard the reality. His speech was a malignant cancer gnawing at her insides and consuming her future.
Though she tried to listen, her thoughts centered on his threat, the one where he said she’d be thought insane. Her mind recalled stories of foreign mental institutions, conjuring images of bleak, lonely rooms with a single cot and no window. She didn’t want to believe him.
Mental health didn’t hold the stigma it had when her mother was diagnosed. During the last quarter-century, science and medicine had made significant progress, especially in the field of traumatic brain injuries. That was the contributing factor to her mother’s episode. It wouldn’t be a factor for Nat. She hadn’t had an accident. Instead, if she were misdiagnosed, they’d only assume her to be crazy—a family trait.
She wasn’t crazy. Neither was her mother. This was all ridiculous. Germany was a modern industrialized country with top-notch doctors who aided in cutting-edge research. This wasn’t a third-world country. There were US military installations. The US embassy…
She was a US citizen. A kernel of hope sprouted to life. The officials would help her. She just needed to make her case.
It wasn’t until Dexter nudged her shoulder that she remembered she was part of the farce occurring around her, assigned with the task of perpetuating his story.