The Intruders. Michael Marshall

closer, but then their dog suddenly started going nuts and they crossed the street instead.

      Did she find the place she was looking for? She still couldn’t remember that part. But she knew she didn’t have the small notebook when she left the house that morning. So maybe that’s where it had come from. Good. Call that squared away. She got to Portland by bus.

      Once she’d filled every one of these little gaps, everything would be back to normal.

      Inside the parking lot it was dark and cool. People walked back and forth with suitcases that made clackety sounds. Cars pulled out of spaces and went swishing out onto the road. Big white and yellow and red buses with sliding doors and hotel names on them let people off or picked them up. It was a place full of people who didn’t know each other. That was good. Madison decided she would find somewhere she could sit and think in quiet. She walked down the centre of one of the aisles. Everyone was talking or laughing or paying cab drivers or keeping track of their own children. It was like they couldn’t see her at all. This reminded her of something, though she couldn’t remember what.