Chapter One: The Woman in the Rain

Before the light turned green, a red umbrella moved against the crowd and crossed the street. Beneath it walked a woman in a white coat. She did not dodge the traffic or hurry. She moved as though she knew everything would stop for her. Strangely, the stream of honking cars did stop, each one half a meter away. Their drivers looked calm, as if they could not see her at all. Shen raised the camera by instinct. Inside the viewfinder, the woman suddenly turned her face. It was the kind of face that made anyone who saw it remember someone. Not beautiful, not ugly. For a moment Shen thought she resembled his mother as a young woman; then she looked like a classmate who had vanished in college.