The Memory Collector (42 page)

Murdock sat fuming in the back seat, breathing hard, looking like he knew he was screwed.

Jo pulled the door closed. Murdock glared at her.

Do not cry,
she thought.
Do not cover your mouth or indicate that you have a single weakness.

She breathed. “Now do you goddamn believe me?”

Vance roared down Palm Drive. A cop car raced past them in the opposite direction. Ahead, more flashing lights spun off the treetops. A stop sign flashed past, and horns smeared in her ears. Vance swerved around the corner onto Campus Drive and headed toward the football stadium, seeking an exit from the campus. Jo held tight to the door handle.

“Without me, you’ll never get away with this. It’s me plus Misty and Seth—alive and safe—or you don’t get Slick,” she said. “I’m your ticket.”

Gabe ran toward the cross road where he’d parked the 4Runner. The blue Tahoe receded down Palm Drive. All the air in his lungs seemed to go with it. A police car blew past him heading the other way, toward the top of the Oval, lights and siren bawling. He looked back.

Gabe held on to the Buck knife. He saw Diaz running across the Oval. Off to the right, a pickup truck flipped on its headlights.

“Boss,” Diaz yelled. “Wait.”

The pickup spun its tires and gunned down an access road through the trees after the fleeing Tahoe. Diaz watched it streak away.

He threw his hands in the air. Then he hollered at Gabe, pointing at the pickup. “Quintana, that’s Kanan, in my truck. We have to catch him.”

The pickup roared down Palm Drive, taillights scoping to red pin-pricks. Diaz angled across the grass, caught up with Gabe, and ran alongside him, breathing hard.

“Kanan doesn’t know he left you here, does he?” Gabe said.

“No. He can’t hold anything in his head for more than about five minutes. He only knows he has to get his family back.”

Diaz’s pickup turned right onto Campus Drive and disappeared from view.

“Can you call him?” Gabe said.

“Not yet, and even if I could, he wouldn’t listen to me. He won’t break off chasing the Tahoe. He doesn’t want to lose sight of the kidnappers.”

“That’s smart.”

“That’s his only chance. If he gets distracted, even for a split second, facts just fade out of his head. It’s like the great beyond collects all his thoughts and burns them.”

They cut through a copse of live oaks. Gabe took out his keys and flicked the alarm remote. Ahead, the parking lights of the 4Runner flashed.

“I thought I had the hostage-takers,” Diaz said. “But the driver of the Tahoe saw me in the wing mirror and hit the gas.”

“When does Kanan’s phone activate?” Gabe said.

“Ten P.M., but we can’t wait till then. If he loses sight of the Tahoe for too long, he’ll forget he ever saw it. He’ll keep driving and we’ll never find him again.”

“He found you once.”

“That’s not the point now.”

“What is? What’s the rush?” Gabe said.

“He’s got a container that’s volatile. The nano lab sample, it’s in his computer battery. He armed it. It won’t stay stable even for forty-five minutes.”

“And then?”

“It’ll explode.”

Gabe felt anger and futility well inside him. “And Kanan won’t dispose of it?”

“By now he doesn’t even remember that he has it. He can’t possibly know it’s a ticking bomb.”

They jumped into the 4Runner and Gabe peeled out.

“Does Kanan know who’s behind this whole thing?” Gabe said.

“No.”

“Jo said somebody named Riva Calder was in the Tahoe.”

“Calder? She’s an exec at Chira-Sayf.” Diaz braced himself against the door. “She arranged for Misty and Seth to get snatched?”

“Looks like it.”

“She knows them. She was Misty’s sorority sister. This is bad, man. She spooks Ian.”

“How?”

“She has a major thing for him. Always has.”

Gabe tossed him a look, disbelieving. “That’s crazy-making trouble for Kanan and for his wife.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

Racing down Palm Drive, Gabe steered with one hand and dialed 911 with the other.

“Calder will probably have Ian’s cell phone number,” Diaz said.

“So when his phone goes live at ten P.M., she’ll contact him and pretend to play innocent.”

He swept out from under the trees, turned onto Campus Drive, and sped in the direction of the football stadium. The stadium’s field lights bleached the night above them, turning the trees black and white.

“Nine-one-one emergency,” said the dispatcher.

“A woman’s been abducted. Men hauled her into a Chevy Tahoe and took off.” He gave the dispatcher a fast rundown of what was going on and turned to Diaz. “What’s your truck’s license number?”

Diaz held silent.

“What is it?” Gabe said.

“It’s not exactly loaded with Girl Scout cookies, you dig?”

Gabe’s anger heated. “It’s a rolling bomb. What’s the plate number?”

“Shit.” Shoulders slumping, Diaz rattled it off.

Gabe repeated it to the dispatcher. “And send police and fire units to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. Man named Alec Shepard’s in trouble near the bridge.”

He hung up, ran the stop sign, turned left onto Galvez Street, fishtailed, and straightened out. He floored it toward the exit from campus.

“Kanan was messing around with the nano sample in the pickup, while you were with him?” Gabe said.

Diaz shot him a look. “Why?”

Gabe exhaled.

He raced past huge stands of eucalyptus trees. The stadium loomed on the right, a hulking mother ship that filled the night with deathly white light. Several hundred yards ahead, at the intersection with El Camino Real, he saw the exit from campus. They heard a siren. In his rearview mirror Gabe saw flashing lights.

“Don’t stop,” Diaz said.

The cop’s headlights inflated in the mirror. Behind them, another black-and-white zoomed into view and joined the pursuit.

“If you stop, it all goes to shit,” Diaz said. “The thing is to get Misty and Seth back.”

“Without blowing anybody up.” Gabe looked at him. “Or is that your plan?”

“Nobody you should worry about.”

The sirens drew nearer. At the intersection of Galvez and El Camino, the light was green.

“The doc—you care about her?” Diaz said.

The flashing lights grew brighter in the mirror.

“Like crazy,” Gabe said.

They raced toward the intersection. Gabe tightened his hands on the wheel. Then he stomped on the brake, pulled the handbrake, and spun the wheel hard over. The back end of the 4Runner squealed around in a half circle and lurched to a stop.

“Hell you doing?” Diaz said.

“Get out,” Gabe said.

Directly in front of him the police cars laid rubber, red and blue lights wheeling, and braked to a halt.

“They’ll arrest you,” Diaz said.

“Playing Lone Ranger won’t cut it here. We need a helo searching for Kanan. We need to get you to hazmat decontamination, because you may have been exposed to Slick.” He opened his door. “And I need the whole state of California hunting for Jo.”

He climbed out with his hands locked behind his head and dropped to his knees in the road.

34

M
isty Kanan wiped the sweat from her eyes. Her fingers were numb and bleeding. The paperclip-size screwdriver she’d fashioned from underwiring was bent and cracked, succumbing to metal fatigue. Inside the bedroom it was full dark. She had removed three of the four screws that held the locking mechanism and knob in the door. She felt the lock assembly again for the fourth screw, fumbling like a woman trying to read Braille.

She ran a finger over the screw, found the groove, and inserted her handmade screwdriver. Her fingers slipped. The screwdriver popped from her fingers. She heard it
ping
against the floor and bounce into the darkness.

“Damn it.”

She sank against the door. Her shoulders jerked.

Whiskey padded to her side and nuzzled her shoulder. He whimpered. The sound was feeble. He was hungry and dehydrated.

She balled her fists and pressed them against her eyes. Screw these bastards, who’d let a dog die of thirst.

“It’s okay, boy. I’ll get us out of here.”

She got to her knees and felt along the floor.

Whatever’s at hand, use it,
Ian would say. “A fork, a pen, a lightbulb. Nothing’s ever just what it seems.”

“I’m just a school nurse,” she’d told him.

“No, you’re not. Not ‘just.’ Not ever.” And he took her hand. “You can’t be. That’s not the way the world works. And I won’t always be here.”

Be prepared. The man was half-psychic, half-Boy Scout, all threat repulsion.

The bedroom was cold, but she was damned if she’d put on any of Riva’s expensive clothing. Do that, and she’d be begging people to take one look at her—her long sleek hair and the figure she worked her ass off to keep—and say, sadly, “Yes, that was Riva Calder.”

Looking like Riva had been great, back when they were in college. Borrowing Riva’s I.D. so she could buy beer or fool dumb bouncers at local clubs—that had felt harmless. But now the idea of swapping identities didn’t seem so festive.

Karma was remorseless.

She pressed her fingers along the floor in the dark. Her hand brushed the wire. She wiped her fingers on her blouse, picked up the screwdriver, and felt for the slot in the screw. Whiskey whimpered again and pushed his nose under her chin.

“It’s okay, boy. I’m going to get you home to a big bowl of water. And a T-bone steak. And Seth.”

Saying her son’s name, her voice cracked. She turned the screwdriver and felt the screw loosen.
Yes.
She spun the screwdriver and the screw fell out. She got to her knees and worked the doorknob loose.

Now came the tricky part. She bent the wire into a hook and began probing the innards of the lock. Ian had taught her this one, too.

She whispered to Whiskey, “Finally, I get the profits of his misspent youth.”

And Riva had sniped that if she married Ian, the sex would be hot but there wouldn’t be any profit-sharing. Soldiers made no money.

With a click, the lock turned. Half-disbelieving, she stood and opened the door.

It creaked open to reveal the living room. The lights were off and it was dark outside. She held in the doorway, listening for the men. The house was quiet. It smelled rank. Outside the living room window she saw overflowing trash cans and weeds.

And headlights.

They swept the yard and a vehicle pulled into the driveway.

“Oh, shit. Whiskey!”

She ran across the living room toward the cramped and filthy kitchen. Whiskey bolted by her, passed the kitchen, and ran down a hallway where the rest of the bedrooms were located. He rounded a corner, claws ticking on the parquet floor.

She clapped her hands. “Whiskey.”

The kitchen door was locked. Outside, the vehicle idled on the driveway. She heard the garage door going up.

She heard Whiskey put his paws on another door. He barked and began scratching wildly. She whistled, flipped the dead bolt, and threw open the back door. Whiskey barked, pawing the door down the hall like he was going to dig a hole through it. She heard a thumping sound. She froze.

She wasn’t alone. Somebody else was locked up in the house.