The Memory Collector (8 page)

T
he light was patchy, silver through clouds. The shadows in the room deepened and stretched, like the moment. Jo took the notebook from Kanan and showed him what he had written.
Jo Beckett. Forensic shrink.

“What’s going on?” he said.

She found an indelible marker in her satchel. “Let me see your arm. Unbutton your sleeve.”

He rolled up his right sleeve and held out his forearm. She turned it palm-up and wrote
Severe memory loss. I cannot form new memories.
“You’re going to need a medic alert bracelet, but this will do for now.” She handed him the pen. “If there’s anything else you need urgently to remember, write it now.”

He was going to need a lot more. A camera. A constant companion. He stared at the words, stunned.

“You have a brain injury. You told me you might have been poisoned. I need to know how, and with what,” Jo said.

He put a hand against the side of his head. Closed his eyes and doubled over.

“Ian?”

He bolted for the trash can. He grabbed it, bent over, and vomited.

Behind her the door opened and Rick Simioni came in. He saw Kanan hunched over the trash can and headed toward him.

Kanan straightened. Catching sight of Simioni, he whirled. “Who are you?”

“Dr. Simioni, the neurologist.”

In the open doorway, a woman stood watching. She had the shine of varnished wood. A willow, hewn and bright. Her limbs were tan and sinewy, her hair a sleek caramel flow. Her eyes, hot with shock, were pinned on Kanan.

“Ian.” Her voice was choked.

Kanan straightened and put his hand against the wall, bracing himself. Though his head hung low and he looked pale with nausea, his colorless eyes met hers.

Simioni put a hand on Kanan’s elbow. “Sit down. Come on.”

“In a minute,” Kanan said.

The woman crossed the room to him. She raised a hand and tentatively, tenderly, touched his chest.

Simioni waved Jo out of the room. “Give them a minute.”

Jo stepped into the hallway with Simioni. The door to the room slowly swung shut. The young woman stepped close to Kanan and touched his cheek. Kanan’s eyes were unreadable. Relief, confusion, joy, despair—Jo couldn’t decipher his gaze. He took her hand from his face, clutching it tightly. The door clicked shut.

Jo looked at Simioni quizzically.

“That’s his wife,” he said. “She took the news badly.”

“Where has she been for the past two hours?” Jo said.

“I didn’t ask. You look like you’ve been jumped by the boogie man. Something new going on with Mr. Kanan?”

“Bunch of somethings. Very weird.”

Simioni looked at the closed door. He hesitated, and when he turned back to Jo he was frowning.

“Add something to the weird list,” he said. “The airport cops collected his luggage and sent it over. He was traveling with some unusual souvenirs—a sword and a couple of daggers.”

“What kind of sword?”

He looked bemused. “That’s an odd question.”

“Is it ceremonial, or an Olympic-sanctioned épée, or a broadsword he jousts with when he dresses up and goes to the Renaissance fair?”

“It’s not covered in blood. And it’s old. Very. The . . . what do you call it, the handle—”

“Hilt.”

“—is elaborate. It has writing on it, old and worn down. In Arabic. Why do you want to know?”

“He’s been in Africa and the Middle East. He says he’s a corporate babysitter, but he comes home with weaponry. He tells me he’s been poisoned and may have tried to commit suicide. And I have a four-hundred-year-old Japanese
katana
in my living room. If I hear somebody’s importing sharp objects, particularly a knife-and-sword combination, I want to make sure he’s not going to use them to commit hara-kiri.”

The door to the E.R. room opened and Kanan’s wife walked out. She looked pale.

Simioni walked over. “Mrs. Kanan—”

“I can’t.” She raised a hand. “Can’t talk about . . .” Her face crimped and she put the back of her hand to her mouth, as if suppressing a scream.

Ian Kanan’s wife was petite. Even wearing stack-heeled boots she was an inch shorter than Jo, and Jo wasn’t a giant. Her sleek flow of caramel hair conveyed athleticism and self-confidence. Her coat was white wool, fitted, stylish. Beneath it her black sweater was tight and her blue tartan skirt hugged her rear end. Aside from the corporate hair she looked like a high-fashion Glasgow punk.

Voice shaking, she said, “Help him.”

She turned and rushed down the hall.

Jo and Simioni gave each other a look. The neurologist shook his head, indicating,
Don’t make me be the one
. . . as if he would play rock-paper-scissors with Jo to see who calmed her down.

Jo went after her. “Mrs. Kanan.”

Her voice seemed to hit the woman like a horsewhip. She broke into a jog and kept going.

“Please wait,” Jo said. “We need your help.”

The woman turned the corner. Jo followed and saw her at the junction of two hallways, looking around in confusion. She couldn’t tell whether the woman was shocked, horrified, or simply trying to hang on to her final seconds of normality before her organized and happy life disintegrated like wet paper.

Jo put out her hand. “Jo Beckett, M.D.”

Kanan’s wife hesitated a long second before she relented and shook. “Misty Kanan. Is it true? In five minutes he’ll forget I was here?”

“Yes.”

“It’s crazy. He’s crazy. That’s what you’re saying. He’s losing his mind.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“His brain is shot full of holes. How does that not equal going insane?” She ran both hands over her cheeks. “Stop this thing. Fix it.”

“We don’t know what it is.”

“Give him drugs. Operate. Do something. Electric shock treatment. For God’s sake,
something
.”

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. We need your help. We need you to get him to talk.”

“He doesn’t want my help. He’s . . . God, that man. He wants to be strong. He’ll never admit to weakness.” She pressed her hands to the corners of her eyes. “Hypnotize him. You’re a psychiatrist—snap him out of it. Turn his memory back on.”

“His memories are not being misplaced. They’re being destroyed before they can become permanent. We can’t reboot his system and call them up. It’s not like flipping a breaker switch and restoring power.”

Misty looked at Jo and past her shoulder, antsy. She seemed as tense and jagged as a spool of concertina wire. She ran her hands up and down her arms, scratching like she itched.

“I need air.” She began walking down the hallway.

“Wait—give me your phone number,” Jo said.

Misty stopped, found a piece of scratch paper, and scribbled on it. “My new cell number. Call me anytime. Day or night.”

She turned and rushed down the hall, swerving around an orderly pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair. Jo heard her break into tears.

She watched her flee, thinking,
What the hell?
She ran a hand through her hair. Exhaling, she walked back around the corner.

Simioni was nowhere in sight, but Officer Paterson was at the nurses’ station. She walked over and offered an apologetic smile.

“On the plane, I may have seemed more concerned about Kanan than about you. Is your elbow all right?” she said.

“Fine. Thanks.” His baby face looked tired. “It’s time to read Kanan his rights.”

“You can read him his rights. He’ll understand them. And five minutes later he won’t remember that you’ve done it.”

“Head injuries can make people violent. He may lash out again. He should be restrained.”

Next verse, same as the first. “Give me some time—”

“You’ve had time.”

She put up her hands, knowing she’d pushed it as far as she could. Beyond Paterson she saw Simioni walking up the hallway. He was carrying a backpack and a package wrapped in bubble wrap.

He set them on the counter. “Kanan’s carry-on, plus one of the daggers he brought back. Recognize the type?”

Paterson’s face took on a look of utter incredulity. He shook his head at Jo. “What did you say to me back at the airport—‘How nuts, and what kind?’ Wrong question. It’s
who’s
nuts. And the answer is you doctors. Kanan should be in a straitjacket.”

Jo opened her mouth to snark back, and her phone rang. The ringtone consisted of a death-metal lick and a singer screaming, “
Psychosocial
.” She grabbed it and turned away from Paterson and Simioni’s horrified faces.

She saw the display, and her face flushed. She answered quietly. “Call you back?”

Gabe Quintana said, “Day or night. You know how to find me.”

“Great.” She hung up, heart kicking, and turned back around. “Sorry.”

Paterson huffed a breath from beneath his form-fitting uniform shirt. “Is Kanan stable?”

“That’s a relative term,” Simioni said. “But his life is not at risk right now.”

“I need to place him under arrest.”

Jo acquiesced. Kanan would have to deal with it. “You’re not taking him to the jail tonight. He’s been admitted to the hospital.”

“Understood. But I need to go through the formalities.”

Reluctantly, Jo and Simioni accompanied Paterson to Kanan’s E.R. room. Paterson opened the door.

Kanan was gone.

7

“D
amn it.” Paterson grabbed his radio and stalked down the hall.

Kanan was gone, along with the things that had been on the bedside chair: his jacket, wallet, and passport. Crumpled on the floor by the bed was a blue tartan scarf that matched Misty Kanan’s skirt. Jo picked it up. A bubble-wrapped package sat on the visitors’ chair, ripped open. Simioni hurriedly checked inside.

“Sword’s here,” he said. “Dagger . . .”

In the hallway an orderly was passing by. Jo caught him. “Did you see a man leave this room? Rusty hair, pale blue eyes?”

“Couple minutes ago. He came out, asked me if I’d seen the woman who was here before.”

“His wife?”

“Tartan skirt, nice looking?”

“Yes.”

“Told him I saw her head that way.” He nodded down the hall.

The cop had gone the opposite direction. Jo turned to Simioni. “Get Paterson.”

She rushed down the hall in the direction the orderly had indicated. Kanan couldn’t have gotten far. She silently berated herself. Kanan had repeatedly insisted that he wanted to leave. She shouldn’t have presumed that Simioni and Paterson were watching him.

What was driving Kanan to split?

Pop quiz: Business trip, poison, and weaponry—which ones don’t go with “corporate babysitter”?

She reached the end of the hall and pushed through the double doors. If Kanan got outside, would he wander aimlessly? Did he know the neighborhood?

She rounded a corner into another hallway. At the far end, near a bank of elevators, she saw him.

He was walking away from her, his stride measured, his head turning as his gaze swept the hallway.

Jo headed toward him. “Ian, wait.”

He turned. His eyes locked onto her like targeting radar, without recognition.

Where was Officer Paterson? She glanced over her shoulder. No sign of the cop. She approached Kanan slowly, hands out.

“I’m Dr. Beckett. Please don’t leave. You have a severe brain injury.”

His gaze ran across her, bit by bit, until he saw the tartan scarf in her hand. His expression tightened as though he’d stepped on a nail.

“Misty left this in the E.R.,” Jo said. “I found it.”

He lunged at her.

She dodged but he was fast. He grabbed her and with shocking ease pulled her through the open door of an elevator. She inhaled to shout and he swung her off her feet, spun her around, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

She squirmed and raised her knees and tried to kick him. She saw the doors sliding closed, the bright waxed floor and clinical walls and heartless fluorescent lighting in the hallway disappear into a slit, and then gone.

With his knee, Kanan pressed the stop button.

“What are you doing with Misty’s scarf?” he said.

He was lithe and strong, his balance superb, his words clear. Jo raised her foot and tried to kick the alarm button. Kanan lifted her off her feet and carried her to the far corner of the elevator. Her claustrophobia screeched at her.
Tight space, violent paranoid.

“Who are you working for?” Kanan said.

Writhing, she tried to kick him in the instep.

“Who?” He pinned her flat against the wall. “If I take my hand off your mouth, will you scream?”

Abso-frackin-lutely.
She shook her head.

“You’re right, you won’t.” His right hand came up. It held one of the ancient daggers. “You’ll answer me, very quietly.”

The blade shone under the lights. Within its gleaming steel were weird patterns. Kinked lines, dark, not quite twisting—almost like a circuit board. As the angle of the blade altered, they shimmered like oil.