The Memory Collector (9 page)

It wasn’t a ceremonial seppuku knife. Not Japanese. But old—so old that it had almost certainly done the job before, and more than once.

She wasn’t going to scream.

Yet.

He took his hand off her mouth. “What do you want? Do you have it?”

“Misty came to see you in the emergency room not fifteen minutes ago. I spoke to her.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can’t remember. Come back to the E.R. and—”

“Stop lying to me.”

Convincing him she was telling the truth was out of the question. Misty hadn’t had to sign in when she came to the hospital. Maybe the cops could tell Kanan that his wife had been there, right after they cuffed him, and holy flaming crap, that blade looked sharp.

“I’m a psychiatrist. I brought you here in an ambulance from your London flight. You told me you’d been poisoned on your business trip to Africa. You said, ‘They’ll say it was self-inflicted.’”

Instead of confusion, disbelief and anger rolled across Kanan’s face. “Self-inflicted? You don’t get so lucky. And not poisoned. Contaminated.”

That was something different altogether. Despite her fear, she said, “What with?”

He put his ear close to hers. “Listen to me.”

He was breathing hard, thrumming with tension. Jo sensed that he was close to breaking down. If she hadn’t been terrified, she would have felt sorry for him. But she felt like she’d fallen into a pit with a wounded animal.

“If you’re a shrink, you can be quiet and listen for one minute. Isn’t that what you’re trained to do?”

The elevator felt like a tin can that could easily crush her.
Don’t hyperventilate,
she told herself.
Just breathe
.

And don’t point that knife at me.
She didn’t have a weapon, or a shield, or anything to defend herself with. Her belt, maybe. Her hands.

“You saying you don’t know what got to me?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“And you want to know why?”

“Yes.”

His lips drew back, revealing white teeth. “Slick. Really. Slick.”

Her heart sank. “I’m not trying to trick you. You have a serious brain injury. You need help. What were you contaminated with?”

“Be quiet. I’m going to get them. Where are they?”

“Who?”

He knocked her against the wall. “I’m on the job. I’m doing it. But I will get them.”

On his left arm, just below his elbow, Jo saw black lines on his skin. It was writing. And though she had written
memory loss
on his right arm, this was something different. These were words she hadn’t written.

She hated it when words were written on people’s bodies.

“Are you looking at me?” he said.

Jo looked. In his ice-chip eyes she saw fury. Behind the fury, the great engine for it, was entropy: chaos, fear, grief. The knife hung in his hand.

“I know I can’t remember everything. But I’m not crazy. I will finish the job.” He watched her, seemingly to see if she believed him. “You believe that?”

Of course not.
“Of course.”

“Dig this. I don’t care about the consequences to myself. You’ve already poured down grief on me. And when I rain it back on you, nobody’s going to punish a guy in my shape. What can anybody do to me that’s worse?”

He held her gaze, eyes no longer diamond-dead but swimming with light. His chest rose and fell against hers. His lips were inches from her ear. He stared at her, maybe searching for confirmation, and relaxed his grip.

It gave her four inches and a brief second. She threw herself forward against him, brought up her left leg, and kicked at the control panel. She hit the red alarm button.

A siren scorched the elevator. Angrily, Kanan shoved her away from him. Shaking his head, he punched the open button. The knife hung loose in his hand, seemingly forgotten.

The door began inching open. Kanan’s gaze fell to the laminated hospital I.D. clipped to Jo’s sweater. He yanked it off.

Held it up. “I’ll find you.”

The doors opened. He turned and ran.

Jo put a hand on the wall. The light seemed intensely bright. Her heart drummed in her ears.

The doors of the elevator began to slide closed again. She skittered out like a hockey puck, straight past a couple of interns in scrubs. She looked up and down the hall, but Kanan was gone.

She grabbed one of the interns. “Call security.”

That message on Kanan’s arm. She didn’t know whether it had been written there when he got off the plane, or whether it had been added at the hospital. Each time she’d seen him, he’d had on his longsleeved shirt.

The humming in her head increased: joy, anger, relief, an almost giddy sense of excitement at making it out unscathed.

One of the interns said, “Everything all right?”

“Elevators,” she said. “Nightmare.”

The ringing of the alarm bell filled the hallway. But it couldn’t overcome the echo of Kanan’s voice.
I’m going to get them.
Jo feared what he meant. Because she knew what she’d seen on Kanan’s skin: names. And two words written in ink, running up his arm like a shot of fatality straight into the vein.

8

J
o downshifted as traffic ahead of her slowed on the rain-slick freeway. Her hair flew around her. She hit the hands-free phone and redialed.

This time, the call was answered on the first ring. “Jo Beckett. You’re bringing cases with you to the department when you call now?”

“Wonderful to hear your voice too, Lieutenant.”

In reply, Jo heard Amy Tang flick her lighter. “No, you light up my days. I sit at my desk reading women’s magazines, waiting for you to call. What wardrobe should I go with this spring—Hollywood elegance or fairy princess?”

“Black, Amy. Or black.”

Tang laughed, a brief
ha
that slipped out despite her best efforts. “Please, doctor. I’m at your disposal. Meet me at that coffee place down the hill from your house. I can give you ten minutes, because I’m a living doll.”

Tang sounded as though she didn’t need any more caffeine, but Jo said, “I’m on my way.”

Fifteen minutes later, she managed to find a parking spot two blocks from Java Jones. The coffeehouse sat on a funky side street at the bottom of Russian Hill near Fisherman’s Wharf. Jo wrangled her scarf over her head, turned up the collar on her jean jacket, fed quarters into the meter, and dashed along the sidewalk. The plate-glass windows at Java Jones were steamed over. The lights inside had the amber glow of a fogged-in Parisian café, circa 1870. It looked like a Monet painting. She pushed through the door, half-drenched.

The come-and-get-it smell of espresso welcomed her. Fall Out Boy was playing on the stereo, “Hum Hallelujah.” Lieutenant Amy Tang stood at the counter, fingers tapping double-time, waiting for her order.

Tang was a sea urchin, small and prickly. She wore a black peacoat, black slacks, black boots. Spiky black hair. Jo knew that beneath the barbs, she had a heart—a cautious, well-guarded heart. But reaching it could result in cuts and bruises. She liked Tang enormously.

With chilled fingers, Jo fumbled to remove her sodden scarf. It had gotten wrapped over her hair and half her face.

Tang eyed her. “You trying out for ninja school?”

“You auditioning for
The Matrix
?” Jo unwound the scarf like a mummy removing its wrappings and shook water from her brown curls.

Behind the counter, Jo’s sister Tina was pouring Tang’s order. “Jo’s into the whole woman warrior, Bushido, take-no-psychic-prisoners thing. Me, I take after our Irish ancestors. We’re poets and musicians.”

“More like pranksters and subversives.” Jo held up her phone. “You hijacked this. Please delete the ringtone you installed.”

“But ‘Psychosocial’ is a
sick
ringtone.”

“Ironic, I got it. But the screaming scares small children and grown police officers.”

The ratty day wasn’t denting Tina’s mood. She resembled Jo, minus ten years and a couple of inches, plus enough silver in her ears and on her fingers to be confused for a magnet. She was so effervescent that Jo wondered what would happen if she walked past an open drawer of cutlery on a particularly dynamic day.

Tina took the phone. “I’ll change it on one condition. Tomorrow night—Jo, don’t give me that look, you’ve been promising for months, and you back out every time. Come on.”

“If you want me to go on a girls’ night out, you have to give me a hint. What will we be doing? Popsicle-stick crafts? Krav Maga?”

Tina stuck out her bottom lip and made puppy eyes.

Jo raised her hands. “Fine, I give up.”

Tina clapped her fists together like a delighted kid. She handed over Jo’s coffee with a grin.

Jo laughed. “I just walked into a trap, didn’t I?” She took her coffee. “Thanks. I think.”

Tang led her to a table. “I talked to the officers from the airport division. Nasty run-in you had with this Kanan character. You okay?”

“No harm, no foul. But he said he’s going to find me,” Jo said.

“How would he do that?”

“He grabbed my hospital I.D. Let’s say he could take it from there. He seems resourceful.”

“So he’s a possible stalker. With brain damage. What else?”

“I think he’s gone out to kill somebody.”

“How’d you reach that conclusion?”

“He has a list of names and the words
They die
scrawled on his forearm.”

Tang set down her mug. “From the top, please.”

Jo told Tang the story: the siege on the 747, the Tasering, the seizures. The bizarre MRI results, Kanan’s rage and determination to leave the hospital. His aggression against her in the elevator.

“He said he’s on the job, and he’ll finish it, and he’s ‘going to get them.’ And he said he has nothing to lose. Add in
They die
and you’ve got a hit list.”

“Is he the type to go nuts?” Tang said.

“Who knows? His brain is being cored like an apple.”

“What do you think is going on?”

Jo took a breath. “I hesitate to speculate without more evidence.”

“SWAG, Beckett.”

Scientific Wild-Ass Guess. Jo leaned back, tapping her fingers on the wooden tabletop. “Okay. Here’s a working hypothesis.”

“You mean a hypothesis we should work from. Playing defense.”

“You got it. Kanan went to southern Africa, supposedly on a business trip. While he was there he was contaminated with a highly dangerous substance that is causing irreparable damage to his short-term memory. He may have been engaged in illegal activity.”

“Such as?”

“Stealing something.”

“Because, if he knows what caused his brain injury, why else would he hold back?”

“Exactly,” Jo said.

“You think he was involved in a heist?”

“Working hypothesis.”

“So, he stole something dangerous. But it went wrong, and he got contaminated.”

“Which might be why he asked me if I ‘have it’ and swore he was still on the job.”

“A falling-out among thieves? Is he after his co-conspirators?” Tang said.

“Revenge is a plausible motive.” Jo leaned forward. “Something’s tormenting him. Beyond the head injury, I mean. Pain and fear are driving him.”

“You sound sympathetic.”

“Empathic. I am. I can sense his pain, and it’s awful.” She picked up her mug. “Doesn’t mean I’m a sucker. If we don’t find Kanan, people are going to die.”

Tang took a notebook from her coat pocket. “Did you see any of the names on his hit parade?”

“One. Alec.”

“No last name?”

“Sorry.”

“This anterograde amnesia. It won’t gradually improve?”

“Unfortunately, no. It’s rare but devastating,” Jo said.

“Why does he remember things for five minutes and then forget it all?”

“Memory formation doesn’t happen instantaneously. It’s a process, not an event. And it occurs in several parts of the brain. When new information comes in, it’s held in working memory for a few minutes. Then the medial temporal lobes encode the information and send it to the parts of the brain where it’s stored permanently as long-term memory.”

“But Kanan’s encoding equipment is damaged. And it won’t recover?” Tang said.

“Not given the way his brain looks on the MRI. That brain matter’s been eaten away from the inside. It’s gone.”

“What caused it?”

“Kanan first told me he’d been poisoned. Then he said ‘contaminated.’”

“With what?”

“No idea. And I don’t know whether it’s accidental or deliberate. He was either confused or being cagey. Did somebody try to kill him? Did he try to kill himself? He wouldn’t clarify.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Attack it the same way I do a psychological autopsy.”

“He isn’t dead.”

“But the cause and manner of his injury are equivocal.”