Wired (7 page)

As I reached the spot where Mason and Leonardo collided with me and each other at two o'clock yesterday morning, my nerves amped up even more. This was the beginning of a panic attack, not the hot sweats I'd been having lately. It was more like . . . a self-fulfilling-prophecy sort of panic. The kind that came directly from within. The kind I manufactured myself. It came on like the dark roar of the ocean, a mind-numbing thing that nearly swamped me.

My mind flashed with visions of thrown punches, of barricading myself in Mason's car, of standing on my doorstep as he foisted his ridiculous story on me, of opening my refrigerator door.

I staggered to the street lamp near where Mason's car had been parked and grabbed on to it to keep from falling, my head spinning, my sweaty hands sliding on the metal post. My bag of chips crunched under my shoes, ground into the pavement.

Something's so very, very off here
.

I bee-lined home. There were people everywhere, going about their business. It was still early enough for the sidewalks to see the end of rush-hour pedestrian traffic. It should have been completely safe, but that didn't stop me from looking over my shoulder every five seconds. I picked up my pace to a brisk walk, then upped it to a jog. I was home in five minutes, but I was wheezing and gasping with my heart nearly pounding out of my chest.

If Mason's story that I was involved in something dangerous and Leo's story that Mason wasn't here to help me were true, I'd have to train myself to run a lot faster.

I staggered up the stairs and dropped my bag at my front door, wincing as the heavy contents slammed down on the ground. The gun. The bullets. Still, for a moment it was all I could do to keep myself from falling over as I caught my breath.

I pulled the latest notice from the homeowners association off the door and let myself in. The house was pitch-black and deathly quiet. I half expected Leonardo Kaysar to pop up on my couch and Mason to be in the kitchen retrieving beers for all three of us. But the place was as empty as I'd left it. Too empty. I guess I liked it that way, though it was hard at moments like this to remember why.

I turned on a bunch of lights and stood in the middle of the living room, trying to decide exactly how weird I felt now and what if any of the strangeness Leonardo had described was really happening. Mind blanks? Jumbles? Confusion? Yes to all three.

I glanced at the notice in my hand and almost laughed. The homeowners association had decided to paint again. The doors and the molding this time, in
blue. They'd done up a sample down the hall if I wanted to see what the finished look would be with the undoubtedly hideous color they'd picked. There was actually something comforting about the normalcy of this one small maintenance detail; regular life did go on. I patted my jeans pocket to make sure I still had my house keys, then opened the door to go check out the sample.

Stepping forward into the hall, I was engulfed in a blast of heat and lost my balance on the threshold. I went plunging downward into wide-open space as if I'd just stepped off a cliff.
Not so regular after all
.

Just as I'd experienced before, a series of frames unfurled in my mind. I watched my old roommate Kitty open a can of soup, saw myself sitting on the living room floor crying as I stared at the doorknob of my front door, gasped at Mason winking at me as we drove down the freeway in his car, rolled my eyes at the graduation cap and gown sitting on the side table still wrapped in plastic. . . .

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out as paved concrete rushed up to meet me. I mean, the hall floor. But it was pavement. And I was certain I would hit hard.

“Roxy?”

I came to, cradled in Mason Merrick's arms in the open doorway of my apartment, and immediately launched myself up and away, practically face-planting myself on the ground. “What the hell.” It was all I could say for the next several moments. Just, “What the hell.”

“You see something?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” I replied, trying to process the something I'd just seen. A hallucination? Food poisoning? Drugs? Mental illness? None of those possibilities was appealing, and certainly none of them was something I wanted to cop to, yet I'd have taken any reasonable explanation.

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

I gave him a look. “I was just thinking about me and Kitty on graduation day. I guess that since I haven't seen her since then, she would qualify.”

“You miss her?”

I knew instantly from the too-innocent lilt of his voice that he was fishing. But for what? “Yeah, I miss her. She was my best friend.”

“Because you lost touch. You haven't seen her in a long time. Not since graduation.”

“Where are we going with this, Mason? What does Kitty have to do with anything?”
And what do you have to do with what I just saw?

“Nothing,” he said too quickly. “Just curious.”

Leonardo's words of warning rang loud in my ears. Ignoring Mason's hand, I scrambled to my feet on my own. I grabbed the front of my T-shirt and pulled it away from my sweaty skin, flapping the fabric to let cooler air circulate. Swallowing against the burgeoning nausea, I ended up letting Mason lead me back inside my apartment.

“I'm fine,” I said lamely, trying to get out of the chair he set me in.

He held me down by my shoulders. “Take a minute to let things settle.”

I leaned back.

“So, where were you going?” he asked.

“It's really none of your concern.”

“You just passed out on the floor. I have a right to be concerned.”

I gave him a steely-eyed stare. “No,” I said. “No, you don't.” I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, opening one eye every once in a while to confirm that he was still there. He sat patiently, his body leaning forward, hands clasped together. Waiting.

God, I'd just let him walk right into my place. I didn't
really
believe Leonardo, did I? That Mason was capable of hurting me? And yet . . . 
I should kick him out immediately
.

“You should let me stay with you until it's safe,” he said before I could open my mouth.

I didn't want to bring up Leo's warning, so I just played it cool. “So you can eat my groceries and park on my couch? That's really not necessary.”

“It's no problem,” he said. “I don't eat as much as I used to, and it's not like we've never lived together. I'll take Louise's old room.”

I rolled my eyes. “When I said it wasn't necessary, what I meant was, ‘No.' I use the second bedroom for storage.”

Already starting to make himself comfortable, Mason paused in the middle of taking off his jacket. “I'll take the couch. It's no big deal. You don't fully realize the danger you're in; I totally understand that. It's no problem at all.” He dropped his jacket over the back of my couch and started giving my place the once-over. “Your reaction is completely normal. And I accept that it's going to take some time to ease you into things. . . .”

Ease me into things?

“Still, at the very least, err on the side of being overcautious and let me look out for your survival.”

I shook my head. “Okay, we're done here. I need you to leave.” I grabbed his jacket, ran to the door and held it out at arm's length. He didn't move, so I opened the door and tossed his jacket over the threshold. It landed in the hall with a dull thud. We both looked at it, then looked at each other. After a long pause, Mason rose, walked out, picked up his jacket, and put it on.

“You're going to change your mind at some point.”

He started to walk off, then wheeled around and came back at me, fast. “You're really not going to let me move in with you?”

“No.”

“No?”

I stared at him for a moment, tempted to sock him in the gut. How dared he return to my life, wrapped in danger and deceit and mystery? How dared he expect my trust?

“Roxanne—” I stood in front of the door and so he reached over my head and pushed it open again. I blocked him as he tried to bully his way inside.

“I said, no!” I hit his chest with the bottom of my fist, but he tried again.

I don't know what happened. I suddenly found myself pounding my fists against him, yelling as if he'd done something really terrible to me for which he should be sorry. Something
really
terrible.

“Okay! Stop, Roxy. Just stop!” He grabbed me by the wrists and pulled me against him. I knew he was just trying to close the distance between us so I couldn't hit him again, but his embrace was so what
I needed right then that I closed my eyes and melted into him. This felt right. I was confused and I was angry, but most of all I was horribly afraid. I needed Mason just then in a way far beyond how I'd wanted him in earlier times when it was just a dorky crush.

A wave of remorse hit me. I'd distrusted Mason? It felt so different to have his arms around me, rather than Leonardo's, and I was ashamed for falling even the least little bit for Leonardo's impressive seduction. Why would I believe a stranger?

“I'm sorry,” Mason whispered into my ear. “I'm not coming in. I'm going away. Okay?” He let go of me, and my skin prickled at the loss of warmth. He walked backwards across the landing, then slowly down the stairs to the sidewalk, his hand out in front of him as if he were trying to tame a wildcat. “I'm not coming in.”

I nodded. That would be for the best.

Turning, I went inside my apartment, slammed the door shut, and stood there shaking.
What is my problem?
I just wasn't myself. That's what people always say: “I'm just not myself today.” That phrase had never before sounded quite the way it did now.
You've got to pull yourself together, Rox. Just pull yourself together. Try to find your balance
.

I took a moment to compose myself, then saw my messenger bag. I remembered what was inside. Gingerly I opened the bag and peeked in. The gun was still there, the bullets rolling around in the bottom along with the crumpled envelope.

I trudged upstairs, peeling my jacket off and draping it over the banister before heading into my bedroom. I opened my closet and kicked the lid off the
shoe box, a gasp of shock slipping from my throat as I saw the box was full . . . of shoes. Just shoes.

I dumped out the box, shook it even. I sat down on the floor of the closet and dragged my bag over to me. Spilling the contents out, I picked up the gun. Same coloring, and though I couldn't say with technical certainty it was the same model, the fact was, I didn't have to. I just
knew
it was the same model. I knew this was the same gun and the same bullets.

Impossible.

Again they flashed through my mind, those images I'd seen as I stood on the threshold of my apartment. Some of the events I distinctly remembered; some I didn't recall at all. It was as if only some of these memories were from my past, and the others were . . .

I let the bullets slip through my fingers into the shoe box, then put the gun in beside the shoes and put the lid back on. For the second time in as many days, I stood up, backed away from the closet, and closed the door on what was happening to me.

After a moment, I began to think about what Leonardo and Mason wanted. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that I'd written something I didn't remember, particularly given the Swiss-cheese state of my brain.

In all fairness, lots of jobs weren't memorable, some for the very reason Kaysar suggested: Freelancers were often subcontracted for only a piece of the pie. All you really needed were the parameters to write the one slice of code. Like the receptionist had verified, I did have high-security clearance. I could conceivably work for the government. In fact, I did
have the vague memory of signing disclaimers promising not to discuss my projects with anyone.

But I didn't recall anything recent that these men would want. And if I had any outstanding jobs, someone would have called me about them, or the receptionist would have found a project associated with my name in the computer.

I sat for a moment, then had a brainstorm. Anything I'd already written would be backed up on some drive or another. Frankly, under the circumstances, if either myself, Leonardo, or Mason could identify what they were looking for, I'd hand it over in exchange for a simple promise that I'd be left the hell alone.

I snatched the manila envelope from my messenger bag and practically ran down the hall to my office, intending to figure out some sort of Web search that might give me some answers, but when I flung open the door, I was in for a shock. I should have known. If I wished I'd done a little more research before, I wished it double now. My computer was gone. A clean square on the desk represented the spot where the monitor had once sat. A bunch of disconnected wires hung limply over the side. The monitor was gone, as was the CPU. My computer, my life. In essence, my brain. I'd just been lobotomized.

There wasn't a disk in sight—no flash drives, no peripherals, no backup system, no nothing. Well, except for one speaker, left behind and tipped on its side. Otherwise, every piece of computing equipment was gone. The sense of violation was greater than the loss of property itself, and I felt the loss of property keenly.

I crumpled the envelope in my hand into a ball and slammed it down into the bottom of the empty garbage can, pressing the back of my other hand to my nose as I tried to hold back tears. How was I supposed to plug holes in my memory when the best source of memory a person could have was gone? Or was that the point?

With a pounding heart, I looked wildly around. Whoever the thief was, he had rifled through my papers. He'd done it neatly, but he'd still done it. I looked through what remained: the most generic bunch of paperwork I'd ever seen. It was the sort of stuff that might be in the props closet of a TV show. Scribbled notes regarding housework. Receipts for online purchases of groceries and sundry items. The most mundane and nontelling stuff imaginable. My life suddenly felt staged, and I was starting to feel like a bad actress who hadn't done enough research on her character before stupidly tackling the role.