Read Online The Memory Collector by Meg Gardiner - Free Book Online Page B

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.
    They die.

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.