The Memory Collector Part 12

"No."

Tang took out her notebook. "He was on a business trip to the Middle East and Africa. What was he doing?"

"What he always does. Corporate security."

"Specifically?"

"Ian doesn't discuss his work with me. It's a matter of corporate confidentiality."

"Is Ian's job dangerous?" Jo said.

"No."

"Overseas security for a high-tech firm? Never?"

"He makes sure that the people he escorts don't get into trouble. He keeps them miles away from dangerous situations."

"What does Chira-Sayf do?" Jo said.

"Materials research." Misty tried leaving it there, but Jo and Tang both stared at her until she added, "Nanotechnology."

Jo nodded blandly. But in the back of her mind, a red flag went up. "What's his background and training?"

"Why?" Misty said.

"I need to gather as much information as I can."

Misty crossed her knees. Her foot jittered in the chunky boot. "Ten years in the army. Came out and found a career where his skills were valued."

"Which skills?"

Misty eyed her closely. "You been in the military?"

"No. Why?"

"Some civilians just think: army. Shoot 'em up. Camouflage and yessir, nosir. There are dozens of specialties within the armed forces. Ian was in reconnaissance."

Tang wrote it down. In the quiet of the house, her pen strokes were audible.

Jo glanced at a framed photo on a bookshelf. "Is that your son?"

"Seth," Misty said.

The boy in the photo had Kanan's coppery hair and frosty blue eyes behind his gla.s.ses. His smile had a c.o.c.ky edge chipped into it. The joke's on them. The smile reeked of adolescence but seemed impish rather than sarcastic. Seth was sitting cross-legged on the lawn, playing a guitar. A big dog, with an Irish setter's coloring and a Labrador's goofy hopefulness, was poking his nose against his shoulder.

"Nice-looking boy. How old is he?"

"Fourteen."

Jo waited for her to say more. In this situation some people would ask her questions or blurt emotional revelations. Others clenched everything in, defending their preconceptions, their hopes or myths about their loved ones. She waited to see whether Misty would say anything about her son. She didn't.

"Have you told him?" Jo said.

"Not yet." Misty's foot continued jittering.

Jo wanted to ask, Everything all right with the family? But tough cookie was turning out to mean stubborn, defiant, defensive. So she played it in a lower key.

"The psychological evaluation requires me to map the victim's life. I investigate the victim's entire history, meaning medical, psychological, and emotional-family, relationships, marriage..."

The blush started at the base of Misty's neck and rose up her cheeks. "You want me to talk about our s.e.x life?"

Jo put up a hand. "I'm just saying, relationships are something I ask about."

Misty licked her lips. "No, it's fine. Ian and I are close. We always have been. It was chemistry at first sight."

The blush was so hot it was practically pulsing. Jo thought that if they turned off the lights, it might bathe the room in a scarlet glow.

"He's my soul mate. I could forget myself in him. I could..." She stopped, realizing she'd used the word forget. Her eyes looked flash-bulb hot. "Great, a Freudian slip."

Maybe so.

"I didn't mean anything by it."

"Psychiatrists note things like that, Misty. But we don't judge."

Misty worked her jaw back and forth, as though saying, Sure. "We're happy in bed. How's that?"

"That's fine."

Misty's foot continued jittering. She looked at the floor. When she looked up again, her eyes were bright with tears.

"What's he going to be like from now on? Is he going to forget me?"

Jo paused, working out how much she could say and with what certainty.

"I'm his wife. And I'm a school nurse. You can tell me anything."

"His memories before the injury should remain intact," Jo said.

"So there's no way he's going to forget his own name, where he grew up, what he does for a living, that kind of thing."

"No."

"How about our marriage?"

"He'll remember. His amnesia isn't the kind you see portrayed in most movies. Anterograde amnesia means he can't form new memories."

"So when he sees me, he'll know who I am. He'll come home and know this is our house."

"Yes."

Misty's knuckles, clutching her knee, were white. "And over time, he'll improve?"

"We don't know for certain, but it's unlikely."

Misty's eyes flashed like a strobe, white and cold. Just as quick, the look was gone. "You don't really know what happens to the brain, do you? You're a shrink. You deal with emotions, not medicine. Breakthroughs happen every week."

And she was a nurse? "Not with this, I'm afraid."

Misty looked at Jo as though taking her photo with a crime scene camera. "Let me tell you one thing for certain. This is a lock. Ian and I love each other. From the day I first set eyes on him I knew he was the man I wanted. I still know it, and I'm not going to let him slip away. I will fight to help him."

Her stare lost its chill and seemed to throb, as though she were daring Jo to contradict her. It was as if she'd let a crack open in her armor and had poured out words she had kept dammed inside for so long that they had nearly turned to rust.

Tang said, "Why would he bring back two daggers and a scimitar from the Middle East?"

Misty's eyes lit briefly, a dull flash, as if from the weird steel of the knife Jo had seen hanging from Kanan's hand. "He works for some strange and egocentric people. They probably want to hang that stuff on their walls like trophies."

Her cheeks were mottled with white patches. Jo took it as a sign of stress. It was the pale pepper of humiliation.

"These guys at Chira-Sayf, they're all about who swings the biggest d.i.c.k. But did they get those swords themselves? No, they had Ian do it." Her face was sour. "They're a bunch of empty jockstraps."

"We need to speak to his boss," Jo said. "Which empty jockstrap would that be?"

Misty stood up. "Riva Calder. I'll get you the phone number."

She walked to the kitchen island, tore off a piece of scratch paper, wrote down a number, and gave it to Jo.

Tang scooted forward on the sofa. "Who's Alec?"

Misty nearly did a double take, like they'd head-faked her. "Alec?"

Tang looked up. "Yes."

Misty hesitated. "Maybe it's Alec Shepard. He's the CEO of Chira-Sayf."

Tang wrote it down. "Does Ian have a beef with Shepard?"

"No. Of course not. What are you getting at?"

"When your husband attacked Dr. Beckett, she saw a list of names written on his arm, including 'Alec.'" Tang underlined a word in her notebook. "And 'They die.'"

Misty stood stone still. Her face paled to the color of potato paste. "Hold on. You think he wrote a hit list on his own arm? No way."

Tang clicked her pen. "Can you offer another explanation?"

Misty put up a hand, like a traffic cop. "Why are you attacking Ian like this? What are you trying to prove?"

"We're trying to find out what he's doing," Tang said.

"You have an agenda, and it isn't to help him." Her voice rose. "You think he's on a vendetta? That's paranoid. It's ridiculous."

Jo said, "If you know what else it could be, please tell us."

"I have no idea. Maybe Ian's worried about those people. Or desperate to contact them."

"But not to contact you?"

Jo might have slapped her. She winced. "Why are you attacking me? My G.o.d, Ian has a memory problem. Of course he wrote things down."

"'They die'?"

"Jesus, I don't believe this. He's in trouble. He's sick. The longer he's missing the more danger he's in. And you come here and tell me he's the problem?"

Tang clicked her pen. "Who has he gone out to kill?"

"He hasn't."

"Do you know that for certain?" Tang said.

Misty clenched her fists. "How dare you? You think you can get inside Ian's head deeper than I can?" She turned to Jo. "You think you can know him better than me? Why-because he pinned you against a wall for five seconds?"

Tang said, "Is Ian happy at work?"

"Very."

"Have you heard anything about thefts from the company?"

"Now you're insinuating that he's a thief?" Misty's gaze didn't heat so much as distill to a clean, frozen sheet of gla.s.s. "Ian is an honest man. He would never steal from anybody. Never. And I'm done talking to you."

Tang held on a moment, as though considering whether to press her weight. Then she closed her notebook and stood up. "We're trying to get at the truth, Mrs. Kanan. We'll talk again."

Jo followed Tang to the door. Misty held it open. She didn't say a word to the lieutenant, but as Jo pa.s.sed by, she put a hand on her arm.

"All I want is Ian." Her tears looked hot. "Find him."

At the curb, in the damp wind of sunset, Tang pulled out her cigarettes. "Playing good shrink, bad cop with you is a blast. That was illuminating."

"That was painful," Jo said.

"She knows more than she's telling. Even odds her husband is crooked, and she's covering for him." She lit a cigarette, inhaled, and squinted at Jo. "We need to find out what he stole, and from who. Add it to your to-do list."

* 10 *