The Memory Collector Part 26

"What happened?" she said.

Every now and then, Jo would experience a moment when she managed to stand outside herself and see a situation from an un.o.bstructed vantage point.

This was one of those moments. She saw herself, shocked and concerned and inherently nosy. She saw Gabe, hot and d.a.m.ned annoyed. The look in his eyes said, Not now, for G.o.d's sake.

She blinked. "Sorry."

She grabbed him by the waistband of his jeans and hauled him back down on top of her. He looked at her, half... what? Angry? For being interrupted? For being distracted? For being reminded?

Pain had risen in his eyes, a heat like a burning cigarette, red and concentrated. He wasn't kissing her. He was lying on top of her, breathing hard.

Waiting, perhaps, to see if she would keep picking at the wound. She shook her head. She put her fingers to her own lips, indicating that she was going to keep her mouth shut. Then she touched his lips in return, smoothed her thumb across his mouth, and said, "Come here."

He held back for half a beat.

It was long enough for the phone to ring.

Jo didn't break from his gaze, didn't look at the phone, didn't reach to answer it. It rang.

"They'll call back," she said.

As though a warm breeze had crossed the room, his gaze cleared. He lowered himself against her again and kissed her. The phone kept ringing. She took the condom package from him and ripped the foil wide open.

The phone clicked to voice mail. Clear and loud from downstairs in the hallway, Amy Tang's voice cut through the sound of their breathing.

"Beckett, you're there. I know you are, so pick up."

Jo ignored her.

"You called me fifteen minutes ago. I'm calling back at your request." Loudly: "Beckett."

Gabe glanced out the bedroom door, as though Tang was in the house, about to come upon them in flagrante delicto. Jo turned his head back.

"She'll still be stewing in-"

"Three minutes?" he said.

She broke into a ridiculous smile. "Race you to the finish?"

Finally he smiled back. "Go."

They grabbed at the remaining articles of each other's clothing, trying to pull them off.

"Beckett," Tang said. "Pick up. A flight made an emergency landing at SFO today. One of the flight attendants opened a door at ten thousand feet."

Jo and Gabe stopped simultaneously, hands on hooks and b.u.t.tons. They looked in the direction of the answering machine.

"It was the young woman you spoke to when you boarded Ian Kanan's flight-Stef Nivesen. She was sucked straight out the door," Tang said. "Beckett, people who were on Kanan's flight are going crazy."

Jo was already running to pick up the call.

The sporting goods store had a CLOSED sign on the door. From the Navigator Kanan could see Nico Diaz inside, shutting down for the night. Kanan drove up the street, found a parking spot in the next block, and walked back.

When he knocked on the door, Diaz looked up agreeably. He saw Kanan and stilled.

Nikita Diaz was a second-generation Venezuelan immigrant with a love for baseball, women, and the USA. He stood five foot seven and wore dreadlocks in a ponytail long enough to serve as a kite tail. Tie a string around him, Kanan thought, wait for a stiff wind, and watch him set sail for the sky. And every inch of the man was sinew and muscle. He was fast-twitch, dead quiet, perfect aim. His eyes locked on Kanan for two full seconds. He shut the cash register, pocketed the key, and strolled to the door.

When he opened it, his face was impa.s.sive but his gaze was bright. His gaze, Kanan thought, was eager.

"Sarge," he said. "What brings you here?"

"I need your help," Kanan said.

The eagerness distilled. Diaz pulled the door open. "Let's talk in the back."

"Two fatalities," Tang said. "It could have been much worse. There were two hundred forty-seven people aboard."

Jo stood in the front hall, phone to her ear, trying to zip her jeans with one hand. She had one arm in the sleeve of a blouse. A bra strap was hanging off her shoulder. Gabe jogged barefoot down the stairs. His belt clinked as he buckled it. Beyond him in the living room, the television was still on. The screen flashed bright. BREAKING NEWS.

On-screen Jo saw a 747 sitting on the runway at San Francisco airport, surrounded by fire trucks. The front and back cabin doors were open. So was a door along the middle of the fuselage. Emergency slides were deployed like huge yellow tongues. Gabe got the remote and turned up the sound.

Jo pulled up her bra strap. "No chance it was an accident?"

"No. Another flight attendant watched Nivesen stand and open one of the main doors, almost two miles up. Then, whoosh-straight out into the sky without a parachute."

The thought made Jo queasy. She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Have the police talked to the pa.s.sengers and crew?"

"SFPD Airport Division is interviewing people. NTSB has a go team on the way."

"Did Nivesen say anything before she opened the door?"

"Haven't heard."

"What do you know about her? Drug or alcohol problems? History of psychiatric disorder?"

"You're doing a psychological autopsy on her in your own head. We don't know squat-except she did it deliberately."

A thin drip of worry, like a chilled trickle of water, scored its way down Jo's back. "After the pool electrocution, now-"

"First, French fried game designers. Now stewardesses turning themselves into sky-high confetti."

"You need to contact everybody who was aboard Kanan's flight from London."

"Working on it. See you in ten."

Hanging up, Jo stood quietly in the hallway, her bare feet cold on the hardwood floor.

"You going to the airport?" Gabe said.

"Tang's swinging by to get me." She put a hand on his chest. "Rain check?"

"I'm picking you up for dinner at eight. And tonight's weather forecast is for clear skies." Though his tone was light, his gaze turned solemn. "You copacetic about going to SFO to deal with an air accident scenario?"

"Rock solid."

"That's the att.i.tude."

His concern touched her. His belief in her strength touched her more. But what remained unspoken, uncertain, and buried worried her most of all.

* 22 *

In the fading March light, Jo and Tang slipped quietly into the back of the room in a remote operations area at the San Francisco airport. Airline officials and police officers stood toward the back. The NTSB go team, three investigators in polo shirts and khakis, sat at a table talking to flight attendant Charlotte Thorne.

Thorne's hair had been whipped into a mess. Her uniform jacket was torn, and she had a bruise across one cheek.

She looked haunted. "Stef seemed disorientated. Yes."

"How so? Can you describe it?" asked one of the NTSB investigators.

"Twice she stood up to begin the beverage service. Once while we were still taxiing into takeoff position, the second time when we'd only been airborne for ten seconds. Both times she seemed baffled when I asked her to sit down."

Jo looked across the tarmac toward the bay. The 747 had been towed to a hangar on the far side of the runway and sat empty in the sunset. The jet, so sleek and powerful, looked strangely chilling.

Tang leaned toward her and whispered, "It's not going to come after you."

Jo gave her a look.

Tang thought she was phobic about flying. She wasn't. She simply hated it. She wouldn't even keep a copy of Top Gun in the house.

Copacetic, Beckett. Gabe understood the source of her hatred. He had been the P.J. on the scene the day of the air accident that killed Daniel.

Thorne dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "Then Stef said she was hot and needed air. She tore off her restraints and rushed to the far side of the airplane. It was like she couldn't breathe. Like she felt trapped." Thorne had a hitch in her voice. "When the door opened she was gone just like that. The pa.s.senger from twelve-B, Mr. Pankhurst, he went straight after her."

Jo and Tang listened to the NTSB investigators question Thorne for several minutes. Jo knew they might continue for hours. She raised her hand, identified herself, and said, "Two questions."

"Dr. Beckett, yes, I remember you," Thorne said.

"You said Ms. Nivesen seemed disoriented. Do you mean she seemed confused-as in, she couldn't string her thoughts together? Or did she seem coherent, but forgetful?"

Thorne exhaled. "Forgetful. She couldn't seem to remember where we were. Even before the flight, she was late-I rang her repeatedly, and each time she sounded surprised to hear from me. Insisted I hadn't spoken to her."

"Second question." Jo glanced out the window at the 747. "On the flight from London yesterday, did Ms. Nivesen have physical contact with Ian Kanan?"

The cops, the airline people, and the NTSB investigators turned toward her.

Thorne's voice was rocky. "Yes. Stef helped hold him down, and afterward she had scratches and blood on her hands."

"Thank you," Jo said.

She led Tang out of the room and strode along the hall. "Contact public health. Everybody who had physical contact with Kanan aboard the flight yesterday needs to be examined ASAP."

"You had contact with him."

"No broken skin, no contact with bodily fluids."

She glanced at Tang and saw concern in her eyes. She inhaled and felt it turn into a gulp.

"I know. We have f.u.c.k-all information about what's contaminating people and how it's transmitted," she said.

"We'll pull Alec Shepard and the entire workforce at Chira-Sayf in for questioning. Raid the business if we have to."

Pa.s.sing a window, Jo glanced again at the 747, gleaming red with the light of sunset. "Do that. But I think the horse has already bolted from the barn. Something has escaped from Chira-Sayf's lab, and it's on the verge of getting out of control."

Nico Diaz leaned against a shelf in the back room at the sporting goods store, arms crossed, his expression poised between anger and disbelief.

"You're moving fine, talking sense. You sure about this memory thing?" Diaz said.

"Ask me in five minutes if I remember this conversation."

"How long till it improves?"

"I'm not counting on it."

The orange light of sunset filtered through the frosted gla.s.s window at the back of the stockroom. Diaz stewed. Kanan had seen that look on the man's face before, when a mission had taken a random turn into ambush or death.

Diaz was a man of few words and long silences. He was also a man of minimal bravado. He didn't swagger or clothe himself with machismo. He didn't care about visible projections of power. He moved without wasted motion, without wasted emotion, with no display. He looked like a mellow dude with dreads, and people sometimes mistook him for sleepy, or even lazy. But Kanan knew that inside, Diaz wasn't so cool, that under the correct circ.u.mstances a seam of temper could ignite. People who underestimated Nico Diaz often made a fatal mistake.

Kanan set his phone and wallet and a cl.u.s.ter of Post-it notes on the desk. Diaz sauntered over.

"What's all this?"

"My memories. My collection," Kanan said. "Go through them. Put them in chronological order. Help me organize a plan."

Diaz leafed through them. Kanan took off his jean jacket and flannel shirt and pulled his T-shirt over his head.