The Murderer’s Memories is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Alibi Ebook Original
Copyright © 2019 by T. S. Nichols
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN 9780399178719
Cover design: Tatiana Sayig
Cover images: Shutterstock
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Dedication
By T. S. Nichols
About the Author
Chapter 1
TWELVE HOURS AFTER THE FIRST BOMBING
Cole remembered the bomb. He could feel it, wrapped all the way around this body. He was surprised, for a moment, by its weight . Then he remembered the pictures of the rubble, the carnage and the bodies and the blood. Anything that could do that much damage would need to be heavy. A lack of weight would be an insult to the lives it destroyed. Cole understood the heft of a life cut short better than just about anyone. He had the memories of more than a dozen murder victims in his head already. This was the first time, however, that he’d taken the memory of a murderer.
Cole pushed aside the memories of the aftermath, of the photos and the video footage that he’d been shown. Those were his memories and they weren’t going to help him. He needed to focus on the memories of the bomber. He had a job to do.
So he focused, trying to remember more than merely the bomb’s weight. He slipped back into the bomber’s memories and soon began to remember walking through the mall. It was early. The place had just opened but the crowds were beginning to file in. The mall itself was, for at least a little while longer, still in one piece, but that was what the weight was for.
Cole didn’t know anything about the other victims. All he knew were the numbers. Nineteen dead. Dozens injured. He had no idea who they were or what they looked like. He had no idea how many were men and how many women. He had no idea how many were children. He hadn’t wanted to know. He wanted to come at the memory as purely as possible. In Cole’s experience, that was always the best way to start.
Yet now, stepping into the memory, Cole wished he knew more. With every stranger’s face that passed him in that mall, Cole wanted to know: Will you be near me when the bomb goes off or will you be lucky enough to have wandered away? The image of that mall on that morning could have come from any one of the dozens of memories in Cole’s head. It was a normal morning. Cole could hear the conversations going on around him but couldn’t remember a single thing that was said. It was merely the sound of ordinary, meaningless, wonderful chatter. Cole tried to look at the people as they walked by. They were mostly women, maybe three out of every four. He saw only a few children, wandering the mall, holding their mothers’ hands. Cole tried to wish each child away from him. He saw a small girl, maybe five years old, her brown hair tied in pigtails. She was so young. It wasn’t her time. Cole knew that, but he also knew it didn’t matter. Death doesn’t abide by the timelines set by our bleeding hearts. Then a young black boy walked by him, almost skipping as he walked, an irrepressible smile across his face. Get away from me, Cole couldn’t help but think. Get away.
The bomber kept walking. Cole couldn’t be sure where they were going. They simply appeared to be moving farther into the mall. Cole watched the faces of the people they passed. He was hoping that their reaction might give something away, might help him to figure out who this bomber was. They barely glanced in the bomber’s direction. They were too busy heading toward stores to notice the person who was about to change the lives of the lucky ones forever, and end the lives of the unlucky ones.
The bomber walked by a jewelry store where the employees inside were arranging the display cases. They passed a clothing store where two women were standing over a display of sweaters. One reached down to feel the fabric, rubbing it between her fingers. A small Asian woman walked past them, with an even smaller woman who Cole guessed was her mother. They were talking in another language and giggling. With each moment, with each step, the mall seemed to grow more crowded. No one seemed to notice the bomber. All these people were walking next to death without even realizing it.
Cole remembered hearing a child laugh. The boy was behind the bomber, running and laughing, his feet slapping the floor. Without turning to look at the child, the bomber simply kept walking. Cole had never experienced a memory like this before. It was so vivid, so clear. He felt like he could remember every electric, terrifying detail. Every sound popped in his ears. Every color flashed in front of him. Every single detail was there, intact inside the bomber’s memory. Cole almost felt more like he was watching a movie than recalling a memory, though it wasn’t merely the sights and the sounds. He remembered the feel of every step and, of course, he remembered the weight of the bomb, pulling downward toward the earth.
Something was missing, though. Cole felt it without initially understanding what it was. Amidst the sounds of people opening stores and beginning to shop, amidst the sounds of laughter and footsteps, amidst all of the sights and the sounds around him, Cole finally understood. The bomber was missing. Of course, the bomber was there with every footstep and every breath, but Cole couldn’t remember any emotion, any feeling at all. Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe. Watching the people crowding into the mall, the bomber must have known that some of them would be torn to shreds by the very bomb strapped around the bomber’s body. Cole couldn’t identify what the bomber felt in that moment. Fear? Excitement? Joy? Hate? He hadn’t known what to expect from the memories of a murderer, but he’d thought there would be some emotion. It simply wasn’t there. Step. Step. Breathe. A child’s laughter. A woman’s voice. An older couple walking together, holding hands, whispering to each other. A young woman opening up a kiosk in the center of the mall. Every small detail was vibrant and alive, but he remembered those details without feeling. It was as if the bomber didn’t exist, as if the bomber was nothing except for the bomb. To Cole, these didn’t feel like the memories of a person. They were the memories of a machine.
Cole wondered how he was supposed to learn anything about the bomber, when the bomber was barely present in the memory.
Then the memory began to slow down. Cole had been waiting for that. It meant that he was getting closer to the end. Almost all his memories of dying ended this way, stretching out the final moments. Cole didn’t try to speed
up or slow down the memory, but let it come at its own pace. It was as if the memories themselves didn’t want to end, like they wanted to soak up every moment before all the moments were gone. The voices around him became muffled, like a recording that was slowed down so that you could try to hear the details in the silence between the sounds. Cole knew they were getting close to the middle of the mall, where the bomb went off. He’d been shown maps and pictures. Cole began to feel dizzy but he couldn’t tell, at first, if it was him or if he was remembering the bomber’s dizziness. The bomber stumbled—a quick, tiny stutter—then recovered and kept walking as if it hadn’t happened. In that moment, though, in that small stuttering step, Cole could remember feeling as if the bomb wasn’t there anymore. In that moment, the bomber had forgotten about the bomb. After the bomber stumbled and recovered, the bomb felt twice as heavy as it had felt before.
Cole remembered the laughter of another child. It occurred to him cruelly how much of the world’s laughter was the laughter of children. The bomber didn’t look toward the laughter. The dizziness persisted. Cole could remember sweat beginning to bead up on the bomber’s forehead. But he still couldn’t remember any emotion, just dizziness and sweat. There was a metal bench in front of them. Cole had seen that bench before. He’d seen its twisted remains in the pictures of the bombing’s aftermath. They were there. This was the place. It would soon end in an awful ball of fire consuming the bomber and everyone around. Eighteen of them would die, nineteen when you counted the bomber, multiples of that injured. Cole knew the numbers, though he wished he didn’t. Still unsteady, the bomber turned to sit down on the bench. The bomber was facing the mall now, facing these people who didn’t have any idea what was about to happen.
The bomber looked up at the clock hung high above the atrium. The bomber took a deep breath and, for the first time, Cole remembered the bomber’s thoughts. A few minutes and it will all be over for me. Then something else came to him in a rush, triggered by the glance at the clock. He wouldn’t quite call it a memory, more like an abstract piece of a memory, but it was overwhelming. A date and a time flashed through his brain: less than a week away. Cole tried to get back into the bomber’s memory, to see it through to the end, to try to learn more, but he couldn’t. He was blocked now. All he could remember was the date and the time. Then he understood.
Eyes open and gasping, Cole shot up in his hospital bed. The room was bright. His bed was surrounded by people. Some he recognized. Some he didn’t. For a moment, the room was completely silent. “There’s going to be another bombing,” Cole said between gasps. “In less than six days, there’s going to be another bombing.”
Then the questions began.
Chapter 2
FIFTEEN HOURS AFTER THE FIRST BOMBING
The questions came too quickly. Still in a daze, Cole couldn’t make any sense of them. He looked around him. The room was in a frenzied panic. Who were these people? He searched for a face he recognized. Then he found it: the police commissioner. The man who had pulled him into this in the first place, who had convinced him to implant not one but two memories into his brain even though, after six years and twice as many memory transplants, Cole had decided to give up transplants forever. Cole had thought he’d never have to lie in a hospital bed again, disoriented after having memories transferred into his brain through tubes at the base of his skull. Now here he was, with not one but two suspects’ memories in his head and it was up to him to figure out which was the bomber. They’d found two bodies close enough to where the bomb went off that either could have been the bomber. Their bodies were destroyed but their brains virtually unharmed, allowing both memories to be transferred so Cole could sort out the mess. They didn’t know how much worse the mess could get. Now, he didn’t have to worry only about two suspects, but two bombings.
The police commissioner had been working with Cole since the beginning, since the first time he had a murder victim’s memories surgically transferred into his brain so that he could use those memories to solve the victim’s murder. The police commissioner was with him for every case Cole had worked since then, for every new John Doe or Jane Doe who had no one to claim their memories but Cole, the Memory Detective. Now he was here once more, for the first time Cole had ever inherited the memories of a murderer. Cole tried to ignore everyone else. He didn’t say another word. He didn’t move. After witnessing his silence for a few moments, the questioners slowed down and then they stopped. Cole could see fear and hope in the commissioner’s eyes. Once the room became quiet, the commissioner asked Cole, “What did you learn?”
Cole looked around in a daze. “There’s going to be another bombing in six days, on Sunday afternoon at one o’clock,” he said.
“How do you know?” the police commissioner asked.
Cole shook his head. “I just know. It came to me.”
“What do you mean, you just know?” someone else in the room asked.
Cole looked around. “That’s what I mean. I just know. That’s how this works. Sometimes I remember things. I don’t know why I remember them. I just do. There’s going to be another bombing. We only have five days to stop it.”
“How can you be sure?” a different voice asked.
Cole thought about the kids running through the mall, laughing. “In less than six days, another bomb is going to explode and more people are going to die. We don’t have time for me to explain to you how I’m sure.” Cole didn’t try to hide the anger rising in his voice.
“Where?” someone shouted out. “Who?” came another voice. Cole could barely differentiate the multiple questions as people shouted them out at once.
Cole shook his head. “That’s all I know.” He could see the look of immense sadness and disappointment in the commissioner’s eyes.
“Are you saying that you didn’t remember anything else?” the commissioner asked.
“No,” Cole said. “I remembered.” He could hear the sighs of relief echo through the room. “I remembered walking through the mall, almost all the way up until the bombing itself. Then the date and time of the next bombing came to me. The bomber knew about it. The bomber knew that this was only the beginning.” Cole shook his head again. “Then the memory stopped and I couldn’t get back in.”
“Do you at least know which one was the bomber and why they did it?” someone asked.
Cole shook his head again. “Not yet.” No one had had two memories implanted into their brain at the same time before. No one knew how, or if, it would work. That wasn’t the problem, though. “The memory was too impersonal, more like the memory of a robot than a person. I’ve never had anything like that happen before. Then the information about the second bombing pulled me out of the memory and I couldn’t get back into it. The new information was too strong, too important. It distracted me,” Cole admitted.
“Can’t you just remember the other details now? The memories are in your head, right?”
“That’s not how transplanted memories work.” Cole gave a cold stare to the man who had asked him the question. “It’s not a fucking file cabinet. I can’t just pull information out. The transplanted memories need to be triggered. I can try again soon but I need to know more. I need more information to go on, more information about the potential bombers.”
“We’ll get you whatever you need,” the commissioner said.
Cole looked around again. “Who are these people?” he asked the commissioner.
The commissioner glanced around the room. “FBI,” the commissioner said. “CIA. A few others. I don’t even know them all. There’s every federal agency here, the whole goddamn alphabet. And I’m glad they’re here. Until we know what we’re dealing with, we don’t know who we need. If you’re right about a second bombing, we can use all the help we can get.”
“Okay, but there’s too many of them,” Cole said, his mind still muddled. He couldn’t shake the memory of the children’s laughter. He knew that it would take some time before he could push it back down into hi
s brain. “Give me a few moments alone. Let me get dressed. Then let’s get started.”
“You heard him,” the police commissioner shouted. “Everybody out. We’ve got new information. I think that means you all should have plenty of work to do.”
Alone, Cole sat in his bed for a moment without moving. Even though the room had emptied out, the questions continued to run through his brain. Who was the bomber? Why did they do it? Who were they working with? Where will the next bomb go off? All Cole knew was the when. He wasn’t eager to drop back into the bomber’s memory. He didn’t want to remember all those people dying. Still, he knew that he had to push forward. He had to try to figure it out. Somewhere inside his head were the clues necessary to stop the next bombing from happening. He had less than six days to find them.
Cole swung his legs over the side of the bed, moving slowly. He knew that more memories could come to him at any time now, and he wanted to be ready for them. He didn’t want to miss anything. And this time, there were two new sets of memories swimming inside his head. He had no idea how they would come. Would they take turns? Would they merge together? Cole stepped off the bed and felt the cold floor beneath his feet. A flash went through his mind but it was too quick to decipher, only a blur of memory that he had to hope would slow down for him later. He sat back down on the bed, waited a moment, and then stood up again, hoping to trigger the memory once more. Nothing happened. Cole walked over to the closet where his clothes were hanging. He pushed the closet door all the way open. A mirror hung on the back. Cole stared at himself for a moment and his heart raced. He was still him, but those memories didn’t know that. They swirled in his head but nothing more came out, not yet. Cole could feel their weight, though. They would come. He merely had to make sure that the right ones came soon. Cole reached into the closet, took out his clothes, and slowly began to put them on.
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