The Memory Collector

by Meg Gardiner

  “Let it go,” he said.

  She leaned her head back against his cheek. He took the remote from her and set it on the coffee table. She held on a second longer, and then, centimeter by centimeter, eased her shoulders down. Eased herself against him, tried to soften.

  “I’m not usually like this,” she said.

  “Define usually,” he said. “And this.”

  “Are you saying I’m mercurial?”

  “I mean I’m still figuring you out.”

  “Ditto, dude.”

  “Me?” There was real surprise in his voice. “I’m a simple guy who likes kids and jumping out of airplanes. And a certain forensic psychiatrist.”

  “Don’t give me simple. Two dozen jump missions for the air national guard? ‘Moral Theology, a Contemporary Catholic Approach’? And God knows what those Jesuits at USF have put in your head about women.”

  “You want to disabuse me of my misconceptions?”

  Despite herself, she felt a smile forming. “It might be necessary.”

  Her shoulders dropped another inch. Outside, the sun was gold and sharp, etching cool shadows across her garden beneath the blue sky.

  She turned around and laced her fingers with his. “What you did this afternoon was incredible.”

  The light in the living room was low. His eyes were dark. And hot, like a slow-burning fire. She didn’t know how to read his look.

  He turned her hand and examined the abrasion on her palm. “Let’s get that cleaned up. Where do you keep your first aid kit?”

  A red line of heat rolled down her chest. “Upstairs.”

  Holding loosely to his hand, she led him up the stairs.

  They had been taking things slow. She believed he was giving her time to adjust to the idea of a new relationship, her first since she’d buried Daniel. But Gabe was a P.J. He might look like a cool drink of water, but pararescuemen—like rock climbers—were adrenaline junkies. They hated running in first gear. If he was throttling down, it was because he was keeping his natural instincts in check for her sake.

  But she didn’t know for certain. He was enigmatic. She wondered what really went on in his heart. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was eating at him. She wondered what he was holding back, and why.

  His hand was cool against her palm. At the top of the stairs she turned into her bedroom, led him to the bathroom, and got the first aid kit from the cabinet.

  “I could do this myself, you know,” she said.

  He took the kit from her. “But you know what they say.”

  “Yes. Hello, doctor. Meet your patient, the fool.”

  They stood side by side at the sink. He cleaned the abrasions and carefully bandaged her hand. His work was thorough and economical.

  He set down the medical tape. “That’ll hold for a few days.”

  She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.”

  His hands slid around her waist. He leaned down and kissed her.

  And kissed her again. He drew her close and held her, with an assurance and ease that seemed more than hope, that seemed like being home. She held there a second, eyes on his. Taking his hand, she led him to the bedroom.

  Outside, sunlight skidded across rooftops. She put a hand to his chest. His heartbeat came back at her, strong and regular and fast.

  This was new, and not. Her first time, and not. Familiar, and strange. A man she wanted, but not the man she had moved into this house with, into this bedroom with.

  Just breathe.

  She slipped her fingers under his unbuttoned work shirt and began easing it off his shoulders, slowly. He let go of her and did it faster. Then he pulled her sweater over her head. She walked into his arms and ran her fingers into his hair, kissed him, hard, wrapped her arms around his neck, felt his hands untucking her T-shirt from her jeans.

  Lips still close to his, breathless, she said, “Shoes. Hold on.”

  She tried to get the left one off by stepping on the heel with her right foot but lost her balance. Gabe pulled the T-shirt up to her shoulders. She turned in a circle and bent and fumbled with her shoelace. Her arm was stuck in her sleeve. Gabe hoisted her off her feet and swung her toward the bed. She wrapped her legs around his waist and they toppled as one onto the thick red comforter.

  He rolled on top of her and kissed her mouth, her cheek, her neck, the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse throbbed. She grabbed for his T-shirt but he was pressed against her. She felt the planes of his back and shoulders, lean and strong and smooth. His hands were warm. Her skin felt hotter.

  She felt like a gong that had been rung. She held on to him, holding back some part of herself. She was afraid if she let everything go, she would uncoil like a whip and begin to scream, or sing, or bite.

  This was what happened when it had been too long. Tears stung her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut so he couldn’t see. She didn’t want to think, or remember, or see. She wanted to feel.

  She told herself: Shut up, brain.

  She worked her hands to his waist and fought with the top button on his jeans. He got to his knees and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He wrestled her T-shirt up off her and pounced on her again. Skin against skin, they grappled on the bed. Every inch of her felt electric, so charged that she thought she might short-circuit.

  He was ripped, he was intense, very intense, really focused. The only sounds in the room were their breathing and her own heart, thundering in her ears.

  They fumbled for buttons. On his jeans, her jeans. Their fingers were fast and awkward and if this had been a rock ledge high above a valley floor, or a triage case where dexterity was necessary, they’d have been in big trouble.

  Big trouble . . . “Gabe, do you have . . .”

  He pulled his wallet from his back pocket. He dug through it and a twenty and a supermarket receipt fell out, and then he pulled out a foil packet. Jo was yanking her socks off as though they were on fire. She looked up, waiting for him to tear the foil. And she saw his scars.

  They rode the curve of his right hip, white and smooth. Old scars, half a dozen at least. They were the marks of violence. Something sharp, or explosive, had ripped through him.

  She reached to touch them and stopped. Gabe tore open the condom foil with his teeth. She looked up at him. Eagerly, he looked back.

  He wasn’t smiling, but he was happy, in a crazed way, and then in a fraction of a second he readjusted. He saw something on her face. Her surprise. Her brakes-on, What-the-hell-is-that? look.

  Her fingers hovered near his hip. Her eyes asked the question.

  “Old news,” he said.

  “Gabe?”

  “I mended.”

  These scars hadn’t come from tripping over a trash can. They weren’t surgical or superficial. They had gone messy and deep. They had gone with a trainload of pain.

  “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 unobstructed vantage point.

  This was one of those moments. She saw herself, shocked and concerned and inherently nosy. She saw Gabe, hot and damned annoyed. The look in his eyes said, Not now, for God’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 buttons. 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 impassive 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 passengers 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 attitude.”

  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 passenger 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 fuck-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.”

  Passing 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 glass 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 circumstances a seam of temper could ignite. People who underestimated Nico Diaz often made a fatal mistake.