The Memory Collector

by Meg Gardiner

  Murdock opened his door. Anxiously Jo climbed over him and hopped out into the cold night air. The engine was rumbling. Exhaust poured from the pipe and swirled around her feet.

  Murdock stared at her through the door. “If you try to run, one of two things will happen. You’ll be shot, or Vance will put the car in gear and we’ll drag you to death.”

  Slowly, hands up, Jo walked toward the front of the vehicle. Murdock played out the rope like a fishing line. She was the lure.

  Pinned to the ground beneath Gabe’s foot, the man called Diaz spoke through gritted teeth. “You called the cops?”

  “Kanan’s here?” Gabe said. “How the hell—”

  “Text message. It listed the time and place for the rendezvous.”

  A chill came over Gabe as fast as if he’d jumped into a freezing ocean. He said, “‘Exchange: Kanan’s wife and son for Slick. Stanford quad. Top of oval 9 pm.’”

  “Yes.”

  “Goddamn it. God—” He stepped off the man’s back. “Who’d you get the message from?”

  Diaz sat up, hand to his throat. “The sarge found it on . . . fuck, man, who did you send the message to?”

  Gabe pulled out his phone. He had three messages from the SFPD. He called the station. “It’s Quintana.”

  He looked past the trees. The Tahoe had stopped at the top of the Oval.

  “Mr. Quintana, yes—we’ve been trying to reach you. Lieutenant Tang isn’t responding and we have no report of a hostage situation at Stanford.”

  The chill washed over him like a wave. He glanced at Diaz. “The cops never got the message. Goddamn it.”

  He hung up and dialed 911.

  Diaz got to his feet. He pointed at the top of the Oval. “Look.”

  In front of the Tahoe they saw Jo standing in the glare of the headlights, hands up.

  “We have to do something. Fast. Come on,” Gabe said. “Where’s Kanan?”

  “In my truck, parked back in the brush on the far side of the Oval.”

  “Can you call him?”

  “No, his phone is set to activate at ten P.M. What are you planning to do?”

  “Improvise. We have to get the cops. And we can’t let that Tahoe drive away before they show up.”

  They took off through the shadows, circling toward the Tahoe. The emergency operator came on the line.

  “What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “I’m at the top of the Oval at Stanford and I hear a woman screaming for help. Somebody’s being attacked,” Gabe said. “Hurry.”

  He ran with Diaz through the trees.

  Jo stood in front of the rumbling Tahoe, hands in the air, rope leading from her waist to the open back door of the vehicle. In the blaring headlights, her shadow stretched across the ground before her like a black scarecrow. The vast campus, the inviting warm stone of the quad, the gleaming promise of the church, the landscaped flower beds in the center of the Oval all dimmed. Her world seemed circumscribed by the glare of the headlights.

  “Ian,” she called.

  She heard no response. Of course she didn’t.

  She took a breath. “Ian Kanan.”

  Ahead in the distance, from the night, a man appeared. He gradually separated from the heavy darkness of the live oaks and walked toward her. She held still, fighting to see beyond the lights.

  From the Tahoe, Calder said, “Is it him? Ian?”

  “What does he look like?” Vance said.

  The man emerged from the shadows and walked toward her. His pace was measured. He spread his arms at his sides, showing he wasn’t carrying a weapon. He grew clearer. He walked with the self-possession of a big cat.

  It was Gabe.

  Her heart ramped up. What was he doing? Where were the cops?

  Oh, shit. There were no cops.

  Gabe walked to the edge of the headlights, thirty yards from her, and stopped. Her teeth were chattering. She felt a swell of fear for him. She bit down to keep from breaking into tears.

  It was Sophie’s dad, coming unarmed to rescue her. If she hadn’t loved him before, in that moment she did.

  “It’s time. Let’s do it,” he said.

  Jo heard a window going down in the Tahoe. Calder hissed at her. “Ask him where Ian is.”

  “Where’s Ian?’ Jo said.

  “He’ll exchange the stuff when he sees Seth and Misty,” Gabe said.

  His eyes shone in the headlights. He held her gaze. He had to have a plan. Had to be trying to tell her something.

  “Seth and Misty aren’t here,” Jo said.

  “Tell him why,” Calder said.

  “Riva Calder’s in the Tahoe. She wants to see Kanan, and the sample of Slick, before she brings his family to an exchange.”

  “If Ian doesn’t show himself and prove he has the stuff, the deal is off,” Calder said.

  “Did you hear that?” Jo said.

  “I heard.” Gabe shielded his eyes from the headlights and called out to the people in the Tahoe. “Let’s swap. Me for Dr. Beckett. I’ll take you to Kanan.”

  “What the hell is this?” Calder said.

  Vance shouted, “He’s lying.”

  “Let Jo go,” Gabe said. “Take me instead.”

  In the distance, floating like a treble note on the air, Jo heard sirens. Vance shouted, “Hear that?”

  Murdock said, “It’s a trap.”

  Gabe didn’t move. “This is your last chance. If you drive off now, you’ll never get what you’re after. Let Jo go and I’ll take you to Kanan.”

  Vance shouted, “He’s a liar. Let’s go.”

  The sirens grew louder. Jo held on to Gabe’s shining gaze. Vance yelled, “Come on,” and hit the high beams.

  Behind Gabe, she saw a man walking out of the trees. He moved like a gunslinger, swift and sure. The headlights caught the gun barrel that glinted in his hand. The headlights caught his eyes. They shone like blue ice.

  33

  Ian Kanan advanced toward Gabe from behind, raising the gun in his hand. And the night turned to havoc.

  Jo threw her hands out. “No. Gabe, look out.”

  Gabe spun. Kanan shouted, “Where are they?”

  Through the trees, past the bottom of the Oval on Palm Drive, the flashing lights of a police car spun toward them. Vance jammed the Tahoe into drive.

  “The cops,” he yelled. “The cops—”

  Kanan swung the barrel of the gun toward Jo.

  From the dark by the Tahoe, a man said, “Boss, no.”

  The siren and flashing lights swelled. Calder began shouting. Vance let loose with a stream of incomprehensible drivel, spun the wheel, and jammed his foot on the pedal.

  “Fuck, no,” Jo said.

  She leaped out of the headlights, grabbed the rope around her waist, and threw herself toward the Tahoe. Vance swerved right and bounced onto the curb. Calder shouted at him to stop. He braked, looked toward the cops and back at the man with the gun charging at him through the high beams. And at the dark eyes of the man with dreadlocks who appeared from nowhere outside the driver’s window. He jammed the pedal down again.

  And ran into a mailbox.

  “Drive, no—stop, Christ, what are you doing?” Calder yelled.

  The back passenger door was still open, swinging like a fan. Vance put the Tahoe in reverse. He spun the wheels backing up, and the door flew wide.

  Jo held on to the rope. She had to get loose or get back in the vehicle.

  Gabe came running. In his right hand he held a huge, sharp Buck knife. He launched himself at Jo, left hand out to grab the rope.

  Vance put the Tahoe in drive. Calder yelled, “What the hell are you doing? That’s Ian!”

  Gabe grabbed the rope and swung the knife at it. The vehicle bounced off the curb and accelerated, yanking the rope from Gabe’s hand before he could cut it. Jo grabbed the swinging door and held on to it, running alongside the Tahoe. Gabe ran behind her. The Tahoe accelerated. It swerved to the opposite side of the road and side
swiped a parked car.

  Through the door Jo saw Murdock. His face was suffused with anger.

  “Stop the car,” he said.

  “Like hell,” Vance wailed.

  The police car reached the Oval and began driving toward them.

  “Stop,” Murdock said. “Let her go.”

  But Vance kept his foot down. Murdock seemed to be the only one who realized that if they didn’t cut Jo loose, they’d have to stop in a minute to detach her broken body from under the wheels. She held on to the door, feet windmilling and beginning to drag. She couldn’t keep up. Vance bounced across the road and over the opposite curb into the grass in the center of the Oval. Jo clung to the swinging door and jumped, getting her feet back in the vehicle. Five feet away, Gabe sprinted alongside the Tahoe.

  “They’re everywhere,” Vance shouted.

  Jo knew that if she fell, she’d die under the wheels or be dragged to death. If Gabe held on to her and fell, they might both die.

  He got his fingers on the door. But he couldn’t possibly keep up with the acceleration of the SUV. And at this speed, he couldn’t cut her loose.

  Hanging on to the door, swinging wildly, Jo looked at him. “Get away. Get help. Alec—Stow Lake, he’s in the water by the bridge.”

  The Tahoe swerved and roared off the grass, bounced onto the road again.

  Gabe hung on to the frame with one hand. “Jo . . .”

  “Gabe,” she said.

  The Tahoe roared forward with a huge surge of power. Gabe’s hand was ripped loose from the door frame. She watched him recede from her view.

  He kept running, eyes on her. He pointed. To her, to himself. Gonna get you.

  Then he veered in another direction, sprinting flat-out for the trees.

  Jo pulled herself into the chaotic interior of the vehicle. Vance was hunched over the wheel, racing like a frightened weasel for the exit from campus. Calder was hanging out the passenger window, looking back for Kanan.

  “Did you see him?” Vance said. “This black dude popped up right outside my window with a fucking gun, the piece was bigger than my head, and—shit, did you see him, he was like the Predator or something, all dreadlocks and crazy eyes and fuck that gun was big. Did you see him?”

  Murdock sat fuming in the back seat, breathing hard, looking like he knew he was screwed.

  Jo pulled the door closed. Murdock glared at her.

  Do not cry, she thought. Do not cover your mouth or indicate that you have a single weakness.

  She breathed. “Now do you goddamn believe me?”

  Vance roared down Palm Drive. A cop car raced past them in the opposite direction. Ahead, more flashing lights spun off the treetops. A stop sign flashed past, and horns smeared in her ears. Vance swerved around the corner onto Campus Drive and headed toward the football stadium, seeking an exit from the campus. Jo held tight to the door handle.

  “Without me, you’ll never get away with this. It’s me plus Misty and Seth—alive and safe—or you don’t get Slick,” she said. “I’m your ticket.”

  Gabe ran toward the cross road where he’d parked the 4Runner. The blue Tahoe receded down Palm Drive. All the air in his lungs seemed to go with it. A police car blew past him heading the other way, toward the top of the Oval, lights and siren bawling. He looked back.

  So that was Ian Kanan.

  Gabe held on to the Buck knife. He saw Diaz running across the Oval. Off to the right, a pickup truck flipped on its headlights.

  “Boss,” Diaz yelled. “Wait.”

  The pickup spun its tires and gunned down an access road through the trees after the fleeing Tahoe. Diaz watched it streak away.

  He threw his hands in the air. Then he hollered at Gabe, pointing at the pickup. “Quintana, that’s Kanan, in my truck. We have to catch him.”

  The pickup roared down Palm Drive, taillights scoping to red pin-pricks. Diaz angled across the grass, caught up with Gabe, and ran alongside him, breathing hard.

  “Kanan doesn’t know he left you here, does he?” Gabe said.

  “No. He can’t hold anything in his head for more than about five minutes. He only knows he has to get his family back.”

  Diaz’s pickup turned right onto Campus Drive and disappeared from view.

  “Can you call him?” Gabe said.

  “Not yet, and even if I could, he wouldn’t listen to me. He won’t break off chasing the Tahoe. He doesn’t want to lose sight of the kidnappers.”

  “That’s smart.”

  “That’s his only chance. If he gets distracted, even for a split second, facts just fade out of his head. It’s like the great beyond collects all his thoughts and burns them.”

  They cut through a copse of live oaks. Gabe took out his keys and flicked the alarm remote. Ahead, the parking lights of the 4Runner flashed.

  “I thought I had the hostage-takers,” Diaz said. “But the driver of the Tahoe saw me in the wing mirror and hit the gas.”

  “When does Kanan’s phone activate?” Gabe said.

  “Ten P.M., but we can’t wait till then. If he loses sight of the Tahoe for too long, he’ll forget he ever saw it. He’ll keep driving and we’ll never find him again.”

  “He found you once.”

  “That’s not the point now.”

  “What is? What’s the rush?” Gabe said.

  “He’s got a container that’s volatile. The nano lab sample, it’s in his computer battery. He armed it. It won’t stay stable even for forty-five minutes.”

  “And then?”

  “It’ll explode.”

  Gabe felt anger and futility well inside him. “And Kanan won’t dispose of it?”

  “By now he doesn’t even remember that he has it. He can’t possibly know it’s a ticking bomb.”

  They jumped into the 4Runner and Gabe peeled out.

  “Does Kanan know who’s behind this whole thing?” Gabe said.

  “No.”

  “Jo said somebody named Riva Calder was in the Tahoe.”

  “Calder? She’s an exec at Chira-Sayf.” Diaz braced himself against the door. “She arranged for Misty and Seth to get snatched?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “She knows them. She was Misty’s sorority sister. This is bad, man. She spooks Ian.”

  “How?”

  “She has a major thing for him. Always has.”

  Gabe tossed him a look, disbelieving. “That’s crazy-making trouble for Kanan and for his wife.”

  “You ain’t kidding.”

  Racing down Palm Drive, Gabe steered with one hand and dialed 911 with the other.

  “Calder will probably have Ian’s cell phone number,” Diaz said.

  “So when his phone goes live at ten P.M., she’ll contact him and pretend to play innocent.”

  He swept out from under the trees, turned onto Campus Drive, and sped in the direction of the football stadium. The stadium’s field lights bleached the night above them, turning the trees black and white.

  “Nine-one-one emergency,” said the dispatcher.

  “A woman’s been abducted. Men hauled her into a Chevy Tahoe and took off.” He gave the dispatcher a fast rundown of what was going on and turned to Diaz. “What’s your truck’s license number?”

  Diaz held silent.

  “What is it?” Gabe said.

  “It’s not exactly loaded with Girl Scout cookies, you dig?”

  Gabe’s anger heated. “It’s a rolling bomb. What’s the plate number?”

  “Shit.” Shoulders slumping, Diaz rattled it off.

  Gabe repeated it to the dispatcher. “And send police and fire units to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. Man named Alec Shepard’s in trouble near the bridge.”

  He hung up, ran the stop sign, turned left onto Galvez Street, fishtailed, and straightened out. He floored it toward the exit from campus.

  “Kanan was messing around with the nano sample in the pickup, while you were with him?” Gabe said.

  Diaz shot him a look. “W
hy?”

  Gabe exhaled.

  He raced past huge stands of eucalyptus trees. The stadium loomed on the right, a hulking mother ship that filled the night with deathly white light. Several hundred yards ahead, at the intersection with El Camino Real, he saw the exit from campus. They heard a siren. In his rearview mirror Gabe saw flashing lights.

  “Don’t stop,” Diaz said.

  The cop’s headlights inflated in the mirror. Behind them, another black-and-white zoomed into view and joined the pursuit.

  “If you stop, it all goes to shit,” Diaz said. “The thing is to get Misty and Seth back.”

  “Without blowing anybody up.” Gabe looked at him. “Or is that your plan?”

  “Nobody you should worry about.”

  The sirens drew nearer. At the intersection of Galvez and El Camino, the light was green.

  “The doc—you care about her?” Diaz said.

  The flashing lights grew brighter in the mirror.

  “Like crazy,” Gabe said.

  They raced toward the intersection. Gabe tightened his hands on the wheel. Then he stomped on the brake, pulled the handbrake, and spun the wheel hard over. The back end of the 4Runner squealed around in a half circle and lurched to a stop.

  “Hell you doing?” Diaz said.

  “Get out,” Gabe said.

  Directly in front of him the police cars laid rubber, red and blue lights wheeling, and braked to a halt.

  “They’ll arrest you,” Diaz said.

  “Playing Lone Ranger won’t cut it here. We need a helo searching for Kanan. We need to get you to hazmat decontamination, because you may have been exposed to Slick.” He opened his door. “And I need the whole state of California hunting for Jo.”

  He climbed out with his hands locked behind his head and dropped to his knees in the road.

  34

  Misty Kanan wiped the sweat from her eyes. Her fingers were numb and bleeding. The paperclip-size screwdriver she’d fashioned from underwiring was bent and cracked, succumbing to metal fatigue. Inside the bedroom it was full dark. She had removed three of the four screws that held the locking mechanism and knob in the door. She felt the lock assembly again for the fourth screw, fumbling like a woman trying to read Braille.