Memories of Megan

by Rita Herron

  He skimmed further, his heart pounding when he discovered another project, the one Megan had mentioned M-T.

  Closely related to my work, the center has approved a classified project called M-T, which strives to isolate specific types of memory cells, those affecting cognitive memories and intelligence from emotional ones, so they can be transferred to another person. Think of the implications for the intellectually challenged or severely mentally deficient person. Also, memory cells from those with superior intelligence might be preserved and transferred to others so that the intelligence will not be lost. Future plans include isolating memory cells related to artistic talents, musical abilities, etc. in an effort to preserve the geniuses of the world.

  M-T. Memory Transfer. Cole froze, his hands tightening on the desk as he contemplated the implications and how far the scientists might go to carry out their experiment. As the ramifications set in, fear settled in his gut.

  Dear God in heaven, could they have possibly conducted one of those experiments on him to alter his memory? But how would they make him forget his real past?

  He skimmed further and saw another notation—head of project: Arnold Hughes. Three inmates from the state penitentiary agreed to become human subjects of the drug in exchange for early release. Unfortunately two suffered fatal side effects. Hughes has ordered a cover-up, but seeking other subjects for surgical study. Fontaine still under study.

  Cole tensed. Where was Fontaine? In the psych ward somewhere? On Nighthawk Island. Or was he Fontaine?

  Or Hughes?

  If Hughes had survived that explosion and wanted to return, what better way than to have plastic surgery and return with a new identity? Had Hughes offered himself as a human subject in his own research study and allowed the doctors to transfer Wells’s memories to himself?

  “THE SITUATION IS COMPLETELY out of control. Hunter went to Oakland. Chadburn covered for us, but it seems he met this stupid janitor. Wound up at the graveyard and saw Hunter’s grave.”

  “Dammit to hell. But setting fire to the center was never in the plan.

  “That wasn’t my doing, just like the shooting. You know I’m not that sloppy.”

  “Whoever is helping us is getting in the way. I say it’s time to bring in Ms. Wells and Hunter.”

  “You don’t want me to get rid of her for good?”

  “No. Not with that cop Black snooping around again. He caused enough trouble before.” A heavy sigh, then he continued, “I have a better idea.”

  “Yeah?” So did he, but he doubted his partner would go for it. He wanted Ms. Wells for himself before they did anything to destroy her beauty. Just the thought of her lying next to him, beneath him, his hands wrapped up in that pretty blond hair sent fire through his body. If there was a way to keep her alive and get Hunter out of the way…

  “Just bring her in and I’ll fill you in on the plan.”

  “I’m outside her place right now. Black just left and Hunter’s not here.” He reached for the door handle and opened the door, letting his black boots hit the pavement with purpose. “I’ll have her to you soon.”

  And maybe if his partner agreed, he would have her for himself after they finished with her.

  MEGAN’S HEAD ACHED from thinking about the trouble surrounding her. She swallowed a couple of painkillers, chased them with a glass of water, then slowly walked back to her bedroom, trying to piece together the events of the last few weeks and make some sense out of them.

  But nothing made sense.

  She had come to Savannah to work, had met Tom and fallen in love. Or thought she had. Maybe she’d been searching for that security she’d so desperately craved all her life, and he had represented security at the time.

  An ironic chuckle escaped her.

  Nothing about her life right now felt secure. And it all seemed to stem from Tom and his research. When this nightmare ended, she should move away. Find a job where there were no memories of Tom.

  Or Cole Hunter, whoever he turned out to be.

  She lay down on the bed and flipped off the light, grateful for the darkness and the quiet. But just as she drifted off to sleep, the telephone jangled. Groggy but thinking it might be Cole, she reached for the phone on the nightstand, but a hand clamped around her arm just before she picked it up. The shadow of a man’s face hovered over. She tried to push him off of her, but he pressed a cloth over her mouth, and a bitter smell filled her nostrils. Chloroform.

  She kicked and fought, but the chemical sucked her in and she fell into nothingness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cole let the phone ring a dozen times, his nerves on edge when Megan didn’t answer.

  She’d promised to stay at home with the security alarm set. He checked his watch. Even if Detective Black was still there with her, she would answer the phone.

  Maybe Black had gone and she was in the shower. No, she had just showered before he left. Maybe she was asleep.

  He hated to wake her if she was, but she needed to be on alert. Plus he wanted to tell her he planned to confront Parnell and Jones, so if he turned up dead, she should go to the police and reveal Cole’s suspicions.

  On the off chance, he’d dialed the wrong house, he punched in her number again and let it ring and ring. Damn. Ten times later, he called Detective Black’s number. Maybe he’d send a car to check on Megan.

  “Savannah Police Department, how may I direct your call?”

  “I need to speak to Detective Black.”

  “He’s not in, may I take a message?”

  “Yes, it’s urgent. Can you radio him and tell him to check on Megan Wells. Better yet, you may want to send a unit there—”

  “Who is this?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Cole Hunter. Detective Black knows who I am. Just give him the message. Then tell him to call me on my cell phone.” He recited the number and hung up.

  Figuring the disk might be his only bit of evidence, he searched the room for a place to hide it, finally slipped it between a crack in the underside of the wooden desk, then strode down the hall toward Dr. Parnell’s office. It was time the doctors gave him some answers.

  And this time he wouldn’t settle for anything but the truth.

  A DARK HEAVINESS ENGULFED Megan, trapping her in a den of fear. She tried to open her eyes, but her lids refused to move. Where was she? What had happened?

  A dull throbbing pain beat a steady rhythm inside her skull. She had to sit up. But the second she tried to move, something pulled against her, holding her down. The sharp jab of a needle, pricked her arm. She peered through hazy eyes. White walls. Steel drawers for medical instruments. An overhead light for surgery. It seemed so familiar.

  The strong scent of antiseptics filled her nostrils. She was in the hospital somewhere, but where?

  And why? Had she been in an accident?

  She fought through the haze, memories surfacing. Her husband’s death. Cole’s appearance. The attempts on her life. Daryl Boyd’s death. The fire. The disk Cole had found that had belonged to Tom. The phone ringing. Then someone grabbing her…she’d passed out. And woken up to a rocking motion. A boat.

  Where had they taken her?

  She jerked, a cry tearing from her throat that never moved past her lips. The bindings trapped her to the cold steel table. Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks but she was helpless to wipe them away.

  “Keep her sedated,” a deep male voice said.

  “You think this will work?”

  “We’ll make it work. And once she regains consciousness, she won’t remember anything.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not even her own name. She’ll be as incoherent as some of our worst patients.”

  “How will we explain her condition?”

  A chuckle rumbled from the first man. “We’ll say she had a nervous breakdown after her husband’s death.”

  “Won’t that cop Black be suspicious?”

  “He’ll never be able to prove
anything. And once we take care of Hunter, there won’t be anyone left to interfere or ask questions.”

  “Then the project can be considered a success after all?”

  “Right.” He traced a finger over her cheek, wiping away her tears as if he was a friend, not her enemy.

  Megan shuddered.

  “Too damn bad she had to be so nosy. But I’m glad we don’t have to kill her.” He traced a finger over her mouth. “Don’t worry, Megan. This won’t hurt. In fact, you won’t feel a thing.” He ran his finger along her jaw, then her neck. Nausea flooded her. “And you won’t remember anything that’s happened.”

  Anger warred with terror as she struggled to open her eyes and put a face with the men speaking. She’d rather die than be turned into a vegetable. But whatever drug they’d given her was working. A tingling, then numbness seeped through her veins, stealing the life and fight from her. Fear closed around her, boxing her like a caged animal.

  The death of her future flashed through her mind. Now she would never know who the real Cole Hunter was. She’d never be able to tell him that she’d fallen in love with him.

  The chance for a happy marriage was over. And the chance for the family she’d always wanted… It would all be wiped away just like her memories.

  COLE KNOCKED ON PARNELL’S office door, shifting onto his stronger leg as he waited. The seconds ticked by, but no one responded. Frustrated, he knocked again, but received the same response. He took off to Jones’s office, irritated at the empty office.

  His gut tightened with a bad premonition.

  He had to find them and force them to explain the Brainpower and M-T experiments. Find out if he was one of their subjects.

  If he was Hughes or that prisoner.

  He gripped the door handle, then poked his head into Jones’s secretary’s office. “Do you know where Dr. Jones is?”

  The young brunette paused, fingers on her keyboard. “I believe he went to the lab.”

  “The lab? Can you be more specific?”

  She shrugged. “Out on Nighthawk Island. Can I leave him a message?”

  “No.” He remembered the place they’d kept him after his surgery. He would find the answers there.

  He phoned Megan again and was surprised when Detective Black answered. “Where’s Megan?”

  “She’s not here,” Black replied, his voice hard.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  “I don’t know.” Black hesitated. “But signs indicate she didn’t leave here of her own free will. Someone turned off the security code.”

  Cole cursed. “I’m on my way to the lab on Nighthawk Island.” He relayed the information he’d learned about the research projects Brainpower and M-T.

  “You think you were one of their subjects?”

  “Yeah.” His chest constricted.

  “Apparently those guys, Carson and Aiken, were subjects, too. They died because of an adverse response to the medication.”

  “What if they planned to do the same thing to Megan? Or what if they…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. Couldn’t make himself even think about losing Megan for good.

  And if they found out he was Hughes or Fontaine….

  It didn’t matter. If they did, he’d deal with the consequences. The fact that Megan would hate him. But he couldn’t deal with her death. He’d turn himself in first.

  “I’ll get backup,” the detective said. “Wait, there’s something I have to tell—”

  “No,” Cole said. “I’ll meet you there. They’ve already tried to kill her twice. We can’t waste a second.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.

  A few minutes later, he passed through security and commandeered a driver to take him to Nighthawk Island.

  “I’ll have to call for clearance,” the security guard said.

  Cole nodded. If he didn’t get it, he would go anyway. Somehow.

  But seconds later, the guard hung up and grinned. “Got it, sir. I’ll have you there in a few minutes.”

  Cole nodded. Maybe he was wrong about this whole thing. On some kind of wild-goose chase. If Jones and Parnell were hiding something, why would they agree for him to come?

  Unless it was a trap.

  He clenched the boat hull, his mind spinning.

  A trap?

  Hadn’t he felt like he was walking into a trap the night of his accident?

  Bits and pieces of memories flooded him.

  He was pulling up at Serpent’s Cove. Anchoring the boat. Walking the shore. Searching shadows. A twig snapped. Footsteps. Had he fallen into a trap?

  Were they after him? Or after the disk?

  Megan. Megan was in danger. They would kill her to get the information he had been ready to give that cop.

  He raised his gun to fire. A bullet pierced him in the back.

  No, someone was beating him.

  He saw the explosion. The boat erupted into flames. Heat scalded him. Flames licked at his feet. He dived over the side.

  The sea grabbed him and dragged him out. Sucked him into the tide.

  Cole jerked up. Again the memories had been Tom Wells. But he wasn’t Wells. He knew it in his gut. The other memories, memories of shooting someone—were they Fontaine’s memories?

  Or Hughes’s? Was he at the boat the night Hughes supposedly died?

  “Sir, we’re here.” The guard collected Cole’s cell phone. “You can’t use that on the island. It’s against the security policy.”

  The driver docked the boat and Cole gestured to the security guard that greeted him. “I need to see Dr. Jones and Parnell. They’re expecting me.”

  The guard led him across the island to the main facility, a cement building that resembled a fortress. Newly renovated, most of the space was empty, but he recognized it from his own stay at the hospital.

  “This way, Dr. Hunter.” Another guard led him through the corridors and security to a surgical wing and lab area that brought memories of his own long hospital stay back in vivid clarity. The sterile cold walls. The stainless steel table and instruments. The foggy faces of nurses and doctors during those first few weeks when he’d been too incoherent with the pain and drugs to know who was even treating him. The terror when he’d realized his face was bandaged. That he might be scarred for life.

  The fear of not knowing his own name. Or how he had gotten there.

  The desolate loneliness of having no family or friends to visit.

  He never wanted to be that lonely again.

  But if he didn’t find Megan and rescue her…

  “Hunter, we’ve been waiting on you.”

  Cole grimaced at the Parnell’s angry scowl. “Follow me. I think you’ll find this experiment rather interesting.”

  Like the spider following the fly, Cole thought, only this fly wasn’t an innocent victim.

  They escorted Cole into a room with glass windows that overlooked a surgical room, equipped with all the latest modern equipment, including a stainless steel table that looked cold and frightening.

  Then they wheeled Megan in on a gurney and his heart locked in his chest as rage trapped him in its meaty claws.

  “WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO do to her?” Cole asked in a harsh whisper.

  “Erase her memory,” Parnell said without batting an eye.

  “Is that what you did to me?”

  Parnell grinned. “So, you’ve figured that much out.”

  “Who am I then? Hughes? That cop who was supposed to meet Tom Wells? Or that prisoner who traded jail time to be one of your subjects?”

  “Who you are doesn’t matter. What matters is that our experiment on you failed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Parnell studied him. “I suppose I might as well fill you in. It’s not like you’ll remember any of it later.”

  Cole nodded, stalling for time. Maybe Detective Black would arrive before they did anything to Megan. He glanced through the window and stared at her. She was lying so still beneath that white sheet. Tears strea
ked her pale face, and they’d strapped her arms down. Fury roared through him. She’d obviously been drugged. What else had they done to her?

  “Project M-T was designed to isolate cognitive memory cells and transfer them to another person. Wells headed the project. Think about the ramifications for the mentally impaired person. The minute one of our geniuses of the world died, we could transfer that intelligence to someone else.”

  Cole shook his head. They were crazy.

  “But why kill Wells if he was your lead scientist?”

  “He had an attack of conscious. Went to meet this cop to spill his guts.” He sucked air through his teeth. “Actually we never meant to kill him. But since he died…well, we decided to use you as a part of our research study and give his memories to you.”

  “You did all this through a surgical technique?”

  “That combined with hypnosis and medication.”

  “The pills you prescribed?”

  “They enhanced the posthypnotic suggestions we gave you after your surgery.”

  And when he’d stopped taking them, other memories had intruded. Memories of another life, of being another man. Of killing someone…

  “It’s brilliant really. The Mozarts of the world, the Einsteins, we’ll be able to preserve those minds so they could continue contributing to society.”

  “Unbelievable,” Cole said. “You actually believe society would benefit from this?”

  Parnell nodded. “I have no doubt. Unfortunately we haven’t quite mastered the isolation of the cells so when we performed the technique on you—”

  “I didn’t remember the technical aspects of Tom Wells’s work.”

  Parnell snorted in disgust. “Such a disappointment.” He darted a gaze at Megan through the glass. “But you did seem to have a strange connection to Wells’s wife.”

  Cole felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. When he’d read the research, he had entertained the idea of such a project, but to think these scientists had actually performed the experiment on humans, on him, sickened him.