“And the photograph?”
“Found on Booth’s body after his death. Along with images of several other women.”
I rubbed my neck where the ache had started to spread.
Eric spoke up. “Wait, isn’t that card in the museum at Ford’s Theatre? I think we saw it there the other day.”
Dr. Brightman put the photograph back into its drawer and locked it. “You might be surprised how many artifacts in museums are not as genuine as they appear.”
Eric flopped back against the couch, flabbergasted. “Is this a normal afternoon for you, sir?” he asked Dr. Brightman. “Do you meet a lot of people like Megan?”
“I’ve met a few.” Dr. Brightman said. “Now and again.”
“The others you’ve met . . . ,” Eric began hesitantly, “do they all eventually need the same . . . aids that you do?” He gestured to Dr. Brightman’s glove. “Is this the natural progression of the dise—” He stopped himself. “I mean, of the ability?”
Dr. Brightman evaluated him for a moment. “No,” he said at last. “It isn’t.” But he didn’t elaborate.
My head buzzed with dozens of questions, so many I could hardly string words together to ask them. “Why does it hurt sometimes?” I asked. “And why does it work like that—why could I see that memory when you helped me, but not on my own?”
“I can only speculate as to why,” Dr. Brightman said. “But that does seem to be the effect: two people coming together clarifies the memory and lessens whatever pain might be associated with it.”
Eric perked up. “Pain shared is pain halved.” We turned to look at him. “My grandmother says that. It’s a proverb.” He paused. “She’s German.”
“All right,” Dr. Brightman said. “Enough time to recover?” He returned to sit opposite us. “Good. Let’s move on to something of your brother’s.”
“But I don’t have the box.”
“Surely you have something of his. Anything.”
I thought for a moment, then pulled the button on its string from around my neck and set it down on the glass coffee table.
I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the rough metal marbles I’d collected from Tyler’s things. I had tucked them into my pocket that morning, for good luck. They joined the necklace on the table.
Finally I dug through my bag until I found Tyler’s copy of Dr. Brightman’s book, Disasters in the Sun, with all its dog-eared, scribbled-on pages. I set that before him as well.
“Interesting,” Dr. Brightman said, picking up one of the marbles. He put it back on the table and loosened the fingers of his remaining glove. “Let’s try the necklace.”
Eric sat forward on the couch. “Are you going to touch it?”
“That is precisely what I am going to do. After Miss Brown touches it first.”
My hand hovered over the button. “What am I looking for?”
“The strongest memories. The brightest lights,” Dr. Brightman replied.
I held the button in the palm of my hand. I kept my eyes open but unfocused, trying to imagine a beam of memory, caught inside the small black plastic circle.
And then it hit me. Light, like a hood covering my face, so bright I couldn’t see. I dropped the button on the glass table with a clatter, gasping in panic like the time I’d tried to go snorkeling but couldn’t convince my brain that it was okay to breathe underwater.
“Good,” Dr. Brightman said. “Try again.”
I hesitated, and he intertwined his fingers with mine. We rested our joined hands on the button.
This time, the light lasted only a few seconds before it ebbed away. As it withdrew, the dim shape of a boy came into focus: Tyler, sitting at a glossy wooden table with a wine bottle beside him, brooding over something on his cell phone. He was wearing his coat, worrying a button in his fingers. As the image cleared, I could see that he was in a wine cellar, lined with cherry-wood shelves and stocked with hundreds of bottles. Music and voices drifted toward him from somewhere else in the house.
“Yo, Red!” someone called. Tyler didn’t even look up. Bobby staggered down a steep flight of stairs, red plastic cup in hand. He spotted Tyler and stopped short. “Dude.” He shook his head. “Dude, dude, dude. There is a party going on.”
Tyler held up the wine bottle at his elbow. “Any idea how much this cost?”
Bobby shrugged. “A lot? Zach’s dad likes wine.”
“I looked it up.” Tyler showed Bobby his phone. “Almost five thousand dollars.” He gestured around them at the wine cellar. “I mean, is this necessary? We’re basically sitting in a bank vault here.”
Bobby’s eyebrows went up. “So?”
“Nothing.” With a sigh, Tyler slumped back in his chair. “Just thinking about something a friend said to me.”
Bobby whacked him in the chest with the back of his hand. “Well, stop thinking and start partying. Be fun. That’s why I bring you places.”
Anger flashed across Tyler’s face. If I hadn’t been watching him so closely, I might have missed it, because almost instantly, his usual lazy grin was in place, his body language laid-back and mellow. “I have a better idea,” he said. “Wanna take one of these home?”
Bobby stretched out a hand, and Tyler high-fived him. With the sound of the slap, the image seemed to fall away, sliding down my field of vision as Dr. Brightman’s office replaced it. I blinked, dazed and dizzy, and then I realized that Dr. Brightman had removed his hand from mine.
He picked up his gloves. “Well. You’ve certainly got a talent for this. But perhaps that’s enough for one day.” He stood and walked back to his desk.
I put the cord with Tyler’s button around my neck, trying to process everything I’d just seen. The “friend” Tyler had mentioned must have been Leigh. She’d really gotten under his skin. I’d never heard him talk about money that way before.
Dr. Brightman spoke again. “So. Now that I’ve helped you, I have a favor to ask in return.”
“Wait.” This change of subject bewildered me. “What kind of favor?”
“The same kind of favor I just did for you,” he said evenly. “My own ability can be a bit . . . unpredictable. I’m investigating some unusual artifacts at the moment, and I could use your help.”
“Unusual?” I asked. “Unusual how?”
“Over the last few years, I’ve made my living in blood artifacts—and I don’t just mean artifacts from Lincoln’s assassination. There’s a whole network of collectors who specialize in what they call murderabilia.”
The word sent a cold shock through me, and I shared a significant look with Eric. “Murderawhat?”
“Memorabilia from crime scenes, particularly violent crimes,” Dr. Brightman explained. “And while most artifacts require documentation—some proof of the history and provenance of the object—collectors of murderabilia are often willing to rely on the word of an expert. Like myself.” Dr. Brightman smiled slightly. “So I started tracking down objects that were associated with other assassinations. And other crimes. There’s good money in it. But those objects can be . . . unpleasant to authenticate.”
That sounded like an understatement.
“When you say ‘unpleasant,’” Eric said, “do you mean it hurts when you touch them?”
Dr. Brightman raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “The authentic ones, yes. And I’ve grown a bit oversensitized over the years.” He held up his gloves as though to illustrate his point. “With that kind of artifact, the pain is too intense for me to see any details.”
I had a mental image of myself backing away from him all the way home to Virginia. “I’m not so sure that I—”
“Call it payment for the help I’ve given you today.” His gaze was level, and his eyes stayed locked on mine. “And perhaps, in the future, you’ll need my help again?”
My stomach twisted, but I couldn’t let go of my link to Dr. Brightman. He knew what this was, this thing that was happening to me. He knew how it worked, and how to contro
l it. And the Lincoln box—I might still be able to find it, and if I did, he could help me see what memories it held. I nodded.
“Wonderful,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
As Dr. Brightman came around the coffee table to see us to the door, his still-bare hand brushed Eric’s sleeve. Dr. Brightman hissed in pain, raising a hand to his forehead.
“What is it?” Eric asked.
“Your jacket,” Dr. Brightman said. “The girl who made it lost a hand in one of the factory machines. You should be more careful where you buy clothing.”
Eric’s face slackened and his mouth fell open. He shrugged out of the jacket and held it by his fingertips, like it was something unclean, as he walked out the door. I had a feeling I wouldn’t see that jacket again.
I locked eyes with Dr. Brightman. “That’s amazing. Did you really just see that?”
Dr. Brightman paused a moment. “No. But he should thank me. That was a truly awful jacket.”
CHAPTER 9
AN HOUR LATER, I WAS BACK AT MY WORKTABLE, staring out my window at the street below. But now, the flutter in my chest wasn’t nervous anticipation. It was fear.
Eric and I hadn’t spoken much on the trip back from the city. Every time he’d started a sentence, I’d told him I wasn’t ready. Now he lay on his back on my bedroom floor, knees bent, one oven mitt behind his head, the other covering his eyes. His chest rose and fell in a steady, even rhythm, but I knew he wasn’t asleep.
I swung around in my chair to face him. He must have sensed my movement, because he popped up to a sitting position, the oven mitt falling to the carpet at his side.
“Now?” he asked. “Are you ready now?”
I rubbed my hands over my face and sat up straight. “I think so. Yes.”
“So first, oh my god, I have to—” He stopped himself, and I could almost see him forcibly reeling that sentence back into his body. “No. Wait. Sorry.” He breathed once, slow and deep. “You talk. I’ll listen.”
The weight of my fear lessened a bit. “You go.”
He grinned. “Okay, so the first thing I have to say is: this is real. Seriously. I mean, I believed you before, and I knew you weren’t making it up, but somehow, when we were sitting in that house with Dr. Brightman, it all just . . .” He trailed off and threw up his hands, at a loss for words.
“You mean, when we were sitting in that strange, sterile house with that murderabilia professional, shit got real?”
“Yes, and the second thing I have to say is: you never, ever have to go back there. You know that, right?”
“What else can I do?” I asked. “Tyler’s gone. My brain is self-destructing. I can’t tell anyone what’s happening to me. I don’t even totally believe it myself. And I don’t know what to do next. I can’t find the box. My mom will barely let me talk to the police. I can’t use my advanced crime-fighting skills to sweep Tyler’s room for hair and fibers. I can’t get my conveniently placed friend in the police department to run fingerprints for me or steal the files on Tyler’s case. I have no skills. And I have no friends.”
Eric let out an offended huff. “Well, that’s not exactly—”
“You know what I mean. I need Dr. Brightman. I have no choice.”
Eric reached out and put a hand on my knee. “You do, though. You do have a choice. And you have skills.” He smiled slightly. “And you have friends.”
I squeezed his hand, and my breath hitched in my chest. “But what if I never go back to see him, and then I never find out what happened to Tyler?” A worse idea struck me. “Or what if I do go back to see him, and I become him? What if that’s me in two years? Or six months? What if I end up wearing gloves and weirdo sunglasses and keeping Charles Manson’s bloody sock in a velvet box in my freezer?”
“In that case, I’d suggest you go with a plain old plastic bag. Velvet crumples.”
I hit him with one of his own oven mitts. “I’m serious.”
“Well, you don’t have to decide right now, do you? Give it some time.”
“I just . . .” I struggled to find the words to articulate what I wanted to say. “I can’t stand still. Not right now. I can’t sit back and wait for everyone else to tell me who my brother was and what happened to him. It’s like, if I stop, I’ll just—” I twisted my fingers together and squeezed until it hurt. Everything I wanted to say sounded so melodramatic. I’ll explode. I’ll fly apart into a million pieces. I’ll die.
Eric nodded, his face serious. “Okay. I hear you. Well, what about that guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy you saw fighting with Tyler in your vision. At the party in DC. Maybe he knows something about what was going on.”
I spun back toward my worktable and dug through the cabinet beneath it until I found a pad of paper. Eric eased up behind me to watch over my shoulder as I slapped the paper down on the table and started drawing. Beneath my pencil, a face started to take shape. Short blond hair, freckles: the guy from my vision.
“Whoa,” Eric said.
“What?” I didn’t look up, my focus entirely on the page.
“That’s just . . . impressive. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”
“It’s going to take a little while.”
“I can wait.” I could sense Eric moving around the room, ping-ponging from one spot to the next until I set down my pencil. Then he came up behind me again.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
Eric studied the guy’s face. “No, I don’t think so. But can I take this with me? I can check it against my yearbook; see if I can find him.”
“You do that.”
Drawing had calmed me a bit, centered me, as it always did, but my chest still ached and sweat prickled the back of my neck. After I walked Eric out, I sat on the front porch and listened to the neighborhood sprinklers come on, filling the cool early-evening air with a smell like rain.
Detective Johnson thought Tyler had dropped out of school to take his own life, and Dad couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed to hear the bad news. The Lincoln box was missing, and my next best hope of figuring out what had happened to Tyler seemed to rest on my questionable skills as a police sketch artist. Or on my connection to a murder-happy historian who’d offered me what had to be the world’s weirdest after-school job. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.
My phone chimed, and I pulled it out of my pocket. Messages from Elena.
How was your day?
Better, I hope.
I’m hoping it was a Ferris Bueller kind of day.
You stayed home sick. Drove a Ferrari. Danced in the streets of Chicago.
The weight on my chest lifted a bit, and I smiled. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, I replied.
No. Tell me you’re kidding.
Redrum.
Stop it. I’ll have Shining nightmares for a week.
Was it that bad?
Take away the ax, and you have my day.
Take away the ax? Well at least that’s something!
I snorted.
How’s New Boy?
For a moment I was back on that dead-end DC street, and I felt Nathan step away from me again, that small distance gaping wide between us.
New Boy is old news.
Elena sent a frown. Sorry.
Me too.
Maybe aim for a slightly better day tomorrow, okay?
Okay, I wrote.
Nightmare on Elm Street?
Good night, you.
Eric was already at school when I arrived the next morning, leaning against a flagpole by the main entrance with my drawing in one hand. “Any luck?” I asked.
“Yearbook was a bust,” he said. “But I’ve been here since six a.m., watching people show up for school. You said the guy’s arm was hurt pretty badly—I thought if I couldn’t match the sketch, I might at least see somebody in a cast. But no luck. Not so far.”
“So what do we do next?”
Eric handed me the drawing and pulled
the research binder out of his backpack. “I thought we might return to the question of how you got this power.” He started flipping pages.
“Does it matter how I got it? It’s here.”
Eric paused midflip to fix me with a look. “Origins are important. How we got to be who we are? It matters.” He continued flipping. “And maybe we can find someone else to help you. Someone a leetle less murder obsessed.”
“Sounds good to me.” I leaned over to look at the binder. “What have you got?”
“Not much. But I was thinking about what you said about, you know, getting sad. We know Dr. Brightman was sad too—he lost his family in a car accident.” He found the page he was looking for and held out the binder to show me. “You remember what I said about Rebecca Tattenbaum? She owns that antique shop on the Hill. Well, it was her parents’ store. They were killed in a robbery when she was twenty-one, and she was the one who found their bodies. She had some kind of mental break—a delivery man discovered her, almost catatonic, sitting beside her parents’ bodies in a pile of broken wood and glass.”
“That’s terrible.”
“But now the store is incredibly successful. Partly because people think it’s haunted. But also because she’s got”—he pointed out a sentence in the article we were looking at—“‘an uncanny eye for valuable antiques, finding rare treasures in the most unexpected places.’” He gave me a significant look, eyebrows raised.
“But millions of people lose parents. And brothers. And wives.”
“I know,” Eric said, shrugging. “It’s not really a theory yet. More a work in progress.”
The parking lot was filling up now, and people were making their way into the building for the start of another day. I spotted Bobby Drake in the crowd, wearing a brown leather jacket and that same damn blue shirt. I ducked behind Eric’s shoulder and covered my face with one hand.
“What the . . .” Eric looked around. “Who are you hiding from?”
“Shhh,” I hissed. “Leather jacket. Tyler’s best friend.”
“Well, let’s show him your drawing,” Eric said. “He was there, right? He probably knows the guy.”
The Hidden Memory of Objects Page 11
