Blindspots Page 10

  Now, it was over. She had to assume the frame job was too clever. She didn't have an alibi, people must’ve seen her go into her flat around the time of the murder, and she had tried to leave the country. No one would believe her tale of assassins and mistaken identities.

  She continued staring at her feet, even as Slider's signature boots stepped into view. The same polished steel-tips, black and imposing – they always made her think of the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Slider loved those boots.

  Should she just give up? Lift her head, and just smile and hold out her wrists for the cuffs?

  She looked up. Met his eyes, eyes that she couldn't recognize but knew didn’t belonged to anyone else, not with that signature rooster-like Mohawk, those flaming red eyebrows and the black ring through the right ear. She opened her mouth, then waited, frozen as he stared at her. As he scrutinized her.

  "Well?" asked one of the security team, the bald one again.

  "Umm…" Slider leaned in, and for a heart-thudding moment Kaitlin was sure he was about to sniff her, as if her fear or lingering sweat would give her away. What's he doing? How can he not recognize me?

  "I don't know," he whispered. "I…" His eyes softened, his lips quivered, and his voice, when it came again, had dropped a notch to that familiar tone of Sliders', the one he used after sex, in those rare moments of contentment when he actually felt everything was right with the world. "No, it's not her. Sorry."

  "You sure? She might have changed her appearance."

  "Listen, jackoff." Slider turned to the cop. "I fucked the girl for two years, face to face – among other positions. I know what she looks like, and this isn't her." He turned back and gave a smile to Kaitlin. "Sorry love, you're cute and all, but you're just not my type."

  Kaitlin stared at his shifting, faceless expression, and gave a small nod. She mumbled something, turned and slipped her earphones back on.

  Heart thundering, nearly drowning out the music, she kept walking, finally making it to the restroom where she ducked into the first stall, gasping for air and fighting to hold back the rush of nausea.

  She was free, she was going to make it.

  Move, she yelled to herself. Get to the ATM, take out some cash… But then what? She'd still need to use Trish's passport – or her own. The police would be looking for either one. She could try switching seats with someone or stealing another ticket if she got past security, but that was a big If.

  Five minutes later, back in the main terminal, wandering with the tide of rushed travelers toward the food court, she was still running through the alternatives, and finding none. This isn't going to work. She wished she had some friends connected to the black market – someone to get her a fake passport. Didn't Interpol admit there were something like seven million passports reported missing? Surely one of those could be a passable match for her, if she could only find one, or have someone doctor up a new one.

  But it would all take time. Time, for some reason, she didn't believe she had. Red sand running out in an hourglass. She trembled. Why did that image bother her?

  Chin resting on her hands, she continued thinking, dreaming, trying to come up with something, and was so lost in thought that she didn't notice the man in the wheelchair pulling up in front of her until his raspy, breathless voice shattered her concentration.

  "Sorry, miss. I saw you while those men were interrogating you."

  Kat shrugged, still not looking up. "Yeah? So what?"

  "You don't understand." A hand reached over and touched her arm – a soft, tender grasp that nonetheless jolted her. She backed away, staring into the face of the crippled man, expecting to see the usual unfamiliar blur.

  "You do not understand," the man repeated. "I said I saw you."

  Kaitlin's mouth hung open as she stared at a face she somehow knew.

  "My name is Indra Velanati, and by that look in your eyes, Kaitlin, I am guessing you can see me as well."

  She grabbed onto his arms for support, analyzing every feature, every familiar mark on his face, desperately trying to retrieve her memories, to remember why, how…

  Indra smiled. " Fortune smiles upon us. I know where you are headed – the same place I am going."

  "They're looking for me," Kat whispered, still not blinking, afraid to lose this image even for a second – the first tangible, visible face she had ever seen.

  "I know," Indra said, taking her hands and giving them a light squeeze. "But do not worry. I have access to a private plane. Come, we are going to Vermont."

  5.

  Outside of Springfield, MA

  Ten miles before the last stop, Jake Griffith prepared to leap out of the train car where he’d spent the past eight hours, fitfully bumping against the wall, trying to sleep. He had shared the car with three cows and another fellow traveler, a homeless man.

  Now, Jake bid his traveling companions goodbye, slung his backpack over his shoulder and jumped into a snow bank, rolling halfway down before gaining his feet.

  When the last car had rumbled past, he stepped on the tracks, the steel planks twinkling in the silver-blue moonlight. He gazed over the crystalline landscape, where several inches of frosty snow blanketed the farmlands for miles, soaking up the luminescent starlight.

  Jake started walking. Keep heading north. That's all.

  In the morning, only a few hours away by the look of the spreading glow in the east, he'd find a gas station or a diner, get some breakfast, find a map, then steal a car.

  Piece of cake.

  He'd made it this far without a hitch.

  Maybe his luck was changing.

  #

  Fifteen miles outside of Montpelier, VT, driving a hot-wired Chevy Impala from a Marriott hotel parking lot, he saw the sirens in his rearview mirror.

  What was I just thinking? Shaking his head, struggling not to laugh, he started slowing. Bad luck, my old friend, where have you been?

  Pulled over by a state trooper for speeding – 100 in a 55 zone.

  No license. No registration. The only saving grace was that maybe the car hadn't been reported missing yet. The way Jake saw it, he had only one chance. If he was brought in to the station, sooner or later, unless everyone in the local police department had Prosopagnosia, they'd spot Jake's resemblance to the escaped convict from Florida, and he'd be done. Caught and sent back down there for good. And didn't they have the death penalty? Two dead guards…

  So, with the policeman shivering, holding a wavering flashlight, the flakes swirling around in the beam like hungry moths, Jake tried to give his best sob story.

  "Sick mother up in Vermont. Going to visit her. She doesn't have long left."

  The cop coughed, narrowing his eyes. "Aren't you the good son, eh? So you just dropped everything, rushed to your car and forgot to bring your wallet?"

  "That's right," Jake said, looking up into the flashlight that had been roaming around his car, seeking anything suspicious in plain view. He shrugged. "I'm an idiot. I don't know how I'm even going to pay for dinner."

  "I'm sure dear old Mom'll cover it. Probably got a home-cooked meal all ready for you. A little steak, potatoes and gravy? What's her number, son?" He handed Jake a cell phone. "Give her a call and tell her you'll be a little late."

  More bad luck. Jesus. Keep improvising. "I'll call her, but she may not answer. And she won't be making any hot meals. She's… in an institution."

  The cop kept smiling. "I assume you know the number."

  "I do." Jake dialed, thankful for his memory, honed by years of practice with details.

  When someone picked up, he cleared his throat. "This is Jake," he said. "Um, from Florida? Alexa Pearl knows me, we talked the other day. Oh, good, she's there? Yes, put her on. Thanks."

  The policeman ducked his head in and pushed the speakerphone button. "Let's all hear this."

  "Jake? Where are you calling from?" Alexa's voice. He recognized it at once, chilling, numbing him to the bone.

  "Hi Ms. Pearl, I'm calling
about my mother. I'm coming to visit her, you know, like we talked about earlier. But… I've been stopped by a friendly state trooper, and I fear I won't get to see Mom before she passes. Can you--"

  "I'm sorry," the cop said, snatching up the phone. He turned off the speakerphone and placed it to his ear. "Who am I talking to?"

  He frowned, silent for almost a full minute, wobbling in the wind. Finally he nodded, glanced at Jake, then cocked his head. "I… see. Yes, but… Okay. Yeah, he's fine. A good son, like I thought." His eyes had glazed over, like someone had brushed a thin film of wax over them. "Definitely, Ms. Pearl. Give him an escort the rest of the way? I could do that, yes. Take him in my car? That's a better solution. Yes. Thank you, I'll make sure he gets there before the snowstorm gets any worse."

  The cop hung up the phone, still smiling like he had just talked to an old, dear friend.

  "Come with me, son. Wouldn't want to keep Mom waiting."

  6.

  Daedalus

  Monica woke to something less than full consciousness, not quite dreaming, not nearly awake. A strange room, dark, narrow. A hint of light issued from a window above the outline of a shadow-heavy door.

  And a silhouette of someone, man or woman she couldn't tell, sitting in an ornate chair beside the bed. A low mumbling came from the figure, inaudible words spoken just for her, spoken to her deepest self, lifted out of her dreams.

  This is real, real, real…

  She listened, but couldn’t make sense of anything. The words failed to fit into patterns that made any kind of sense. It was like trying to identify faces.

  But still, she knew, deep down, that if she did hear those words, if she gave in to their implications, followed their orders, her life would be over.

  So, she willed herself to drift back into the world of dreams, yielding to the tugging pull of the dark. The figure shifted – was it a lady? One moment it looked like a thin, skeletal woman. The next, a gnarled old man.

  Something glinted in the faint light, a gold-rimmed object held in the figure's hands.

  And the unmistakable sound of sand whispering through an hourglass.

  7.

  Daedalus

  In the corner office on the eastern wing on the top floor, a single green-shaded banker's lamp bathed Gabriel’s desk in a bubble of soft, trembling light. He sat, rubbing his neck as he studied the files, clippings, articles and notes strewn in front of him.

  It was 3:00 a.m. and he had made no progress. The answer had to be here, in his father's notes. Atticus Sterling had kept meticulous records. Everything he did, each observation of every patient. All his articles. His receipts, his journals.

  But there were gaps.

  Missing dates.

  Whole periods of time. In 1968, Atticus had taken a sabbatical from his position as head of psychiatry at Green Mountain College, and gone to Egypt. What he did there, what he found, where he visited, stayed and studied – whatever he did, it was never spoken of, never recorded.

  Or at least, not in his records up here. Maybe… the vault?

  Upon his return, Atticus had promptly retired from the College and devoted his full attention to the institute he had founded five years earlier, dedicating himself to the study of genetic psychiatric disabilities, especially Prosopagnosia.

  But then, things had gone south.

  Gabriel scanned the headings of clippings from the local newspaper and science journals.

  Renowned Psychologist Censured. Board Votes to Oust Sterling… On and on.

  Atticus had begun delving into questionable practices, testing radical theories, using something he termed 'Deep Hypnosis.'

  He was compared to Rasputin. Religious groups called him a warlock. Public institutions shunned his name, his papers were ridiculed. Patients checked out of Daedalus. His staff left in droves.

  But the money never dried up. Instead, he always seemed to find new funding. Rich benefactors came to visit him, spending weeks at a time. There was something about the rich and powerful; they needed to believe they had been destined for their current greatness, and that their past lives were just as special.

  Atticus filled a niche, like some traveling snake charmer of old.

  When Gabriel began to pursue his own career, he suffered ridicule and discrimination, based solely on his association with his father. Through sheer determination, Gabriel had overcome the land mines Atticus had dropped in his path, and made his own name for himself. However, there was one dream he shared with his father: He was still determined to treat this disease.

  Atticus had dismissed his own son’s ambitions. Gabriel was, in Atticus's words, a “waste,” and his father made it clear he had no plans to leave him any part of his legacy. Gabriel began to wonder if his father regretted having a son in the first place. Before his father’s trip to Egypt, Gabriel had some fond memories of a decent family life with a father who was a good man, if a little too busy. He was stern, distant and unemotional, but never cruel.

  All that changed after Egypt. And right up until he took his own life almost ten years later, Atticus never attempted to reconcile, never spared a single kind word or any notion of pride in his son's accomplishments.

  Gabriel pushed the stacks away. Rubbed his eyes. This was getting him nowhere. He had gone over and over the same material. The same articles and journal entries. He had studied the patients' cases repeatedly, astonished that they actually believed what they had 'discovered' under his father's unique brand of hypnosis.

  Past Life Regression.

  There was the Senator who had been told he used to be a Druid around the time of Stonehenge's construction. An actress who was a Major in the Revolutionary War. A CEO that had been a 6th Century Persian Prince.

  On and on. Every entry sickened Gabriel. He imagined his father, getting older and older, still managing to keep his intellect, his creativity strong. Giving his rich clients an even richer story, leading their subconscious minds and filling them with such rubbish.

  Gabriel stood up. He needed air. He needed answers. Outside his iron-rimmed windows, the snow beat steadily, into its sixth hour without pause. He peered outside, where the floodlights were obscured by blowing waves of white and shifting, rising drifts.

  With the weight of all that snow pressing down on his thoughts, he realized where he had to go.

  There was only one way to figure out what was happening, what Alexa was doing here. Obviously she had some connection to Atticus. Maybe she was a daughter of one of his clients. Maybe his own daughter, one he conceived and never got the chance to see.

  Gabriel could have walked away. Left Daedalus in Alexa's hands. But he wanted to reverse the stigma that Daedalus had suffered; he wanted to restore the facility and help these people his way. It wasn't enough that Alexa emulated his father's theories and methods, that she was a rabid follower of the same bizarre notions. No, she had the key. She had his legacy.

  Whatever happened in Egypt, whatever his father discovered there, she had inherited it. And whatever it was, it had to be in that basement vault.

  But now the stakes had changed. This wasn’t just about his feelings of being cast aside or about his need to understand what happened to his father. Now, patients’ lives were in danger.

  There wasn't much time. Monica would be waking soon. The others were coming, some of them already here. He had to learn what she planned for them. What she believed.

  He had to get into that vault.

  He strode out into the hall, listening to the door creak, breaking the silence of the darkened corridor, the shifting shadows punctuated by dimmed overhead lamps. He turned to the elevator doors, reached for them just as they opened, admitting Nurse Stamers.

  "Oh, excuse me, Dr. Sterling." Her eyes were glazed, like she had just woken up. And she moved around him, strolling as if on her usual rounds.

  "Nurse Stamers? Naomi?"

  "Yes?" She paused, right foot in mid air.

  Gabriel shook off a feeling of intense disassociati
on, like he had just stumbled into someone else's dream. "Why are you here? I left strict instructions for you to spend the night shift watching over Monica Gilman."

  She turned, wobbling. Smiled, reached into her left jacket pocket and removed a syringe. Pulled back the stopper. Still smiling.

  Gabriel had the sudden impression of a marionette, its arms jerking listlessly with the motions of its handler.

  "What are you--?"

  She jabbed the needle into her wrist, deep into a vein.

  "No!"

  She pushed the stopper down, and then her eyes went white, and her head lolled to the side.

  Gabriel caught her, ripped out the needle, set her down as gently as he could. Her hands clenched, scratching at him, and then her arms dropped and she lay still. What was in that syringe?

  For a few scary moments she didn't take a breath, and then Gabriel found a pulse, extremely weak, and heard her take a small gasp.

  He immediately ran for the phone in his office, and called down to the infirmary. Then he went back and held the pale, cold nurse, rocking her slowly, waiting for the elevator doors to open, for the nurses to come, while only one thought raced through his mind.

  Monica.

  8.

  Daedalus

  Alexa navigated the empty hallways, listening to the wind and the sound of her footsteps. She reached the doors for the stairwell and climbed up the eastern turret to the third floor, where she quickly caught up with the aides bringing Franklin Baynes back to his room.

  Frustrated that she couldn't wake Monica, couldn't have her conscious enough even to glance at Franklin, she ordered him taken away. She'd try again later.

  Inside, after they had Franklin situated back in his bed, lightly sedated, she sent them away. She took a chair and pulled it up beside his bed. She slid her big leather purse off her shoulder, unzipped the bag and dug inside.

  She pulled out the object and set it on the bed. On Franklin's chest.