Kiss (25 page)

“So Wayne has been supportive,” Dr. Harding observed.

Shauna did her best to gush. “More than that:
attentive.
I could not have survived this without him.”

“He does have a sensitive side, doesn’t he?”

The observation begged Shauna to take note of it. The words themselves were benign enough, but something maternal in the tone caused Shauna to say, “You know him? Personally, I mean?”

The psychiatrist’s cheeks twitched. “I was only basing my remark on what you’ve told me.”

Shauna nodded, smiled to restore the ease in the room. Was Wayne a patient of hers? A colleague?

A boss?

Dr. Harding cleared her smoky throat. “You seem far more relaxed today than you did on our first meeting.” She picked her cup of tea off the small tray that balanced on the vinyl stool.

“I suppose I’ve had time to grow accustomed to the idea of having a gap in my life.”

“Has it caused you any unexpected hardship?”

Woefully unexpected hardship.

“Surprisingly, no.” Shauna tried on a light laugh and let her eyes flit around the room. They landed on that glistening file cabinet at the same moment that her opportunity presented itself. If the wild-haired psychiatrist knew Wayne Spade, perhaps Shauna could find evidence to that effect in the file. A memo, an e-mail, a whole file.

That, and the cabinet was locked by a digital combination. Could Shauna fetch this information from the doctor’s mind?

She would try. At the very least, Shauna believed she could find a detailed set of notes and evaluations about herself. That was worth something.

“It’s little things,” Shauna said. “I have outfits in my closet I don’t remember buying. Pictures from a party I don’t remember attending. I can’t remember why I quit my job or where I put my latest résumé—it didn’t help that the family moved all my stuff around! Sometimes I mix up phone numbers. Yesterday I forgot the PIN number for my ATM card.”

Shauna did not feel the smallest pinch of guilt over any of these fibs. Her life was surrounded by lies and liars, it had turned out, and if she had to tell a few herself to see her way through them, so be it.

Dr. Harding nodded and set down her pen. “Well if it’s any comfort, I forget numbers like that all the time.”

Shauna sipped from her own cup, moved in. “There’s so many to remember!”

“True. Today the average person’s memory is taxed by so much information, it’s a wonder we can function at all.”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what? Function?”

“No, remember all the details. Online passwords, your bank account numbers”—she noted a wedding band on Dr. Harding’s left hand—“your husband’s social security number?”

“Oh goodness. I don’t remember all of it. Memory is accidental sometimes. We remember something only because we use it over and over again. I tend to remember that sort of thing.”

Of course. Repetition. Shauna’s eyes went to the high-tech file cabinet for a fleeting second.
Think. Think. Think.

Shauna leaned forward and picked up the teapot to warm the psychologist’s cup. “More?”

“Thank you.” Shauna allowed herself a heavy sigh as she focused on pouring the tea.

“I would like to remember what that feels like,” she said. “Everything seems so . . . jumbled.”

“Give yourself time, Shauna. It will happen.” Dr. Harding removed her narrow reading glasses and folded them on her notepad. Shauna moved the teapot over her own cup. “I have a son your age.”

Shauna held her breath and set down the pot.

“You remind me of him somewhat. He’s impatient too.” Dr. Harding smiled as Shauna lifted a cup and passed it to her. Now was the time to try. She grasped the handle so that she nearly covered it with her fingers, and wrapped the other side of the cup snuggly in her other hand. She appeared to be a wind-chilled adventurer looking for warmth, and maybe she was.

The grip forced Dr. Harding to touch her to take the cup.

Shauna closed her eyes and held the image of that file cabinet front and center in her mental screen. She held it there, willing it not to be knocked over by an explosion of other memories.

There was no explosion, but Shauna was hit with an unexpected rush of data like heat from an oven. First a list of names, random and senseless but short: Jacobsen, Brown, Paulito, Vu, Allejandra. Then equally random labels: Active, Committed, Closed, Pending. Then
Harding 4273464.

Dr. Harding let out a shout of surprise, and Shauna snapped her eyes open. She had sloshed the tea in the psychologist’s lap.

“Oh no. Oh no. I can’t believe I—”

“Are you okay?” Dr. Harding said. She was rubbing her left temple with two fingers.

“I am such a klutz.”

“Not at all.” The doctor’s detached persona resurrected itself, politeness not quite covering up her thoughts.

“Are
you
okay?” Shauna stammered, disbelieving how little control she’d had over what had happened. “Are you burned?”

“Just wet. That had cooled off a bit.”

“What can I do?”

“Stay put a minute while I go dab up. I’ll bring back some towels.”

She moved off past the desk to a bathroom and kitchenette at the back of the office. Shauna grabbed her purse to find tissues.

4273464.

She looked at the file cabinet, then, prompted into action by a ticking clock that she could sense but not hear, she strode across the office in four long steps and punched the number into the digital panel.

Enter.

The top file drawer popped open.

She hadn’t expected it to.

Shauna was so surprised that she took several seconds to register the manila folders lined up in front of her in the drawer, an unremarkable row of both thin and bulky files labeled with surnames and initials. Nothing worthy at first glance of being in a high-security drawer.

Shauna heard water running in the bathroom. She moved quickly. She looked for Wayne’s name.

The drawer ended in the
K
s.

She opened the one beneath it, reaching for the back.
Spade, W.
Not there.

No! She needed something. She rushed in search of her own file. Then she would try the other drawers.

McAllister, S.

There she was. She snatched the folder, a skinny little thing, out of the drawer. Should she take it with her? She looked at her chair, her tote bag. There was room in there.

No. That was idiocy. All she needed to know was that she was beginning to manipulate this gift of hers more precisely. She had no business adding real stealing to the mix.

But her life was in this folder. Would it truly be stealing to take it? Shauna lay the thin file on Dr. Harding’s desk and flipped through it, scanning the woman’s notes on their meetings so far. No surprises jumped out at her.

She took the notes anyway, leaving a few other documents behind, then rushed the empty file folder back to its drawer.

She flipped back through the names to put it away.

Madigan. Matthews. Marshall.

Marshall, W.

Wayne? She set her own folder on the adjacent counter and, holding the spot with one hand, withdrew his file too. She opened it. One page.

At the top:
Wayne Marshall, aka Wayne Spade.

The bathroom door opened.

Shauna snatched out the paper, married it to her own notes, dropped the folder back into place, and eased the drawer shut, hoping for silence. The gliders didn’t make a noise until she heard the slick click that explained how expensive this four-drawer cabinet was. She raced back to her seat, crammed the pilfered documents into her tote bag, and straightened up holding a tissue packet at the same time Dr. Harding emerged with a dish towel.

“I can’t say how sorry I am,” Shauna blurted. “I’ll leave the hospitality to you from now on.”

“No harm done.” The psychologist’s bright blue broomstick skirt was wet black across the lap. Shauna hoped the woman kept a change of clothes handy.

Shauna blotted at the damp chair, and her tissues disintegrated in seconds. “I hope this won’t stain.”

“I’ll add it to your bill.” Shauna straightened, her back to the desk and the file folder, and saw that Dr. Harding was smiling at her. She held out her hand to Shauna. “Let me toss those for you.”

Shauna deposited the tissues in her palm and took the dish towel. “If you have to have it cleaned, please send me the tab.” She bent over the chair again.

Dr. Harding didn’t answer, and when Shauna looked, she saw the red-haired woman bend over the counter to toss the wad in the trash can, then straightening, eyeing the folder on the surface.

She hadn’t. Oh, she had. She’d forgotten her own file.

“I must have left this out,” the woman murmured. Shauna pretended not to hear. She folded the damp cloth and placed it on the tea tray, then sat down and returned the tissue packet to her purse while she watched from the corner of her eye.

Dr. Harding walked to the cabinet and positioned herself between Shauna and the digital panel. She lifted her hand to punch in the security code and then paused without touching the keypad. Shauna held her breath.

“That’s ironic,” the therapist said, glancing over at Shauna. “Weren’t we just talking about how easy it is to forget things?”

Shauna had her answer. The memories collecting in her mind were not merely borrowed; they were stolen, lifted, filched, as absent from the victims’ minds as experiences that had never happened.

Back in the car with Wayne, Shauna found her phone on the passenger seat.

“Detective Beeson called while you were in,” Wayne said. “Wants you to come see some photos.”

“Now?”

“I told him we could come when you finished.”

“Let’s go, then.”

What would Shauna have done if Dr. Harding’s memory had included only patient names and unattached diagnoses? Was it sheer luck that she’d landed on the combination, or information Shauna had successfully targeted? Shauna really didn’t have a handle on this at all yet. What if Dr. Harding had unwittingly divulged her bank account information? Her PIN number? How would Shauna have verified the truth of that?

Would Shauna go so far with her need to know that she would commit a crime?

There was confidential data on Wayne stuffed into the side pocket of her purse. So she had already done something illegal. But besides that, how would the law classify her stealing of memories? Most likely she’d be laughed out of her handcuffs at any police station. But assaulting a person with intent to harm—now, that was no laughing matter, was it?

Intent to harm. Sheesh. She wasn’t harming anyone.

Was she? She of all people understood the pain and consequences of lost memories.

An image of her mother frowning at her with arms crossed flashed through Shauna’s mind.

This wasn’t the same.

No. It was not even close to being the same. She was in pursuit of truth. Someone had tried to kill her. She looked at Wayne. She needed to hone this gift just to survive him.

She needed to do this one more time. As was quickly becoming clear to her, she’d likely not have too many opportunities to put her hands on the memories of any one person. Her thievery left impressions.

So what next? What could she reasonably hope to find out with Wayne all but dancing on her toes? She didn’t want to fish for life stories and pin numbers.

And who could tell her about her own past? Patrice? That woman wouldn’t open up to her any time in the next millennium. Landon? Shauna, frankly, didn’t have the guts. Rudy? Too much of a gamble, even if she had access to him. Who could say what might or might not be intact in her little brother’s mind? He couldn’t afford to have her take any of it.

Her mind moved out of the house. Scott Norris? The reporter was among her failed attempts. Too big a risk to revisit that.

Who, who?

“What did she say?” Wayne asked out of the blue.

“Hmm?”

“What did she say about Houston?”

“Oh that!” Shauna had completely forgotten it. “She said it’s a great idea. She said you’ve been really instrumental in my progress, and she thinks it’d be good for me to stick with you.”

He smiled at her. “I’d like that.”

“Me too,” she murmured. His words were so easy to believe. She had to match them.

“Look, I’ll call the attorney today, try to move up your appointment with him. See how quickly we can get this behind us.”

Quickly, quickly. Yes. She needed to move fast. Faster than Wayne could move, if she wanted to avoid another Detective Beeson–type processing her murder as well as Corbin Smith’s. Faster than might be possible.

22

“Those are pictures of me,” Shauna said from the doorway, not sure what she had expected. Murder scene images, maybe. Not this.

They sat in front of a computer monitor in one of Detective Beeson’s labs, scrolling through a brief slide show of images. Five images of her, duplicates of the images she had seen on Corbin’s camera, but only five. There she was in the courtroom with Wayne, and dining with Wayne, and driving with Wayne, and moviegoing with Wayne. She winced at the photo of her kissing Wayne.

“These were found on the laptop we took from Corbin Smith’s apartment,” Beeson explained in his baritone voice. Her apartment.