Veil (54 page)

“Yeah. Don’t remind me.”

“Sorry … so anyway, he disabled your Veil and
while you and I were visiting, he copied all the elevator video
files from your computer.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, he would never tell me. That’s
the last thing he told me about any of it. That’s the last I ever
saw of any of it. Except, both times when someone bought the
memory, I had to go through it with him as he relived that
nightmare. I had to help him through it. He had to use the chemical
to remove the buffer and give himself back the memory. Once the
customer was done shadowing him, I had to administer the chemical
again so that the buffer would go back up. That’s all I know.
That’s the only thing he let me help with.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, but I did kind of figure out that, if
what he said were true, if Jin didn’t die that day, there must’ve
been some other footage in those video feeds that was important but
that you guys missed. You guys probably went from the day of his
murder backwards. Because you assumed he was killed, and once you
saw the murderer leave the building, you two probably focused on
everything that happened before that. You might never have thought
to look at footage from the few days afterwards. That footage would
only matter if you knew Jin survived somehow.”

She gasped. “You’re right! No, I know I
didn’t. Oh! I didn’t even look.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Ken never looked before
then, either.”

“So, what did he find? What was in the
video?”

“I don’t know
.
Like
I said
,
he never told me anything else.
The only other thing he did was go up to the hospital a lot. And I
mean a lot. I assumed he was investigating
.
Talking to people. But, like I said, he never talked
to me about it. And we both know if he found anything out, we’d be
the first to know.”

“Oh … damn. Well I guess … well, you’re
right. It wasn’t anything useful, or … well, something would’ve
happened by now.”

“Exactly. And the only thing he ever said was
that he knew this day was coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“He knew one day you’d find the memory. He
knew you’d get it. And chances were, in the process, you’d find out
he was the Vault. He knew this day was coming. But that’s literally
all I know. That’s it right there. Everything else we’re going to
have to find out when he wakes up. And I can tell you from
experience, there’s no way of knowing how long that’s going to be.
So, we wait.”

She let out a long sigh and got up from Ken’s
side. She walked across the room and gazed out a window, once again
trying to fight back tears. She and Ken were not where she expected
them to wind up when they started their journey. Finding Jin’s
killer wasn’t supposed to ruin Ken. It wasn’t supposed to derail
all their lives. Maybe it was time to give up. Maybe it was time to
let it go. She looked down at the wedding ring she still wore on
her left hand, now flattened on one side. Maybe it was time to take
it off. Look at how much pain all of it already caused.

She was struck by something Hunter said.

“Both?”

“Huh?” Hunter looked more frustrated than
confused, but her back was to him while she stared out the
window
,
so she didn’t see his
frustration.

She turned
,
and as
she walked to where the two men were, she attempted to explain
herself.

“You said both times someone bought the
memory. So, only two other people besides me bought the memory?
Two?”

“Yeah, that’s right, this is the fourth time
we’ve had to go through this. First when he got the memory, the two
times the store sold it, and then last night, when you found it.
When you bought it.”

“Hunter.” She sat back down and leaned
forward. Her voice dropped an octave again. “The store sold the
memory three times. Three. To three different people. I have the
list in my purse.”

“Three?”

“Three.”

Hunter was as anxious as Suren. If only Ken
would wake up, damnit. And not just wake up but wake up and get
back on his feet. They couldn’t start drilling him the minute he
opened his eyes. Of course they both wanted him to get better, but
that wasn’t what was eating away at them. They knew he was going to
get better; it was only a matter of time. What they desperately
wanted were answers. Answers only he possessed.

When Ken did wake up, he didn’t remember much
of what happened the night Suren arrived. All he knew was his face
hurt. A lot. He was used to his scalp burning for days after he
regained consciousness following one of those episodes, but the
face pain thing, well … that was new. However, neither of them
would budge and say what happened. All Ken could figure was, since
Suren had been there, and because he knew she was the one who
bought the memory from the store that night, when she arrived at
their house, she was probably less than happy. There was probably a
fight and his face was the likely loser.

They took turns nursing him back to health.
He knew everything was going to be different because it had always
been only Hunter nursing him. Suren’s presence meant she knew. Ken
didn’t know how much she knew but by everyone’s behavior and
appearance, how they were treating him, he was guessing they knew a
lot. Hunter, who understandably grew weary of the episodes over the
years, regained much of the empathetic and caring mannerisms he
displayed during the first and second episodes.

Something was up. Ken guessed he probably
blabbed that night. He figured maybe it was finally time to break
down and let it all out. After, that was, they waited on him a
little more. Maybe a little more ice cream. Or maybe after Suren
cooked his favorite dish—a couple of times. Oh and maaaaaaybe if he
kept it up long enough Hunter would finally
let-him-get-that-puppy.

When the time finally came, Ken made one
demand: he wanted to have the talk in his office. Suren and Hunter
would move one of the couches into his office and place it in front
of his desk. He would sit at his desk and they would sit on the
couch. The only things on Ken’s desk would be his laptop and a box
of tissue. Oh, and they probably needed some bottles of water or
something. No glass though. Nothing that could be thrown or used as
a weapon. And Suren had to stay on her side of the desk at all
times.

“I’m not going to kill you, Ken,” she assured
him.

“Well my face still hurts and judging from
the way you keep rubbing them, so do your hands. I’d rather keep my
distance during our little chat. Unless someone wants to tell me
what all happened that night.”

“Oh,
Hunterrrrrr
, want to help me with
the couch?” Suren called out, intentionally sounding guilty, rather
comically so. She wasn’t quite ready to divulge to Ken how she
pummeled his face.

“The memory … is Jin’s. It belongs to Jin,”
Ken started with his hands folded on the desk in front of him as if
he were giving a Presidential Address.

He locked eyes with Suren, then with Hunter.
Gauging from their reactions, or lack thereof, they knew that
already. Ok, moving forward then.

“It’s not a clear, linear memory; it’s more
like a loop. A very hazy loop. It’s a blurry white background with
a round black object in the middle, about ten feet away. I’m
guessing it’s the barrel of a gun. Because everything starts to
move downward and then there’s a blinding flash that comes from the
middle of the black object, followed by a painful … well, you
saw.”

“Yes,” Suren nodded. “We saw. What do you
mean everything starts to move downward?”

“I think Jin tried to move his head away from
the gun. The original position in the field of vision would’ve put
the bullet—” he paused, “and excuse me for being so blunt about
this.”

Suren nodded.

“It would’ve put the bullet straight through
his head. But something happened. His head shifted, so I believe it
went in at an angle based on the field of vision inside the
memory.”

“Ok.”

“After the pain, there is nothing more
visually. The loop starts over again and that time the pain is
there throughout the whole thing. It loops again and again and
again … pain, pain and more pain.”

Hunter spoke up. He wanted to move away from
that part of the talk soon. “So the memory is Jin’s last thought …
or his last experience, of getting … shot. It’s Jin’s own memory of
getting shot.”

“Yes. There are two sounds, I believe they
are thoughts, but I can’t make them out. So either the killer says
something or Jin has two thoughts. They are deep, muffled noises
when I hear them. Very deep and very muffled. If Barry White and
Charlie Brown’s teacher had a baby, it would sound like that baby’s
voice. Like I said, everything is a blur.”

“His brain was obviously very damaged so we
couldn’t expect more than that anyway, right?” Suren asked the two
men. They had much more experience with that kind of stuff.

“Yes, if the bullet went in at the angle I
suspect, and from what I’ve seen—which I’ll get to in a minute—it
likely damaged mainly his frontal lobe. So he could’ve continued
living … physically. For a while. But Jin, the person, would be
gone. He was gone with the bullet.”

“From what you’ve seen?” Suren asked. It was
the only question she wanted to ask and she wanted him to stop
talking so she could ask it. She didn’t even try to listen to the
rest of what he said. She already knew what he was going to say
about all of that.

She knew her Jin was gone. As soon as the
trigger was pulled, her Jin was gone. In fact, in Suren’s
imagination, Jin kissed her goodbye that morning while she
slept
,
and as he left their home and
descended the stairs, he simply vanished into the air, going
wherever people go when they die. Her Jin was gone the very moment
he left the house that morning. Still, she wanted to know what Ken
meant; she needed to know what he saw.

“Yes, from what I’ve seen,” Ken replied
flatly, trying to avoid rousing too much strong emotion in all of
them. He had years to go over and over what they were about to see
for the first time. He wasn’t sure how they’d respond to any of it,
especially Suren, but he knew his own demeanor could go a long way
in directing their reactions.

Ken shuffled his finger around on his
laptop’s track pad. When he got to where he wanted, he positioned
the computer so the three of them could view it. He hit play on a
video and the three watched a man
,
dressed
as a pizza delivery person, enter the elevator while pulling a cart
behind him. He wore a hat, but Suren and Hunter recognized him
right away. It was the same man who showed up in the videos the day
Jin was killed. He was Jin’s murderer.

They all watched as the elevator opened at
the 13
^th
floor and he started to push the cart out. Then
he stopped. He appeared to be talking to someone. After a few
moments, he went to reach into a pocket and then stopped again. He
put his other hand out and appeared to be speaking again. Slowly,
he resumed reaching into his pocket, pulled out a set of
keys
,
and tossed them to someone standing
out of the view of the camera. Ken paused the video.

“You both remember Gary Austen, of
course?”

“Yes,” Suren replied and stared at the paused
video, confused.

“The soldier who set himself on fire outside
of the temple,” Hunter finished.

“That’s who I think he just threw the keys
to,” Ken nodded toward the monitor.

“Oh!” Suren exclaimed as it dawned on her
that Ken was probably correct.

“Now, what’s interesting is that he never
shows up on video. I have no idea how. Somehow he got to and exited
the 13
^th
floor without riding the elevator, or at least
without ever showing up on the video feed. That is still a mystery
to me,” Ken informed them and resumed playing the video.