Deja Who (12 page)

A
nother thing Leah liked about Archer: he never looked at her like he was expecting something. With anyone else, if they said or did something even slightly off, they'd look at her with that expectant “go on, Insight me, tell me why I'm like this” expression. It was, she decided long ago, like people who walked up to doctors in social situations and demanded a (free) diagnosis on the spot.

My arm hurts when I do like this.

So don't do that.

I'm scared of heights. How come?

Because you live in a penthouse you cannot afford? Go away.

Her rather abrupt thought segue had been brought about by her newest patient, a referral from her colleague.

“I was only clinically dead for three and a half minutes,” Chart #2256 was bitching. “And look! I'm back. Everything's fine. I'm fine. You're making way too much fuss here.”

“Five minutes,” she corrected in an even tone. His chart was on the desk, closed. She knew the contents. “I cannot believe you simply went ahead and discounted all my warnings.”

#2256 speared her with a level look. “First off, my past lives are my own business.”

Do not smile. But what a delightful attitude. Do not smile.

“
Second,” he continued when she didn't smile, “what? I'm supposed to believe you were sooo motivated by concern for my well-being? It's just CYA for you.”

“I was motivated by concern for you.” Or at least concern for her license. No, #2256's well-being was also a consideration. The man was the poster child for “my way or the highway,” and Leah could not help liking him. “I warned you to leave Insighting to pros.” She had. “I warned you there was an excellent chance of brain damage.” There was. “I warned you that you might die.” He had! For several minutes.

“You said Rain Down has caused a lot of flatlines, which isn't necessarily the same thing.” #2256 shrugged. “I wanted to see for myself. I'm not comfortable putting all that control in someone else's hands.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“Yeah, and we've been over this. The only reason I even came to your clinic is because I lost another job and my wife drew a line in the sand. It's not personal, Ms. Nazir. I don't even trust my own mother.”

“We have that in common.” Reindyne was a hypnotic used exclusively for one purpose: it was often necessary to bring a patient back to revisit past lives. What made it so effective also provided enormous potential for misuse. Without an Insighter and a controlled setting, users could get lost in their past lives.
“Nothing like all your past orgasms raining down on you,” a user once pointed out, except all your past disasters did, too, and your past deaths. Every one of them. At once. People could drown in their minds. People
had
drowned.

For herself, Leah could control seeing past lives, but it had taken years of training and practice. When she was little, other lives would just spill over her. Swamp her. Sometimes that meant a three-day migraine; other times it was a seizure. Her mother figure had not been pleased.

“I wanted to see for myself,” #2256 continued, scowling. “Frankly, I wasn't sure how necessary you were to the process.”

“How about now?” she asked dryly.

His pale blue eyes met her stare straight on. He was a small man, not much over five-three, but had presence and a gaze it was difficult to look away from. “I'm here, aren't I?”

“Mmmm.”

Once upon a time, #2256 was an escaped slave named Henry Brown. In 1849, understandably fed up with the institution of slavery, Henry escaped the Virginia plantation where he was considered property and mailed himself to freedom. A fellow slave who was a fair carpenter made a three-by-two-foot wooden crate for the five-foot-eight Henry, who somehow managed to cram his two hundred pounds in it. Two friends took him to the post office, where Henry had himself marked
Dry Goods
and mailed express. He was in Philadelphia the next day, proving once and for all to the good people at FedEx that there is no excuse for anything not to arrive overnight in the twenty-first century.

Brown later moved to Boston and gave himself the middle name Box. Leah wasn't sure why. It was unlikely he would have
needed reminding of the twenty-seven-hour ordeal, some of those hours spent upside down.

“This isn't the first life where your stubborn nature, coupled with the impulse control of a fifth grader, nearly got you killed.”

“It seems to keep working for me, though,” #2256 said comfortably, and she had to smile.

“I wish more of my patients had your determination.”

#2256 yawned. “That's a lie.”

“It is. How's the claustrophobia?”

“The wife and I did it in our closet last week.” At her smirk, his stony features softened. “Granted, it's a walk-in closet, but still.”

“No, that's—well. That's very good progress, actually, uh . . .” She glanced at the chart. “Henry. Hooray for you.”

He was already on his feet, the follow-up visit merely something to cross off his calendar on his way back to a (somewhat) better life. “Am I the only patient you've had who had the same first name in every life?”

“No.”

“Huh.” He seemed disappointed, but shook her hand, shrugged off her de rigueur admonitions to take care of himself and stay away from Rain Down, and walked out. She followed him into the lobby, where to her surprise and delight someone else was waiting with her ten o'clock and ten thirty appointments.

“Hey!” Archer bounded to his feet like a six-foot puppy. “You didn't get murdered last night! Great!”

“It
is
great,” she agreed, trying not to giggle at Henry's startled expression as he passed Archer and left the building. She even let Archer kiss her on the cheek and, later, was glad. It was one of the last nice things to happen for a while.

“I
t's probably going to be one of your patients,” Archer told Leah, who was looking especially scrumptious with her dark hair piled on top of her head like a sexy brunette donut, a dark green straight skirt

(pencil skirt? pen skirt? something . . . his cousin would know)

that fell just past her knees, one of those pretty blouses that looked like a fancy T-shirt in a lighter shade, skin-colored pantyhose

(nude? that's what they call that color, which seems pretty un-PC but it's nude, right? argh, don't think about nude and Leah don't don't)

and orange and white running shoes.

“Huh,” he said, staring down at them.

“What? Have you tried running around in pumps all day? No? All right, then. Also this is Chicago and there is no way you have never seen a woman wearing tennies with a suit. Besides, in a bit I'm going to the park to have lunch with Cat.”

“
I
just had lunch with Cat; she's fine. No, really,” he added at her frown. “She didn't mind bag lunches at 10:30 in the morning. Also, she's really carrot crazy.” That probably wasn't the only kind of crazy she was. It was just too weird that the former mayor of Boston spent gobs of time loitering in a small Chicago park with an Insighter doomed to be murdered.

He no longer thought she was homeless; he decided Cat had a home that she didn't want to go to. There was definitely more to her story and he was dying to hear all about it. He'd hinted that he'd be interested and had gotten, “You're as subtle as a pimple on a dick,” as a retort. Archer had tactfully changed the subject.

“So like I was saying, one of your patients is probably going to kill you.”

Leah groaned a little under her breath and crooked a finger, like she was going to lead him to her office to make out.

“Idiot,” she breathed.

Or maybe not. But he was saved when one of the patients, a pale young man in his early thirties, impeccably dressed in gray from neck to heels, nodded at once. “Oh, sure,” he said, “I can see that.”

“What?” Leah rounded on the patient, then turned back to Archer. “This is not the appropriate place.”

“Yeah,” the other patient added, closing last month's
Vogue
. She was a cheerful-looking brunette about Archer's age, in knee-length denim shorts and a black T-shirt with the slogan “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And spiders.” “She's awful. Impatient and chilly and sometimes I get the vibe like she's just really, really bored with everything coming out of my mouth.”

Leah said nothing, just rubbed her forehead and glared at the carpet.

“During one of my sessions I get a little PO'd,” Gray Guy said, clearly ready to bond with Spider Shirt Girl over Leah's awfulness, “and called her a chilly twat—”

“Hey!” Archer yelped.

“—sorry.” He held his hands up, placating. “It was a rotten thing to say and I'm not proud of it, but I did and it was out there, and she, Ms. Nazir, she just blinks at me real slow, like an owl, and says ‘chilly was unnecessary.' I felt like I wasn't even in the room for her.”

“It
is
weird that that's the word she picked up on.”

“Did you prefer I jumped up and stabbed you?” Leah cried, aggrieved.

“No,” Archer told him. “You definitely don't want her to do that.” Thank God, he was a fast healer. The wounds were still sore, but he was off the prescription pain meds.

“It was only because she told me I used to be William Simmons. Imperial wizard of the KKK,” Gray Suit went on at the raised eyebrows, indignant. “Which is just bullshit. I
like
black people! African-Americans, I mean.”

“Oh,” Spider Shirt Girl said.

“I'm sorry?” Archer added, not sure of the etiquette of the situation. Sure, most people knew who they'd been before, but it was considered private business. People didn't generally walk up to a stranger and open with, “Did you know I used to cut Washington's hair?”

“And she was just so cold about it,” Gray Suit complained. “Just, ho-hum, you were a real shit in a former life, which is why you're a real shit now, don't worry, we take Blue Cross/Blue Shield, see you next week.”

“Again: should I have stabbed you instead?”

“That's not a rhetorical question,” Archer added. “So don't be fooled.”

“I like you okay, Ms. Nazir, but your bedside manner's pretty, um, shitty,” Spider Shirt Girl said, slightly apologetic.

“I've dealt with warmer morticians,” Gray Suit added.

“Then why are you here?” Leah snapped.

“Oh. Well.” Spider Shirt Girl traded glances with Gray Suit; they shrugged in unison. “You're the best. Most other Insighters have to frig around for months or years before they figure out the problem. Or the past life causing the problem, I guess. You're quicker. So . . .” She spread her hands in a “what are you gonna do?” gesture. It was like picking a dentist based on speed. If you had to have a stranger doing awful things to your mouth with pointy sharp things, it should be a stranger good at her job, and who cares if she loves small talk?

“Hmmm.” Leah still had that adorably pissy look on her face, but sounded mollified. And “you're the best” didn't do her justice. Leah was almost infamous in her field. People had written papers about her; he'd read several while in her mother's employ. Funny how none of them picked up on the former child star angle, though.

“But I don't want to kill you, Ms. Nazir,” Spider Shirt Girl said, almost as an afterthought. “That's what we're talking about, right? Killing you?”

“Right! You're exactly right, excellent.” Archer was grateful Spider Shirt Girl was getting him back on track. “Anyway, I had some ideas about that. Maybe we can talk at lunch?”

“You already had lunch with Cat.” Leah, he could tell, was still a little peeved. He figured it wasn't that she hadn't known she could be a little, uh, disconnected from her patients. But that
was a lot to take in at once, and in just those couple of minutes. Anyone would feel ganged up on. “And I have patients who loathe me waiting.”

“It's not loathing,” Gray Suit piped up, no doubt trying to be helpful. “It's more like general dislike.”

“With a dash of unconscious scorn.”

“Yep, that's it,” Gray Suit said with an enthusiastic nod. “That's exactly it.” He was eyeing Spider Shirt Girl with not a little admiration. “That's really the exact . . . do you want to grab coffee or something? After?”

“Dunno. I used to be African-American. Is that gonna be a problem?”

“Hell, no. I used to run the KKK. I think we can have coffee together without a hate crime happening.”

They beamed at each other.

“This is like a cell phone commercial,” Leah snapped. “A bad one.”

“Oh, shush,” Archer said, catching her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “It's romantic as shit. And kind of makes you Cupid.”

She muttered something under her breath which sounded a lot like “oh, fuck me,” but probably wasn't. But she didn't kick him out, and even found a genuine smile for Gray Suit, who was her next patient.

“True love,” Archer said, settling down across from Spider Shirt Girl, who'd picked her
Vogue
back up. “Doncha love it?”

“It's just coffee.”

“I wasn't talking about you guys.”

N
o question, no question at all, but it was one of the oddest meetings she'd ever endured, and she had helped Karen McNamara (who had been Richard McDonald, founder of McDonald's) get over her coulrophobia (fear of clowns). That had been a strange session; she'd never again be able to hear the
ahh
—
ooo-gaa!
those old-fashioned bicycle horns made without shuddering. Thank goodness, she had no children; a single visit to Chuck E. Cheese now had the potential to send her screaming into the parking lot.

But this one was stranger. Most likely, she assumed, because it wasn't about a patient she could reduce to a pile of paper in a chart. That was always comforting, and it was wrong to feel that way, she knew. Unfortunately, it was the only way she knew how to do it. Much stranger, of course, to be the subject of discussion.

They were compiling a list of people who wanted to murder her.

Also: the Archer factor. That made it very odd indeed, but wonderful, too.

“Okay, so, top of the list: are you treating any psychos who are really into knives? That's usually how you're killed, right? Stabbed? God, I can't believe I just asked you that.”

Leah shook her head and helped herself to another Tootsie Roll. Archer had quite the sweet tooth; his pockets were often bulging with candy. Funny how they had not known each other long and still there were things about him she felt safe enough to take for granted. Sometimes she forgot her plan was to get him to lower his defenses so she could ruthlessly molest him, then run off and get murdered.

Well. Not the last bit, obviously. Probably. Maybe?

“Even if I were, I couldn't discuss it with you, and you know that perfectly well,” she said, nibbling on the candy. Archer teased her because she savored Tootsie Rolls as opposed to popping them in her mouth and chomping away.

“Yeah, I get that, but we have to start somewhere. I'm betting remembering who killed you in other lives doesn't much help when it comes to finding the killer in this one. Right?”

“Right.” She was a little startled at the obvious question, then reminded herself he was life-blind. He had no frame of reference. At all. Astonishing and . . . was that pity? Might be, yes. She squashed it. She did not want to feel pity for Archer. “And sometimes I never knew his name, or hers. Sometimes I never even saw his face. But I'm not an utter imbecile, Archer. Of course I keep an eye out for any obvious psychotics. But my case load tends to be helping patients through phobias. I'm
not treating anyone who has done anything worse than having sex in a public place.” Except, she recalled, for Chart #6116, assaulting children, which escalated to murdering them. But she wasn't chart #6116's type. Ah, God, what was her name? Angie something. No, Anne. No, Alice! Yes: Alice Delaney, Chart #6116. “There's an occasional exception, but I do try to be careful.”

And it hasn't helped once, you silly bitch!

“Oh, man, now I officially hate Insighter client privilege. Because you must have some great stories.”

“I do,” she assured him, half-finished with her first Tootsie Roll. “Marvelous ones.”

He was slouched on the couch in her office, looking effortlessly younger than she was in dark blue jeans, a navy blue button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows

(who knew fuzzy forearms could be such a turn-on?)

and loafers without socks. He looked like a college freshman.

It was the smiling, she decided, finishing Tootsie Roll #1. He had an open face and you could read everything on it and he was just . . . just sunny and uncomplicated. She was beginning to understand why the life-blind were so consistently patronized.
There, there, don't worry your pretty little head about bad things because you can't ever understand your own past and thus won't ever understand your present. Poor baby.

Ugh. Archer was to be admired. And never, ever pitied. For the tenth time in ten days, she wondered again about her theory. About how the life-blind perhaps weren't blind at all. At least, not all of them. But if she was right, it would be an uphill battle. An up-mountain battle, about as easy as persuading people the tooth fairy was real.

(“Your teeth were gone in the morning, right? And there was money under your pillow?”

“I need more proof than that.”

“I don't have any.”)

“Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

He arched dark brows. “Because you're attacking that Tootsie Roll like they're making sugar illegal at midnight.”

“I crave fake chocolate that looks not unlike petrified cat feces.”

“Aw, Leah!” He tossed a pen at her and she, leaning on her desk with her ankles crossed as she masticated, easily avoided it. “Have a heart. I love those things. I don't want to think about cat poop when I'm contemplating dessert.”

“Agreed. I withdraw the comment. Want your pen back?”

He shook his head, looked down at his notepad, then back up at her. His eyes, blue and green, watched her. “Now don't get mad . . .”

“Hmm. I assume you're about to tell me something infuriating.”

“. . . because on short acquaintance I like her . . .”

“Ah. You think the mayor of Boston might harbor murder in her heart.”

“Well . . .”

“And so she does.” Leah smiled. “Just not for me. Journalists, however, are not completely safe from her.”

“She's not a patient, right?”

Leah shook her head. “I would never insult her by implying there are things wrong with her I could perhaps fix.”

“But there
are
things wrong with her and maybe you
could
fix them.” He shrugged. “None of my business, which makes my next question kind of awkward: can you tell me her story?”

“Oh yes. And it's a good one.”

“Yeah, I figured it must be.” He patted the space beside him on the couch. “Stop leaning all sexy-like on your desk and come here and sit all sexy-like on the couch instead.”

“Your seductive smoothness has melted my reserve,” she said with a straight face, then ruined it by giggling.

“God, you are so gorgeous when you laugh.”

“Doubtful.” But she went to him anyway, and sat beside him. “Do you know how difficult it is, still is, even in this century, for women to excel at politics?”

“Even if I do, you're gonna tell me anyway. Right?”

“Well . . .”