Double Blind (24 page)

He rested an elbow on his chair. He had to know the gist of my story already, through Patti. Even so, did I see a slight twitch in his jaw?

“Sounds like you've got quite a tale to tell, Ms. Newberry.”

“My name is Lisa.”

“Lisa, then.” His eyes narrowed. “Before we continue let's get something clear. Our conversation is between you and me—only. I expect it to stay that way. If you repeat anything I say here, I will deny it. There will be no way for you to use this meeting to discredit me or my company. Understand?”

“I don't want to discredit your company. I just want answers.”

“
Do
you understand?”

“Yes.” Arrogant man. He knew I'd been to the police. What made him think they hadn't sent me in here wearing a wire?

Hilderbrand surveyed me. “That door you came through.” He pointed behind me. “If you were carrying a recording device of any kind, you'd have tripped a sensor.”

I held myself very still.
How
did he do that?

Hilderbrand offered a chilly smile. “Experience has taught me how to interpret people, Lisa. You're not one who hides her thoughts very effectively.”

Wonderful. Now he was a psychic, too.

“And, of course, I read a lot. I do love a good spy novel.” He leaned back and laced his hands. “So. Tell me your story.”

My story—the one I'd told to Mom and Sherry, then to Officer Bremer—twice. By now I nearly had the words down pat. There was nothing to do but begin again.

“It starts in the hospital last Friday, after I woke up from the surgery . . .”

Bit by bit it spurted out. The first vision—or dream, whatever it was. The following ones, when I knew I was awake. More scenes after I got home. The sounds and sights of a horrible murder. How Mom and I had found Hilderbrand's house. How we'd found Patti Stolsinger. The threatening messages and the break-in.

Somewhere along the way Hilderbrand's poker face wavered. Oh, he tried to remain stiff-backed and aloof. But I saw that flex in his jaw again when I described the inside of his house. I saw that slow breath when I told of the stabbing. Patti Stolsinger's dead eyes. The suitcase disappearing into blackness.

By the time I finished, my throat was dry. I asked for water. Hilderbrand paged his assistant, and she brought in a glass with ice. We waited until she'd left the room to continue.

Hilderbrand swiveled his chair to stare out the side windows. I sipped my drink.

“Did you tell me everything?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Every vision you had, every detail?”

I thought about it. “Yes.”

He turned around to face me. “The dragon ring is an odd touch.”

Was
that
all he could say? “Patti said you don't own one?”

“Not my style.”

He tapped the arm of his chair. “First of all let me say I'm very sorry for what you've gone through.”

Finally. A stiff apology, but it was a start. I nodded.

“Second, you need to know neither Jerry Sterne nor Clair Saxton knew about this. They could only think you were having psychiatric problems.”

No, they could have believed me. “They told me my chip was a placebo.”

“That's what the documentation they received said. They had no reason to question it.”

“But that documentation was false, wasn't it.”

Hilderbrand tipped his head back and regarded me through lowered eyelids. “Yes.”

The stunning admission knifed through me. I bled vindication, but it soon clotted to anger. “So who lied? The vice president?”

“He knew nothing either.”

“Then who?”

“I did.”

I gripped the arms of my chair.
“Why?”

Irritation twinged across his face. “You can drop the self-righteousness, Ms. Newberry. Look at it from my perspective. I'm in the midst of a multi-million-dollar trial. I have a participant who's spouting wild accusations against the product, threatening to derail the entire process. I chose to shut you down swiftly and efficiently until I could look further into the matter.”

“You didn't look into it! You just left me out there to hang.”

“How do you know that?”

I swallowed. This was too much. Somehow I had to keep my wits about me. Suddenly I remembered where I'd heard his voice. “You called my mother, didn't you? That was
your
voice. And you sent that note. Did you break into my apartment to get it back, too?”

He seared me with a glance. “Do I look like a lock picker to you?”

A lock picker.
So that's how he'd gotten in—whoever he was. Which meant my new lock was no help at all.

Another thought surfaced. “Wait—it
was
you. Because the drawing of Patti disappeared. You recognized it.”

Hilderbrand merely lifted his shoulder.

I glared at him. This was my
life
we were talking about. My sense of safety in my own apartment. I wasn't going to let this man intimidate me.
He
was the one in the wrong.

“So.” I spread my hands. “Now what? You going to deny the chip is bad?”

He shifted in his chair. “No. Most of these visions, or memories, as you call them, are ridiculous. But a few things you said are right. Like the description of the inside of my house.”

Another surprising admission. I waited for him to say more, but he held out for my next move. What a chess game we played.

But games took two, didn't they. Fact was—he needed me, as much as he might despise being in that position. Above all else, he wanted to protect his Empowerment Chip.

“How did my chip get this tainted data on it?”

“I have no idea.”

“You must think something.”

He rubbed a finger along the edge of his desk.

“Where are the chips manufactured?”

Hilderbrand looked up. “I won't discuss that with you.”

“Well, wherever it is, someone there had to have done this.”

“Agreed.”

“But how? They got a lot of stuff right. Like Patti's face.”

“Look at all they do with computer graphics in movies these days.”

That stopped me for a moment. I should have thought of that. “
Why
would they do it?”

“I have enemies, Ms. Newberry. The technological race to understand and harness the brain has been akin to that of mapping the human genome. Any man who's accomplished what I have in this field, who's on the brink of an earth-shaking product, has enemies.”

“But they knew the inside of your house.”

“Bothersome, isn't it.”

I wanted to shake the smugness right off his face. Hilderbrand couldn't be feeling so sure of himself. He had to be scared to death of losing the “race”—and zillions of dollars.

“Are other people in the trial complaining of problems?”

“Also something I'll not discuss.”

“Patti said you'd heard rumors.”

“Did she now?”

My mouth snapped shut. Had I just gotten her in trouble? Well, so what? She hadn't been very nice to me, either.

I leaned back and folded my arms. “If you're not going to talk to me, why did you even ask me to come here?”

“I wanted to hear your story.”

Uh-huh. Just as I thought. And I shouldn't have come so easily. Should have realized how much he needed my details. I could have insisted on a few quid pro quos up front.

But it wasn't that simple. I needed Hilderbrand as much as he needed me. “So what are you going to do about everything I've told you?”

He breathed in, his nostrils flaring. “I'm going to get to the bottom of it.”

“I don't want your chip going out on the market with this kind of flaw.”

“And you think
I
do?” He looked toward the ceiling. “Talk about lawsuits. That would decimate the company.” Hilderbrand slow-swiveled to focus out the window once more. “And that's where they made their mistake.” He spoke almost to himself. “Tainting a chip that was in the trial. If they'd waited until it was on the market . . .”

The thought suspended in the air.

An odd thing happened then. A shift in positions. I'd spent a lot of dark hours believing William Hilderbrand was a cold-blooded murderer. I still didn't like the man, but now I knew he wasn't a killer. In fact, he'd been wronged, as I had. By a twist of fate we faced a common enemy. “They didn't
want
to see the chip on the market. They wanted to kill it before it ever got there. And that would have been a tragedy. Because it
works
.”

Hilderbrand turned and regarded me for a long moment. “Do you want to help get the Empowerment Chip back on track?”

I gave him a wary look. “Yes.”

“Then let me take your chip out of you.”

My eyes rounded. Cognoscenti had circled back to
this
, after ignoring my pleas for it?

“To put it plainly, Ms. Newberry, I need it. I need to study it in order to understand how this was done. And most of all, I need to catch who did it.”

Like I was going to trust this man now. “But you're talking a second surgery for me.”

“Isn't this what you demanded just a few days ago?”

“That was before I learned that taking it out wouldn't help. The memories are now mine. In the circuits of my own head.”

He raised his chin, as if surprised I knew as much. “True. But you mentioned the visions came in sequence, bringing further details each time. How do you know that's over? You could be facing more horror.”

“I haven't had any new memories in over twenty-four hours.” Well, not really. I'd had the last one on the way to the police station.

“And that's long enough to make you think this is over forever?”

I licked my lips. I didn't really believe that. The chip could be loaded with a dozen murders, for all I knew. A hundred. It may have just gotten started.

“Lisa, I need the chip. I'll give you a new, viable one. I'll inspect it myself. And you can go on with your life, free of depression. The memories are now yours, yes. But you've seen they're wrong. You don't need to fear them. And in time they'll fade.”

True or not, they still filled me with dread. But to think that bad chip could be out of me. That never again would some gory scene screech my world to a halt. What if I had one of those visions while I was driving?

“Cognoscenti will finance the procedure, of course.” Hilderbrand steepled his fingers. “And we'll pay you a half million dollars for your inconvenience.”

My neck thrust forward. A
half million dollars?

“I'd insist that you sign some legal documents first, pledging not to disclose our agreement or sue the company. And you'll not be allowed to discuss your experience with Cognoscenti in any way with anyone.”

A half million dollars. I couldn't get past that. Five hundred thousand dollars—for one week's setback in my recovery. That money, plus the two hundred thousand from Ryan's life insurance, would fund a new life for me. I really could walk away from this. Vindicated
and
compensated. And emotionally strong enough to fight whatever lingering memories played in my head . . .

Hilderbrand raised his eyebrows. “Do we have a deal?”

But how could I trust him? What if he told the surgeon to let his knife “slip” while I was under anesthesia? He could get his chip
and
get rid of me.

“I don't know.”

“Really.” Hilderbrand cocked his head.

I caught myself twisting my hands and forced them apart.

“What's the problem?”

Hilderbrand had mentioned legal documents I'd have to sign. Which meant I would need a lawyer. “I'd want something in the contract, too—to the effect that if anything happens to me during the operation, all bets are off. My attorney goes to the police with our contract. And the media. He talks to anyone who'll listen. They'll know you killed me. Cognoscenti won't survive.”

He sighed. “Ms. Newberry, I'm not a murderer, remember?
Why
would I want to kill you?”

I had no answer for that.

“Even if you can't believe
me
, do you think a surgeon or anesthetist would risk his career to harm you? We want you well. And we want the chip.”

I took a drink of my water.

“So I pose it to you again. And remember, half a million dollars is on the table. Money I can remove any time.
Do
we have a deal?”

I put the glass down. Shifted in my chair. If I did this, Hilderbrand would get away with everything. Lying to me about the placebo, making threats, breaking into my apartment. Which would really chafe me. But if I didn't do this, I'd never prove all that anyway. I'd already tried with Bremer, and look how far that had gotten me.

“Ms. Newberry?”

“One million,” I heard myself say.

Hilderbrand's mouth slowly twisted. “Why, Lisa. You had me fooled. I never thought you'd be one to dig money out of this unfortunate situation.”

“I'll put the other five hundred thousand in savings. When the chip comes on the market, I'll donate it to needy patients who can't afford the surgery.” In essence, force Cognoscenti to give away a few of their own chips.

William Hilderbrand managed a smile. “A worthy cause.” He thought it over. “One million it is.”

“One more thing.”

“You might stop while you're ahead.”

Oh, no. I would make
sure
this product was perfect. “If the Empowerment Chip hurts someone like it did me, I can disclose our agreement. I'll tell the world my story.”

I doubted Hilderbrand would ever let it come to that. He
would
catch the culprit and fix this—his fortune depended on it. All the same, a little more pressure never hurt.