Mind's Eye (13 page)

He looked down at the message he had written:
Knock. When Garcia answers, kill him. Then visit his slumbering partner, Tony, and make sure he never wakes up.

Delamater hit
send
and the text message raced into cyberspace.

“We’ll be out of your hair in just a few minutes,” he told the paramedic. “Thanks a lot for your help. ”

 “You’re welcome,” replied Garcia. “Hopefully you can understand my paranoia. And why I didn’t level with you at first.”

“Absolutely,” said Delamater. “You can never be too careful,” he added with a friendly smile. “There are a lot of dangerous people out there.”

15

Megan Emerson slowly drifted awake, her half-conscious mind vaguely becoming aware that her inner thigh seemed to be throbbing painfully. She glanced at a digital alarm clock through lidded eyes. It was nine o’clock! Why hadn’t her alarm gone off?

Now fully conscious, she realized with a start that she had never seen the alarm clock she was looking at before, and memories of last night’s events came flooding back to her.

She had been asleep for thirteen hours.

She sat up in the bed and was relieved when no dizzy spell came over her. She felt strong. Other than the throbbing pain in her thigh—the IV pain killers Hector Garcia had given her long since out of her system—she felt like herself again.

Nick Hall’s change of plan had been just what the doctor ordered. A bus ride to Paris, followed by a hunt for lodging, was not what her body needed. She smiled as she remembered what had happened the night before. If you had to be running for your life, it was good to be doing so in the company of a mind reader.

When Hall had picked up the worried thoughts of a woman leaving her home unattended for several days, wondering if she had remembered to shut the garage door, it occurred to him that any number of passengers would be going on extended trips and wouldn’t be returning to their homes that night. And many wouldn’t be returning for
several
nights.

Not surprisingly, in the city’s main train and bus terminal, he had found dozens that fit this bill, and raided their memories for intel. Were their homes totally abandoned in their absence? Or were they leaving spouses or kids behind to man the fort? In the days of hired dog-walkers, there could be dogs left behind as well; dogs who would be unlikely to welcome uninvited houseguests. Hall checked for this as well.

When he discovered a traveler leaving an empty home, he probed more deeply. Had they hidden a key on the premises? Was their home alarmed, and if so, what was the combination that would deactivate it?

Hall had found what he was after in fairly short order. A shack would have done nicely, but just by chance the first home that was abandoned, and for which the owners, Carl and Terry Glandon, had hidden a key, happened to be in an upscale neighborhood only a fifteen-minute cab ride away.

The setup was nearly perfect. Each house was on a considerable parcel of land, and only two neighbors had a clean view of the Glandons’ front door and garage. Even so, Hall had had the cab drop them off a few blocks away, and they didn’t approach the house until his psi reconnaissance told him the coast was clear. There was a small chance one of the neighbors would turn out to be unreadable, like Megan, and could be watching them through a window, but they decided they had no other choice but to take this risk.

They retrieved the key, hidden in a small steel box inside a hollow, decorative rock near the front door, entered, and disarmed the alarm, well within the sixty-second window they had before it went off.

The house was spectacular: a split-wing design, with a four-car garage, blue granite countertops, a beautiful pool and spa, soaring ceilings, and a covered patio with a gleaming stainless steel barbecue grill.

Hall had raided the Glandons’ well-stocked kitchen, making sure Megan was well-fed with nutritious and easily digestible food, and then, even though it wasn’t even eight, they had both retired to separate rooms for some much-needed sleep. While a long conversation was very much in order, Hall insisted they wait until morning when they could think more clearly; and when Megan had had a full night to regain some of her strength.

Megan was impressed with how Hall had handled himself. And his strategy had been excellent. When their pursuers tracked them to the station, and then learned that they had booked trips to nine different destinations, they would never guess in a million years that she and Hall would instead stay in Bakersfield. Even if they did, the Glandons’ lovely home would be the very last place in the entire city they would think to look for them.

Megan was wearing shorts and a T-shirt she had borrowed from the woman of the house, which engulfed her, and a white terry cloth robe that could have fit two of her inside. She rubbed sleep from her eyes, deciding this was the most comfortable bed on which she had ever slept.

She noticed a small piece of notebook paper folded on the nightstand, which she opened with great trepidation. Had Nick Hall decided to abandon her after all? Was this a Dear Jane letter? She held her breath, looked down, and began reading:

Megan. Good morning.

I’m writing this at two in the morning, after waking up from six hours of sleeping like a corpse (probably a bad choice of words). I can’t remember the last time I was in bed by eight. Then again, since I can’t remember my own name, maybe this isn’t surprising. Anyway, I should be back by nine or ten this morning.

I don’t know what we’re up against, but we can’t risk using your Visa again, and our cash supply won’t last long. And we both need clothing and some spare bottles of Aleve—I left a bottle I took from the Glandons’ medicine cabinet in the end table drawer. Help yourself, but be sure to eat a good breakfast first.

Anyway, I gave it some thought, and I’m planning to drive Carl Glandon’s Mercedes to The Golden West Casino on South Union Avenue. Their web page says they host all-night, no-limit Texas Hold’em games. I’ve never played before, but I like my chances. I’m not an ethicist, but I have to believe that being able to read the cards and strategies of everyone at the table isn’t playing fair, but again, I feel I have no other choice. I’ve learned that adherence to a strict ethical code is a lot harder when you’re fighting for your life. And now, unfortunately, I’m not the only one involved. Sorry again . . . .

I hope you’re feeling better. Remember, don’t turn on or off any lights that can be seen by the neighbors or go near any uncurtained windows. See you soon.

Nick

Megan folded the note back over again with a smile on her face. She opened the drawer and found the small bottle of Aleve Hall had left for her, and then padded into the kitchen to make breakfast. She was still recovering, so she didn’t want to eat too much. She microwaved a frozen bagel, slapped on some cream cheese, and had two glasses of orange juice.

She was just finishing up when Hall entered the kitchen and removed the green windbreaker he had taken from the ambulance and had probably worn all night, revealing a crisp, unwrinkled shirt that actually fit. His pants were new as well. He had showered and shaved before leaving and finally looked like a human being.

“You clean up well,” said Megan by way of greeting.

“Yeah, well, you have to keep up with fashion. The dumpster look I was going for when you met me was so . . . I don’t know . . .
yesterday
,” he finished with a grin.

He held out a large Nordstrom’s shopping bag filled with women’s clothing. “I got you a few things on the way home,” he said. “I would’ve been back earlier, but I had to wait until they opened. How are you feeling?”

“Much, much better.”

He slid the bag over to her and she looked inside. He had bought three different outfits in two different sizes, both of them petite. “Not bad,” she said. “Not exactly what I’d buy myself, but good enough. And I’m sure at least one of these will fit.” Megan raised her eyebrows. “Shop for women’s clothing often?” she asked.

“God, I hope not,” he said with a wry smile.

“How did you do at the poker table?”

“As well as you would expect. I cleaned out two tables full of players. When I knew I had the best cards, I bet big. When everybody had crap, and so did I, I knew I could get away with bluffing and they’d eventually fold. And when I knew I was beat, I got out early.”

“Did anyone get suspicious?”

“
What?
” he said with an exaggerated look of innocence. “Of a guy dressed like a homeless person, who looks and acts like a poker patsy, and steadily cleans everyone out?” He paused. “Actually, the good news is that you only have to show your hand when someone calls you at the end. So the players rarely got to see my uncanny instinct for knowing when to bluff. For all they knew, I was just getting lucky all night and really did have great cards.”

“How much did you, um . . . win,” she said finally, having first thought the word,
steal
, and hoping she hadn’t done so forcefully enough for him to read. She knew he already felt guilty—no sense rubbing it in.

He pulled a sheaf of hundreds from his front pocket, an inch or two thick. “Twenty-two thousand,” he said. “And change.”

Megan whistled. “Wow. I would have thought that much cash would take up more space.”

Hall tilted his head. “Well,” he said after a few seconds, “a hundred dollar bill is .0043 inches thick. So two hundred and twenty of them are just under an inch. Of course, these aren’t fresh from the mint, so there’s a bit of air between each of them.”

“Showing off a little, Dr. Cyberspace?” she said with an amused twinkle in her eye.

“What? Are you saying that the thickness of a hundred dollar bill isn’t common knowledge? Hard to believe.”

Megan laughed. This would have been fun if it weren’t for all the scary assassins trying to end their lives. But even though she had been shot, she now felt safe. Safer than she had any business feeling; a clear denial of reality.

But Nick Hall and his abilities, and his obvious resourcefulness, made her think she would be okay. She knew this was a dangerous optimism to have, but she couldn’t seem to shake it. The excitement of the adventure seemed real. The fact that she might be dead by the next day,
surreal
. Besides, she told herself, either trying to think on the bright side or else sinking even deeper into the quicksand of denial, the Creator had already imposed a death sentence on every human ever born. It was just that these sentences in most cases were a little less . . . imminent.

“As fun as it was to play poker when I knew everyone else’s hands,” said Hall, serious once again, “and it
was
incredibly fun, I can’t deny it, I do know how wrong it was. But it was also necessary. We have too much going on to have to worry about funds. And I’m looking forward to mailing our two paramedic friends their money, with a hundred percent interest, as soon as I have the chance.”

A faint smile came over her face. “Have you had breakfast?”

“I have.” Hall gestured toward the family room. “How about we grab a drink and get comfortable. We have to start trying to figure out what’s going on. Not to mention what we’re going to do about it.”

Megan removed a plastic bottle of water from the Glandons’ refrigerator and Hall grabbed a can of Diet Mountain Dew, a twelve pack of which he was delighted to have discovered the night before. The moment he saw this drink he learned something more about himself: he wasn’t a coffee or tea guy. Instead, he realized, whoever he had been in the past was just as addicted to Mountain Dew as many others had become to Starbucks.

They settled into the Glandons’ large, vaulted family room, on comfortable beige couches, thankful that the two-story window behind them faced the Glandons’ backyard and pool, which was fenced in, so there was no danger of being seen. They set their drinks on a red cedar table between the couches, being sure to use coasters so they would be good houseguests—although they decided that
guests
might not be the exactly appropriate word for it.

“I’d love to regale you with stories about myself,” began Hall, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to remain a closed book to both of us for the time being.” He shifted on the couch. “But tell me about you,” he said, sipping from the green and red can of Mountain Dew.

It was awkward for a baring of souls to be such a one-way affair, but Megan knew it couldn’t be helped. So she gave him an abbreviated summary of her life. She was born in Iowa. Two older sisters. Her father was a dentist, her mother a receptionist. She told him about their bitter divorce when she was fifteen, and how each had used her against the other as a human pawn. About attending UCLA to be as far away as she could get from her parents, neither of whom she had fully forgiven. About her dream of building a major graphic design firm, and her doubts that she could really do it.

She stopped short of telling him her misgivings about marriage. About being unsure if she ever wanted to go this route, and if she did, if she ever wanted to have children. After all, she wanted to give him a sense of who she was, but it wasn’t as though he was her shrink or bartender.