Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (52 page)

“Thanks. And that’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

Kevin’s expression turned serious. “I mean I’m
done
, right? I don’t have to be
ready
for anything else? Because I’m a little worn out over here.”

Danny grinned. “You’re all set. Vacation time.”

“Good. By the way, I still don’t remember anything from the summer.”

“That stuff might never come back. We don’t know. It’s a new program.”

“Petak told me that much.”

Danny nodded. “Frankly, we were watching
you
to figure some of it out. We still are. New protocol, new everything. Everything that happens to you is getting written down. Official record, all that stuff. And the memory’s not back yet, huh?”

“Definitely not. You can check that off.”

“Guess you didn’t forget how to shoot, though. Three bad guys on your first day.”

“Is this my first day?”

“Well. Not technically.”

“Are you the one who taught me how to shoot?”

Danny shook his head. “No, we had a special guy. Muscle-memory stuff was done exclusively with experts. We wanted to do it right, because it sticks with you even after the scrubbing. I’m just the fitness guy.”

“You ran with me in the park.”

“Not
just
the park, but yeah. You remember that?”

“No. A homeless guy spotted you. I was going to ask you about it, but then you were suddenly busy getting shot.”

“Mmm. They went way ahead of schedule. You did well, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“You were supposed to have another three days before activation. It’s a delicate process.”

Kevin spread his hands out. “I’ve got nothing but time. What
is
the process?”

Danny shrugged. “I don’t know the specifics. Neither does anybody, really. Petak – you met him – designed the spec, but the underlying technology is weird. It’s a machine that runs a modified TMS pulse pattern, which is what takes care of the memory loss. Everything else flows from there.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand that. And I’m practically a genius right now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Danny said with a little shake of his head. “TMS means Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. We’ve got some custom equipment, we bought it from a guy who calls himself Kline. Probably not his real name, but he’s the man with the goods. Basically, he figured out that you can just wipe clean a small section of somebody’s memory – he calls it “scrubbing” – and for the next week or two your patient’s brain goes into some sort of overdrive. It compensates for all the empty space.”

“It did other stuff, too,” Kevin pointed out. “Time slowed down. I couldn’t sleep, I was paranoid. What about all that?”

“Petak told you, right? Side effects. Some useful, some we’re trying to iron out. The time thing is related to memory: when you’re taking in everything around you, time seems to slow down. Think about how long your grade school years seemed to last; really, you were just noticing more back then. And
your
brain has been noticing
everything
for the past week
.
Turns out you can go almost all the way; if you eliminate every distraction – visual, auditory, anything that might occupy your mind – then time practically doesn’t move at all.”

“And the paranoia, the insomnia?”

“Some of that was hypnosis, although I think Petak objected to the paranoia bit. He wanted you calmer; most of the higher-ups disagreed. The sleep thing was another side effect of the TMS; one of the functions of sleep is locking in memories, but your brain was so busy making new ones that it didn’t want to give you a chance to go down. Unihemispheric sleep, it’s called. Some animals do it naturally. Don’t worry about that one, you should be hitting the sack again soon. It could happen tonight if the pain’s not too bad.”

Kevin sighed. Danny was finally starting to make some sense to him, but there were still too many questions to be asked. He decided to start with the most obvious one.

“Are there any other agents in the school?”

Danny smiled. “Just your girl Ms. Beck.”

Kevin frowned. “Right,” he said sarcastically. “
My
girl.”

Danny didn’t blink. “Well, that’s
your
problem,” he said cryptically. “I’m not getting involved.” He stood from his chair, and then he gave Kevin a serious look. “Who do you think led the team to get Anselm’s mom back?”

Kevin was struck dumb.

This is not possible.

He tried to protest that he had more questions now –
many
more questions – but Danny wasn’t listening. He turned and walked out of the room.

Emily

The next few hours were bad. He left the television on to keep the clocks moving, but nothing could take away the pain of not knowing. Of not
understanding
. He wanted to talk to Emily. He wanted her to explain what Danny had meant.

He wanted to see her.

The television was telling him now that there had been an attempted kidnapping at a private school on the upper east side of Manhattan. It had happened early this morning, the reporter said, her voice breathless. Kevin stared at the screen in disbelief.

This morning? But that happened days ago.

He was about to shout at the screen in frustration, but then something caught his eye. Something light blue, and something white.

She was standing there in the doorway.

Kevin looked at her for a moment, and he didn’t trust himself. He didn’t trust Danny, or Dr. Petak, or anyone at all. This was a mirage of some kind. “Did you wear that when you were getting Anselm’s mom back?”

Emily shook her head sweetly. She twisted her hips gently, looking down as the light blue skirt
puffed
out, as though she were examining its twirling properties. Then she came toward him, and now, finally, her eyes were fixed on him. She looked at him the way he had wanted her to look at him since the first day. Since the first time he had seen her in the teacher’s lounge.

My God, those eyes
.

“This is your favorite outfit,” she said softly. And then, unbelievably, she eased herself down, so slowly, and with infinite care, so that she was lying next to him on the bed. There were tubes and wires connected to him at his arms and chest and side, but somehow she managed to disturb not a single thing. She was careful, too, not to touch
him
. She didn’t want to bump into anything that was injured.

Not that he would have minded.

Kevin held his breath. He didn’t understand what was happening. Everything Emily was saying, everything she was doing, the way she was looking at him… it was all so dreamlike that he decided he would have to proceed as if it really
were
a dream. If he did anything to disturb the quiet of this room – if he breathed too hard, or if he turned his head too quickly – she might disappear in a flash of light and smoke.

As if to emphasize this belief, the next thing Emily said seemed terrible. It seemed designed to disrupt the delicate atmosphere in the room. “I was very mad at you,” she said.

Kevin waited. He didn’t want to ask, but he also didn’t want to let the chance for an actual conversation pass him by. He took a breath. “Why?”

She closed her eyes before answering. “I didn’t want you to volunteer,” she said, and her eyes opened. “I didn’t want them messing with your head.”

“You knew me before?”

She smiled again, turning ever so slightly toward him. The starched sheets of the hospital bed rustled. “Of course,” she said.

Kevin was silent for a minute. He could think of nothing else to say. “I have an enormous apartment,” he blurted out.

She giggled, a sound that made Kevin want to get up and do jumping jacks. “I know,” she said. “I hate it. Your money is one of the things that made you such a good undercover candidate. No one with tons of cash and a brand new penthouse in the city could possibly be working for the government. Anyway, when we started dating you told me you just wanted to be a teacher. That was about three months ago, but I’m hoping too much hasn’t changed.” She grinned playfully at him. “Even if you
did
turn out to be such a big spender.”

Kevin felt his heart do a small leap. Then, strangely, he felt a great calm come over him. Everything in his body seemed suddenly to take itself
down
a step.

There’s nothing left to worry about.

He had done his job, so that was over. Anselm was safe. And now this woman, this unbelievably beautiful, smart, kind woman was talking about how long they had already been dating. Kevin felt deeply relaxed and yet giddy at the same time, as though he had just been given a powerful sedative laced with alcohol. His breathing slowed. His pulse was no longer so loud in his ears. “What was that?” he said, his words like sugar in his mouth. “You said dating?”

Shameless.

“Shut up,” Emily said. “You were irresistible. So earnest.”

Kevin couldn’t help himself. “Honestly?”

Emily Beck’s laugh, light and pure, sounded off the hard walls of the hospital room. “I shouldn’t have said that. We’ll have to get to know each other again, that’s the problem. And maybe you’re not even nice anymore.”

Kevin shook his head. “No,” he said quickly. “No,
that’s
not true. I’m incredibly nice. I have a butler, too, did I mention that? Wait until you meet him. He’ll tell you how nice I am.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Emily said softly. The laughter was still bouncing around her throat, making her chest tremble.

Kevin let his eyes close for a second.

Just for a second.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Incredibly, he could feel his breathing slowing down even more now. Everything was going quiet around him. He felt… heavy.

Maybe he could close his eyes for one more second. It felt so good.

“I’ve heard you know how to dance now,” Emily said. She let this piece of information hang in the air for a minute, and then she added, “I think that’s exciting. That’s
new
. Are you going to take me out soon?”