Memory Zero (6 page)

“Good move.”

“And that includes you, brother,” Stephan added dryly.

“Yeah, right.” The day
that
happened would be the day hell froze over. “I’ll send Karl over to your place tonight.”

Stephan sighed. “Fine. See you tomorrow night.”

Gabriel nodded and clicked off the link. The computer hummed softly. “You have a call.”

“Patch it through, then get Karl on the line for me.” He hesitated slightly before adding, “And run a background check on Samantha Ryan. I want all the personal details that can be found.” Finley’s check on her
would run to the academic side of her life rather than the personal. And as one of the SIU’s assistant directors, his system had access to a greater range of data.

The better he knew her, the closer he might get to some answers.

And he had a very bad feeling that he was going to need those answers pretty damn quick.

S
AM LAY ON THE SOFA
, staring up at the ceiling. Night had fallen over two hours ago, encasing the small living room in darkness. And yet, despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep. The moment of Jack’s death played itself over and over through her mind—a nightmare from which there was no escape. Nor could she escape wondering if there was something, anything, she could have done except pull the trigger.

Yet every time, the answer was the same. Given the chance, Jack would have killed her. She was certain of that, if nothing else.

But then, she
had
to be certain; otherwise her actions would destroy her. Not so much job-wise, but emotionally. Mentally.

Outside, the rain still pounded, the sound almost soothing when compared to the bass-heavy thumping drifting up from the apartment below. Obviously, Becky and Matt were out again, and their two teenagers were making the most of it. Normally she didn’t
mind, but at the moment, the noise grated against her nerves.

She glanced at the clock. Nine-twelve. Sighing, she climbed off the sofa and walked across to the kitchen.

“Coffee, black,” she said softly.

The autocook hummed to life, and almost instantly the rich aroma of coffee filled the room. But it was an illusion. They’d long ago stopped using real coffee beans, at least in the stuff she could afford, and it almost never tasted as good as it smelled. When the timer chimed, she opened the door and grabbed the steaming mug. She then wandered over to her computer desk and sat down. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well put her time to good use and have a look at the transcripts she’d uploaded from Jack’s computer.

“Computer on.”

As she waited for the screen to blink to life, she stared at the framed drawing sitting next to the computer. It was a sketch she’d done as a child of a woman she could no longer remember. A woman with red hair, blue eyes, and freckles across her nose.
Mommy
, the childish writing at the bottom proclaimed. Apparently, she’d been clutching the drawing when they’d found her on the steps of the state-run children’s home. Even now, it was the only true clue to her mother’s identity.

“You have mail, Earthling.”

She glanced at the screen. Marvin the Martian glared back at her. “Secure files, then open.”

The computer hummed for several seconds, and then Marvin was back. “Completed. Files opening.”

Split screens appeared. The one on the right listed phone calls; the other, diary contents.

“Trace these.” She marked the two unrecorded phone calls Jack had made the day he disappeared. The screen went blank, and for several seconds, nothing happened. She swore softly, fervently hoping the department hadn’t discovered the illegal lines Jack had set up for her. She needed the unregistered access to their main computers, if only to continue the search for her identity.

Then Marvin blinked back onto the screen. “Tracing.”

She sighed in relief and opened the diary. Jack had made two appointments for the tenth. One was with a Frank Mohern, and the other with a J. C. Dodd. She didn’t recognize either name. She touched their names and ordered another trace.

The doorbell buzzed into the silence, making her jump. “Security cam,” she murmured, taking a quick sip of coffee to calm the sudden attack of nerves. “Front door view.”

Anyone would think she was a rookie on her first day, given the way she was beginning to jump at shadows. Yet after last night’s events, it was natural, wasn’t it? God, it wasn’t every damn day that her missing partner showed up and tried to kill her. But she certainly wasn’t going to talk to the psych guys about it. Knowing them, they’d probably put it down to guilt—or something worse.

The com-screen flickered, briefly showing the rain-swept pavement outside the building before it centered on the man standing at the door. He was big, at least six four, and heavyset. He was also what she’d term
extremely
hirsute. His dark brown hair curled wildly around a beard so thick it hid his features. He was no one she knew, that was for sure.

She leaned forward and pressed the comlink. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Samantha Ryan.”

“Why?”

White teeth flashed briefly through the forest of brown hair. “I have a message.”

She frowned. Alarms were ringing in the back of her mind, and she didn’t understand why. But it was a warning she’d long ago learned to heed. Flicking the sound off, she leaned back and snagged her bag off the coffee table, then dug around until she found Jack’s wristcom. The computer hummed as she attached the two. “Computer, download all files to link 1045.” She hesitated, and then added, “Send search results to outlink 1097b.”

“Proceeding, Earthling.”

Turning the sound up again, she glanced back at the gorilla. “What sort of message?”

“From your partner.”

She grimaced and rubbed her eyes. This wasn’t trouble, just a nutter. Either that or someone was playing a very cruel hoax. Someone like Suzy, maybe.

The computer hummed its readiness. She detached the wristcom and put it back in her handbag, which she tossed onto the nearby chair, out of the way. “My partner is dead. Leave before I call security.”

The white teeth flashed again. “The man you killed was not Jack. It was a replica—a means for the real Jack to officially disappear.”

The
real
Jack? The man was
definitely
a nutter. “You have three seconds before security arrives.”

Her finger hovered over the call button, but she didn’t press it. Because there was something about this man that almost made her believe him.

Either that or she was suffering from sleep deprivation.

His shrug was almost graceful. “Call them,” he said, “but not because of any threat you see in me. Call them because of the others.”

Others? What the hell was he? An alarm cut through the silence, strident enough to wake the dead.
Someone had broken into her apartment
. Her heart racing, she reached for her gun, only to remember that they’d confiscated it. And her spare was locked in the safe. She thrust up from the chair and ran like hell across the room.

“Safe open,” she hissed.

“Retina identification required.”

No time
, her mind screamed, even as the bedroom door crashed open. She spun around, catching a brief glimpse of two men wearing black face masks, before a flash of white arrowed across the shadows. Her fear surged, and she threw herself sideways. Heat sizzled across her hip, and pain flared, short and sharp. She hit the floor with a grunt that turned into a yelp as another flash of light cut through the gloom, slicing through her shirt but missing skin. The wall inches from her shoulder peeled away and began to burn.

Lasers. The sons of bitches have lasers
. She pushed to her knees and scrambled behind the sofa, though it wouldn’t offer much protection. Light flared again, and a two-inch hole appeared on her right. The carpet near her feet began to burn.

She had to get out of here before the bastards destroyed the apartment—and her. She shuffled backward, then twisted to look at the door. One of the men was standing there. It left her with only one option—the window.

She lunged to the left and grabbed her boots from the end of the sofa. Then, making sure the sofa still hid her, she half rose and flung the boots toward the kitchen. They clattered against the wall and dropped. Light flared again, spearing one boot as it fell to the floor. The smell of burnt leather stung the air. It was a smell that would be joined by burnt flesh if she didn’t get the hell out of here, pronto.

She scrambled upright and dove headfirst for the window. Heat seared the soles of her feet as she flew through the air, but in her desperation to escape, there wasn’t even pain, just a great surge of determination. Then the glass was shattering around her, glittering like diamonds even as it cut through her skin, and she was free-falling out into the rain-soaked night.

T
HE ACRID SMELL OF SMOKE
stung the night air. Water sheeted across the pavement, flanked by the silvery-white fire hoses that snaked their way up the stairs and in through the main doors. The flashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles gave the small crowd of people huddled at the far end of the street an almost haunted look. Samantha Ryan was not among them.

But Gabriel would have been surprised if she had been. What
did
surprise him was the fact that she was here at all. Not many cops lived inside their patrol zone, and fewer still could afford an apartment in a place like Brighton. The old bayside suburb had once again become the playground for the trendy rich, and apartments like this, so close to the beach, cost more than Samantha Ryan would ever earn.

As Gabriel tried to enter the building, a young man dressed in the black uniform of the State Police stepped forward. “Sorry, sir. No one’s allowed inside.”

He stopped and impatiently dug his ID out of his pocket. “What happened, son?”

The officer’s eyes widened as he took in the badge.

“Bomb on the second floor, sir.”

His gut clenched. Ryan lived on the second floor. Sethanon had obviously made it here before him. He glanced around but didn’t see any ambulances. That could either be a good or a bad sign. “Anyone hurt?”

The officer shook his head. “Two apartments were seriously damaged, though.”

“Who’s in charge upstairs?”

“Captain Marsdan.”

Marsdan was the head of Samantha’s squad. Why would he be called down instead of the Internal Investigations Unit? Even suspended, she was still a cop whose apartment had just been bombed. That was IIU’s territory, not the beat police’s.

He nodded his thanks to the officer and made his way upstairs. Black uniforms were everywhere on the second floor. After flashing his badge at the officer manning the door, Gabriel stepped into the shattered remains of Samantha Ryan’s apartment. By the look of it, the front room had taken the brunt of the blast. The wreckage of what once must have been a coffee table and sofa lay partially embedded in the wall to his left. A few twisted metal shelves arched up the wall to his right, framing the hole that now led out into the corridor. The tangled remains of a desk and com-terminal sat in the far corner. What remained of the kitchen wasn’t worth salvaging.

But if someone had wanted this place truly destroyed, he hadn’t done a very thorough job. The damage was hefty, but the apartment itself was still in reasonable shape, and the furniture was replaceable. So why bother? It almost looked as if whoever had done this was trying to cover something up rather than actually destroy anything.

A balding man in his mid-forties stepped forward, suspicion evident in his small brown eyes. “Can I help you?”

Gabriel flashed his badge yet again. The suspicion in the captain’s eyes increased.

“Have you located Samantha Ryan?” Gabriel asked.

“Since when has the SIU gotten involved in a case as mundane as a bombing?”

“Since when have the beat police?” Gabriel deliberately put a derogatory edge on the term, wanting to evoke some sort of honest response from the man.

Anger darkened the captain’s face. “Since it was one of my damn officers who was hit. Got a problem with that?”

The man’s sudden fierceness surprised him. Such loyalty to the ranks was a rarity these days. “Actually, no.” He watched a young officer bend to examine a small hole in the floor, then switched his gaze back to the captain and repeated his question. “You found Ryan yet?”

“No. Security reports show she was home, but we’ve found no evidence of it yet.”

If she’d been here, they would have found bits of her by now. “Mind if I look around?”

As an SIU officer, he outranked the captain and had the right to go where he wanted. But he’d discovered
very early on that politeness cost nothing and gained much.

“I want to know if you find anything.”

Gabriel nodded. Whether he would actually say something or not was another matter entirely. Stepping past the captain, he moved across to the small hole the young officer had been examining. Squatting, he ran a finger round the edges. The white marker next to it told him forensics had already checked the hole, so he didn’t have to worry about fouling evidence. The rim was glass-edge smooth. The hole wasn’t a result of the bomb blast, but more likely a laser. He frowned. Lasers were a rarity on the streets. Even the black marketeers had trouble getting hold of them.