Stolen Memory. Virginia Kantra

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      “I told you I couldn’t remember anything from the time of the attack.”

      She nodded. “Short-term retrograde amnesia.” He must have revealed his surprise, because she smiled. “I can look things up on the Internet, too. You want to sit down?”

      “Thank you.” He waited politely for her to drop into a chair and then folded himself on her couch, trying not to feel like a psychiatric patient.

      “You know, if your memory’s coming back, you should talk to Detective Palmer,” Laura said.

      “My memory’s not coming back.”

      “No?”

      “No. In fact…” Could he afford to tell her? Could he afford not to? “There’s a lot I don’t remember.”

      “Define ‘a lot.’”

      He drew a deep breath. “Quite a lot.”

      Her eyes narrowed. “Was there a reason you decided to track me down at my apartment on my day off? Or do you just like yanking my chain?”

      “Are you always this direct?”

      “Yes.”

      He smiled. “Good.”

      She didn’t smile back. “Are you always this evasive?”

      “I don’t know,” Simon said. His heart jackhammered in his chest. “Or maybe I should say… I don’t remember.”

      Her eyes jerked to his. She held his gaze for a long, slow moment.

      Her breath hissed in. “You don’t. You don’t remember…anything?”

      She believed him.

      Simon’s mouth went dry with relief. Or terror.

      “I know enough to function,” he said stiffly. “I think in time—”

      “What about people?” she interrupted. He was grateful she didn’t take out her notebook. He would have felt even more like a psychiatric patient. “What about your brother? You introduced him.”

      “Did I?”

      Her eyes widened. “Quinn announced him. And then he introduced himself.”

      Simon nodded. “God knows what I would have done if he’d walked in without warning.”

      “Wow.” She slumped back. “I bet you’re having a hard time.”

      She understood. For a second, he didn’t feel quite so alone.

      “Yes,” he admitted. “That’s why I need your help.”

      She shook her head. “No, you don’t. I’m sorry, but you don’t. You need a professional.”

      They’d been over this before.

      “You mean a doctor,” he said flatly.

      A shrink.

      “A doctor would be good,” she agreed. “But actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a private investigator. Somebody attacked you. Not only can’t you identify whoever it was, you can’t identify the people around you who might have a motive. You need someone who can make inquiries within your company and investigate your personal life.”

      He was pleased she understood his requirements so precisely. “That’s why I need you.”

      “You need a security firm that specializes in executive protection or industrial espionage or something. Not me.”

      “I have a security firm that specializes in all those things. And they failed to do their job.”

      “But if you confided in them… If you explained…”

      He stood. “E.C.I.P. has over three hundred employees working for almost twenty corporations. How long do you think I could keep my memory loss a secret if I confided in them?”

      “They’re not amateurs. Nobody’s going to send out a company memo saying you’ve lost your mind. Memory,” she corrected, blushing.

      Trust Laura to put his worst fear into words.

      “Mind will do,” he said wryly. “Technically, amnesia is brain damage.”

      “But you’re still Mr. Wizard Genius Guy, right?”

      “I don’t know,” he said. His recent answer to everything. “I have journals, detailed journals, but recent ones appear to be missing. I can grasp the process, but I’m wasting time retracing my steps. And that could set my company back by months.”

      “Don’t you have other researchers working on the same projects? Do you really think you’re that irreplaceable?”

      God help him, he did. His house might be devoid of family photos and childhood memorabilia, but there were enough clues to the scope and nature of his accomplishments to make him both profoundly proud and deeply uneasy. The past few days had taught him how much he had lost.

      And how much he had left to lose.

      He walked to the window, staring sightlessly out at the street. With his back to her, he said, “I dropped out of MIT when I was twenty. I took a stake from my father to finance my first foray into research, inventing a new technology that increases the amount of information that can be distributed via fiber optics. Before he died, when I was twenty-seven, I was already a multimillionaire. My stock started trading publicly five years ago and my company is currently one of the hottest tech properties on the market. I received a National Medal of Technology for my work on laser surgery. The Pentagon has expressed interest in a nonlethal phaser device we have in development. If we’re going to accept a Department of Defense grant, we can’t afford the slightest doubt about my company’s security or my abilities.”

      “You remember all that?” She sounded impressed. Too bad it wasn’t justified.

      “No. I read about it on-line. From an ABC News special report and a profile in Newsweek.”

      A Google search had yielded 1,378 pages of sources citing his education, inventions, patents and awards—and not a single personal fact beyond his birthdate. He was profoundly alone.

      Laura’s eyes narrowed. “At least it wasn’t your obituary.”

      He couldn’t tell if she was joking. He had a feeling—based entirely on his recent interactions with Quinn and his brother—that not many people teased him.

      “Not yet,” he said.

      She frowned. “People are going to suspect something if I start hanging around asking questions.”

      A flare of hope, of excitement, shot up inside him. She was going to do it. At least, she was considering it.

      Simon СКАЧАТЬ