“Couldn’t she just have been checking up on an old friend?” Hammon asked.
“Maybe, but we can’t find any evidence that Summer and Olivia had any contact since the death of Robin back in 2003, other than the phone calls that have been taking place over the last few months. And that alone may not be enough to draw conclusions, but it turns out Summer worked for Port Authority on the Corpus Christi coast for a brief period last year, and her access card was used for the first time in nine months last week.”
“She could just be working there again,” Seeley said.
“I checked. She isn’t on their current employee records,” McCoy said.
Seeley and Hammon shared a look.
“Trying to get her out of the country,” Hammon said.
“Somewhere they could start a new life,” Seeley answered.
“All of this so Olivia could play mommy,” Hammon huffed.
“Love is the most dangerous kind of motivation.”
“Then why copy our files?”
“Insurance?” McCoy speculated.
“Any leads on this elusive deadline or source that Krum mentioned?” Hammon asked.
McCoy swallowed, signaling bad news before he delivered it. “Nothing. I mean, Olivia had dozens of contacts, abroad and locally—any one of them could be the source. We’re re-scouring her files and records, looking for any clue.”
Hammon swore under his breath. “We’re flying blind.”
Before anyone could respond, a petite, graying woman in a white lab coat interrupted. “Director.”
Hammon turned and nodded to the woman. “Gina Loveless,” Hammon started as she approached, “this is Tom Seeley and Dave McCoy.” The woman stepped forward and offered a handshake to both as Hammon continued. “Dr. Loveless is a cognitive neuroscientist brought in to run diagnostics on what was done to the subject’s memory.” Then to Dr. Loveless: “Did you find something?”
She gave a nod as sharp as the angle of her jaw. As she opened her mouth, Hammon said, “And skip the science crap. Just give me the results.”
She blinked and adjusted the thin-rimmed glasses on her nose. “Memory is a tricky thing. It isn’t fully understood. It’s created and stored by the brain, so her level of memory loss is complicated to say the least.”
With the data pad in her hand, Dr. Loveless took over the large screen where McCoy had been displaying profiles. A brain scan appeared in black, white, and grays, different parts smudged and highlighted.
“This is your patient’s final scan. You can see the entirety of the brain was exposed to the memory wipe, which originally seemed to have removed all short-term, long-term, and sensory memory. That’s close to the truth, but”—Dr. Loveless enlarged one section of the brain—“a closer look at this image here around the temporal lobe shows something out of place. See this distortion? My theory is that the memories weren’t removed, so to speak, they were just moved to places where they shouldn’t be.”
“They were relocated?” Seeley asked.
“Yes. Imagine someone came into your house, took all your things, and put them in places you’d never kept them before. You wouldn’t be able to find anything. Memories are like things you need to access in order to use, but if that thing you are trying to find isn’t where it should be—”
“Then you won’t be able to use it,” Seeley finished.
“If my theory is correct, then your patient has all her memories, but they just aren’t where they should be, so she doesn’t know she has them,” Dr. Loveless said.
“Olivia had the skills to pull that off?” Seeley asked.
“I would guess not. With the limited knowledge Dr. Rivener was working with, and the time constraints, I hypothesize it was an error. The intention was to fully remove the memories. Good thing for you, because completely removed would be much more difficult.”
“But can we put them back?” Hammon asked.
“Potentially.”
“What do you need?”
“I need her to be in a lab setting where I have access to the proper equipment—”
“Do you have all of that here?”
“Yes, but—”
“Get a team,” Hammon said to Seeley. “Head to Corpus Christi and find the patient.”
“It’s not that simple,” Dr. Loveless interjected.
“Why not?” Hammon asked.
“To explain without the ‘science crap,’” she bit off, “memories are unpredictable and believed to be highly connected to our emotional and mental state. You can’t force someone to remember something. You need her to be a willing participant.”
Hammon looked as if he might bark back at the small doctor, so Seeley intervened. “If we could convince her to participate, is there a chance it would work?”
Dr. Loveless considered that and nodded. “A chance. Even then, we may not be able to get everything back in order. There are no guarantees. But the more she trusts you, the better her conditions for recovery will be.”
Seeley turned back to Hammon. “She’s never going to cooperate here. We need a different approach.”
Hammon nodded. “Do you have one?”
Seeley’s mind started to formulate an idea. “Maybe.”
“There’s something else you should know.” Dr. Loveless flipped to another part of the brain image and illuminated a small section. “This is the cerebellum—it’s associated with our motor function, or physical skills. Hers hasn’t been touched. It’s one of the only places that remains intact.”
“Her training wasn’t affected by the memory wipe,” McCoy said, drawing the others’ attention.
“Well, it wasn’t misplaced,” Dr. Loveless said. “I imagine in the chaos that is now her mind she probably doesn’t understand what she is capable of, but that won’t stop her from being able to access her skills.”
A moment of silence passed between the men before she continued. “She’s still as dangerous as you made her to be.”
Seeley was already starting toward the door.
“Go with him,” Hammon said to McCoy, and the young analyst responded, his shoes slapping on the hard ground as he rushed to follow.
“What now?” McCoy asked as Seeley pushed open the double doors and stepped into the hallway.
Seeley squared his jaw, his body tensing as his mind prepared to execute its plan. “We get her to trust us.”
THIRTEEN
ZOE FOLLOWED CLOSELY as Summer led them into her strange home. It was odd enough that it was tucked back in the corner of a junkyard, but things got stranger as they stepped into her space to find a shop of sorts. A long wooden counter with a cash machine, shelves bearing repurposed items, a collection of more KEEP OFF MY PROPERTY signs. There were other odds and ends found in any office: a printer, a copy machine—which Zoe was certain no longer functioned—a desk and chair, a round table without chairs holding stacks of paper and files.
The place was dim, dusty, and unused. Maybe at one time it had been the service building when people came through to purchase junk or drop junk off.
Summer crossed to the only other door in the small, dingy room. The lock above the handle had been replaced with a touch-screen keypad, which responded to her palm and illuminated numbers. “Turn around!” she yelled. It was clear she didn’t want them to see her precious code.