Out of Sight Out of Mind (6 page)

‘Yeah,’ Vic agreed sceptically. ‘So – did we make King Kong happy?’

‘Ecstatic, as far as I could tell.’ Alec lit the cigarette and leaned on the desk, drawing deep, and blowing a perfect smoke ring in the direction of the defunct detector. ‘He’s still banging on about bugs and surveillance, though.’

‘Plenty of time for that.’

‘That’s what I told him. The bitch is sharp. No point in leaving trails if we don’t need to.’

Vic’s eyes narrowed. ‘You ever know me to leave a trail?’

‘You never handled anything like Madison Albi before. This one reads minds.’

‘She wouldn’t need a crystal ball to read mine.’ Vic made a graphic gesture. ‘I’d like to handle
her,
no problem.’

‘Get in line, sucker.’

Vic gave a crack of laughter. ‘You, too?’ His eyes widened as he sorted through the implications. ‘And old hairy arse upstairs?’

‘Him, too. He thinks she has a superlative body and an inventive mind.’

Vic whistled. ‘Didn’t think he knew words that long.’ He laughed again. ‘Who would have thought it, me and ape-face, brothers under the skin. Inventive. I like that. Some of the stuff I’d like to do to her might be classed as inventive.’

He gestured to the computer. A picture of Madison, taken with a long lens, had been enhanced and cropped and made into a screensaver.

‘That is
crude
.’

‘Like I haven’t seen you looking,’ Vic taunted. ‘Say, how about when this is all done, we scoop up what’s left of her and bring her over here? Have a little fun. Take turns like. Might be a laugh, watching ape-face fuck her.’ He saw the spasm cross Alec’s face. ‘Pansy.’

Calver ignored the jibe. ‘She still online?’

‘Nah, logged off a few minutes ago.’ He tapped a key, and the screensaver dissolved. ‘This one is interesting. Cutting edge research on memory loss.’

‘Yeah,’ Alec agreed. ‘Keep your eye on that one.’

‘You know, I’ve been wondering – if the man wants bugs – it would be no big deal to add a camera or two, like in the shower and over the bed, maybe. Catch all the action.’ Vic watched Calver’s face out of the corner of his eye.

‘It’s an idea.’ Calver was studying the screen.

‘So – how long before they start shagging?’

‘God, doesn’t your mind ever get above your belt?’

‘Not if I can help it.’ Vic lit up a cigarette and offered the packet again. Alec hesitated, then took one, lighting it from the stub of the last. ‘How long before he shags her?’ Vic persisted.

‘It’s too soon. We factored it in, but only as one scenario.’

‘The best one, though.’

‘Oh yes.’ Alec dragged on the cigarette.

‘What’s Kong think?’

‘Same as you, it would appear.’

‘Brothers under the fucking skin – or maybe fur.’ Vic smirked. ‘Good old Alec though, he’s sitting on the fence. You want to watch it mate, you’ll get splinters in your backside.’

A half-smile drifted over Calver’s face. ‘Kong wanted to know if there was anything we could do to help them along.’

‘Christ! What was he expecting – we pitch up and offer them a lecture on the birds and the bees?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘So—’ Vic looked up at Alec. ‘What do you think? Really.’

‘I think it’s quite likely that they will end up in bed together, yes. He bears sufficient resemblance to the fiancé for us to assume that he’s her physically preferred type. That was factored in, too.’

‘And him? You know him better than anyone else.’

‘Subject A?’ Calver turned away from the computer. ‘I think there’s more than a distinct possibility. She is definitely
his
type.’

‘You know this because—?’

Alec laughed. ‘I know it because he chose her himself.’

Madison pressed her fingers to her forehead and leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t really expected the answer to Jay’s amnesia to pop right out of the computer screen at her, but she had hoped there might be more.
Come on, what did you expect? A nice Wikipedia entry? Loss of memory – cure of – c.f. mind reading?

What she
had
found had started a disturbing chain of thought.

She checked her e-mail, smiling at Jonathan’s response to the one she had sent, confirming that she had made it safely through the night, before logging off. The machine seemed to hesitate for a moment, before closing down. It was slow to respond on occasions, too. Probably needed an overhaul. Which meant transporting it to the lab. Something for the to-do list.
Later.

She sucked the end of her pen, assessing the brief notes she had made about Jay’s status. She would need to make up a file.
Which might be pretty thick by the time you’re finished.
She frowned. The amnesia – was it linked in some way to his ESP abilities, or just a hideously frustrating coincidence? Here she had a man who appeared to be well educated and who was interested in science, yet was living on the street. She knew, from experience, that it happened. What had put
Jay
there? Accident, misfortune, a cataclysmic life event? She doodled on the edge of the pad.
Amnesia – cause, effect – or irrelevance?
A slight shiver ran along her arm. He could feel her, inside his head. He’d
spoken
to her, while she was in his mind, yet he didn’t seem to be aware of having power of his own. Was the amnesia covering something up?
Something that even Jay doesn’t know?

With a sigh she stood and stretched the kinks out of her neck, checking her watch. Breakfast TV had kept Jay quiet for over an hour. Which surprised her. She’d have bet on him tracking her down way before this.

He was asleep on the sofa, remote control in hand.

She gave him a long, considering look, then went to make tea. She tipped half a packet of biscuits on to a plate. Not one of the major nutritional groups, but hell – food was food.

Deep in thought, she licked the chocolate off a digestive as the kettle heated. Feeding a man. She opened the fridge. There
was
healthy stuff in here. Salad, fresh pasta, Sandra’s home-made spaghetti sauce. She shook the container. Neil had done all the creative stuff in the kitchen. She’d been strictly slicing and chopping. Sometimes he’d let her grind herbs and stir things. She cooked a decent fry-up, and her knowledge of the controls on the microwave was second to none, but that was all. She puffed out her lower lip. Spaghetti sauce.
How hard can it be to boil tomatoes?

‘Garpgh.’ Jay woke with the lightest touch on his arm, sitting up with a jerk and cursing under his breath as he jarred his shoulder. He scrubbed his hand over his face and accepted tea. ‘Must have drifted off.’

‘Not surprising.’ She pushed the biscuits towards him. ‘You need to eat. You’ll have to put as much into this as I do. You need all the stamina you can get.’

‘In that case—’ He took two biscuits, raising his brows when Madison put a set of keys on the table.

‘There’s a studio flat on this floor. It’s meant to be staff quarters.’ She made a face. ‘It’s yours, for as long as you want. There are more clothes in the hall cupboard. We’ll get whatever else you need.’ She looked pointedly at his bare feet. Jay gave her a bland look and swiped another biscuit. ‘First we get that shoulder looked at. I’ve thought of someone—’ She forestalled him when he started to shake his head. ‘Not a hospital.’
Not a doctor, either
. ‘Hospitals ask too many questions, right? Like who you are and where you live?’

‘You got it.’ He shifted, not meeting her eyes. ‘Did you find anything? On the Internet?’

‘Nothing particularly useful.’ She tilted her head. ‘You know a lot of homeless people have been in the Forces?’

‘Yeah, I met a few. Mostly ex-army …’ His voice faded and his whole body stilled. ‘You think I might be a military experiment that went wrong?’

Or maybe way too right.

She studied his face, watching for a reaction, saw him reaching and coming up blank.

‘Nothing.’ A frustrated sigh. ‘An experiment – military, or whatever – that would mean I’d got away from somewhere.’ A slight but unmistakable shudder. ‘Or been turned loose. Someone may be looking for me. Or have no further use for me.’ His eyes were dark, turned inward. ‘If the amnesia isn’t natural … if it was
done
to me – that’s a whole new raft of who and why questions.’ Abruptly he focused on her. ‘I shouldn’t be dragging you into this.’

‘I said I’d help.’
Try keeping me out
. ‘If it was done, then it can be undone.’ She hesitated. ‘The work I do – it’s a small, tight, professionally jealous world. Not exactly public, but not secret, either. I would have expected—’ She gathered the corner of her lip into her teeth. ‘If something like this was going down, I’d have expected a whisper. Rumour, gossip – something. There isn’t anything – which means it’s very well hidden, or it doesn’t exist.’

‘Which makes me a
paranoid
amnesiac!’

‘Not knowing who you are is grounds for paranoia.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’ He held her eyes. His were very deep, dark blue. She noticed the length of his lashes again, feeling a disturbing quiver in the pit of her stomach. She looked away first, reaching to pick up the empty biscuit plate. ‘Shall we go and look at the studio?’

It was bigger than she remembered, with a large, light main room, a compact bathroom and a kitchen alcove that gave on to a tiny balcony. She showed Jay how the fold-down bed operated, and where the bedding and towels were kept. Everything was new, unused.

‘Thanks.’ He was looking round with an unreadable expression on his face.

‘No problem.’ She turned away, before he could say more. ‘Will you be ready to go in ten minutes?’

‘You brought me to a
vet
? A place that takes care of people’s
pets!
’ Jay stopped so suddenly, catching sight of the brass plate by the door, that Madison cannoned into him. She pulled back sharply. He was wearing Neil’s cashmere overcoat. The familiar feel of the soft fabric, brushing against her cheek, made her skin tingle.

‘You have a better suggestion?’ It came out sharper than she intended. She exhaled. ‘Animals have bones, same as people, and Joe plays rugby. He’s always breaking things.’

The tension in Jay’s jaw told her how much he wanted to argue. And the control as he let it go.
Doesn’t take instruction well, but sucks it up when there’s no alternative
. Hmmm.

Joe had sandwiched them in between an anxious poodle and a hamster with a weight problem. Madison leaned against the wall while he conducted his examination. She avoided noticing the white line of pain around Jay’s mouth by pretending to study a diagram of the feline digestive tract.

‘Well, Doc? Is he gonna live?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ Joe grinned. ‘As far as I can tell, your diagnosis is correct.’ He nodded to Jay. ‘Broken collarbone, but
don’t
quote me. On the basis of personal experience, if you did it three weeks ago, then it should be on the way to healing by now. But I am
not
a doctor. I can strap it up, make it more comfortable, but you really should see a medic. One that specialises in humans.’

‘Not possible.’ Madison reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘Thanks, Joey, you’re a star.’

‘Old boyfriend?’ Jay settled into the passenger seat with a resigned sigh as Madison leaned over to help fasten his seatbelt.

‘Joe?’

Jay narrowed his eyes as her head went back and her eyebrows soared. Either she was a bloody good actress, or she’d been genuinely surprised at the question.

‘Friend, not boyfriend; we were at university together.’

She let in the clutch smoothly. Jay found himself admiring the way she drove and obscurely glad that she and big, good-looking Joe had never been an item. On the other hand, there was the expensive coat he was wearing.
And everything else
. There’d been a man in the angel’s recent past. He’d walked out, and left his stuff behind. Interesting. Jay studied Madison’s profile. Chin a little tense. The angel had something on her mind. Was she going to spit it out? Yes?

‘Joe doesn’t know,’ she’d pokered up, hands stiff on the wheel, ‘about the mind reading. I … don’t broadcast it. He knows I work at the laboratory – he thinks I just do drug research.’

‘I can see it might be disconcerting. For friends,’ Jay agreed smoothly. ‘Not knowing if you were inside their heads.’

‘Exactly.’ The note of relief in her voice touched something inside him, but it didn’t last long. ‘I would never do that. Invade someone’s privacy. Uh – not if I could help it.’

But you have done. If you want something badly enough. You did it last night. To me.

The back of the angel’s neck was going pink.

‘Not to friends.’ He couldn’t resist. ‘But what about lovers?’

‘I don’t have—’ She stopped abruptly.

Jay watched, fascinated, as a delicate flush rose slowly from the neck of her severe black coat. Now why the hell should that half-admission, intriguing as it was, make Dr Albi blush? And why was the sight of that fragile rose, spreading under the pale skin, making a suspicious tightness in his groin?
Shit.
His angel was embarrassed, or angry. And he wanted to taste—

He pulled himself up, staring at a sign beside the road, welcoming them to Uxbridge. Madison crunched the gears.
Still flustered.

That made two of them.

He took a breath. He didn’t much want to be in the car if she was planning to drive them into a traffic island, but an opportunity was an opportunity.

‘Did he know?’ He lifted his arm. ‘The owner of the coat? About the mind reading?’

‘Neil,’ she corrected automatically. She’d recovered herself. Shot him a get-back-in-your-box-and-stay-there look.
Good girl
. ‘He knew.’

She wasn’t going any further than that, he could see by the way she turned the steering wheel.
So, back down now, buddy, before this gets sticky.

‘What’s your doctorate?’ Nice harmless change of subject. ‘Psychology?’

‘Chemistry.’ She was parking the car beside a row of shops. He looked expectantly at her. ‘Shoe shop.’ She pointed. ‘Then you can throw away those revolting trainers.’

Everything was fine, until it came time to pay. Madison bit her lip as Jay’s hand went automatically to the pocket where his wallet should have been. She saw the recoil, then the shutters came down, leaving his face devoid of expression.

‘I’ll take care of this.’ She slid her card to the cashier. ‘Is there anything else you need?’ She turned, deliberately neutral, towards him.

‘No.’ He’d mooched to the front of the shop, eyes away from her, studying the street. ‘Thank you.’

When she left, he followed. She bit down an involuntary smile. His indecision over letting her carry the parcels, set against accepting the contents, was coming over her shoulder at her, almost strong enough to touch. The warmth of his fingers as he lifted the bags out of her hand sent a frisson up her arm. She flexed her fingers to dispel it, stopped and turned. ‘What?’

‘I want you to keep an account.’ His voice was gruff and he didn’t meet her eyes. ‘Everything you spend.’

‘I can afford to buy you a couple of pairs of shoes,’ she objected quietly.

‘Not the point.’ His eyes came back to hers, as she’d hoped. ‘Keep an account. I’ll repay you. Everything. When I get straight.’

‘Okay.’ She wasn’t going to push it. ‘But you know what I’d really like, more than money.’ She looked pointedly at the waste bin, standing at the kerb.

He took barely a second to catch on.

The rueful smile, as he ceremonially dumped the bag with the old trainers, had the corners of Madison’s mouth twitching. She turned hurriedly towards the car.

‘Impressive place.’

Madison pulled into her designated parking slot and turned off the engine.

‘I suppose it is.’

She looked around. The lab was a long, low building, a curve of white plaster and glass, set well back from the road to Amersham, surrounded by wide lawns. She’d stopped seeing it, she realised, with a jolt. The shiny windows, close-cropped grass, tasteful flowerbeds of pale lemon daffodils, edging the approach to the double doors. She didn’t look any more, not even at the flowers. It was just the place she worked.

‘Good design.
Clever
design,’ Jay corrected softly. ‘Unthreatening,’ he explained, when she raised her brows. ‘All that white. Open.’ He waved a hand at the immaculate green. ‘Nothing to hide. Clever,’ he repeated.

‘Or truthful.’ Madison could hear herself, a shade tart, as she opened her door. ‘It’s just a research foundation. Nothing bad happens here.’

‘Good to know.’ Jay slid out of the car and padded after her. ‘Good. To. Know.’

Madison closed her ears to the mockery in the drawl.

She made her decision as she crossed the foyer to sign in, leaving Jay to negotiate the doors in his own time. Not the interview rooms at the front of the building, where she usually conducted initial assessments. Jay was coming with her, into her office. Her own domain –
private
domain. Her mind twisted over the tangle of power and threat
that
represented.

‘I’ll need a visitor’s pass, for Mr …’
Hell.
The security guard behind the desk was looking at her expectantly. Her eyes flipped frantically for a second, before settling on the monochrome canvas of lines and splatters that covered most of the wall in front of her. ‘Jackson. Jay Jackson,’ she repeated, louder, as Jay joined her. She saw his eyes widen, then the almost imperceptible nod, to show he understood. ‘He’s going to be helping me for a few days.’

‘No problem, Dr Albi.’ The guard thrust the book towards Jay, who slanted her a quick glance before signing.

‘I suppose I should be grateful that whoever chooses the corporate art around here doesn’t have a taste for Picasso.’ Jay stood behind her, looking back into the foyer as she punched numbers into the security lock that accessed the main building. ‘Or maybe Caravaggio?’ he suggested conversationally.