“You know,” he said as he shook his head, “I’m really getting tired of being a thief.”
“There are other professions,” she said dryly. “You could try accounting. Legal work. Probably not teaching, though, given where your expertise lies. Some things shouldn’t be passed down to the next generation.”
He smiled a little. Then went back to being serious. “I don’t want to steal anymore. At least not when it comes to you. I’m done with it.”
Staring into her eyes once again, he entered her mind and flipped all her memories free. All of the ones he’d hidden. Every single recollection he’d buried.
Immediately, she gasped and then focused on the middle ground between their faces, her eyes blinking. And when she finally looked at him properly again, she seemed to reassess all of his details—and there was no way what she saw worked in his favor.
“I was right,” she said. “You took my memories—”
“Patched is more like it.”
“How?”
He cleared his throat. “Just like flipping switches on a motherboard. The human brain is a conduit for electricity, so it’s all about routing.”
“But… how…”
As she stared off into space again like she was trying to solve pi to the tri-billionth decibel—decimal, he corrected—he couldn’t bear anything about their whole situation. The whole goddamn thing was fucked.
Getting to his feet, he wrapped the sheet fully around his lower body—because flashing her was not going to be a value-add—and went over to a fireproof lockbox the size of a big-screen TV. Mounted on the interior wall of the garage, the arsenal safe had a conventional lock, not one made of copper, so all he had to do was will it open, and then it was a case of—
“Welcome to the gun show,” Erika said haltingly.
“Holy crap, I was literally just thinking that.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw that she’d gotten to her feet. “I want to make sure you’re properly armed before you go.”
As he turned back to the guns that were arranged on racks, his instincts told him she was closing in on him—and God, he wished they lived in a world where she didn’t have a reason to be armed, and he didn’t have a reason to make sure she had so many bullets on her. Taking stock of the autoloaders, the rifles, and the big-bore stuff down at the bottom, he chose two nine millimeters and grabbed a pair of backup magazines.
“Here,” he said, holding out the load. “I don’t have any holsters, but you have at least one on you, right?”
“I can’t accept those weapons.”
“You’re going to. Toss ’em in the river tomorrow morning if you want, I don’t care. But if you’re leaving, you’re not going out there without a way to take care of yourself.”
When she just stared at him, he nodded. “You told me to let you go. So that’s what I’m doing.”
Pushing the guns into her hands and tucking the magazines into her pockets, he walked unsteadily across the garage to a side pedestrian door. Another lockbox was beside the exit. Opening it, he picked at random one of the sets of car fobs. Checking the tab, he noted the nothing-special make and model.
Incognito, he thought. It was perfect for not drawing attention to herself.
The reinforced exterior door was dead-bolted with a copper lock, but the key was hidden on the top of the jamb. After unlocking the industrial-strength mechanism, he opened the way out. As cold, river-mungy air rushed in, he looked over his shoulder.
Erika was standing where he’d left her, in front of an arsenal’s worth of projectile delivery systems, a gun in each hand, the magazines jammed messily into her jacket. Looking at her from this distance, he noted the blood spots on her clothes, the dirt and dust, too. There were also wrinkles on her slacks and that scrape on the side of her face.
She looked like she had had a really long, hard night.
He wished they could stay together, even if there was no sex. He could have done with holding her.
“Did they check you out medically?” he demanded. “In the RV?”
“Yes.” She glanced down at herself. Then she walked over. “I wasn’t hurt. Not really. I don’t know what happened to me.”
Balz released a breath. Outside, a truck’s Jake brake was engaged, the hissing a little too close for comfort. God, all he wanted to do was shut the damn door, lock it, strap ten rifles on his body, and stand guard over her while she got a little rest.
And then what, though.
“You’re just going to let me walk out of here?” she asked.
“You’re not a prisoner.”
“What about my memories?” She lifted her arm as if to touch the side of her head—but then seemed to realize she had a gun in her hand. “I have all of them. From the moment… I first saw you. In the collections room where Herb Cambourg was killed. You and another man were fighting over one of the books. The really old one, that’s still missing.”