In Dark Places

Chapter Forty-eight

Robin flicked on the overhead light in her office and took a look around. Her computers, left running after the attack, had powered down automatically to standby mode after an hour of inactivity. The MBI appliance was on the floor where Gray must have tossed it after unbuckling himself from the chair. She was glad the police hadn't confiscated the unit. She only hoped it hadn't been damaged in the fall.

"There's a kitchenette to your left," she told Wolper as she picked up the appliance. "You can fix yourself a cup of coffee if you like."

"I'd rather just get started."

"So would I, but the preparations may take a while."

Behind her, he entered the kitchen area. The small TV in the kitchen clicked on, and an announcer's voice told viewers to stay tuned for the ten-o'clock news.

She hadn't realized it was so late. Meg had been missing for nearly six hours.

Sitting in her swivel chair, she awakened the computers and turned on the appliance. She would have to run the diagnostics program to be sure that the ferromagnetic coils were working and were in the proper alignment. The program would take about fifteen minutes.

While it ran, she scrounged around on the floor for the two headset transceivers. The one she'd worn was all right, but Gray's headset had been broken when he had cast it aside. She had no replacement. She and Wolper would just have to talk over the loud clicking of the coils.

The electrodes attached to Gray's body had also been strewn everywhere in a tangle of wires. She swept them aside. There was no point in wearing the electrodes anyway. Wolper wouldn't be able to decipher the readouts.

On the TV news, the top story was under way: the ongoing manhunt for serial killer Justin Hanover Gray. Her name and Meg's had been kept out of the report. Gray was said to have attacked a psychiatrist working with him, killed a deputy, and kidnapped a teenage girl whose photo had been provided to the media.

She tuned out the news and considered the challenge of recovering her memory of the attack.

She was suffering from traumatic retrograde amnesia. No one really understood how memory worked, but most theories assumed that short-term memory had to be processed by the hippocampus, part of the brain's medial temporal lobe. A sudden shock to the brain, such as the blunt trauma that had produced her concussion, seemed to disrupt the electrical activity in the hippocampus and somehow prevented the short-term memory from being transferred to long-term storage. The memory most likely to be lost was that of the trauma itself.

The question was whether or not the memory still existed. If it did, and the problem was one of retrieval, then the MBI procedure might bring it to the surface in the same way that it liberated long-suppressed memories of childhood abuse and other traumas. But if the memory was simply gone, then nothing could reclaim it.

She was reasonably optimistic about retrieval. Most victims of concussion eventually recovered some memories of the event. How these memories were stored and how they were regained were two of the countless mysteries of the brain. Some experts postulated a dual storage mechanisma kind of backup memory system that kept working even when the hippocampus failed. Other experts believed that hippocampal processing was only delayed by trauma, not prevented, and that even a short-term memory remained intact somewhere in the temporal lobe, ready to be consolidated into long-term storage when normal memory function resumed.

Nobody knew. When it came to the brain, what was known was vastly outweighed by what was unknown.

She decided to boost the output of the coils affecting both temporal lobesthe left, which processed memories of names and words, and the right, which handled memories of faces and other visual information. A strong low-frequency magnetic field over those areas would inhibit their activity and perhaps allow the relevant neural mechanisms to settle down and begin functioning normally after the agitation of the trauma.

The TV report was wrapping up as a reporter, live at the Hollywood cul-de-sac, repeated word of the failed pursuit. In midsentence he went silent. Wolper had turned off the set. He emerged from the kitchenette, carrying a mug of coffee.

"Hammond must be just loving this," he said.

His jocular tone infuriated her. "I don't give a damn about your office politics." She took a breath. That hadn't been smart or fair. "Sorry. I'm just amp; all wound up."

He came closer. "Do you really think you should be doing this right now?"

"I have to do this. Right now."

"Will it work?"

She sighed. This was the fourth or fifth time he'd asked. "I don't know. Let me work out the technical stuff, okay?"

Wolper drifted away. Robin concentrated on reprogramming the appliance's parameters. When she was finished, she checked the diagnostic results. All fifty-two coils were functioning normally. She exhaled a breath of relief.

"All right, I think we're ready to start."

Wolper joined her again at the computer console.

"Once I'm wearing the appliance," she said, "all you have to do is press the enter key. That will activate the appliance. I'll go into a trance. It should take five minutes or so. You'll see me getting relaxed."

She thought about telling him that she should not be allowed to stay under for more than thirty minutes, because the procedure's safety over longer time intervals had never been verified. She decided against it, not wishing to be pulled out just as she was on the verge of a breakthrough. She would remain in an altered state of consciousness for as long as it took.

"The MBI will be noisy. It makes a loud clicking sound. That's normal. Don't let it worry you."

"Why should I be worried? You're the one who'll be wearing this gizmo."

Robin didn't care for the term gizmo, but she let it ride.

"So what am I supposed to do," he asked, "besides watch you get your brain scrambled?"

"Your job is to ask me questions, the way you did in the interview room. Pretend you're taking a statement. Lead me through the events preceding the attack. My answers may be slow. It'll be like I'm on drugs or something."

"I've done a few interviews with drugged-up witnesses."

"There should be a point when I'm in position to see the assailant. That's the memory I need to recover."

"Even if you do remember, evidence like this will never be allowed in court."

"I'm not thinking about court. I just want to know where our focus should be."

Wolper studied her. "You already think you know where to focus. You're sold on Brand."

"What makes you say that?"

"You've been working with Gray for months. You want to believe he's clean. But he's not. A leopard can't change his spots."

She had no time or energy to waste on arguing. "There's one other thing you need to know," she said. "The MBI process inhibits motor functioning. In other words, I'll be immobilized. It's natural. It doesn't mean there's a problem."

"Suppose there is a problem. Suppose you start spouting gibberishmore so than usual, that is. Or you start twitching and jerking"

"The term is seizing. It's unlikely. If it happens, end the session."

"How?"

"Press the enter key again. Okay?"

"I think I can handle that."

"So are you set?"

"One more question," Wolper said. "Have you ever done this before?"

"I do it all the time. It's my job."

"I mean on yourself."

She'd been hoping he wouldn't ask, but since he had, she gave a truthful answer. "Only twice. For experimental purposes. And I didn't go very deep."

"Nervous?"

This time she lied. "No."

She settled back in the chair, her hands on the armrests. Eyes closed, she practiced taking slow abdominal breaths.

"I'm ready," she said.

"Then here goes."

The appliance came on. The sudden clicking of the coils was louder than she'd expected. She worried that she might not be able to shift into alpha rhythm while distracted by the noise.

But even as that thought occurred to her, she felt the peculiar distancing of her mind from her body, the strange numbness that told her she was being carried gently away.

She needed a fantasy environment in which to feel safe, and she chose a park in Ojai, an artists' community near Santa Barbara where she and Dan had often gone with Meg.

No, she couldn't think of Megnot if she wanted to relax. Had to forget Dan, also. Too much baggage there.

She was in the park alone, untroubled, and it was a clear spring day. The breeze, laced with moisture from the Pacific a few miles distant, played over her skin and hair. The clicking of the coils receded. It became the chirping of crickets, the rustling of leaves.

In the park she settled down on the carpet of grass, sinking into the green, dewy shoots, letting sun and air envelop her. She was calm.

Wolper's voice reached her over the background sounds.

"It's been five minutes, Doctor. Are you relaxed?"

"Relaxed. Call me Robin."

"Okay, Robin. We need to talk about what happened here at your office a few hours ago. You were having a session with Justin Gray. Remember?"

"Yes."

"I want you to tell me how the session ended."

"It was amp; everything went dark."

"Before it went dark. Go back a few minutes earlier. Gray had the, uh, the helmet thing on. And I guess you were talking to him. Bringing him out of it?"

"Yes."

"So he comes out of the trance amp;"

"Yes."

"What are you doing right at that moment?"

She could see the scene playing before her closed eyelids. "Saving the session to a CD."

"And Gray?"

She heard Gray's voice in the background. "He's talking. Talking about his father. The way his father punished him." She heard the rustling of his jumpsuit. "And he's shifting in the chair. Restless amp;"

"What's happening now?"

"I'm labeling the CD. Writing with my pen." Bouncing circles of light over the letters she formed. "My flashlight pen."

"And then?"

Blackness. "Everything's dark."

"No, something happens before it all goes dark. Go back."

She reversed time, running it backward like a filmstrip. "Label the CD amp;"

"Right."

The light of the pen in her hand. Thenno light. "Dark. All dark."

"So you can't remember?"

"Can't amp;" This wasn't quite true. "Won't," she said slowly.

"Won't?"

This was odd. She needed to remember. But amp; "Don't want to."

"So you do remember. You just don't want to? Is that it?"

She didn't answer. She was trying to understand. Obviously some psychological defense mechanism was trying to protect her from reexperiencing the trauma. This was a good thing. It meant that the memory was there, retrievable, if she could overcome the mental barrier.

"Robin? Is that it?"

"Yes."

"Part of you remembers?"

"Yes."

"It's remembering right now?"

That sounded correct. "Right now," she whispered.

"Can you get in touch with that part of you?"

It was a good question, the proper question to ask, but she didn't know the answer. "Maybe."

"Will you try?"

"Don't want amp;"

"Will you?"

Her reluctance was irrational, but irrationalities could have as strong a hold as any rational conviction. Stronger, sometimes. She had to fight it, push past it.

"Robin? Will you?"

"Yes."

"What are you seeing now?"

The room wheeled around her. "I'm turning amp; turning in my chair."

"Why are you turning?"

"His voice. I hear it in his voice."

"Hear what?"

"Danger. A threat. So I'm turning amp;"

"Yes? You turn, and what do you see?"

"Dark."

Wolper sighed. "Everything's gone dark again? This isn't going to work, Robin. I'm sorry. It's a dead end."

He hadn't understood. She plunged forward in a rush of words. "The room is dark. I turned off the lights for the session. When I turn, I see the dark. Shadows. Movement amp;" She felt herself flinch and let out a soft cry.

"He hit me. I'm falling. I'm on the floor. He got loose, Justin got loose."

It was all happening again, happening at this moment, but in dreamy slow motion.

"You see him?" Wolper asked.

"Can't see. Too dark. Need to scream. Deputy's in the next room. If I scream amp; But his hand is on my mouth. He's leaning over me. There's light."

"What light?"

"The penlight. In my hand. It comes on. I see him. Right before he hits me again, I see him; I see his face."

"Is it Gray?"

"No."

"Is it Brand?"

"No."

"Who is it, Robin?"

"You. I see you."

She opened her eyes, and in the glow of the computer console Wolper smiled.

"That's right, Doctor," he said softly. "You saw me."