The Memory Painter: A Novel (30 page)

“Jesus.”
What horrid timing.
She must look certifiable. Her mind was out of control, spinning with multiple realities. Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her. She was beginning to get an inkling of how Bryan had felt all his life.

She heard someone else in the hall and decided she’d better make an attempt to clean herself up. But when she opened the door to her bathroom, she walked right into Diana’s office—the same night she had died.

MARCH 9, 1982

Diana put the puzzles she had collected over the years in the pile of things that would be left behind, reminding herself she could only take absolute necessities. They had just a few more hours before people would start to show up for work—hardly enough time to pack up years of research. Her office looked like it had been demolished. A mountain of boxes sat stacked near the door.

She could hear Finn and Michael in the lab disassembling equipment. They would put everything in Finn’s van and drive it out of the city before dawn. Michael and Diana would follow in their car. All loose ends could be handled by phone or mail. The most essential thing was for them to disappear.

Diana joined the men. “Okay, I think that’s everything.”

The lab door closed behind her with a bang, startling them. The new deadbolt that Michael had just installed the previous morning clicked decisively. Someone had locked them in.

“What the hell?” Diana ran to the door. Michael and Finn were right behind her. Their keys were in the control room.

Conrad’s voice came in over the mic. “You seriously didn’t think adding a lock would keep me away, did you?”

They turned toward the glass window to the control room, where Conrad stood in the dark. “This was going to be our great experiment. And now you decide to scrap it all and run away.”

Michael approached the glass. “Conrad, open the door.”

Conrad leaned forward until his face became fully visible. “I’m here to offer you a second chance. You want full recall, Mike. I can give you that.”

Michael hesitated. “What are you talking about?”

“While you were all away having your nervous breakdowns, I resynthesized the formula to make it even more powerful. With one dose you can retrieve everything. Including the lifetime that’s eluding you—the one in Egypt.”

Michael took another step closer. “What do you know about Egypt?”

“I know you feel the memory eating away at you, like an itch you can’t scratch. Every night you go to sleep wondering, what’s this life for? What’s my purpose? Knowing that something more awaits you. I can help you find it.” Conrad smiled, dangling the carrot in front of him.

Diana put her hand on her husband’s arm. “He’s lying.”

Michael didn’t take his eyes off Conrad. “You really reformulated it?”

Conrad nodded to the vial sitting innocently on an empty desk in the lab.

“What about last night?” Michael reminded him. “Eight hours ago you had your hands around my throat.”

“When you came I wasn’t myself. I had just remembered … something.” He gave them a placating smile. “Simple bad timing. I’m here to offer you an olive branch and proof of what a real scientist can do. Take it or leave it.”

Finn stepped in front of Michael and whispered, “He’s completely lost it. You can’t tell me you’re considering this.”

“If he has changed the formula, then I want to know what it does.”

Diana shook his arm. “But you don’t have to take it. That’s crazy.”

Michael remained silent.

Finn nodded in agreement and started to fidget. He was barely functioning himself. “This is a bad call, chief.”

Conrad leaned into the microphone. “Is your little powwow over? Mike, you need to remember Egypt. It’s imperative.”

“Okay, is it just me or has Yankee Doodle officially gone off his rocker?” Finn erupted. “Mike, you can’t be buying this load of crap. He’s locked us in!”

“Honey, for Christ’s sake, please listen to Finn.”

Michael had not taken his eyes off Conrad. “I need to do this.”

Diana kept pleading with him. “But don’t you see? He was here before us and left that vial there. He was sure that he could get you to do it.” She could tell she still wasn’t convincing him and tried another tactic. “Is this worth risking your life over?”

“There’s something I have to remember—a life. Please try to understand.”

Diana spoke to him in Russian as Natalia, Pushkin’s wife. “
Just like you had to challenge D’Anthès to a duel? Are you so ready to die again?
”

Michael brushed her hair away from her face and said, “
Forgive me.
”

She turned away from him, unwilling to help. She heard him climb onto the table and administer the injection himself.

Michael instructed Finn to hook him up to the EEG. He lay back on the table, and his body immediately went slack.

Finn did as Michael requested and then glared at Conrad through the glass window. “You got what you wanted. Now unlock the door. Let Diana monitor him from the control room.”

Conrad looked undecided, but he left the control room. Moments later, Diana and Finn heard the lab door unlock.

Finn turned to Diana. “Go. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Diana nodded. She did want to monitor Michael from the control room. When she stepped out into the hallway and saw Conrad, she felt sick. Without a word, she hurried away from him, but at the sound of the lab door being locked again she whirled around.

Conrad pocketed the keys.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Making sure there are no interruptions.” He saluted her and headed to the elevator.

Fear rose up inside her. “Conrad, open the door or I’m calling the police.”

Conrad got into the elevator and gave her a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Diana. This needs to happen.”

*   *   *

Diana sprinted to the control room. Through the glass, she saw Finn bent over, checking equipment at the back wall. Michael was lying on the table, but he wasn’t moving. She checked the monitors. His pulse rate had skyrocketed and the EEG was going ballistic.

Diana turned on the microphone. “Something’s seriously wrong. We need to get him to the hospital.”

Michael remained deathly still, his eyes closed.

Finn was still busy with the equipment. He looked tense.

“Finn? What’s going on?”

Finn didn’t look up. His fingers were fumbling with something. It was the first time Diana had ever seen him in a complete state of panic.

“Finn, talk to me.”

“I need a minute here. Find the keys and unlock the door. I’m pretty sure we have a gas leak.”

The lab had several natural gas sources: gas spigots, a gas line to the chemical fume hood, and a row of canisters used to fuel the burners. Diana tried to stay calm as she rifled through drawers looking for the keys. Conrad must have taken them all.

She reached for the phone to call the police. “The phone’s dead,” she said as cold dread began to take hold of her. “You need to get out of there. I’m going to try and break the glass.”

Finn ordered, “No, don’t. Just come unlock the door. I think I found the leak.”

Ignoring him, she grabbed a high-back desk chair with metal legs and managed to lift it chest level—just as the explosion shattered the glass wall into a thousand pieces.

The blast threw her into the air and launched her backward. Her body smashed against the wall of the control room and crumbled to the floor.

It took her a moment to refocus. Her arms were bleeding and covered in shards of glass. The chair had shielded her from the brunt of the blast, and she didn’t seem to have any other injuries.

She stood up in a daze and saw that Finn was on fire. Without thinking, she jumped through the broken window and ran to the fire extinguisher. She fumbled with it and finally managed to spray him down. He lay on the ground unconscious.

There was another deafening boom. The fire had found the sodium azide, a dangerous chemical used to synthesize drugs that became explosive under heat.

Diana saw Michael, still immobile on the table. She screamed at him over the roar of the flames, “Michael!” But the fire was about to ensnare Finn again. With strength she didn’t know she possessed, Diana hauled Finn’s body to the control room window and managed to hoist him up and drop him on the other side.

With Finn safe from the fire’s path, she ran to Michael before the flames could separate them. She shook him as hard as she could. “Michael? Wake up.”

Nothing.

She struggled to detach the sensors and slide him off the table, but she couldn’t pick him up. His body was too heavy. They both collapsed in a heap on the ground. She wrestled with his dead weight and squirmed out from under him.

Grabbing his feet, she pulled him across the room as the fire stalked them. A wall of flames blocked the path to the control room. Her only option was to get to the lab door.

“Come on! Come on!” she shouted at him, even though he couldn’t hear her. With superhuman strength, she half carried, half dragged his body to the door and then crumpled against it. Unable to breathe, she took off her shirt and wrapped it around her hand and tried the doorknob. It was still locked.

First she banged on the window, then she tried to break the glass with her foot. “Help! Somebody get us out.”

With a sob she realized no one would come. The smoke had encased them like a tomb. They were both about to die.

She cradled Michael in her arms and watched him sleep, wondering where his mind had gone. Was he remembering the life in Egypt that he had yearned for? She was just thankful he would never remember this.

Numb with shock, Diana looked at her feet—her shoes were on fire. She put her lips to Michael’s and whispered, with her last breath, “Find me.”

*   *   *

When Linz opened her eyes, she was gasping for air, suffocating on Diana’s memories—she and her husband just died. Cries came from deep within her soul. She had remembered too much too quickly.

She was sprawled on her bathroom floor. Forcing her muscles to move, she picked herself up. Her hands and body shook uncontrollably as she splashed water on her face. She put her head on the edge of the sink and left the water running. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. Her father … she couldn’t even think about her father right now, or she would lose every last shred of sanity she possessed. She needed Michael—no, Bryan … her mind was so confused.

Unable to drive, Linz took a taxi to Bryan’s place. She ignored the elevator and ran blindly up the stairs. But as she approached Bryan’s door, she slowed. It was already open.

“Hello?” She walked in and found the place was trashed. Michael and Diana’s boxes were gone, the Super 8 projector had been smashed to pieces, and all of the films were missing.

But the worst was the studio. Every canvas had been splattered with black paint—the paintings had been destroyed.

Linz sank to her knees in despair. Only one painting had been spared, a magnificent lifesize portrait of an Egyptian goddess. Linz had never seen it before. It was a masterpiece, clearly the best Bryan had ever done.

Linz gazed at the goddess’s face, at the beautiful being created by Bryan’s hand. Sobs racked her body. She covered her face with her hands, unable to look anymore. She knew who had done this—and it meant he had Bryan.

There was only one person who could help her find him. And now that she had her memories back, she understood why he had been so afraid.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Ten o’clock on a Friday night was too late to be knocking on Finn’s door, but Linz didn’t care. She rang the doorbell repeatedly and kept rapping with the brass knocker until the door finally opened. It was Finn who answered, dressed in a robe and dark-tinted eyeglasses.

Her words barreled out at once. “Finn, Conrad has him. I didn’t know where else to go. Michael—Bryan’s missing. He has him. He—Conrad—he locked the door. It’s happening all over again. I barely got you out.” She gripped her head in agony and sank to her knees. “Oh God. I’m going crazy. What have we done?” Her body began to shiver.

Finn knelt beside her and took her pulse. “How long have you been taking it?” Linz couldn’t stop trembling. He held her arms and asked again, “Linz. How long has it been?”

“Today. Four doses.” She realized how she must look to him and started to stand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.”

Like a hurt animal she turned to leave. But instead, Finn guided her inside to his study. When he spoke, his voice was soothing. “You’re adjusting. Trying to assimilate another lifetime with your own—perhaps several. It’s incredibly difficult to do. We asked ourselves the same questions.”

He sat her on the couch and wrapped a blanket around her. The fireplace was lit, and the room felt warm and safe.

Linz gazed at the flames and shuddered. When she spoke, her words were quiet. “How do I live with what’s in my mind?”

Finn studied her a long time, as if weighing a decision. He went to his desk and returned with photographs. “This would have been Diana’s last memory.”

Linz gasped when she saw them. They were photographs of the lab after the accident, identical to her vision.

Finn hesitated. “I never thought I would be given a chance to thank you for pulling me from the fire,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Linz looked at him, remembering how he had been before the accident … such a beautiful man. She couldn’t begin to imagine his devastation.

They sat together in silence. Tears ran down Linz’s cheeks. “I’ve been fighting my heart. I’ve been fighting my heart my entire life—keeping it dead so I wouldn’t recognize the truth. How can I face him?” She couldn’t even bring herself to call Conrad her father anymore. “I’m his daughter, but Diana’s memories are mine now. And I’m imagining the worst for Bryan. I know he has him.”

Finn squeezed her hand. “We’ll find him. Think—where would Conrad take him? Someplace safe, where no one would ask questions.”

Linz shook her head. She had no idea.

Finn kept pressing her, “What hospitals and research centers does Medicor work closely with?”