Thin Air

And then he waited. I took the opportunity to study him. He was in his mid-to late forties, Hispanic, with graying hair and large, dark eyes as hard as obsidian. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, and my feeling of stunned, low-level fear that had been with me for the past few hours, since they'd dragged me in here, was gradually ratcheting up to full-fledged panic.



He finally said, "I'm fine; thanks for asking."



Great. Another person I was supposed to recognize. Wonderful. "Glad to hear it," I said. I sounded tired. I felt exhausted, wrung dry by all the uncertainty.



"Your friend left me by the side of the road," he said. "I was lucky someone found me in time. Twenty-two stitches. Nearly lost my spleen."



Okay, I was definitely in over my head now. "Do I know you?" I asked slowly. And he actually blinked. His eyes revealed something at last, but nothing that was very comforting to me.



"Hard to believe you'd forget a thing like that," he said. Not a question. His lips curled, but there was nothing remotely smile-like about the expression other than the muscles controlling it.



"Sir, I'm sorry, but like I told the other detectives, I can't remember-"



"Amnesia. Yeah, they told me." He sat back, studying me, arms folded across his chest. "You know how many we get in here a year who claim to have amnesia? Dozens. You know how many actually have it? I've never met one. Not even one."



"Well," I said, "I'm busting your streak, because I really don't know you. I don't know anyone. If you tell me I killed this detective, this Quinn, then maybe...I don't know. But I don't remember!" I heard the hard, cutting edge in my voice, and closed my eyes and fisted my hands and fought for internal calm. "Sorry," I said. The chains fastening me to the table clanked softly when I shifted position. "It's been a tough day."



He leaned forward, staring. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you don't remember me."



"No, sir."



"And you don't remember Thomas Quinn."



I bent over and rested my forehead against my fists. "I have no idea," I said. "Did I know him?"



He didn't tell me, not directly. He said, "My name is Detective Armando Rodriguez. I met you in Florida. I followed you. You remember any of that?"



I didn't bother to do more than shake my head this time.



"You told me things. Showed me..." He gave a quick glance toward the corner, where I was sure audio and video were being recorded. "Showed me things that I didn't know were possible. And you convinced me that maybe Thomas Quinn wasn't the guy I'd believed he was."



The frustration boiled inside me, hot as lava, and I had no place to let it loose. Why couldn't I remember? I had no idea how to play this, what to say, whether or not he was trying to trap me or even help me. There was simply no way to tell.



So I made it a direct question, looking him straight in the eye. "When I talked to you about Quinn, did I tell you that I killed him?"



Detective Rodriguez was quiet for a few seconds, and then he shook his head. "No. You said you didn't."



"Did you believe me?"



"I didn't drag you back here in handcuffs." His lips stretched in a thin, hard smile. "But then, I was on vacation. And out of my jurisdiction."



"Did you believe me?" My fingernails were digging painfully into the palms of my hands, and I leaned forward across the table, willing him to tell me the truth. Or at least the truth as he saw it.



"Yes," he said softly. "I believed you."



I let out a slow, careful breath and felt tears sting my eyes. "Then can you help me?" I sounded pathetic. I felt pretty pathetic, too. He seemed genuinely saddened by that.



"No. I can't." He stared at me for another dark second before he said, "This isn't my case, Baldwin. They don't let detectives who have personal connections work murder cases, so whether I believe you or not, it really doesn't matter."



"But you could tell them-"



"I already did," he interrupted. "I'm sorry. It probably won't do any good, whatever I say about you. So I'd advise you to start thinking about confessing, if you want a lighter sentence. Make this easy on yourself."



"I'm not going to confess to a murder I didn't even commit!"



"I thought you said you didn't know," he said. "Didn't remember."



"I don't," I said. "If I had a clue, I'd tell you. All I know is that I woke up a couple of days ago freezing to death in the forest, and things went downhill from there. Believe me, as bad as this is, I don't think going to prison is exactly the worst of my problems."



He gave me a strange smile. "I see. Then it's more or less the usual for you."



"Is it? Great. My life sucks."



He chuckled. I drank coffee. He silently joined me, sipping from his own ceramic mug embossed with PROPERTY OF LVPD. "So what are you doing here?" I asked him. "Minding the store while they decide how to crack me?"



"Somebody's got to. Watch you, I mean."



"And they picked you."



"I volunteered. Look, don't you want to call anyone? Your friends? What about your sister?"



I'd love to have called Lewis, but I had zero idea how to go about it. I had no idea where my sister was, or if I wanted to have anything to do with her. Though jail was certainly making me feel a lot more familial. "I'd call my sister if I had a number for her." I left it open-ended, hoping that maybe he'd have more resources than I could think of. Well, of course he did; he was a detective. Finding people was more or less his job description.



He shrugged. "I'll see what I can do. The way your sister lived, she shouldn't be hard to track down." Someone knocked at the one-way glass, and he nodded toward it. "Looks like our time is up. Nice to see you, Joanne."



"Same here," I said faintly. He got up slowly, favoring his side, and I saw the lines of pain groove deeper into his face as he took a shallow, careful breath. "Detective? You going to be all right?"



"Yeah. Better every day. You hang in there."



I watched him head for the door. As he opened it, I said, "You believed me awful fast about the amnesia." Not that it was going to help me one way or another, but I found that curious. Cops weren't the most credulous of people, and he had reasons to distrust me, obviously. "Why?"



Rodriguez raised his eyebrows just a bit. "Maybe I like you, Ms. Baldwin. Maybe I think you're the real thing."



"The real thing."



"Innocent."



"Oh," I said softly. "I doubt that. I really do. Come on, tell me. Why do you believe me?"



"Quinn," he said. "I know how you felt about him, and there's no way you could say his name like that if you remembered him at all, especially after what he did to you. You're good. Nobody's that good."



Rodriguez didn't go into detail, and I didn't ask. I was almost certain that was yet another memory I was better off not having in the total-recall file. He nodded once to me, a kind of comrade's salute if not actual friendship, and stepped outside. There was a murmur of conversation in the hall, and then the door opened again and the first two detectives came back inside and shut the door. They took up seats on the other side of the table, facing me.



"Detective Rodriguez," I said. "Mind if I ask what happened to him?"



"Stabbed," Tweedledee said. "Dumped in a ditch, left to die. He's a tough bastard, though. Wouldn't want to be the guy who shivved him in the long run." He studied me closely. "You seemed chummy, considering."



"Considering what?"



"Considering he was partners with the guy you killed. Thomas Quinn."



My lawyer arrived, some recent law school graduate with the ink still wet on her diploma. We chatted. I explained patiently about the memory thing. She didn't seem optimistic. Well, she probably didn't have reason to be, and she certainly wasn't being paid to be, since she was court-appointed.



And then they took me to arraignment, which was an efficient sort of in-and-out procedure. I barely had time to draw breath between when my case was called, I was shuffled up to the dock, and my attorney filed a not-guilty plea. There was bail, but I didn't hear the amount, and it didn't much matter anyway. Nobody was going to be rushing to my rescue, I figured. If Venna did, she wouldn't need collateral.



I was right about that. I went to jail. Long process, humiliating and nerve-racking, but in the end the cell wasn't so horrible, if you could get over the lack of privacy. My roommate was a big girl named Samantha-the strong, silent type, which was fine with me. I just wanted to lie still and let my head stop aching for a while.



David, where are you? I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I was some kind of supernatural weather agent. Supernatural weather agents didn't get arrested and dressed in tacky bright orange jumpsuits. Supernatural weather agents kicked ass and took names, and they did not, ever, end up with a criminal record and a jailhouse address.



I was leery of falling asleep, but staying awake was too much of a struggle. I was exhausted, and even if the cot was no feather bed, it was at least horizontal. The pillow smelled of industrial soap, but it was clean. Even Samantha's snoring seemed less like a disruption and more like a white-noise generator to lull me into a coma.



I woke to a clank of metal, and opened my eyes to see that it was still artificially dark out in the hall, but a guard was opening up my cell. I sat up when she gestured at me. "Let's go," the guard said. "Baldwin. You've made bail."



"I have? How?"



"No idea," she said. "Maybe somebody got you confused with one of those actor people; we've had one in here before."



I tried to get my head around that, but not for long. Bail sounded like a great idea, even if it seemed suspiciously miraculous. I followed the guard out, and we marched down the center of the prison hallway. On both sides of the hallway were rows of bars and dimly lit rooms. Snoring. Mumbling. Crying. The guard was short, round, and jingled with keys. Her name tag said, ELLISON. "Who posted for me?" I asked as we arrived at the sally port gate. She gave a high sign to the guard on the other side, and we were buzzed through.



"Don't know," she said. "Let's go, honey; you may have all night, but my shift's over in twenty."



Processing me out took nearly as much time as it had spent to lock me up-the wonders of bureaucracy-and it gave me plenty of opportunity to wonder who, why, and how. I tried to decipher the forms they had me sign, but the light was poor, I was tired, my head hurt, and those things were complicated anyway.



So by the time I'd changed back into street clothes, it was getting near morning. Or at least, the indigo horizon was turning more of a milky turquoise. I'd hardly been in the big house long enough to get nostalgic about freedom, but still, that breath of cool, fresh air was sweet. Even if I still had to go through two more gates, some steely-eyed guards, and a final intrusive pat-down on my way out of the yard.



Beyond, there were a couple of taxis parked, complete with sleeping drivers. I wondered at the desperation involved in ferrying around criminals for cash, but remembered just in time that not all of us were, in fact, criminals. Some of us were just alleged criminals.



I looked around, wondering who would bother to bail me out and then leave me standing by the side of the road. I didn't have to wonder long. A sleek black car pulled out from behind one of the taxicabs and ghosted up next to me. The passenger window power-rolled down, revealing a pale, tired face. I didn't recognize her for a second, and started automatically cataloging features. Like blond hair that needed a root touch-up. Like an inexpert, hastily applied makeup job that didn't conceal the discolored bags under her eyes.



Like eyes that seemed a lot like my own blue shade.



I blinked. "Sarah?" I asked, and took a tentative step closer. It was the woman from Cherise's memories, rode hard, put away wet.



She gave me a thin, tired smile. "Jo," she said. "Need a lift?"



I nodded and opened the back door of the car. No surprises lurking back there, just clean dark upholstery. My sister rolled up her window, and the driver-I couldn't see him-accelerated the car smoothly away from the jail into traffic. No matter what time of the day or night, there was traffic in Las Vegas, at least near downtown, where we were. I saw a confusing blare of neon up ahead, and had a strong, wrenching sense of dejà vu.



"How'd you find out I was here?" I asked.



"A detective called me, and Eamon and I pulled together the bail money." She looked kind of defiant. "Can't say we don't care, can you?" Like I was going to?



"Of course we care," said the driver, in a low, musical accent that I could only vaguely identify as British. I saw his eyes in the rearview mirror, couldn't tell what color they were in the glare of passing headlights and ambient neon. He was watching me as much as he was watching the road. "You're looking better than I expected-a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you. Feeling all right?"



I opened my mouth to reply, something polite and nonconfrontational, because I had no idea what my relationship was to this new guy. I didn't get a chance to be evasive.



"Before you start," Sarah said, "Eamon wants to apologize. So let him, please. He's the one who insisted we come and get you. You owe him, Jo. Give him a chance."



Who was Eamon, and what did he have to apologize for? What was I holding against him? God. Welcome to Brain Damage Theater. I was tired of confessing ignorance; I decided that maybe dignified silence was the best defense. They must have taken it for assent.