Malcolm got into the driver’s seat and locked the doors. His muscles were tense. He hadn’t been this tense before. She wondered what had changed in the missing weeks.
Anything could have happened. Or nothing. She didn’t know which would be worse.
Eve tried to think of what she could ask that would give her clues but wouldn’t reveal her memory loss. She rejected every question she thought of. In silence, she watched him as he leaned forward, hands tight on the wheel.
He drove into the library parking lot. She suddenly wanted to be inside, surrounded by objects whose memories were permanent and unchanging, right there in black and white. Better, they wouldn’t care how much of her own story she knew or didn’t know.
But there would also be people inside. She wondered what she’d said to them, what they’d said to her, what she’d done. She thought of the boy Zach and wondered if he’d be there.
Malcolm parked near the entrance. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept well in days. She wondered where he did sleep. She didn’t know where he lived, if he had a family, what his life was like outside WitSec. He must do more than shepherd her from home to work to the agency and back—if that was indeed what he’d been doing during the missing weeks.
“He won’t stop,” Malcolm said. “He’ll find another way. I know the type. He believes he is justified or invincible, or he simply wants. If we don’t catch him, it will begin again.”
“I …” She searched for words. He must have meant the suspect in her case. Eve hadn’t known the suspect was a he. And what would begin again?
“We can protect those who match the profile, but it’s all guesswork. And he could simply change whom he targets.” Heaving a sigh, he looked at her for the first time today. She saw thin red veins in the whites of his eyes, and the circles underneath were dark, almost bruises. “You are the key, Eve,” he said. “I know it.”
She swallowed hard and knew she couldn’t tell him about her memory loss. Her eyes shifted away from his, and she focused on the clock. Seven thirty. She remembered the librarian, Patti Langley, saying her shift would start at nine o’clock. She must have been switched to an earlier shift. So much could have changed.
She felt Malcolm’s hand on her shoulder. “I don’t mean to pressure you, Eve. Lou’s methods, though … I don’t think either of us wants a repeat of that. We have to make forward progress.”
She nodded. She couldn’t think of any other response. She thought of the hospital—the drip of the IV, the beep of the monitors, the pain that gouged like a fork in her veins, and his orders for more, more, more. “I’d better … I have work.” She put her hand on the door handle.
He squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t let anyone know that you’ve forgotten again.”
She froze. Her heart fluttered in her chest. Air roared in her ears. She hadn’t … He couldn’t … “How did you know?” Her voice sounded thin.
“I know you,” he said simply.
“How often …?” She licked her lips. She knew this had happened before, in the agency, in the hospital, but she didn’t think it had happened here before. Maybe it had.
“Often enough.”
“Why?”
He hesitated, as if considering many answers. “Your magic makes your mind unstable,” he said at last.
“Can you fix me?”
The pity in his eyes made her throat feel tight. She blinked fast, her vision suddenly blurry, watery. “We’re trying,” he said. “All of this … Believe me, we’re trying.”
“Will my memories come back?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“What do I do?” She meant about her memory, herself, the case, the lost weeks, all of it.
“Lie,” he said. “Lie to everyone until you know the truth.”
Chapter Six
Eve stood in front of the sliding glass door. Inside, the library lobby was dark and empty. Weakened by clouds, sunlight seeped through the windows in a pale haze. It wasn’t enough to alleviate the shadows that lay in thick gray blankets over the circulation desk, the bookshelves, and the benches.
A sign on the door read LIBRARY OPENS 8:00 A.M. CLOSES 9:00 P.M.
Malcolm must have made a mistake. He’d left her outside a deserted library.
She checked the parking lot. He was gone. The lot was empty except for one black SUV parked at the back of the lot, far enough away that she couldn’t see inside it. It could be a WitSec car. Or it could belong to anyone, watching her.
Don’t, she told herself. She couldn’t freak herself out continuously. She had to trust that Malcolm wouldn’t make a mistake with her safety. He and Aunt Nicki had deemed this place safe. She had to trust that and trust them.
Deliberately, Eve turned back to the library door—and saw a face, ghostly, in the glass. Every muscle in her body froze.
“You know, on average, we can remember seven items in short-term memory for thirty seconds,” a voice said behind her. Zach. It was his voice, and it was his reflection in the glass door. He was holding a paper bag, and he was smiling cheerfully at her reflection. Her body slowly unfroze.
“Oh?” she said.
“Of course, that doesn’t make sense,” Zach said. “If I had eight friends in a room, I wouldn’t automatically forget the eighth one. So I’m thinking that it must only be true in an experiment; like, show a guy twenty objects for one second and he’ll remember seven of them thirty seconds later. Anyway, point is that this is always your eighth item.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a snarl of keys. He jingled it. “You forgot your key again, didn’t you?”
She forced her lips to smile. “Guess I did.”
“Mmm,” he said, as if he understood. She wondered if he could understand. She must have seen him every day since her last clear memory. They must have talked. But about what?
“Shall we go in?” he asked.
“Oh. All right.” She continued to stare at him, as if by committing his face to memory she could elicit other memories. He shifted uncomfortably under her stare.
“Okay. Um, excuse me.” He reached around her and stuck his key in the lock. Close, she felt his breath on her cheek. He blushed, and the red spread across his cheeks to his ears. She wondered if she’d ever kissed him. Why did I think that? she wondered. She felt her face heat up, as if she were blushing too, and she stepped quickly out of his way.
The door slid open.
She followed him inside, and the door slid shut behind them, erasing the sounds of outside that she hadn’t even noticed: cars on the road, wind in the trees, a lawnmower hum in the distance. In the lobby, the clock ticked extra loud in the silence.
The lobby was coated in shadows. Bookshelves blocked the thin light from the windows, and the circulation desk created its own pool of darkness. Eve wondered why it was okay with Malcolm for her to enter an empty building with a boy she barely knew (or thought she barely knew)—especially a public building with shadows that could hide anyone. Before she’d entered the house on Hall Avenue, Malcolm had checked every room. He always watched the street as she got into his car. Yet he had simply dropped her off here.
She tried to tell herself that meant this place was safe.
She still didn’t like the shadows or the silence.
“You get the lights, and I’ll switch on the computers, okay?” Zach didn’t wait for her to respond. Instead, he headed for a bin beside the door. It was positioned beneath a slot in the wall, and it overflowed with books.