Dead of Winter

Chapter 2

"We never release those memories to the general public."

Dr. James Carville, founder and CEO of New Horizons Institute, was an important man who didn't like people challenging his authority. He wasn't used to it, and it upset him. I could tell by the flush that had crept into his cheeks and the sausage-like finger, which now jabbed the tinted glass surface of his desk to reaffirm his message, just in case I hadn't gotten it the first time.

"Never."

Any form of argument with him would end in a short walk to the door. Best to just keep calm for now. 

I flashed my politest smile and bent down to retrieve something from my leather tote. I'd left my hair unbound for our consultation. As I leaned over, its long, lavender-scented waves spilled like a dark waterfall over my shoulders. 

Not bothering to toss them back once I'd retrieved the folder, I let them fall around my wide oval face to frame it like a pair of black curtains. Still saying nothing—men in his position were never comfortable with a lull in the conversation (a fact I hoped to use to my advantage)—I set the folder on the desk. Placing one long-fingered hand upon its blank manilla cover, I patted it, then smiled at him again, as if I hadn't heard his refusal at all.

Carville sighed heavily, then shook his head. "Please understand, Ms. Ashcroft. The Burnham family's instructions on the matter of Nisha's memories are quite clear." To illustrate the finality of this statement, he leaned back, clasping his hands over his paunchy midsection. "No one but a first-degree relative or member of law enforcement may have access to them—and the latter, only by subpoena. We treat memories like medical records, holding them in the strictest confidence. I'm sorry, Ms. Ashcroft. Those are the rules."

But he still had them. Possession gave me hope.

Still smiling, although the muscles in my face felt as tight as the leader line of a snare trap, I shifted in my seat. As I crossed one long leg over the other, the only sounds to disturb the silence between us were the creak of knee-high leather boots and the rustle of suede skirt. An uneasy quiet, it drifted down like dust motes from the bare, white ceiling and collected between us.

Although charged with uncertainty, stillness gave me time to think. Not for the first time, I wondered if this was his office at all. Its spartan furnishings seemed to indicate otherwise. No photos crowded his desk, no awards or personal knickknacks sat on the bookshelves that lined one wall, and no clock counted down the hours with its telltale tick. Even more curious was the lack of wall decoration. Where were the awards, diplomas, and special certificates that one would expect someone in his position to display with pride, if not a smidge of smug satisfaction?

Carville's office looked like an exercise in extreme minimalism. Except for a poster behind his desk—a grey humanoid form composed of fractals with the phrase, Shattered? Let New Horizons Help Put Your Pieces Together Again—the room's ecru walls were completely bare. The nondescript beige carpet on its floor bore no signs of wear markings. But the powerful chemical odor that had assaulted my nostrils the moment I stepped through the door, told me it was either brand new or newly cleaned. In our near-half hour together, I hadn't become accustomed to that horrid smell, either.

"I am sorry, but my answer is still no," Carville said again, then cleared his throat. "If that's all, Ms. Ashcroft." He pushed away from his desk.

"Tell me, Doctor Carville, in the ten years since Nisha's murder, how many detectives have requested access to her memories?"

"Eidetic reconsolidation is still an emerging technology, Ms. Ashcroft. While the procedure developed here at New Horizons is an indispensable tool in the psychiatric community, its validity in forensic investigation is still subject to debate. A great deal of debate. Though we will develop measures to prevent implantation of false memories, for now, the practice of introducing them as key evidence is controversial. Some view them as laughable as engaging the testimony of a psychic or presenting the results of a lie detector test."

In other words, no one had requested access. Not one person in ten years. Bastards! Had Father known this? Was knowing it what pushed him over the edge, or something else? 

I pulled a single sheet of white paper from the folder. As I slid it across his desk, I noticed the only fingerprints on its green glass tabletop were his.

"Maybe that's a fortuitous circumstance. Nisha's memories will be more potent in their virgin state, yes?"

"Well, in theory, yes, but..." 

The flush in his cheeks deepened. Its crimson wash seeped into the folds of dough-like flesh about his shirt collar as he scanned the information on the page. "Amara B. Ashcroft..." Then, looking up, he regarded me with a narrow gaze. "You're a private detective?"

"Working at the family's behest." I nodded. "Nisha's memories could help solve a decade-old cold case. I believe she saw her attacker, Dr. Carville, maybe even knew him. If you could imprint me with her recollections of that night, I believe I could bring her killer to justice. I don't need all her memories; just her last ones should suffice."

"While I applaud your intentions, what you're asking, Ms. Ashcroft..." Carville rocked back in his padded chair and shook his head. "New Horizons Institute is not in the business of inflicting mental trauma. You must realize that the memory of such an attack—"

"A brutal and vicious attack, yes." Extracting a large photo from the folder, I angled it for him to see. "Someone almost tore her in half. Police tried to tell the family an animal was responsible. A mountain lion or catamount, they said. Unusual for that part of Upstate New York, don't you think?" I tapped the image of Nisha's mangled body. "No catamount did that to her."

"It's not as simple as your research might have led you to believe, Ms. Ashcroft. Memory does not lie silently within the storehouse of the mind." He turned and stared out the window, regarding the fat flakes as they drifted over the sloping ground in slow spirals. "It does not fade with time or lessen in its potential to inflict severe and lasting harm. It has a power, a life of its own. Memory is malleable: a slippery, dangerous thing. If you were, as you say, imprinted—we prefer to call the process consolidation, by the way—you would learn things you could never unlearn, see things you could never unsee!"

"I understand, Doctor Carville."

"No, you most certainly don't, Ms. Ashcroft." He turned his alexandrine gaze back at me. "Memory is not benign. It's not a movie or recording you can switch on and off at will. Once these parts of Miss Burnham's past attach themselves to your unconscious, they will become your thoughts and feelings, your experiences. The more you revisit them, the more they will mutate over time, painting and repainting themselves into more personal, vivid, and dare I say, more disturbing imagery. Do you follow? Even if this plan of yours worked and you caught the killer, you—and by that, I mean your psyche, as well as your mind—would undergo irrevocable change."

He slid the license back across the table, then rose from his seat. "No, I cannot. I will not grant your request. Even if I were comfortable with the ethical issues involved, I cannot abide the fact that you've attempted to gain access to these memories under false pretenses."

"False pretenses?" I twisted in the seat, my gaze following his confident stride to the door. From the waist down, his physique was as sleek as a runner's, but from the waist up, it looked like a tube of biscuit dough had exploded in his Ralph Lauren suit coat.

"Whoever put you up to this little stunt was not a member of the Burnham family. There was just one Burnham, Edward, and he passed away last month—something a real private investigator would have known." He opened the door with a flourish. "We're done here. Good day, Ms. Ashcroft."

Time to pull out the big guns. 

"I am well aware of his death, Mr. Carville. I'd also hoped to avoid this, but since you've given me no choice..." Opening the folder, I selected two more documents. "This is Edward Armand Burnham's Last Will and Testament. You'll save us both time if you skip to the part where he names the sole heir to his estate." I winked at him, then set it on his desk. "This other document should speak for itself."

His hand didn't move from the door latch. "You're bluffing."

"See for yourself."

Carville slunk back to his seat. Holding both documents at arm's length, as if I'd handed him two sheets of living flame, he glanced from one to the other. "What's this?" he murmured, his brows furrowing into a furious, black vee. "This is most irregular, Ms. Ashcroft. During all of our professional exchanges, Mr. Burnham never mentioned..."

Then his gaze fell on the smaller of the two records, a piece of thick paper bearing a Notary's seal. When he read that, his mouth widened. His head shot up so fast his neck cracked and when he met my gaze, his blue eyes were wide with shock. "You're—?"

"Nisha's sister. Her twin sister," I added, just in case a mere sibling wasn't enough of a first-degree blood tie for him. I snatched up the crime scene photo and held it in front of his face. "Notice the resemblance?" Maybe he'd really see this time.

"Please, put that thing—" Features twisting in disgust, he pushed it away. "So, Ashcroft is your married name, I take it?"

"My late mother's maiden name." I pointed to a space on the birth certificate. "I prefer to use it for work. The relative anonymity it offers allows me to avoid unpleasant explanations."

"And you and Nisha are—forgive me, were—identical twins."

Two yolks, one egg, as my father used to say. Captain Obvious in any matter pertaining to the pair of us, he could find amusement in such trite expressions. After shrugging an assent, I tucked the document folder into my bag.

"Fascinating..."

"Depends on whether your approach to twin research resembles Mengele or Runyan." When he didn't respond, I added, "That's a joke."

"Indeed." He didn't seem convinced.

"So, Doctor Carville, if everything's in order, I'd like to take possession of my sister's memories now."

"Now? What's your rush? It's been a decade since her tragic demise. A few days more won't matter, will they?"

"The tenth anniversary of her death is three days from now: Saturday. I think justice for her has gone unserved long enough. Shall we?" I slid out of my seat.

"It's not as simple as strapping on a pair of virtual reality goggles," he spluttered. "We need to retrieve her memories from cold storage and determine their viability. If everything's in order, then we can proceed with the reconsolidation process, which may be lengthy." He ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper crew cut. "After the procedure, you'll need close monitoring for at least twenty-four hours. I'd prefer you did that—"

"At home, if you don't mind." The thought of having to spend a night in an institution that looked like the inside of an old eggshell set my teeth on edge. "My best friend can monitor me. He's a medical student," I volunteered, though the only friend I had in the medical field was my boyfriend, Rory, who worked as an EMT. 

"Even if your friend was a board-certified psychiatrist, the shared genetic relationship between you and your sister introduces a host of special considerations into an already complicated procedure." He narrowed his icy gaze at me. "Concerning ones, given your shared genetic makeup."

Who was bluffing now? His "concern" being nothing more than an attempt to stall the inevitable, if not scare me off the idea altogether. Having done my homework, I knew the procedure was much simpler than he was trying to lead me to believe. Although the flooding or "info dump" I sought was not without risk, what invasive procedure ever was?

"The sooner I'll be able to do this, doctor, the better."

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you." The sigh accompanying his statement was much more pronounced this time. "I'll have my assistant make the necessary preparations and call you with an appointment date. If Nisha's memories are viable, this should be sometime within the next forty-eight hours. You can pick up the patient information packet and sign the proper release forms at the Reception Desk on your way out." This time didn't bother getting up. "I trust you know the way, Ms. Ashcroft."