The Unquiet past

by Kelley Armstrong

  “Can I? Thank you.”

  He missed the sarcasm and nodded. “I can give you more if you need it. I have more than enough.”

  “From Daddy and Mommy?”

  His gaze dropped slightly, and he mumbled, “I do stuff for them. Research and that. I earn it. Okay, I get more than I earn, but I’m in school, and they want me to concentrate on my studies.” He sneaked a look at her. “The point is that I have money. I can pay for everything from now on, and I can give you some extra if you need—”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “I know you must, so let me pay, as a way of saying I’m sorry.”

  “I’d rather you just said you were sorry.”

  “I am.”

  “Not really. You admit you may have made a mistake or two, but you still think I’m overreacting and money will fix it. When I say I don’t need your money, Jackson, I mean it. I have plenty. Some came from the matron, but most I made myself, from years of doing whatever work I could find so that when I was ready to set out on my own, I could do it without relying on jerks who think they’re better than me because Daddy and Mommy give them an allowance.”

  He exhaled. “You’re right. I handled that poorly. I’ve handled a lot of things poorly, but I don’t think—”

  “You don’t think you’re a jerk. Maybe you aren’t, but you’re doing a fine imitation of one.” She got to her feet. “I’m going to my dorm for a while.”

  When she started walking away, he leaped up behind her. “Tess! Don’t go. I know I’m not saying the right things, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

  “If you did know and you said that, then it would be more lies, wouldn’t it? Telling me what I want to hear so I shut up. Do you know what I want to hear? Honesty.”

  “All right. I’m…I’m sorry?” His voice rose, turning it into a question. A sharp shake of his head. “I am sorry. You’re right. I deceived you and then gave you crap for being less than honest about things that had nothing to do with me. What I lied about did affect you. So it’s worse.” A hopeful look. “Is that good?”

  Tess sighed. “I’m not trying to force you to say the right things, Jackson. I just need a break—”

  “No, you’re taking off.”

  “Do you really think I’d abandon the investigation and reject your help because you hurt my feelings? I’m angry, Jackson. Justifiably angry, but this is what happens when you deal with strangers. They can deceive you. Lesson learned. I’m not going to run away, because I’m not stupid. I need a break to regroup, and then I want to get back into the investigation. You’re useful to me; I’m useful to you. It’s a business arrangement. That’s all.”

  He stood there staring at her, looking confused and maybe a little bit hurt, as if he’d rather she stomped off because then he could just chase after her and apologize and…Tess didn’t know what he expected then. That she’d fall into his arms and tell him it was all right, that he was a great guy after all? The idea almost made her snort a laugh, but there was something in his expression that said that’s exactly what he hoped for. That he could get out of this because she wasn’t really angry—he’d just hurt her feelings.

  “May I go now?” she asked.

  He nodded mutely.

  “Meet me back here in two hours,” she said as she walked away. “Bring your notes.”

  He let her get to the edge of the walkway, then called after her, “Tess!”

  “It’s Thérèse,” she said and kept going.

  Twenty-Seven

  TESS ARRIVED BACK at the meeting place to find Jackson pacing, as if he expected she wouldn’t show up. She was actually ten minutes early.

  He’d bought maple taffy from the confectioner and a gothic novel he “just happened to see in a window.” She took both without comment and squelched a pang of guilt. He’d gone out of his way to find things that might cheer her up. The problem was, given the way he’d talked earlier, she felt less flattered than manipulated, as if he thought her such a silly girl that candies and paperback novels would erase any ill will between them.

  She moved the conversation directly onto the safer terrain of their investigation, and they spent the next couple of hours piecing together what they’d learned. They concluded that it seemed as if the work in Sainte-Suzanne might have been a step between Dr. Hebb’s work and Dr. Cameron’s experiments. Hebb had studied sensory deprivation as humanely as possible, with willing and mentally sound subjects. Cameron seemed to have used mentally ill subjects who, while still volunteers, would be less able to grant objective permission, and judging from the scene Tess had witnessed, there’d been psychological coercion involved.

  The Sainte-Suzanne study used mental patients, primarily those suffering from depression. It employed methods of sensory deprivation much less humane than Hebb’s, while adding sedatives in an attempt to counteract the negative impact. Compared to Hebb’s—and presumably Cameron’s—methods, the ones at Sainte-Suzanne seemed almost primitively brutal.

  “Maybe they’re supposed to be,” Tess said as Jackson commented on that. “Primitive so they can be reproduced easily, outside a laboratory. Brutal because they’re not intended to be used on willing subjects.”

  Jackson shook his head. “You can’t do that, Te—Thérèse. Like I said, there are rules. Codes of ethics that apply to all research, and the only point of doing research is to test legal drugs or therapeutic methods or get published, meaning there’s no point ducking the codes.”

  “What if the application is for someone who doesn’t have any rights?”

  “Everyone has rights.”

  “Even prisoners of war?”

  He stopped and looked at her. Confused at first. Then excitement lit his gray eyes, and Tess’s gut clenched with a pang of grief for something she’d had and lost.

  She barely knew him. That’s what she’d been telling herself, sitting in her dorm room for the last two hours. She’d met him three days ago. A passing acquaintance. If they’d parted ways after their fight, perhaps in a few years she would be unable to picture him. In a decade, she might have forgotten his name. Someday, if she came back to Montreal, she might think, I knew a boy here once, didn’t I?

  Except that wasn’t true at all. She wouldn’t forget what he looked like. Wouldn’t forget his name. Wouldn’t forget him. And that only made it so much worse. To meet someone who made an indelible impression and then lose him so quickly, realizing she’d never really known him at all, that he’d used her, she really wished she could forget he’d ever existed.

  Tess swallowed, dropped her gaze and busied herself making a meaningless note in her book as she said casually, “It’s a possibility then?”

  “It’s the missing piece, Tess. Hebb’s work was funded by defense, ostensibly to study brainwashing because they feared what it did to their soldiers. And Cameron, who by his own admission was influenced by Hebb, seems to be working for the CIA. The CIA has been trying to perfect brainwashing for years. They fostered the large-scale production of LSD, and they led the expedition that discovered magic mushrooms. They thought those drugs were the key to manipulating behavior.”

  As he talked, his face lit up and his eyes glowed, and she saw again that brilliant, intense and complex boy. At first glance dark and cold but, filled with tamped-down energy just waiting for a spark to ignite it, and then blazing so brightly she couldn’t look away.

  “We still have lots of work to do confirming this,” he said. “But as a theory, it’s perfect. Whoever was in charge at Sainte-Suzanne was building on Hebb’s work in a less-than-ethical way. That’s why the experiments weren’t conducted here at McGill. No one would give permission to put mentally ill subjects in boxes, padded or not. But if you wanted a cheap and easily replicated method of inducing sensory deprivation, that works. Sedate the subjects enough that they don’t struggle but not so much that they’re unaware of their surroundings. Those scratches we saw and the voices you heard were the result of attempts to find the rig
ht dosage, which would vary with each patient.”

  He settled back, smiling now. “There we have it. A working theory. Thanks to you.”

  “The question then is, how does it connect to us? You said your mother suffered from postpartum depression. We know the house at Sainte-Suzanne opened before you were born and was still operating a couple of years afterward, so…”

  She trailed off then, seeing his expression. The grin had fallen away, replaced by a dawning horror and then shame.

  “I…I wasn’t thinking of that,” Jackson said. “The connection. The victims. Obviously, I shouldn’t be gloating over finding a possible answer when my own mother…”

  Tess wanted to reach out for him then. Put a hand on his arm. She settled for softening her voice and saying, “I’m also happy we might be on the same track. It doesn’t mean we’re okay with what happened. Or that we forget who it happened to.”

  He nodded, his gaze still lowered. “You’re right though. My mother must have been one of the subjects. She went for help and ended up there and…” He swallowed. “Killed herself. During or after, it doesn’t matter. Obviously, they didn’t cure her. They may have made her worse.” A few minutes passed before he looked up sharply, cursing as he did. “Your—I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be…I’m not the only orphan set on this trail, which means I’m not the only person affected. Your mother…or your father…”

  “One must have also been a subject. Maybe my mother for the same thing. Depression after she had me.”

  “Or because of your power. Retrocognition. That has to come from somewhere. If you thought it might be a sign of mental illness, there’s a good chance whoever in your family had it thought the same. That would be a reason to seek help, and then possibly end up in an experiment like this.”

  “I guess so.”

  “We need to find out exactly what was going on at Sainte-Suzanne. It seems as if it wasn’t a school-funded experiment, but the people involved did have a connection to McGill. If it’s only been sixteen years, they should still be alive to answer questions once we have proof. We can make them answer. My parents will help with that. For now, I’ll start asking around—”

  “No,” she blurted out. “You have to be careful. If this wasn’t a sanctioned experiment, then you can’t go asking people about it. You saw how that research assistant acted.”

  “I don’t mean I’d go surveying the psych department, Tess. I’ll be careful, and I promise I won’t bring your name into it. I’d never put you in danger like that.”

  “Then don’t put yourself in it either. Please.”

  He glanced over at her then, and there was an odd look in his eyes, almost hopeful. She realized her words could be interpreted as I’ve moved past all that other stuff, so she hurried on. “Just because I’m upset over what you did doesn’t mean I’d ever want anything to happen to you.”

  That hopeful look vanished, replaced by such sharp disappointment that she cursed under her breath. Where was the middle ground here?

  “Let’s just get back to this,” she said. “There’s no reason we can’t work together civilly. Maybe we’re not adults, but we can act like it, right?” She smiled a little when she said that, trying to lighten the mood, but his gaze only shunted away, his mouth tightening.

  “I don’t want to work together civilly, Tess. I want to know what I can do to make you forgive me.”

  “I—”

  “I like you.” A flash of something like mortification in his eyes. “I don’t mean I like—of course, I like…” He seemed to get tangled in his words and slowed down. “I think you’re great. You’re…” He struggled for a word. “Interesting.” His face flushed. “That sounds stupid. You’re lots of things, and I like that. You’re pretty and—” Another look of horror. “I shouldn’t start with that. Obviously you’re pretty, but it’s not the most important thing, but you’re also smart, and you’re funny, and—” He took a deep breath. “Let’s just go back to the beginning. I like you.”

  He met her gaze and waited.

  “All right…” she said.

  “That means I don’t want to be business partners, Tess. I want to keep getting to know you. I want to be friends and maybe if…” He trailed off. “I like you.”

  “Is that what you think I want?”

  His face screwed up. “What?”

  “You’re trying to figure out how to get me to forgive you. You think that’s how to do it. Tell me nice things. Say you like me. Because I’m a girl, and you’re a boy, and you’re cute, so naturally, that’s what I’d want to hear.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Can we drop it? I’m allowed to be upset by what you did, Jackson. Pretending you like me is only going to make it worse.”

  He shot to his feet so fast it startled her. He walked three steps. Then he turned and threw up his hands. “I can’t win here. I just can’t win. Do you really think I’m the kind of guy who’d lie about liking you? If I was, wouldn’t I be a little better at it?”

  “I’m not trying to fight, Jackson. I just want to drop this and get some work done.”

  “We’ve done enough for today. If you want to do more, see if there’s anything you can dig up in the library before it closes. I’m going to do some research of my own—figure out who at McGill might be connected to Hebb and Cameron. Is that good? Is that civil enough for you, Thérèse?”

  His eyes blazed, but she answered calmly, “Yes. Should we meet up in the morning? Breakfast?”

  He glowered, turned on his heel and stomped to the end of the walkway, but he couldn’t quite do it, and he paused for a few seconds before growling, “Seven thirty. At your dorm,” and then he stormed off.

  Twenty-Eight

  BY THE TIME Tess got to the library, it was closed, so she spent the evening on a patch of lawn, eating maple taffy for dinner and going through the notes Jackson had made from the journal, summarizing them and adding questions in the margins. Busy work, really, to keep her from thinking about Jackson himself.

  She longed to call Billy and talk about it. There were also a couple of the girls she’d like to call, but she had no idea how to reach them, and it didn’t really matter, because they’d be as useful—or not useful—as Billy. All would commiserate, but none would really be able to offer her sound advice on a boy.

  Jackson certainly wasn’t her boyfriend, but aspects of the relationship were the same. You meet someone and you fall for them fast, and then when they turn out not to be what you thought, you’re left lost and confused. Regular friendships weren’t like that—at least, not the ones she’d had in Hope, where she’d known people forever and friendships blossomed slowly.

  Had she been too hard on Jackson? She didn’t think so, but a second opinion—and third and possibly fourth—would help.

  He’d said that fumbling through his declaration proved it was genuine, but that was ridiculous. The fact he’d fumbled with it only proved he’d been making it up as he went along, forcing himself through a lie.

  She wouldn’t think about that. Or she’d try not to. She worked until dark, then went to bed and…and nothing. She lay there for almost two hours before getting up again.

  What could she do at midnight? The answer was obvious. It would be the perfect time to return to Ravenscrag. To seek the answers that had been denied earlier. To conjure up “ghosts” of the past with only a sleepy security guard to stop her.

  Tess slipped from her dorm and into the night. It was a short walk to Ravenscrag, but she headed in the opposite direction. Toward Jackson’s dorm. She wouldn’t do something that could get them both in trouble without warning him first and, hopefully, enlisting his help. If he refused to help, that wouldn’t stop her. She just wanted to give him a choice.

  The problem came when she reached his dorm. Dorms were cheap and convenient for students, but they weren’t hotels. There were rules, and a matron on duty ready to enforce the one that didn’t allow visitors this late.

  Tess surveye
d the windows. If she had any idea which was Jackson’s, she could throw pebbles. She peered inside. The matron was reading Mademoiselle, though in Tess’s opinion, she was a little old for it. Regardless, the magazine engrossed her, and Tess could probably sneak past. Then what? She didn’t know Jackson’s room number.

  Tess opened the front door. The matron lowered her magazine and raised a scowl.

  “Bonsoir,” Tess said. “Pardonnez-moi…” She noticed the magazine was the English version and switched language. “My cousin is staying here, and I’ve had an urgent message for him. Our grandfather is in the hospital and has taken a turn for the worse. My cousin needs to come right away. May I speak to him?”

  The woman eyed her, and Tess wondered if her performance had been less convincing than she thought, but after a moment the woman harrumphed and said, “Name?”

  “Jackson Labine.”

  “The Indian boy?”

  “Métis, but yes. Could I—”

  “He isn’t here. Left about a half hour ago.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “Out.” The matron paused, then relented, adding, “He got a phone call from a man. He took it, went back to his room and then hurried off a few minutes later. It must have been about your grandfather.”

  Tess thanked her and left. Outside, she walked across the lawn, damp now as dew collected. Where would Jackson go at this hour?

  The caller must have been the mystery man. He’d phoned Jackson’s home and been given the dorm number. If he’d called the dorm, he wanted to speak privately again.

  Tess looked around. Where was the nearest pay phone?

  She didn’t walk far before she heard Jackson’s voice.

  “Thank you for this,” he was saying in French. “I appreciate it.”

  Another voice, one that teased at Tess’s memory. “You roused my curiosity. I was hardly going to be able to sit in my office after that.” The man laughed, and that’s when Tess recognized him as Dr. Augustin.