by Vanessa Muir
Memories Can Kill
Book Three of the Charlie Spade Series
Vanessa Muir
Copyright © 2019 Creative Brand Ventures, LLC. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, organizations, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.
This book is a Hidden Sphinx production. For inquiries regarding this book, please email [email protected].
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author or publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
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1
The password you have entered is incorrect.
Agent Charlotte “Charlie” Spade balled her hands into fists and lifted them away from the laptop. If she didn’t, she’d smash through the laptop’s screen. Her personal laptop, not the one that had been provided to her by the Stormshield Services Group.
Fuck, that had been a fun conversation. Boss Ink had been furious that she’d “lost” all of her gear. She’d blamed a burglary. He’d been suspicious, but he couldn’t prove she’d thrown it all away, or that she’d been on the brink of leaving SSG for good.
“Come on,” Charlie said and entered the number again. 59892201.
It was the one her ex-partner had given her. It would let her into the private folder on the cloud, which contained the secrets he’d left behind.
Ones that incriminated the State. And Mem Store. And SSG itself.
If she could figure out what they’d planned…
The password you have entered is incorrect. You have one more attempt.
“It’s the right password,” Charlie said, glaring at the screen. She glanced to the left and right, her heart leaping into her throat. She’d recently swept her apartment clean of bugs and mics, planted by the State, but hadn’t searched again since then. She’d gone to work. So there could be more.
She was under surveillance; she was sure of it. This laptop was the only item she owned that wasn’t managed by them, wasn’t SSG property, either. She’d acquired it from contacts in the underground.
Charlie double-checked the password as she typed it out. She hit enter.
Access denied. Permissions inadequate.
Not a password error, now, but something else. Permissions inadequate? What the hell did that mean? This was a private folder in the cloud. It didn’t have permissions. The only other person who’d had access to it was long dead. Killed at the hands of the State and Mem Store.
He’d deserved the death.
The password box didn’t reappear, but that message remained on the screen, mocking her. What now? Charlie sat back on her sofa, squeezing her eyes shut.
It was past 1 a.m., and she had work in the morning. Likely, she’d be assigned another case. Something mundane to keep her busy, distracted, to give them an opportunity to study her closely. To watch her every move.
Charlie’s watch buzzed, and she lifted her forearm, opened one eye to check it.
It was an incoming call, directly to her SSG device, but without identification. Charlie touched her temple.
“This is Spade,” she said in a gruff voice.
“Charlotte.”
She froze, her insides squirming at the sound of his voice. Cold, controlled, but with that same charming smile locked inside. Like he was on the brink of a triumph, a brutal one.
Nathaniel. Her father.
The man who had helped create the Memory Extraction Machines, who had once been a rebel, but was now one of the heads of the State, and the CEO of Mem Store itself.
Emotions tumbled through her stomach, crept up her throat. She ground her teeth.
“Charlotte, are you there?” His voice was in her ear, thanks to the uplink from SSG.
“Yes,” she said. “You know that. You would have been disconnected if I wasn’t.”
“There’s no need to be short with me, child.”
“What do you want?” Charlie leaned forward and shut her laptop. It was paranoid to think he could see through her eyes, but at the same time… it was entirely possible. The State had the power to do what they wanted. To creep inside her apartment and into her mind.
If she had the opportunity, she’d remove the uplink. An operation that might leave her blind or deaf or damaged.
You’re getting ahead of yourself. You don’t know anything for sure yet.
But the hints were there. The fear had built.
“Charlotte.”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Did you hear a word I said?” Nathaniel brimmed with annoyance, now.
“No.”
“I’m recruiting you,” he said. “You’re to come to the location being uploaded to your device, now. Immediately. Contact your partner and bring him with you.”
“What? Why?” The last thing she wanted was to work for her father. That would only lead to more frustration. For the longest time, she’d sought nothing more than his approval. For him to value her as more than just the seed he’d spawned, accidentally.
“There’s been an incident,” Nathaniel said. “I’m loath to discuss this over the phone. It’s of the highest priority. You will be where you need to be within the time allotted to you, or you will suffer the consequences.”
Charlie’s stomach turned. “I don’t take on contracts without my boss’s approval.”
“This comes directly from the Council itself. Trust me, Charlotte, I didn’t want you on this case any more than you do. But the Council has insisted that you are the only SSG agent with the capability to handle it.”
Not a hint of pride in her father’s voice. Of course, why would he be proud? She hadn’t joined Mem Store. And she’d been born a girl. Worst of all, she’d entered into a physical career to slum it out as rank and file instead of being the star daughter he’d wanted.
“I’ll get the information from my device, whether you tell me now or not,” Charlie said.
Her father exhaled in her ear. “Get to the location.” And then he was gone.
Charlie’s relief knew no bounds, but it was short-lived. She would have to see him soon. If he’d called her personally, then this had to involve him in some capacity. She rose from the sofa, walked through to her bedroom, and changed into her blue and yellow SSG uniform hurriedly, the settling of the fabric against her skin drawing shudders.
Finally, she checked the location and the directive that had been attached to it, tapping her temple to scroll the information in front of her eyes.
Charlie’s jaw dropped.
For the first time since she’d started working homicide cases with SSG, tracking down threats to the State itself, she was utterly shocked.
The victim’s ID was static in front of her, the projection translucent.
Absalon Shamood was dead.
2
The body lay supine on a luxurious white carpet in the center of the
room. Well, it had been white before this had happened. Now, blood seeped through, staining the fibers a deep red, fast drying to rusty brown.
Eli stood at Charlie’s side, his fist pressed to his lips. “Why?” he asked. “Why do they always do that?”
“What?” Charlie wasn’t in the mood for his bullshit today.
Her father stood in the corner, talking quietly with the coroners who’d come early. Too early for them to examine the body in peace.
“The eye-ripping. Always with the eye-ripping,” Eli continued, gesturing toward the meaty hole that was Absalon Shamood’s right eye socket. “Why can’t they just, I don’t know—”
“Decapitate instead?” Charlie’s suggestion was met with a paling from her partner. He took a step back and looked around the room. “I wouldn’t puke here, if I were you. You know, might upset the grieving widow of the most important human being on the planet.” She bent beside the body, careful not to disturb it or step in the drying blood. “Was the most important.”
Eli shifted behind her but didn’t add anything.
Three investigations in with her new partner, and Charlie still couldn’t believe they’d saddled her with him. He was squeamish and definitely a bootlicker. And you went on a date with him. She conveniently ignored that last point.
Charlie touched her temple and snapped a few images of the victim. She rose and strode around him, snapping pictures, noting the trickle of blood down his slightly hooked nose. His deep beige skin was waxen, almost, and the eye that hadn’t been ripped free of the socket was closed.
She brought her memory-latex gloves out of her pocket and pulled them on. They schlap-shlooped against her skin, and she withheld a shudder, her gaze dancing to Nathaniel.
He stood with arms folded, watching, nose raised so he could look down it at her.
Focus. It doesn’t matter that he’s here.
This was her job.
This was the only time she could switch off the winding thoughts that had turned her around over the past few months.
“Eli,” she said.
“Yeah.” He still sounded green.
She didn’t bother checking if he looked green too. “Record notes.”
For once, Eli didn’t kick up a fuss. He moved into position behind her.
“Victim’s right eye was removed from the socket by force.” Charlie leaned in, grasping Absalon’s cheeks and lifting the head, carefully. “Lacerations around the eye socket suggest that the removal process was far from clean. Use of a blunt knife, possibly.”
Eli made a low gurgling noise in his throat.
Charlie put down Absalon Shamood’s head. “Must be,” she muttered.
“Must be what?” Eli asked, voice thick.
“Hold on.” Charlie rose and walked around to Absalon’s other side. She lifted his hand, nodding to herself. “Thumb has been removed with force. Once again, lacerations on the skin consistent with what might be a blunt knife.”
“God,” Eli muttered.
“He’s not here today.” Charlie stood, looking down on the body. There was something about it that didn’t quite sit right with her. She stepped back, assessed its positioning in the room.
A living room, with a mirror along one wall, unbroken, the other side of it consisting solely of glass that gave a superior view of Corden Prime Central. The hub of the State and its civilization. The rest of the room was decorated plainly, with memory comfort armchairs and sofas, a fabric that would meld to the body and provide ultimate comfort.
“What is it?” Eli asked.
“Nothing.” But she scanned the room.
There were no blood drippings leading away from the body. No indication of where the eye and the finger might have gone, and judging by the lacerations, whoever had done this hadn’t been quick about it either. Unplanned?
There would have been a mess leading away, footprints, at least.
Charlie lifted her head again and caught her father’s gaze. “Is there a memory bank on the premises?” she asked.
Absalon lived in a penthouse suite that put all other apartments to shame. He was one of the creators of the “free world” as the State liked to call it. A misnomer of the highest degree. It followed that there would be a memory bank here. A place he could privately store his thoughts and ideas, without having to upload them directly to the cloud.
High security for the man who had started it all.
“Why is that of consequence?” Nathaniel replied, upper lip rising.
“Whoever killed him was looking for a way into a personal memory bank. Eye removed; finger removed. Is there one on the premises?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Charlie turned her back on her father. “Take us to it.”
There was a breath, perhaps a gasp from the coroner team at the door. Charlie didn’t care—she wasn’t swayed by her father’s power. She waited, impatiently, for him to lead the way.
Finally, Nathaniel’s loafers clicked across the tile and then onto the carpet. He stepped in front of her, paused, and looked back. “Careful, girl,” he said softly. “Your relation to me will only take you so far. There are places you go that I will not follow.”
“Ditto, Daddy.” She gave him a snarky smile. The others didn’t hear the comment, this time.
Nathaniel beckoned and walked them down a long, tiled hallway, flanked by glass walls that looked out on the city, or in on rooms in the house.
They halted in front of one, in particular, the glass of its door and walls misted. A pad, bloodied by a fingerprint, sat flush against its front.
“This is it,” Nathaniel said.
“Can you override the security and get us in?” Charlie asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“What about Absalon’s wife? Is she here? Can she help us?”
Nathaniel paused, sweeping his gaze over Charlie. “Yes. Of course,” he said and flashed a smile she didn’t trust. “Just a moment. Wait right here.” And then he disappeared down the hall, stiff-backed in his black suit.
“I don’t like this, Spade,” Eli said, softly. “I don’t like where this is going. We’re in his house.” The inflection was clear. Eli was a State lackey. Worshipped the ground that’d touched the underside of her father’s boots.
Then again, she’d believed in the State once too.
“What’s not to like?” Charlie asked, as her father turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
3
“This is everything?” Charlie asked. She tapped on the surface of the coffee table a second time and opened up the folder containing the files.
The grieving widow sat across from them, in the second living room of the apartment, her fists pressed to the sofa cushions on either side of her. She was blonde, petite, and didn’t talk much. She nodded slowly, her gaze scanning the display on the table’s surface.
Surveillance footage, ranging back for a full week, was laid bare before Charlie and Eli. But still, that lingering sense of wrongness remained. Why was there so little of it?
“Are you sure, Mrs. Shamood?” Charlie asked.
“She said she was sure.” Nathaniel stood behind the couch, his fingers digging into it. “I see no reason why you would harry her for details when she’s already given them.”
“Mr. Spade,” Charlie said and met her father’s gaze. “This is a private SSG investigation. The questions I ask are all related to the case and are of the utmost import. If you’re not happy with the line of questioning or investigation, you are more than welcome to contact my superiors at SSG and ask for a replacement detective.”
“Charlie,” Eli breathed. “Maybe don’t—”
“No, no, it would be no problem for me.” Charlie didn’t break eye contact. The mental wear with her father had been raging for years, and she wasn’t about to give in now. Not when she was so close to proving herself, not to him, but to herself. At last.
“Fine.” Nathaniel’s follow-up smile was disarming. “That’s fine, but
be sure not to upset Mrs. Shamood, please. Her comfort is exceptionally important to the State and Mem Store. Her husband, may he rest in peace, was an amazing man.”
Mrs. Shamood didn’t react to the words. But she did near jump the fuck out of her skin when Nathaniel laid a hand on her shoulder.
Charlie frowned. Grief did strange things to people, yes, but this strange?
“Why isn’t there more of it?” Charlie asked, gesturing to the recordings.
Mrs. Shamood opened her mouth then shut it again.
“Go ahead, dear,” Nathaniel said, patting her on the back.
“I—The security company has access to the cloud. Absalon had contact with them. I don’t know how it works.” The answer was mechanical.
Charlie kept her expression impassive, but man, this was all so off-kilter. The entire situation—the strange behavior from the widow, her father’s presence—set alarm bells ringing in her head. Regardless, she turned her attention to the most recent recording and opened it.
“You might not want to watch this, Mrs. Shamood.”
The blonde bowed her head but kept her bright, blue eyes focused on the screen.
The footage showed the first living room and several other square-windowed views. Charlie tapped on the relevant one, and it opened up. She scrolled through it until Absalon appeared on the screen, then further until the front door opened and an unknown man entered, holding a bloodied knife. Already bloodied? Who had he killed prior to this? Or was it from his own hand?
“Is this really necessary?” Nathaniel asked. “You’re going to upset Mrs. Shamood.”
But Mrs. Shamood didn’t seem all that upset. She was pale, but not weeping, and she didn’t shut her eyes.