The Memory Collector Read Online Free PDF Page B

again.
    “What . . . ?”
    Kanan gazed at Paterson with horror. Behind him, Officer Weigel unsnapped a holster and charged.
    Jo put out her hands. “Wait—”
    Weigel drew a Taser. “Doc, get back.”
    He fired. The darts hit. Kanan jerked rigid.
    Paterson broke free. Kanan stood motionless. And, so quick Jo barely sensed what was coming, Kanan’s hands drew upward and turned in, as if he were cringing. They drew into balls against his chest. His eyes blanked. His gaze rolled sideways, and then his head followed, slowly, turning to the left as though pulled in a circle by a weird magnet. Paterson stumbled to his feet and charged.
    “Don’t!” Jo shouted.
    She was too late. Paterson tackled Kanan, who went down like a tree.
    Jo ran toward them. “Officer, stop. No.”
    Paterson was wrestling Kanan. “Face down.”
    Kanan didn’t respond. He continued rolling leftward, hands clenched to his chest, face pressed against the floor.
    “Hands behind your back,” Paterson said breathlessly.
    Jo grabbed Paterson by the shoulders. “Stop. He’s having a seizure.”
    “He’s resisting.” Paterson grunted, straining to pull Kanan’s hands down.
    “Officer, he’s seizing,” Jo said. “Get off. Move.”
    Kanan wasn’t jerking or flailing or beating his head against the floor. He was simply gone, into a realm where bright lines flared at the corners of his vision and a panoply of color spun across the mind. He kept turning.
    “Partial seizure,” Jo said. “Get off him. Now. ”

4

    K anan lay in the aisle of the jet, turning as if on a rotisserie. Jo tried to pull Paterson away from him.
    “Call the paramedics,” she said.
    Officer Weigel loomed over them, Taser in his hand. “He got a hundred thousand volts. He’ll come out of it.”
    “The Taser may have triggered the seizure, but something else is wrong with him. Officer Paterson, let go.”
    Paterson relented. Jo knelt at Kanan’s side, fear pouring down her back like cold water. She wasn’t a trauma doc. She was a forensic psychiatrist. In her line of work the crisis cases never presented medical emergencies. Her crisis cases were already dead.
    She shook it off, telling herself: Go through it step by step. First, ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. She checked that Kanan was breathing and had a pulse. Then she stripped off her sweater, rolled it up, and tucked it under his head. Heat was pouring off his skin.
    “Paramedics and an ambulance. Call them,” she said.
    “You’re not going to section him?” Paterson said.
    “No. I’m getting him to an E.R.”
    Paterson got on the radio. Jo checked Kanan’s face and head for fractures and lacerations. The only cuts she could see were the gouges on his forearm. She avoided touching them and began to wish she’d brought latex gloves. In the aisle she spied his cell phone. She picked it up. Looked at dialed calls—an area code 415 number, about forty-seven times.
    Like an ebbing wave, the seizure subsided. Kanan stopped turning and lay limp on the floor. His eyes closed and opened again. Above Jo, Paterson’s radio leaked static.
    She put a hand on Kanan’s shoulder. “Mr. Kanan? Ian?”
    She heard the clink of handcuffs being removed from a utility belt.
    “Don’t,” she said. “He has a head injury. Where are the paramedics?”
    “On their way,” Paterson said. “He assaulted a police officer. He needs to be restrained.”
    “You’re not going to arrest him.”
    “That’s not your call. Sectioning him is. You going to do that?”
    Kanan shifted. “What’s . . . am—river’s too . . .”
    “Ian,” Jo said.
    “All wrong it’s . . .” He looked at her as though seeing her through a distorted video link. “Slick it’s too . . . falls—misty it’s . . .” He blinked and grabbed Jo’s arm. “Get you.”
    He began breathing rapidly. Jo took his pulse. One forty-eight.
    “Is anybody here to meet you?” she said. He was wearing a wedding ring. “Is your wife picking you