Lock In (Lock In, #1)(14)

“It still doesn’t answer the question of why he’d commit suicide in front of Bell in the first place,” Vann said. She looked back down at the corpse.

“Well, we do know one thing,” I said. “Bell was maybe telling the truth when he said that he didn’t do it.”

“That’s not what he said,” Vann said.

“I think it was. I saw the feed.”

“No,” Vann said, and turned back to Diaz. “Run the Timmons feed again.”

The image snapped once more to the hotel room, and the bas-relief of Bell reappeared. Diaz set it running. Timmons asked Bell why he killed the man in the room. Bell responded that he didn’t think he had. “Stop it,” Vann said. Diaz stopped the feed just as Timmons zapped Bell. He was frozen mid-spasm.

“He didn’t say he didn’t kill him,” Vann said to me. “He said he didn’t think he killed him. He’s saying he didn’t know.”

A light went on in my head, and I remembered my one personal experience with an Integrator. “That’s not right.”

“Integrators are conscious for their sessions,” Vann said, nodding. “They subsume and stay in the background during integration, but they’re allowed to surface if the client needs help or is about to do something outside the scope of the integration session.”

“Or is about to do something stupid or illegal,” I said.

“Which is usually outside the scope of the session,” Vann pointed out.

“Okay,” I said, and motioned back to the corpse. “But what does that matter? If this guy is a suicide, then Bell telling us he doesn’t think he did it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know. Because now we’re thinking that maybe he didn’t do it, either.”

Vann shook her head. “It’s not about whether this is a murder or a suicide. It’s about the fact Bell says he can’t remember. He’s supposed to be able to remember.”

“That’s if he’s integrated,” I said. “But we think he came to the room to pick up this side job, right? In which case, there was no one else in his brain when he allegedly blacked out.”

“Why would he black out?” Vann asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s a drinker.”

“He doesn’t look drunk on the feed,” Vann said. “He didn’t smell or act like he’d been drinking when I questioned him. And anyway…” She fell silent again.

“Are you going to be doing a lot of that?” I asked her. “Because I can already tell it’s going to bug me.”

“Schwartz said Bell was working,” Vann said. “That client-Integrator privilege applied.”

“Right,” I said, and motioned to the corpse. “That’s his client.”

“That’s just it,” Vann said. “He’s not a client.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Integration is a licensed and regulated practice,” Vann said. “You take on clients and you have certain professional obligations to them, but only a certain class of person is allowed to be your clientele. Only Hadens are supposed to be clients of Integrators. This guy”—she indicated the corpse—“is a tourist. He’s able-bodied.”

“I’m not a lawyer, but I’m not a hundred percent behind this theory here,” I said. “A priest can hear a confession from anyone, not just a Catholic, and a doctor can claim confidentiality from the second someone walks through the door. I think Schwartz is probably making the same claim here. Just because the dude’s a tourist doesn’t mean he’s not a client. He is. Just like someone who’s not a Catholic can still confess.”

“Or Schwartz slipped up and let us know that someone was riding Bell,” Vann said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I countered. “If Bell was already integrated then why would he be meeting with a tourist?”

“Maybe they were meeting for something else.”

“Then why bring that?” I pointed to the headset.

Vann was silent for a minute. “Not all of my theories are going to be gold,” she said, eventually.

“I get that,” I said, dryly. “But I don’t think it’s you. None of this makes much sense. We’ve got a murder that probably isn’t, of a man we haven’t ID’d, who had a meeting with an Integrator who may have already been integrated, who says he can’t remember things he should. That’s a mess, right there.”

“Your thoughts,” Vann said.

“Shit, I don’t know,” I said. “It’s my second day on the job and already it’s gotten too weird for me.”

“You guys gotta wrap it up,” Diaz said. “I’ve got another agent who needs the room in five.”

Vann nodded at this and turned back to me. “Let me put it another way,” she said. “What are our action items?”

I looked over to Diaz. “Any matches on our corpse yet?”

“Nothing yet,” Diaz said, after a second. “That’s a little weird. It doesn’t usually take this long to process a match.”

“Our first action item is to find out who our dead guy is,” I said, to Vann. “And how he’s managed not to have any sort of impression on our national database.”