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They went to visit Earl’s mother in Cleveland. She’s not doing well. Probably won’t be long for this world. She’s old, and gaga like me, actually.” He had served justice in both cases, but it was, without doubt, a hollow outcome, marred by the fact that the justice was delivered too late for the victims. No amount of justice could return the dead to the living; the satisfaction gained from learning the truth was dwarfed by the loss.
He was a consultant with the FBI. Long before that he had suffered a near-fatal brain injury while playing professional football. His altered brain held two new attributes which, up to that point, he hadn’t even known about and had no reason to: hyperthymesia, or perfect recall; and synesthesia, which caused him to pair certain things with unlikely colors. In his case it was dead bodies linked with a shade of electric blue. After his football career ended he had become a policeman and then a detective in his hometown; thus, seeing dead bodies was not all that unusual. And then came the oppressive thud of Mary Lancaster’s body hitting the floor. He was certain she was dead. Lancaster had always been a good planner, results oriented. Such people excelled at killing themselves. But also not alike,” she retorted in a tone she hadn’t used before. It was an escalation of sorts, at least he took it that way.He decided to reroute the conversation. “How are Earl and Sandy? Sleeping, I suppose.” That was Mary’s husband and their daughter. Mary Lancaster, at least in her mind, could not have committed a graver sin than not remembering that her daughter existed. He was certain that was what had placed the finger on the trigger and given her the strength to pull it. He was alive. She was not. Right now it was a difference without significant distinction for him. He sat there as his little room was lit by the electric blue of a death that had touched him from nearly a thousand miles distant. I know, Mary. And I wish you didn’t have to deal with it.” He stopped and struggled to come up with more sympathetic words; it was a task that would have been easy for his old self, and nearly impossible for his current one. “I…I wish there was a cure.” The casket had been closed. The gunshot had been fired upward through the mouth, leaving Mary Lancaster beyond the magic of the mortician’s cosmetics, and thus unviewable.
Since Baldacci is the absolute master of provocative mini-twists in his plots, the narrative slides through a maze of zigs and zags.” Mary? Mary!” he shouted into the phone. When no response came, his energy wilted. Why are you screaming? She’s gone. You know she is. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. Thuli Madonsela speaks about the importance of SA's political future in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. What about tomorrow?” she said, interrupting these thoughts. “Will I remember her tomorrow? Or Earl? Or you? Or…me? So what does it matter? Can you tell me that?”It’s so difficult to understand time, Amos, night and then day. But then, everything is very difficult for me to understand right now. And…it’s so very frightening because…every day there seems to…be less and less of me…th-there.” You mean I can put sentences together. The…me-medications help me with that, sometimes. This is one of those times. I’m…not usually like this. I’m usually… not good.” David Baldacci is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with 150 million copies sold worldwide. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at DavidBaldacci.com and his foundation at WishYouWellFoundation.org. I have a gun, Amos. My old service automatic. I haven’t held it in years. But it fits my hand so fine. I remembered the gun safe combination, can you believe that? After I forgot pretty much everything else, I remembered that. I suppose it was…an omen of sorts,” she added offhandedly.
He said the words he needed to say to his wife and child, and then rose from the cold ground and glanced to the left. There was an empty plot there. My only gripe with Baldacci's books is that there inevitably comes a point when they're over, and that he only publishes two of them a year. I always enjoy reading Baldacci, and this one was the best in a while among many excellent ones. She cut in. “Earl doesn’t know that I am alone. He wouldn’t want that. He’s normally very careful about that.”
He sat down and read it through twice, though his perfect memory had already imprinted all of the contents in his mind forever. He knew exactly what she was referring to. “It seems to,” he answered. “But everyone’s mind changes, Mary, healthy or not. Nothing is static. Normal or not, whatever normal is.”
Sharp as a pistol shot she barked, “I forgot Sandy today. Right before they left to go to Cleveland. I forgot her.”
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He was about to speak again, to convince her to wait for help. He had his lines ready. He was about to deliver them. They would make her put the gun down, he was sure of it. A single shot, which he believed—because he knew Lancaster—had been delivered with deliberate care and competent accuracy. She would have chosen the temple, the chin, or the open mouth as her entry point. Any one of those would get the job done. He had still been on the line when the police had arrived at Lancaster’s house. He had talked first to the officer, and then the detective, a man he knew from the old days. There had been sadness exchanged on the loss of a life well known to them, a grudging acceptance of the choice made, and of the motive behind it. Mine. He had come close to filling it on several occasions, once by his own hand, while staring at his murdered child as she sat, in death, in her own house.
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