Chapter 13

When Cameron and Kirsten got in the car to go to the Carnival's last site, Cameron had a better idea.

"Let's get Isabel and take her with."

"Okay." Kirsten frowned. "You sure it's a good idea?"

"She gets out of the house, helps with the case. Can only do good."

"Fine. But if she cracks, then I won't take responsibility for it." Kirsten said as she drove towards the house where Isabel was staying.

Arriving at the house, Cameron walked in, hoping to find her watching TV or perhaps taking a nap but she sat in the smallest room, with her back pressed against the wall, staring at what looked like a shrine against the far wall.

"What is going on?" Cameron asked, helping her off the floor. "This is Kirsten." He quickly introduced them.

"I know who you are." Kirsten stated and shook Isabel's hand.

"Then you know more than me." Isabel turned to face the wall of paper and notes.

"This looks like something I would do to get facts straight." Kirsten pointed at the map and the newspaper articles and police reports.

"That is what I'm trying to do." Isabel said. "I can't wrap my head around anything, so Fisher brought me all the paperwork on my case, some on sightings of Gypsy and a few notable disappearances."

"Then you should add this too." Cameron said as he handed her a folder from the lab.

"Did you steal that?" Kirsten complained.

"They're copies. And Maggie knows." Cameron defended as Isabel opened the file and started reading through it.

"How did you get this?" Isabel wondered as she paged on.

"They're memories. From the people in the crash with you." Kirsten said bluntly before Cameron could stop her.

"Memories? How? No, never mind." Isabel took pages out of the file and started placing it on her wall. "So, Hathor was known as Roman?" she asked.

"Yes, and you were known as Katarzyna." Kirsten ignored Cameron's face that clearly didn't want her to explain too much.

"Katarzyna?" Isabel paused and stared out blankly. "Katarzyna?" she repeated.

"Does it ring a bell?" Cameron was hopeful.

"Not really. I remember a boy's voice saying it. And then stuff that doesn't make sense." Isabel held her head as if it was holding too much information.

"What did he say?"

"He said: "You look like a Katarzyna.""

"What did he look like?" Cameron felt that this was a small memory trying to get through.

"And then it goes away." Isabelle shook her head and looked back at the papers. She frowned. "Thomas?" she said the name wrong. The "Th" sounded like the "Th" in "third" and the "mas" like "mass".

"Why would you say it like that?" Cameron was curious.

"Say what?"

"Thomas. Why did you say Thow-mass?"

"Thomas? This isn't Thomas. You spell it T – A – M – A – S." Isabel frowned.

"Tamas?" Cameron matched her frown.

Kirsten jumped on her phone quickly. "Camille, Search for any kids or teens named Thomas, spelled Tamas. Okay." She hung up. "She'll let us know what she gets."

"You probably wont find him in any database." Isabelle said. She was staring at the map and pictures as if she was in a trance. "He wouldn't get caught. If he did, he'd use a fake name. And a cousin would pretend to be his father to get him out of jail."

Cameron and Kirsten stared at each other.

"How do you retrieve these memories?" she asked as if she'd never been in a trance.

"We hook up into their brains. It's complicated." Cameron was still spinning from her weirdness.

"Try and explain it to me." Isabelle insisted.

"It's…" he tried but she completed his sentence. "Complicated." She sighed.

"Why cant you stitch into me?" she continued.

"You're brain fights back. Pushes against the intrusion." Cameron explained. She frowned anyway.

"The brain works like a library, right?" Isabelle asked. "Information in heaps and stacked away in shelves. You go into people's libraries and take the info you want, right?"

"Sort of, yes." Cameron was trying to follow her creative way of thinking.

"So go get my info." Isabelle maintained.

"Your library has an angry librarian who would scream at us and stop us from taking info." Cameron stated.

"The librarian being my conscious brain?" she understood more than he thought she would.

"Yes. And I'm not getting rid of the librarian."

"Brain damage would mean books in burnt piles, right? But I have no brain damage. Just a blockage. So, a locked library?"

"You're taking this analogy a bit far. But sure, I guess."

"I won't have an angry librarian. I'll be willing to divulge any information I can. I'll probably even help."

"It doesn't…" Cameron rubbed his face, trying to think of a delicate way to put her idea down.

"We could try." Kirsten stated, gaining a glare from Cameron.

"You can't map out memories like this. It would be like driving stick. Going on manual mode. There is nothing to keep you on a path and you'd be in a brain that is drawing a lot of blanks."

"It's still a library." Kirsten said. "And the librarian is willing."