Chapter Nine
As he drove away from Ava's house, Kennex still felt angry. He admitted to himself that her observation to Dorian about him maintaining some distance between them was accurate. He never talked about the details of any of the specific cases he was investigating with Ava. He'd made that mistake with Anna and he wasn't about to repeat it again. Kennex never visited her at the university just as she never came to see him at the precinct. They only saw each other on their dates aside from the occasional phone or video call. He'd never invited her to his place and he had never stayed the entire night at her house. Ava seemed to accept the divide between his professional and personal life and he appreciated that she wasn't clingy. Besides, who could blame him for not wiling to be open after what Anna had done to him? Kennex never wanted to let another woman get as close to him as she had.
But how dare Ava accuse him of disliking talking about his feelings, he thought. The only thing in his life right now that was being repressed were his memories. After he'd crashed his car and injured Dorian under the influence of Membliss, he'd decided that it would be best to stop taking the drug and also take a break from visiting the recollectionist. If Sandra was right, then his memories of Anna and the raid would return on their own. But it had been months now and they hadn't returned. Perhaps it was time for another visit to the recollectionist now, he decided. It didn't take him long to drive to the Koln Avenue District. He only knocked briefly on the door of the recollectionist before he went inside.
"John, I wasn't expecting to see you here again. The last time we talked, you told me that you were going to let your memories return on their own," the recollectionist said as Kennex closed the door and then removed his jacket.
"Yeah, but I haven't remembered anything new since then. I need to remember everything I can before I let it go," he admitted as he walked closer to the chair.
"You know there's a good chance that you might never remember all of your memories of the raid or of your ex-girlfriend," the recollectionist told him.
"Yes, but I still want to try," Kennex said as he lay down in the chair.
"Give me a minute to get set up," the recollectionist replied. He made some adjustments to the machine then placed the sensors on Kennex's temples. Kennex swallowed the white pill and then his arms were strapped down beside him. A moment later the machine started and he closed his eyes.
Kennex saw himself and Anna as they sat in his police car. She pulled out a narrow black box and wished him happy birthday. He opened the box to find a St Christopher pendant with an A engraved on the back. He'd told her that if he wore this around the precinct, than all of the other cops would give him a hard time. She'd told him that instead he should hang it in his car so that he had something to remind him of her wherever he went. They leaned in closer and kissed each other. A moment later Kennex opened his eyes as the memory abruptly ended. He sat up slowly.
"What did you see?" asked the recollectionist as he removed the sensors from Kennex.
"This time I remembered a birthday gift from my ex-girlfriend," Kennex replied. He nodded to the recollectionist in thanks, put on his jacket, and then made his way back to his car. The pendant was the fist thing he saw once he sat down in the drivers seat. Surely this gift was innocuous, he wondered as he turned it over in his hands. Then Kennex remembered the nesting doll in his apartment that Anna had given him. After lab testing that doll had turned out to be a listening device. What if there was tech hidden inside this pendant too? He quickly drove to the police lab, determined to find out.
"McGinnis, how are you?" Kennex greeted the CSI technician.
"You're up late, detective. What do you want now?" she asked. He pulled out the pendant from his pocket and set it on the table.
"I want you to scan this for DNA, fingerprints, and any tech. File it with the other inSyndicate evidence. Keep it off the books like the nesting doll," he told her.
"All right. But I just hope that someone will pay my overtime again," McGinnis stated as she pulled on a new set of gloves.
"I'll see to it. Thanks," Kennex replied as he left the police lab.
The next morning Kennex was about twenty minutes late to pick up Dorian from Rudy's for their shift. He'd hit the snooze button twice on his alarm clock until he'd finally got out of bed.
"Morning, John. You're late again," Dorian greeted him. John said nothing as they walked to the car.
"Where did the St Christopher pendant go?" Dorian wanted to know as he looked around the interior of the car as Kennex drove.
"That's none of your business," Kennex told him.
"Why did you turn off your locator chip after you left Ava's house last night?" Dorian asked him.
"That's also none of your business," Kennex warned him. Dorian looked at him more closely than out of the front passenger window of the car.
"Given your mood today I'd say you had a fight with your girlfriend last night," Dorian stated.
"Did you run a bio scan of me just now?" Kennex wondered.
"No, but I didn't need to in order to notice the difference between now and the last time we spoke," Dorian observed.
"Fine. Since you really want to know, Ava and I had a fight because of you," Kennex told Dorian.
"What did I do?" wondered Dorian.
"Ava was mad that you had told me what she said to you in the hospital," Kennex explained.
"Was I supposed to remain quiet about that conversation? My bad. Do you want to talk about it?" Dorian wondered.
"Ava thinks that I'm hiding something because I haven't invited her to my place yet. She also thinks that I don't like talking about my feelings and that I'm not willing to be vulnerable around her," Kennex replied.
"Morose does tend to be your dominant mood and you do have trust issues," Dorian observed. Kennex sent him a dark glare at that.
"Well, Ava has a tendency to run from her problems rather than face them," he snapped.
"Sooner or later you'll have to decide if your girlfriend's flaws are worth living with or not because no one is perfect. The ideal woman you once described to me doesn't exist in reality," Dorian remarked.
"Yeah, I've figured that much out," Kennex replied. Before Dorian could respond to that, dispatch alerted them to a multiple homicide five blocks away. Kennex told Dorian to show them as responding.
After their shift had ended that day, Kennex drove Dorian to Rudy's. During the drive he looked over at his partner.
"Not that I mind, but you've been quieter than normal today. What are you thinking about?" he wondered.
"I was reflecting on the fact that we never know when we are going to die, just like those gang members we found murdered this morning. Given that our time is limited, you should go apologize to Ava," suggested Dorian.
"Why? She started the argument not me," Kennex protested.
"John, you're lost your temper with a lot more regularity than normal today. Do you want me to include that in my latest report of your wellbeing to Captain Maldonado?" Dorian threatened.
"No. Fine. I'll go talk to Ava tomorrow. If I wake her up now, she'll be even more pissed off," Kennex said.
"Might I suggest bringing her some flowers too?" Dorian suggested.
"No, Ava doesn't like flowers," Kennex replied.
"Good night, John," Dorian said once Kennex had pulled up in front of Rudy's. Dorian got out of the car and then went inside.
After his shift the next day, Kennex drove straight to Ava's house. Kennex pressed his thumb against the biolock on Ava's front door. A moment later the light underneath the biolock changed from red to yellow. He knew that meant that Ava was viewing the video feed of the door.
"John, what are you doing here?" came Ava's voice through the small speaker on the biolock.
"Ava, are you going to let me in or am I going to have to apologize through your locked door?" Kennex wondered.
"Give me a minute," Ava replied. A few moments later, the yellow light on the biolock changed to a green one. Kennex opened the now unlocked door and walked inside. He closed the door behind him a moment later. In the hallway Ava walked closer to him. She wore a long sleeved shirt and loose ankle length pants with no socks. Her arms were crossed over her chest.
"Follow me to the living room, then we can talk," she said. As he walked into the living room Kennex saw Patrick lying on a dog bed in front of the window that looked out onto the street. She motioned towards the couch for him to sit. He did so but he did not sit down right beside her.
"Well, what do you have to say?" she began.
"You were right that I'm not good at being vulnerable. But you said that you don't want to change me. So is it possible that you can accept me as I am?" Kennex replied. Ava took a deep breath and then turned to look at him.
"I do like you the way you are. I'm sorry about my fight with you the other day. My ex-boyfriend Seamus lied about his behaviour all the time and then when it came to light he dismissed my objections as unimportant. That's why I'm so sensitive about you not being open with me; it's because I fear that you are hiding something from me. I know that you aren't because you're an honest man, but it's sometimes hard for me to believe that when you've only let me partially into your life," she explained.
"I'm not sure if I believe in a happily ever after anymore. But I do care about you and I've enjoyed the time we've spent together," Kennex admitted.
"I care about you too and I want to continue being with you," Ava told him. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Glad to hear that. I don't suppose I could stay the night?" he wondered. She smiled.
"Unfortunately, I need to get back to marking essays. Unless you have anything productive to say about the history of the telephone?"
"Not really. Good night, Ava," he replied as they both stood.
"Good night, John," she concluded. She turned and walked back to her home office. Kennex left her house and drove back to his own place. Tonight had proven what he'd once told Dorian; namely that human connection was messy. He was never going to invite anyone to live with him again after Anna, he resolved. But perhaps it was time that he was a little more open around his girlfriend. He wanted to be himself around her but he also didn't want her to think that he was not being honest with her.
That brought to mind his mandatory weekly anger management class. He had told the doctor there that he felt great. She had urged him to be honest about his feelings but he knew that the doctor was reporting to Maldonado about his mental state. So what else was he supposed to say to her, Kennex wondered. He was about to go to bed when he saw his video phone flash blue with an incoming call. He tapped the answer button which expanded the video screen to show McGinnis inside the police lab.
"Hello, detective. I found tech embedded inside this pendant," she got right to the point.
"What was it?" Kennex wanted to know.
"I found a miniature camera inside that uses nano circuitry. A picture was taken once every hour, then the image was uploaded to the cloud where it was heavily encrypted. There were no images from two hours after the raid until the day you returned to work, when the images resume being uploaded. The last image from the pendant was uploaded 10 hours ago," she explained. He nodded in understanding. Rudy might be able to help him find the device used to access these images or the server where they were stored, but Kennex doubted he'd also be able to keep his investigation quiet. Despite his skills as a former hacker, Rudy might not find anything anyways. If inSyndicate knew the pendant was now in police evidence, they would delete all of the images. So that line of investigation was likely a dead end, Kennex reluctantly decided.
"How did the police miss the pendant after the raid?" he wanted to know.
"Your apartment was swept by the police before you were reinstated, but not your car. Was there anything else, detective?" she asked.
"No. Good night," he told her.
"Good night," she replied. A moment later the video call ended. This was just more proof that Anna couldn't be trusted. Though he didn't need any more evidence of that, Kennex thought bitterly as he got ready for bed.