Adapt

by Melanie Rachel

  “Get up,” came a wheedling voice from outside the door, “or I’ll go get a key.”

  “Go get the key, Richard,” called Elizabeth, even as Will shook his head desperately at her. He’ll do it.

  Elizabeth stared at him blankly for a moment before adding, in the same raised voice, “If you think you can handle what you’ll see when you open that door.”

  There was silence for a minute, and then, in an irritated but subdued voice, Richard called, “Just get out of bed, Bennet.”

  Will turned to Elizabeth. How did she do that? “Well done,” he said approvingly. “I didn’t think the man could be stopped.”

  She kissed his nose. “He thinks of me as a sister, Will,” she said off-handedly. “Would you want to walk in on Georgiana?”

  He shut his eyes against the terrible images that flooded his imagination. G on a date with a man. G flirting, getting in a car, going up to an apartment. He was no longer in the mood. “Argh,” he grunted, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands as if to rub the thoughts away. “Point taken.”

  Elizabeth hopped off the bed and padded to the closet. She pulled out a soft green dress and draped it over the bed. He smiled softly. He liked her in jeans and boots, but he enjoyed seeing her dress up a bit. She had a remarkable body, and he appreciated that she worked hard to keep it that way. No calorie-counting, scrawny woman for him. Elizabeth was an athlete, and he loved every curve and long, strong, lean muscle she possessed.

  She sighed, and he glanced up at her face. “You know what I want?” she asked plaintively.

  “Yes,” he said emphatically, kissing her shoulder. “And so do I.”

  She laughed. “One-track mind, Will. I was thinking about chili.”

  He dropped back into the pillows, disgruntled. “Elizabeth, I am not the only one in this room with a one-track mind.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “It’s about time the two of you came downstairs,” Georgiana said, as both Richard and the senator stood to greet the pair. Either she’d returned to her dorm or someone had retrieved her clothes, as she’d changed into dark jeans and a cream-colored fisherman’s sweater, her dark hair piled up into a very becoming loose chignon. “I’d tell you to get a room, but . . .”

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, and Will ignored his sister completely.

  Richard turned his head in Georgiana’s general direction and said quietly, “You’re pretty cheeky for someone who required emergency reinforcements less than twenty-four hours ago.”

  Georgiana crossed her arms over her chest, her color high. “I never even heard of George Wickham until Elizabeth told me who he was, after this whole”—she waved one hand around aimlessly—“thing.” She glared at her cousin. “Elizabeth told me. Not you, not Will. How was I supposed to know?” She turned to Elizabeth, “He was a really good liar, wasn’t he, Lizzy?”

  Lizzy, is it? Elizabeth thought, irritated and amused in equal measure. But fair is fair. She nodded. “Wickham was very good, very smooth. Makes me wonder if he’s done this before.”

  “Oscar’s investigating that,” said Senator Fitzwilliam. He was finally beginning to show signs of strain, Elizabeth thought, just a little around the eyes. They all sat, G moving to the empty chair on Elizabeth’s left. Will sat on her right, to the left of Richard.

  Richard’s face hardened as he watched his young cousin change chairs. “Look, G,” he said, “there was no reason to say anything about the man. You were maybe seven years old when he left, right, Will?”

  Will nodded. “Six, I think. I was seventeen.”

  Richard put a hand under Georgiana’s chin. “He may be the world’s best liar, but I know you’re smarter than this. You’re glad now we checked your cards, right?”

  The girl refused to look at her cousin.

  “Forget about the credit cards,” Richard continued. “How many clues did you already have that something wasn’t right?”

  Georgiana shot a panicked look at Elizabeth, who shook her head ever so slightly. Richard’s no dummy, G.

  “How often have we told you to trust your instincts?” Richard stated, impatient with his young cousin. “I know Will’s told you. I’ve told you. Even Oscar’s told you.” He leaned over the table, focusing an intense gaze on his young cousin. “You have those feelings for a reason, G, even if you aren’t sure why.” He sat back, picking up his napkin and shaking it out. “None of us can afford to fly solo.” He glanced to his right. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it, Will.”

  Will’s face was expressionless other than a small twitch of his cheek. Elizabeth noticed it.

  “You’re one of us,” Richard was saying, his face as earnest as she’d ever seen it, “and that comes with a lot of advantages.” Terrence Fitzwilliam cleared his throat gently, and Richard didn’t even look at his father before taking Georgiana’s hand. Elizabeth was fascinated by the way the men were communicating without words. The senator’s probably given a similar speech on more than one occasion.

  Richard’s attention was entirely on Georgiana. “But it comes with an equal or greater number of responsibilities that other kids your age won’t ever have, dangers they won’t ever have to consider.”

  Elizabeth pondered that. What would it have been like to grow up in the spotlight instead of the shadows? Better or worse? She’d never sought the spotlight. Truth be told, it was rough even now. But she didn’t think it would have bothered her as a kid the way it had probably bothered Will. Not if she’d had his parents, anyway.

  G’s the youngest by far, she mused. And the only girl. I don’t wonder that she pushed back. She felt a bit more compassion for G’s denial about Juraj. “We’ve all been through it,” Richard was still saying, though he appeared to be winding down, “and fighting it doesn’t make it go away.”

  Georgiana closed her eyes. “I know.”

  Richard sighed. “Then do something about it.”

  Will changed the subject. “Do you think he’s responsible for the apartment?”

  Georgiana was shaking her head in protest, “Juraj . . . George was in California when that happened.”

  Elizabeth waited, but nobody said anything. She glanced around the table to see three men sitting silently, staring off into space. Will was focused on the window, Richard on a spot on the wall over G’s shoulder, and the senator up at the ceiling. It would have been comical had the situation not been so perilous. Well, clearly there’s something to this DNA thing.

  She turned to the girl. “Georgiana, think. He could easily have hacked the apartment from California. Will, when you changed the password, did you give it to G?”

  “No,” he said. “I figured I’d just give it to her at Christmas if I didn’t decide to change the system out entirely.”

  Georgiana closed her eyes like Richard had, pained and embarrassed to have missed something so obvious, and Elizabeth noticed for the first time that G’s forehead wrinkled in the same way when she was upset, too—that single, deep line across. The whole display was a little surreal.

  She cleared her throat. “So, should I say what we’re all clearly thinking?” G still appeared confused. Will began to nod absently as she continued. “He wanted you to know that you were . . .”

  “Vulnerable,” the three men all said together.

  Elizabeth sat back heavily in her chair and shook her head disbelievingly. “Just . . . wow,” she said, “how do you do that?”

  Will looked at her, questioning. “What?” he asked, perplexed.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.” She turned to Georgiana. “G, where do you store the security passwords to the apartment?”

  “On my phone,” G said slowly, “but they aren’t labeled, and I have a passcode.”

  Elizabeth bent to speak quietly in her ear, “Your brother’s phone is locked up tight. Who taught you how to bypass the passcode on Will’s phone when I left that voice mail the night before Thanksgiving?”

  G’s eyes widened, and though her voice w
as low, she uttered a string of expletives. That must be the Fitzwilliam part of her, Elizabeth thought, still entranced. When Georgiana ran out of traditional curses, she spat out, “Boot-licking, bull's pizzle, knot-pated, rooting hog!”

  In a lowered voice, Elizabeth said, “Taking Shakespeare this term?” The girl glared at her, and she held up her hands. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “Stop,” Georgiana said, and buried her face in her hands. She sounded wrecked. “I’ve been such a fool.”

  “Well, we all are at one point or another,” Elizabeth replied. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  Georgiana frowned. “Whatever I can,” she said, resigned.

  “Good,” Elizabeth replied. “Now,” she said emphatically, turning to the men, “what do you gentleman think that might be?”

  “We’re waiting on the clearance to set you to work, Elizabeth,” said the senator, picking up his menu. “Who is Wickham working for? That’s what we need to know. You just tell us what you need.” He addressed his niece, “Georgiana, you may need to testify at some point. If that becomes more than a possibility, we’ll get counsel in to prepare you.”

  Georgiana paled but nodded.

  Will reached over to take her hand. “It’ll be all right, G. We’ll get this figured out.”

  “Has anyone been to Wickham’s place yet?” Elizabeth blurted out. The senator glanced at his son, and Richard nodded. “Do we have his devices secured? Turned off? Internet disabled? Entirely unplugged?”

  Richard nodded again, and Elizabeth relaxed a bit. “Okay,” she said. “Then maybe I can find something.”

  “Can we eat now?” Richard asked. “I’m starving.”

  Elizabeth beamed at him. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Richard.”

  Elizabeth was escorted to Wickham’s tiny studio on Cowper Street immediately following dinner, escorted by two plainclothes agents and a high-ranking official from Senator Everest’s office who never gave his name. She ran through her protocols and retrieved reams of information from his computers—he had deleted a lot of files but hadn’t cleaned the hard drives yet.

  The ride back to the hotel was quick, but she fired up her laptop anyway and connected the portable hard drive. Everest’s man sat opposite her, silent and stern. She ignored him, cycling through the vulnerability detection program she’d written—the one she’d mentioned to Will and had just completed. There were still a few bugs to work out, but she needed it now—and like the one Captain Carter had claimed as his own, it was fast.

  Will helped her organize everything, and they each took part of the materials to read. Elizabeth stole a glance at Will, who had a pen tucked behind his ear as he worked through the printed copies with his uncle. Richard sent the password to the cloud account she’d recovered to his brother Oscar, and then they worked through the files stored online. Elizabeth worked through the emails that had been deleted, the ones she’d recovered from the hard drives.

  It took several hours, but at last she read a message, and her head shot up. “G,” she said.

  Georgiana took her earbuds out and closed a textbook. “Am I allowed to read something now?” she asked acerbically.

  “I need you to check your credit card statements,” Elizabeth replied. There was no time for hurt feelings. This was the senator’s game, and if he wanted to keep G out of it, it wasn’t Elizabeth’s place to say anything.

  “I’ve already canceled two of them,” Georgiana replied. “Please don’t make me cancel the other two.”

  Will gave her a serious look. “What are we looking for?”

  “Airline tickets,” she responded. “From the last day or so. And check her bank account for any withdrawals that look suspicious.”

  “On it,” he said in a way that reminded her of Richard. G stood, and they went to retrieve her laptop. They were back in a few minutes and were just opening the computer when the senator’s phone rang. Everyone stopped.

  “Oscar?” He listened, the lines on his face deepening. “Just a minute,” the senator said heavily, “I’m putting you on speaker.”

  “Are you sure?” came Oscar’s voice, clear and strong.

  “Yes. You’re on.”

  “I worked a contact here in D.C., and she tells me two airline tickets to Istanbul have been purchased in the names of Juraj Farkas and Georgiana Darcy.”

  Will’s entire body tightened. “Istanbul?” he asked. He nudged Georgiana, wanting her to review her accounts. Her fingers flew along the keyboard, producing quiet clicks as she struck each key.

  “Yes,” Oscar confirmed.

  “Paid for how?” Will asked, appearing for all the world as though he didn’t wish to hear the answer.

  “There’ll be a second set of tickets to Slovenia, is my guess. The Slovenia tickets would have been paid for in cash,” Elizabeth said softly, moments before Georgiana yelped and confirmed that several thousand dollars had been taken from her account.

  “Yeah, here’s the charge on her card, too,” Will said grimly. “Istanbul.”

  “Wouldn’t they wonder why I had two sets of tickets?” she asked.

  The senator shook his head. “If it was cash . . .”

  “Harder to track a cash purchase,” Oscar said, finishing the sentence his father had let trail off. “Especially if he lied about your names. The trip to Slovenia would be the flight you didn’t take. Nobody would focus on that.”

  “It would be seen as an attempt on your part to mislead the authorities, G,” Elizabeth added. “He might even have used her name and faked his own.”

  “Which he could get away with,” Richard added, “because he never meant to take that flight. No worries about security at the airport.”

  Will closed his eyes. “So he convinces G they’re going to meet his family in Slovenia, right? Buys tickets to convince her? But then he also buys tickets for a second destination?” Elizabeth bent over her files.

  Georgiana was following the conversation, her attention turning from one person to another as they spoke. “I would have checked my name on the ticket.”

  “But maybe not his.” Elizabeth shrugged. “You know, he probably has more than one fake name—he could just use one of them or make up something entirely new. He puts the e-ticket in a generic paint or photo program, then just removes the fake name and adds his real one—the one you thought was his real one.” She rubbed her forehead.

  “Then he shows you the passes on his phone,” Will said. “You don’t know any different because when you get to the airport, he uses the correct tickets. The ones he wants investigators to find.”

  “But why would he want to take me to Istanbul?” Georgiana asked, confused.

  “Gaziantep,” Richard and Elizabeth said at the same time. Elizabeth nodded at Richard, indicating that he should continue.

  “Gaziantep,” Richard explained, “is just across the border from Syria, G.”

  Will paled. “Western women have made that trip before, to join terrorist groups. Some of them younger than you.”

  “Such a purchase, easily tracked on a credit card, no less, is guaranteed to ignite federal interest,” the senator agreed.

  “I’m working on that,” came Oscar’s voice from the phone. “The appropriate agencies are already involved.”

  “How did he expect to fool me into getting on a plane to Istanbul if he told me we were going to Slovenia?” Georgiana asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Elizabeth felt sick. “The sleeping pills, G. Did you buy them, or did he?”

  Georgiana blinked, her face turning white with shock. “He did. He didn’t have anywhere to put them when we were at the drugstore, so he asked me to hold them and then he just forgot. He asked me to bring them to dinner so he could take them home—that’s why I had them in my purse.”

  A heavy silence hung over them all. Eventually, the senator thanked Oscar.

  “Before I get back to work,” Oscar said grimly, “We have another prob
lem.”

  “What is it?” the senator asked sharply.

  “I thought you’d all like to know that Elizabeth’s police officers don’t exist.”

  Elizabeth had been so focused on G’s ordeal, she’d forgotten all about her Thanksgiving run-in with the police. “Who?”

  “Your township police officers,” Will explained, “the ones who came to your apartment.”

  “Richard asked me to shake the tree and see what fell out,” Oscar said. “The answer is nothing. Bloomfield’s police force does not employ any officers named Spinoza or Goring.”

  The room fell silent. “Thanks, Oscar,” Will said.

  “I’ll be in touch, Dad,” Oscar said before signing off.

  “Okay,” Elizabeth said brusquely. “Do you think they were trying to get me arrested to keep me from helping G? Could they see that far ahead?”

  Will appeared ready to protest, but he was stopped by his uncle. “It’s likely related to this somehow,” the senator said. “Let’s pursue what we have and see how it all fits together.”

  It took another three hours of combining their research, but in the end, they had a mostly consistent story.

  At the very best, Wickham had meant to make it appear that Georgiana Darcy, American heiress, was traveling to Syria to marry a terrorist she’d met in the States.

  Elizabeth would not give voice to the worst. Unlike the infamous three British schoolgirls who’d been convinced to run away from their homes in England, Georgiana was no longer a minor. Unlike them, her family was well known in the States, and the press would be only too pleased to provide full coverage of the event. Unlike them, she’d have no idea why she was really flying to Europe.

  Will would not have been able to depend upon any official assistance at all to retrieve her without some evidence of an abduction. Even if he and Richard had given chase, they’d never have found her in time. The senator could have called in every one of his thirty years of favors, and they’d still never have gotten off the ground quickly enough to save her.