Livvie and Tom were having coffee in the kitchen, but there was no sign of Mike. Rob made a beeline for Tom.
"I know we're all fed up being confined to barracks, but I don't want you going off site on your own again. Not even with a vest." He looked around at Ian. "Where's your GPS watch?"
Ian pushed back his sleeve. "Here."
"Good. As long as I know where everyone is."
"Can I go to the workshop?"
"Only via the rear. Don't wander around. Oatie can go walkies on his own."
Ian took a handful of cookies and went into the workshop. The plan formed itself in a matter of minutes. There was a quick way to end this; he'd confront Dru. He'd walk right up to her and defy her to do something. Then she could either talk sensibly to him, or he'd call the cops and she could explain to them why she thought he was a shape-shifter. He didn't have to prove or disprove a damn thing. He just had to tip this out of stalemate and keep Mike and Rob out of it.
It all made perfect sense now. He should have done it ages ago. He could have marched into KWA's offices with a film crew and blown the whole thing, just like Gran said.
He couldn't assume Dru wouldn't be armed, but he couldn't take a firearm. If he carried one, then he intended to use it, and if he used it, things would get complicated. He'd have to rely on a sharp tool and his hunting knife for self-defence. He picked up a short crowbar and climbed up to the workshop roof to lie prone at the observation point. When Dru showed up, he'd pay her a visit.
I can do this. The hardest thing I ever did was spend eighteen years thinking I was crazy.
Somehow that had sloughed off him in days. Once he accepted his changes were real, he hadn't needed to get used to being sane. He'd had to get used to being lied to.
Eventually he heard the springy creak of the ladder. Mike climbed over the edge of the flat roof and settled down next to him to check out something with a monocular. He didn't say anything for a few minutes.
"Tom's having fun," Mike said at last. "You two seem to be getting on fine."
Ian felt like a traitor for having a plan he wasn't going to share with Mike. But it was better this way. "He's a nice guy."
"You don't have a problem with making friends your own age."
"But it's Tom."
"Sure, but that's no guarantee you'd get on." Mike gave him a thumbs up. "Milestone achieved."
It would have been a really great moment if Ian hadn't been set on his confrontation plan. He felt like an undeserving fraud. But Mike and Rob were planning something too. There was an intense focus about them, not excitement or agitation but a kind of controlled impatience.
"So what are you going to do next?" Ian asked. "Dru's not taking the bait."
"We'll keep looking for the Chrysler and any other vehicles that show up too often. They're just parking at the hotel for a few hours at a time. Maybe they use the restaurant, and that's how they don't draw attention."
"They?"
"It can't be a one-man job. There's got to be at least two. One to cover, one to grab. And maybe more vehicles." Mike pressed himself up from the prone position and knelt back on his heels. "Let's go indoors. I'm freezing."
Ian tried to keep the conversation going while Mike was climbing down the ladder. "You're not going to do anything dumb, are you?"
It took Mike the entire walk from the workshop to the back doors of the kitchen to reply. He ushered Ian indoors. "We never do anything dumb. We just take calculated risks."
"Can't you tell me?"
"Okay, we're going to surprise Dru on one of her visits, then pull her in. That's all you need to know."
It sounded crazy to Ian. Mike and Rob would end up being the ones in trouble. "Isn't that kidnapping?"
"Not by the time we've called the cops. It'll be fearing a robbery or home invasion. 'Well, look, officer, they keep showing up on the security cameras day after day, and she's already tried to con my neighbour for information.'"
"But she'll say she was nowhere near the house."
"We can lie. As long as the police question her, calls get made, and Weaver has to give reasons, I can unleash the lawyers. Weaver can never admit what their accusations really are."
Ian didn't think that would stop KWA for more than a few months. Maybe it was time to tell Mike what he was planning and appeal to his common sense.
"If I'm really worth that much money to them, they'll dump Dru and just try another route at a later date," Ian said.
Mike opened the fridge and rummaged in the shelves, taking his time. Ian wasn't fooled by the apparently casual reaction.
"Weaver would be crazy to do that after a brush with the police," Mike said. "But we'll deal with that if and when it happens."
"Look, if we haven't broken any laws, why don't I come clean? Then it's Kinnery's problem to explain. And Weaver's."
"Your life would be hell, and you know it."
Ian trod as close to the truth as he dared. It was hard to lie to Mike. "But I wouldn't morph. I'd just be a victim of medical malpractice or something."
"If they've got the nerve to take it court, do you know how many years lawyers can string things out? And how much attention that'd focus on you?"
"Sure, but at least they wouldn't dare abduct me. That's exactly what Gran said. The most they'd win is the right to take a sample."
Mike sat down at the table and began picking at a plate of cold cuts and pickles. He gestured at Ian to join him. "I don't think you can imagine how bad things would get for you."
"But I wouldn't be locked up. Or missing."
"I'm responsible for you, buddy, adult or not." Mike reached out and ruffled his hair. "I know why you want to do it, and it's admirable, but it's not necessary. Besides, if you outed yourself, we'd get the flak too. Imagine the headlines. The Braynes, involved in all this. The media would go into a feeding frenzy."
Ian hadn't factored that in. He felt like an idiot. It was naive to think that there wouldn't be any fallout for Mike. Okay, so there had to be a Plan B. If Mike was going to lie and entrap Dru, then Ian could make it easier. He'd walk up to her, show her exactly what he could do, and lure her onto Mike's land. Maybe she'd even oblige by trying to grab him so he could call the cops himself. And then she'd have the choice of telling the police what she thought she'd seen and sounding like a psychiatric case, or keeping her mouth shut while Mike's lawyers trampled over KWA.
Mike would be angry for a while, but at least he'd never have to live like this again.
"I never get tired of turkey." Mike helped himself to a pickle. "Want some?"
Ian checked his watch. If Dru stuck to her timetable, she'd be on the move soon. He needed to get to her before Rob did.
"I'll eat later," he said. "I'm not easily distracted."
I'm sorry, Mike. But you're not going to break the law for me. I can sort it myself.
Mike had a way of frowning that left Ian unsure if he was annoyed, hurt, or being sympathetic. The way his eyebrows lifted at the inner ends instead of puckering down sometimes made him hard to read.
"I should have had Dad come and pick you up," he said.
"Isn't that running away? As in not solving anything, just postponing it?"
"Yes. Yes, you're right. It is."
Ian relented on the cold cuts and got himself a plate. A little later, Livvie, Tom, and Rob came crashing back into the kitchen, noisy, breathless, and stoked up on adrenaline. Livvie pounced on Mike and grabbed him from behind his chair to bite his ear.
"Have you guys been in the gym?" he asked.
"Rob's been teaching me to punch." Livvie took a slice of meat off his plate. "Why haven't you ever done that?"
"Because I thought I was risking my nuts enough by training you to use firearms, honey. How's she shaping up, Rob?"
"Ready to move on to eye-gouging and use of broken bottles, I think," Rob said. "A natural."
Ian suddenly found it even harder to face what he had to do. It wasn't fear of whatever was going to happen
to him. It was the risk of being cut off from these people, his friends, his family. But he had to do it. What was the worst that could happen? Dru told her story, the authorities believed her, and Ian was suddenly freak of the week. As long as he didn't morph in front of anyone else, though, the interest would eventually die down and he'd just be the kid with weird genes that didn't do anything. Kinnery and KWA would still be in deep shit. Mike would get some attention he didn't want, but that would die down in time too.
Better make sure I do this right, then. I don't want to put Mike through that.
Ian got up to go back to his room. "I'm going to catch up on some sleep," he said. "So that I'll be some use if you need me later."
"Yeah, too many late nights, mate," Rob said. "We'll wake you up if anything exciting happens."
Ian looked back for a moment to fix the memory of these people being happy together, and hoped that they'd forgive him for wasting the time they put into hiding him. He studied the photo of David Dunlop while he sat on his bed. He didn't feel such a fraud now. He'd inherited Great-Granddad's values, and now he could live up to them. A man didn't shirk his responsibilities.
He left his GPS watch on the nightstand so Mike wouldn't know where he'd gone and logged into the tracking site via his phone. Could Rob or Mike tell he had access now? If they could, maybe they'd think he was just watching. It was early afternoon and Dru's car was still at the hotel. When she moved, she'd head back to one of two places to park – the lay-by or the scenic trail.
So I'll wait in the woods. I can get to either location before Rob can. I can follow her on foot.
Ian knew where all the cameras and sensors were by now, and Rob and Mike had trained him how to move around terrain without being spotted. If you knew a location well, you had the advantage.
I choose the time and the place. That's how you do it.
His camo jacket was folded over the chair. Almost without thinking, he put his hand on it and watched the pigment well up and cluster in patches to match the pattern.
This was his tool now, no more than an actor putting on makeup. He'd walk up to Dru Lloyd and show her something that nobody else would believe.
Shape-shifting was a weapon after all. Ian was confident that he knew how to use it.
FOREST ROAD, EN ROUTE FOR WESTERHAM FOREST VISITOR CENTRE.
Dru had formed more of a plan today than yesterday, but it still fell short of being definitive.
There was no point in freezing her ass off at the side of the road day after day in the hope of getting lucky. So she'd play dumb. She'd park up and walk through the woods with her binoculars, climb over the flimsy fence, and if anyone stopped her, she'd claim she didn't realise she was on private land.
She still had one advantage; Mike Brayne didn't know she was here. If he did, she'd have known by now. Calls would have been made at high levels, Weaver would have been on the phone ordering her to back off, and the Braynes would have set their security on her. That was how these people worked.
As she drove the now familiar route to the forest trail, she was more worried about a biker behind her, drifting in and out of her blind spot as if he was trying to pass. Moron. He should have known she couldn't see him. She was tempted to turn left without indicating just to prove the point and see how fast he hit his brakes. No, too much paperwork. It's a rental. I can't afford the excess. She'd just slow down to make him pass her. When she took her foot off the gas and let the Sonic drop to under thirty, he swerved to overtake and roared off into the distance.
Yeah, didn't see any lights, did you? Watch the vehicle in front, cretin. There. I feel better now.
Dru carried on at her own pace and turned into the parking area. If any security cameras had picked her up returning each day, she was behaving perfectly normally for someone on vacation staying in a rural area without much by way of entertainment. For anyone who liked nature, it must have been fascinating. She didn't, and it wasn't. The natural world was best viewed on National Geographic from the vantage point of a comfortable sofa. She zipped her jacket up to her chin, pulled up the hood, and got out.
And there was the damn biker. Was he the same one who'd just tail-gated her? It was hard to tell. The bike – mostly black, nothing bright and showy – hadn't caught her eye. Bikers fell into two categories for her, either shiny and brightly coloured, or dull and dark. He was sitting astride his machine with the stand down while he studied something behind the fairing, probably his satnav. He was wearing a full-face helmet and a scruffy brown leather jacket. She half-expected him to pass a comment about her driving, but he didn't seem to notice her. She walked on.
The trick was to look as if she wasn't going anywhere in particular, just ambling east with the compass on her phone. A straight line looked too deliberate. She walked on a long diagonal, ready to brandish her booklets on identifying local wildlife. Movement caught her eye every few yards, but when she turned to look it was just a bird or a swaying branch.
According to her phone, she was now close to the boundary. The crunch and snap of twigs nearby made her stop and push back the hood of her jacket to listen. There was definitely something moving around.
Oh God. What does a bear sound like? Do bears come this close to the road? No, it's a deer. It's got to be. I've seen them. I've seen the warning signs along the road. What do I do if it's a bear, though? Run? Freeze? Freeze.
Dru stood absolutely still, trying to scan for movement. Then her phone rang. She jumped.
Her goddamn phone was ringing in the middle of a forest, not her own cell but the burner. Her first thought wasn't who might be calling a number she'd only given out to a private detective and the guy at Dunlop Ranch, but that she had to silence it. She fumbled through her pockets, trying to grip it with gloved fingers, and didn't even get to look at the screen before she was suddenly aware of something moving just a few feet away.
Bear. Oh shit.
She swung around. But it wasn't an animal. It was a young guy in an army surplus jacket and a woollen beanie.
It was the same boy she'd seen walking his dog a day or two earlier. She was sure of it; dark hair and the kind of face that would mature into a good-looking man's as he got older. But she still didn't know how he'd gotten so close without her spotting him.
"Sorry." Dru wasn't sure what she was apologizing for. She had to say something, though, and she still didn't know if he'd come from the Braynes' estate. "You startled me. I didn't hear you coming."
"Hi, Mrs Lloyd," he said. "Sorry about the phone. I had to be sure."
Dru's legs almost buckled under her. He stood waiting for an answer to a question he hadn't actually asked. She could only blurt out astonished noises that sounded like answers.
"How the hell do you know me?"
"Same way as you know me, probably."
"I saw you out with your dog."
He parted his lips for a moment as if he was going to say something, then shook his head. "No, actually, you didn't."
She stared at him. She was sure she knew his face. It had to be that kid. "Are you Ian Dunlop?"
"That's why you're stalking me, isn't it?"
Dru had to brazen this out. Her pulse was going crazy. She was on her own and he didn't look harmless. Her instincts told her to run, but she had to see this through.
"So you're working with Kinnery." She hoped her voice didn't sound as pathetically afraid to him as it did to her. "How much did he pay you to carry the genes?"
"Ma'am, there's no with in this. I'm KWA's lab rat."
"What?"
"You people made me. From an embryo. I didn't volunteer."
He was just churning out The Slide's half-assed story. Dru tried to go on the offensive. "What about the Braynes, then? What's that all about? You did a deal with them instead?"
"There's no deal. Don't you understand?"
"Nobody can create live human hybrids. I'm not stupid."
"Kinnery did. You want your property back, do you? Okay."
He
turned around and started walking back towards the boundary. Dru had no idea what to do next. Should she try to stop him? Photo. Check the photo. What's wrong with me? She should have known the face in the mall video by now, but suddenly she didn't trust herself. As she fumbled in her purse to find the picture she'd printed, she followed him, afraid to lose him after all these months of chasing.
"Where are you going? Ian? Ian!" She picked her way between tree roots. "Hey, you've got stolen property."
He looked back, still walking. "I told you. I'm Kinnery's experiment. I didn't ask for this. You're going to be on my ass forever, so if you want it, ma'am, you come and take it."
"You want me to believe that garbage in The Slide?" Dru stopped dead. Clever little asshole. His buddies were probably lying in wait for her. She wasn't going to take another step. "Prove it."
"Prove what?"
"That you're a freak. A shape-shifter. Because I think you're just part of Kinnery's scam."
Ian stopped to stare at her for a moment, hands in pockets. His expression didn't quite make sense. He looked offended for a second, then disgusted.
"I think you believe it," he said. "Or else you wouldn't have ended up here."
And then he changed. God Almighty, his face changed.
His features shifted. His eyes faded to blue and his skin lost some of its tan. Dru couldn't breathe. Even though they were such small, small changes, he now looked totally unlike the kid she'd been staring at seconds earlier. This was the guy she'd seen yesterday, the one with the greyhound. Now she could see the difference. They were totally different faces.
"God," she said. "Oh my God."
Ian walked back towards her and let her take a closer look. She wasn't imagining it. It wasn't a trick of the light, either. It was so fast and complete that she started to doubt what she'd seen.
"There." He turned to walk off again. "You believe me now."
"We can't have done that. It can't happen." The more Dru blathered, the harder it got. None of the intelligent and necessary things she had to say could reach her mouth. Horrified confusion blocked their way while her shock got its questions in first. "Hey, you come back here."
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