Guarding Grace

by Rebecca York

  GRACE LAY ON the bed, turning her head so she could look at Brady. When she’d accepted him as her bodyguard, she’d had no idea of how strong and competent—how extraordinary—he was. She’d told him she knew a lot about him from his brother. That was only part of the truth. She’d read up on him on her own, studied him. She had felt as if she was getting to know him long before they ever met.

  Back then, she hadn’t understood the totality of the man. Now she knew that, if she’d been hiring a bodyguard, she couldn’t have picked a better one. But it was more than that. She’d developed strong feelings for him. She’d wanted to make love with him for her own selfish reasons. She’d wanted that— even if he ended up hating her later.

  Easing out of bed, she tiptoed across to the closet, where she found a man’s shirt she could wear. After slipping into it, she gave Brady a long look. He seemed to be sleeping, but had she seen his eyelids flicker?

  She stood very still, waiting. When he didn’t move, she rolled up the sleeves of the shirt and walked into the adjoining bathroom, where she quietly closed the door and clicked on the light. When her eyes had adjusted to the brightness, she turned toward the mirror.

  Back at the house in Frederick, Karen had been clawing at her arm and had ripped a hole in the fabric of her blouse. Below it, Grace had seen a bluish mark that had startled her. Because she’d seen it on herself.

  Pulling her right arm out of the shirtsleeve, she raised her arm and looked at the bluish place that she’d always thought was a birthmark. But it was just like the mark she’d seen on Karen. A brand!

  White-faced, she was staring at herself in the mirror, when the bathroom door burst open, and Brady plowed inside. He’d pulled his jeans back on but hadn’t bothered with a shirt.

  The thought struck her that between the two of them, they had a full set of clothing. Not exactly dressed if the homeowners showed up.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  Their eyes met in the mirror. “I…I was trying not to wake you up.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. You’re up to something.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Most people make some kind of noise in a bathroom. Like from the sink, the shower or the toilet.”

  “How observant of you,” she muttered.

  “Yeah. My detective skills.”

  She wanted to slip her arm back into the sleeve, but Brady had already crossed the room and pulled the shirt aside. Turning her arm over, he stared at the blue circle.

  “That’s the same mark that was on Karen,” he said in a gritty voice.

  Unable to speak, she simply nodded.

  “What—the two of you belong to a secret society?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And you were sent to spy on me.”

  “No.”

  “This charade is over,” he said in a voice that could have cut through ice.

  Turning he walked back into the bedroom and grabbed his shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving—before you can contact your friends again— like you did while we were in the hospital.” He gave her a hard look. “Was that whole thing at the bad guys’ hideout a setup? They threatened to torture you—so I’d try to break out. Only they double-crossed you and put you in the death car with me?”

  “No. They didn’t put me anywhere. I got in myself.”

  Ignoring that, he asked another question. “And why did you seduce me a little while ago? Was that part of the plan?”

  “I didn’t seduce you. We made love.”

  “You can call it that.” He sighed. “Too bad I can’t believe a thing you say. I think if I’m going to stay alive, I’m better off on my own.”

  When he started toward the front door, she ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  Without turning back to her, he asked, “Why should I?”

  “Because I’ll tell you everything,” she said in a whisper, dreading what was to come.

  His voice was still hard as forged steel. “This could be interesting. One way or the other.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll have to figure out if you’re telling me the truth or a fairy story.”

  He turned on the overhead light in the dining room and gestured toward one of the pressed-back oak chairs. “Sit down.”

  She sat and buttoned the long shirt that was still gaping open.

  Brady pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down, facing her.

  “Let’s start with something easy. Whom did you call when we were at the hospital?”

  Easy? The question made her want to leap up and run, but she stayed where she was. “Kevin Parsons,” she answered in a small voice.

  “Kevin Parsons. You expect me to believe that?”

  “I hope so. It’s the truth.”

  “You got that name from…from my brother’s files.”

  “No. Kevin and I have been in contact for a couple of years. I was calling to tell him what happened in Frederick,” she answered, fighting to keep her voice steady.

  He made a scoffing sound. “I don’t know why I’m still sitting here. Okay let’s try another one—were you part of a conspiracy to kill my brother?”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. “I was Karen’s lookout,” she managed to say.

  Brady looked as if he wanted to lunge out of his chair, but he stayed where he was. “And you’ve been playing me for a fool since I found you outside your apartment.”

  “No. Let me tell you the rest of it,” she begged, her hands clenched in her lap. The irony of the situation tore at her. She’d fought as hard as she could to keep her secrets. Now she was begging Brady to listen to the truth.

  His eyes glittered with menace as he stared at her. “You helped kill my brother.”

  “Because he was going to kill Kevin.”

  He flung a curse at her. “That makes no sense. Kevin is his son. He asked me to locate him.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Your brother was using you, the way he used so many people. Ridgeway didn’t ask you to locate his illegitimate son. Kevin isn’t his child. He’s his clone.”

  “What?”

  “His clone. Your brother’s heart was damaged when he was exposed to chemical agents in Vietnam. He was getting worse, and he was going to solve the problem by using Kevin as an organ donor.”

  Brady kept his gaze fixed on her, and she wanted to squirm away, but she forced herself to sit calmly, facing him.

  “You really expect me to believe a story as wild as that?”

  “What? You don’t think your brother is ruthless enough to sacrifice another person’s life?”

  She could tell she’d gotten to him with that question. Still, she kept her hands clenched in her lap as she continued with her explanation.

  “Thirty years ago, Dr. Richard Cortez perfected a human-cloning process. He kept his research quiet, but you might have heard of him when his lab in Bethesda blew up six months ago. He was killed.”

  Brady nodded. “I read about it.”

  “Cortez needed initial funding for his research, and rich men and women were offered the opportunity to have a clone made of themselves. You could join a program that would provide you with spare parts. Only there’s a gatekeeper who decides when someone is sick enough to require a transplant. He’s also the man who knows where to find the clones.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He calls himself the Paladin. I don’t know who he is. But he denied your brother’s request.”

  “Why?”

  “I assume because he didn’t think the situation was critical enough, but Ridgeway wanted the heart transplant, so he had you go looking for Kevin.”

  “Kevin was adopted!”

  “That’s right. In addition to the production laboratory, there was an adoption program. All of the clones were adopted by couples desperate to have children. The couples bore the expense of raising t
he children. A very neat arrangement.”

  Brady rocked back in his seat. “Why should I believe any of this? What proof do you have?”

  “Cortez liked to play God—to find out how far he could go with his research. Karen Hilliard was the one who discovered the clone plot. She and Kevin were both Ridgeway’s clones.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Cortez genetically turned off genes on Karen’s Y chromosome so she wouldn’t have male sexual characteristics. Karen was physically a woman with a male chromosome. She found out when she failed to get her period in her teens. Like your brother, she was smart and inquisitive. After learning of her chromosome abnormality, she went digging into her background and discovered Cortez’s clinic—and the adoption ring. And she wasn’t willing to leave it at that.

  “After breaking into the clinic’s records, she started contacting some of the other clones, including her ‘twin brother,’ Kevin. She was a natural leader, but you know that, too, because you know your brother. He built up a team of loyal men who worked for him at the Ridgeway Consortium.”

  As she finished the long speech, Grace studied the man sitting across the table from her. He sat silently, and she figured she was finally getting through to him. At least he was no longer angry.

  But his next words showed her that he was still questioning her whole story. “Then why didn’t Karen look like John?” he asked in a flat voice.

  “Because she had plastic surgery to alter her appearance enough so that she wouldn’t reveal herself. But she was still John’s clone. That’s why it was easy for her to seduce him. She understood him perfectly.”

  The sick look on Brady’s face increased. “You’re saying she made love with…herself.”

  Grace shrugged. “Like your brother, she was willing to do what was necessary.”

  “Let’s assume all that’s true. Where do you fit into the picture?”

  She wanted to lower her head into her hands, but she forced herself to keep her gaze level. Instead she began unbuttoning her shirt. Pulling her right arm from the sleeve, she held it up, pointing to the mark on the underside of her arm. “I didn’t know what this thing meant until I saw the same mark on Karen. Then I realized it must be the brand Cortez put on us.”

  She drew in a deep breath and told the secret she’d kept hidden all her life. “I’m a clone, too.”

  BRADY COULD HARDLY speak. The words he was hearing were too much to comprehend. He could only stare at her.

  His mind reeled. Before he could scratch the surface of his questions, Grace continued to explain. It was as if she wanted to tell him everything before she could rethink the wisdom of it.

  “Karen had it,” she told him as she pointed at the blue mark on her upper arm. “I’m sure you’ll find it on Kevin, too. It probably has a serial number identifying us. After she recruited Kevin, Karen came to me, and explained about Cortez’s project. And the gatekeeper guy—the Paladin. The plan to use us as needed.”

  He saw a look flash in her eyes but he couldn’t identify it. He couldn’t even think straight.

  “She left out the part about the marks. Maybe she hadn’t figured that out yet. Lucky for her she only had sex with John when they were in the office. If she’d gotten undressed, he would have seen it, although maybe he wouldn’t have known what it was.” She shrugged and looked away for a second. “But we made a pact. We vowed to fight back. The man who killed Cortez was one of us. He was a master bomber, but something must have gone wrong.”

  HE WAS FORCED into a corner. But he was going to get out of it, the Paladin thought, as he strode to the computer screen and called up a password-protected program. He’d ordered Brady and Grace Cunningham eliminated, and he’d thought his men had worked out a foolproof plan to do it—which would make it look as if they’d killed themselves trying to escape after assassinating John Ridgeway.

  That would have proved the conspiracy theory of Ridgeway’s death—along with the information that was now planted at Brady Lockwood’s apartment. The papers showed that Lockwood, Grace Cunningham and Karen Hilliard had plotted to kill Ridgeway so that Brady would inherit his share of the man’s considerable estate.

  Unfortunately, Lockwood and Cunningham had gotten away. Again. Which meant they were still dangerous.

  And he had another problem.

  He’d made up a fake conspiracy for public consumption. Now he was coming to the conclusion that he was dealing with a real one. As far as he could tell, the clones had started organizing against their masters. He’d hoped against hope that he was wrong, but there were simply too many deaths to ignore. And his best defense against the revolt was a good offense.

  He had no way of knowing which of the clones were in on the rebellion. That meant that he was going to have to eliminate all of them.

  On the computer screen, a list of names appeared. The list of the clones, with their serial numbers. But he could do better than that. Each of them had an identifier embedded under his or her skin. When they’d been young, there’d been no problem keeping track of them. But now he was going to use the advanced system.

  Pressing a series of keys he sent a signal to the tags, and each of them began to emit a homing beacon, making it quick and easy to find the clones and have them killed.

  Of course, a lot would get caught who weren’t part of the conspiracy, but they had always been expendable. Too bad the people who’d paid big bucks for a personal insurance policy were going to be angry when they found they couldn’t cash it in. But better safe than sorry.

  As he studied the computer screen, he saw that a lot of the conspirators were in the Maryland/Virginia/DC, area. Which was convenient because he had a team of men close by.

  He began calling up random signals, checking the exact locations and stopped when he found that one of the transmitters was very close to the last known location of Brady Lockwood and Grace Cunningham.

  A chill went up his spine. He’d been thinking that Grace Cunningham was only a loose end he had to tie up—a woman who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Now he wondered if she was one of the clones.

  Going back to the list, he checked the names again. No Grace Cunningham. But if she was joining a conspiracy, she’d change her name. And probably her looks.

  Reaching for the phone, he called the man who had let Cunningham and Lockwood get away.

  BRADY SAT IN STUNNED silence. He hadn’t wanted to believe a word Grace was saying. Obviously she was so desperate that she’d spun a fantastic story to convince him of something that couldn’t possibly be true. But the more she’d talked, the more sense she made.

  He’d always known his brother was smart and ruthless and willing to do what it took to get any task accomplished, no matter what the cost.

  He also knew that John’s heart had been damaged when he’d been exposed to chemical agents in Vietnam. In fact, he’d told Brady about it when he asked him to look for Kevin. He’d said that he wanted to do right by the boy, in case something happened to him.

  Yeah, right by the boy.

  He fought the sickness rising in his throat because too much of this fit into his knowledge of his brother.

  “Do you believe me?” Grace finally asked him.

  Brady’s mouth was so dry that he had to swallow before he could speak. “Yes.”

  Grace’s next words hit him like stones. “And now you’re feeling dirty because you know you slept with a woman who’s less than human.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “No!”

  Brady scrambled out of his chair, rounded the table and pulled Grace up. Gathering her close, he wrapped his arms around her. “Never think that,” he said, making each word count.

  She began to speak again, her voice muffled as she pressed her face against his chest. “I lied to you when we first met. I kept lying. I knew who Karen was the whole time.”

  “I understand why you couldn’t be straight with me.”

  She kept talking, giving him reasons not to
trust her. “And I got you tangled up in some very dangerous business. You were right. There was a conspiracy to kill your brother, but only to save Kevin’s life.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know exactly. But I can contact him. Well, for short periods of time. When I called him from the hospital, he made me get off pretty quickly.”

  “He was willing to stay out of the action?”

  She made a small sound. “That’s probably hard for you to believe, given your brother’s personality. But he was willing to let Karen run this operation because he’s also practical.”

  “Okay.”

  She pushed away. “Okay, what?”

  He met her questioning gaze. “We’ll find out who the Paladin is and stop him.”

  “You’re saying you’re going to switch your…mission?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I could give you a whole lot of answers. Like, my brother was using me.”

  “He dried you out after your wife died,” she said, and he knew she was being ruthless in her efforts to put distance between them.

  “Yeah. He did that—so I’d be grateful, and he could take advantage of my loyalty. But that’s not the main reason I want to find the Paladin. The whole clone thing sickens me. It’s got to be stopped.”

  “It’s dangerous. I cut myself off completely from my family to make sure nothing happened to them.”

  “That’s right. You told me you were adopted, too.”

  “Of course. But I had a very good childhood. My parents were wonderful people who wanted to give their child a warm and loving home. And I miss them so much.” Her voice hitched. “They think I’m dead. I had to convince them of that or they would have spent their life savings looking for me.”

  “We’ll make it safe for you to contact them again—when we bust up this nasty business.”

  “Just the two of us?”

  “No. We need help.”

  “We can’t go to the police or the FBI. Who would believe the story I’ve just told you?”

  “The Light Street Detective Agency. They’ve handled some pretty strange cases. Nothing is beyond the realm of possibility for them.”