by Rebecca York
“Mine, too.”
“Are yours on record?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t remember being finger-printed.” She hitched in a breath. “Of course, the woman I’m copied from might have been.”
“Yeah, right. Do you know who that is?”
She turned away from him and stared straight ahead. He could see the tense set of her jaw.
Did she know who it was?
GRACE SLID HIM a sidewise look. “I’m sorry, but…I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“I know the subject’s difficult for you.”
Changing the subject abruptly, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“Let’s act innocent for the time being. Maybe we didn’t even see the ruckus in the department store.” He led her down the row of shops, toward a fast-food restaurant.
She dragged in a breath and let it out. “That thing—was it working as a tracking device all along?”
He thought about the past eighteen hours. “I don’t think it was turned on. Remember, they found us at the hotel because I used my cell phone. And they lured us to the house by getting Karen to phone. They were waiting for us to show up at the house with Karen.”
“Then they lost us, and somebody turned it on?”
“That’s what I’m assuming.”
“But how could they know who I am?”
“Each disk could give off a different signal.”
“But…they don’t know my real name. It’s not Grace Cunningham. They couldn’t be looking for me explicitly.” She stopped walking and grabbed his arm.
“What?”
“If they don’t know who I am, maybe they’re going after all the clones. I mean, the Paladin’s been after us. But suppose he’s figured out some of the clones are acting together— against him and anybody else who was involved in creating them. Because he doesn’t know which ones, he’s going after any of us he can find. His men zeroed in on me because they were already in the area.”
Brady thought about that. “You may be right.”
“If they can find me, they can find Kevin.” She held out her hand. “Can I use the phone? I have to warn him.”
He glanced around. “There’s some chance that they could come back looking for us. We have to get out of here first.”
“We can’t go near the car.”
“Right.”
He led her to the end of the strip mall. Beyond it was a wooded area. And beyond that was what looked like the back of another shopping center.
After glancing around, he stepped off the blacktop and onto the grass, then headed for the woods.
GRACE FOLLOWED.
Until they reached the shelter of the trees, she felt terribly exposed. But the shade of the branches reduced her stress level a little.
When they were in the shadows, Brady handed her the phone. “Make it quick. I also need to tell Light Street what happened.”
Grace propped her back against a tree trunk and punched in the number. Tension coursed through her as she waited. One, two, three rings. Maybe he wouldn’t pick up because he didn’t recognize the number.
Four, five, six.
It kicked into voice mail.
“This is Kevin,” a chipper voice said, as if he was a high-school student talking to one of his friends. “Leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
She glanced at Brady. “He’s not answering. What should I do?”
“Leave him a message. But don’t give too much away.”
“Kevin,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even, “this is Grace. I’m calling from a prepaid cell phone.”
She looked around before continuing. “You know that guy who’s been making trouble for us? Some of his men showed up out of the blue at a shopping center where we’d gone to buy some clothing.”
Again she stopped, wondering how to phrase the next part. Finally, with no other alternative, she said, “We figured out that…that funny birthmark on your arm is a locating device. You’ve got to get it out of you. And destroy it.”
Brady made a slicing motion with his hand.
Grace read the gesture. “I’ve got to go. We’ll contact you later.” She paused. “Stay safe.”
After pressing the off button, she handed the phone back.
“He might be avoiding you,” Brady said. “He could have been listening to the message and not picking up.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Earlier, you told him you were with me? Maybe he doesn’t think much of the company you’re keeping.”
KEVIN PARSONS STARED at the phone. Yesterday when Grace had called him, he’d answered. Now he wasn’t sure it was such a good idea.
She was with Brady Lockwood, John Ridgeway’s brother. Or so she said.
He couldn’t be sure of that. He couldn’t even be sure that the two of them weren’t being held by the Paladin’s men.
He grimaced. A few years ago, he’d had such a normal life. With parents who loved him. He’d always known he was adopted, but that hadn’t made any difference in their relationship.
Then he’d been at the Princeton library, researching a paper on relations with Cuba, when a woman about his age sat down across the table from him. He glanced up and thought she looked familiar.
She said she had something important to discuss and asked him to take a walk with her. What she said had changed his life. Or given him a chance to live, if you wanted to look at it a different way.
He was John Ridgeway’s clone, which put him in danger because the bastard who’d commissioned him had a heart problem. And Kevin was his best hope for a complete recovery.
The beauty of it was that once John Ridgeway got his new heart, he wouldn’t have to worry about taking drugs to prevent organ rejection. The heart would be completely compatible with his own body.
And Kevin Parsons would be dead.
He pressed the repeat button and listened to the message again. Grace sounded sincere. But he still wasn’t sure. She’d told him Karen had called her sounding normal but scared. Then they’d found her drugged out of her mind.
Turning away from the machine, he walked to the window and stared out into the afternoon sun. He was in a beautiful area. The Shenandoah Valley, with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance.
He and Karen had found this farm together and rented the property. They’d spent some good times here. Talking to her had been an amazing experience. She was so much like him—yet with a feminine point of view that he sometimes found startling.
And now she was dead.
Throwing back his head, he let a long scream of pain flow from his mouth. He had cherished her in a way few people could appreciate. Maybe identical twins who had been separated at birth would understand. Nobody else. And she had sacrificed herself for him. He hadn’t thought it would turn out that way. Now he knew he’d been fooling himself. She’d wanted to get John Ridgeway—no matter what happened to her.
He wanted revenge. Was it possible to get it by himself, or did he need Grace and Brady Lockwood? And why would Brady Lockwood want to help his brother’s clone?
Well, first things first. He’d better have a look at the thing under his arm.
GRACE LISTENED AS Brady called the Light Street Detective Agency and quickly filled them in on developments. From the conversation, she knew that he trusted these men implicitly. She hoped that he was right—and that Light Street could get to them in time, although she didn’t exactly know what “in time” meant.
“I’ll see if we can find a nearby fast-food restaurant to wait,” Brady said.
When the person on the other end of the line questioned his decision, he laughed. “You think maybe Grace and I should climb into a Dumpster?”
Again he waited for a reply, then said, “How long will it take to get here?”
When he clicked off, she asked, “How long?”
“They’re already on their way. About forty-five minutes to an hour.” He ga
ve her a critical look. “You just had a minor operation. You need to sit.”
Near the end of the row of shops was a place called Palo’s Pizza.
“A pizza parlor is as good as anywhere else,” he said.
“I’d like a nice dark movie theater better.”
None was around so they stepped into the pizza parlor. It was a long, narrow room with some tables in front and along one wall. The service counter was about twelve feet from the front door, and a hallway at the back led to restrooms and a phone. Because it was still a couple of hours before lunchtime, the only people here were the two men behind the counter and a couple at the only occupied table.
“Get a table,” he told her. “I’m going to see if there’s a back way out.”
She headed for the tables along the wall and sat down, feeling more wrung out than she’d admitted to Brady.
Brady walked toward the restrooms and kept going. A few minutes later, he was back without the bag he’d taken from the department store. “There’s a door at the end of the hall that leads to a parking area. We can go out that way, if we need to. Beyond that’s more woods. So I think we’re in good shape.” He glanced toward the counter. “Now for some food.”
He ordered for them, then joined her at the table.
“You watch the front, and I’ll watch the back,” he said.
At first they both kept glancing at the doors, but gradually they relaxed a little.
“I feel like I’ve been on the run for days,” she murmured after she’d chewed a bite of pizza.
“More like years,” he answered. “I guess it was pretty hard cutting yourself off from your family.”
“Yes. But it’s best for them.” Changing the subject, she asked, “Where did you grow up?”
“My mom moved us to San Jose, California, when she got a job at a software company.”
“Did you like living there?”
“It was okay.”
“What did you do for fun?”
When he thought he saw a flash of movement on the sidewalk out front, his gaze flicked to the front door. But it was apparently nothing. Focusing on Grace again, he said, “The usual. Played sports. Went to the movies. Hung out with the guys at the mall.” He laughed. “And I was a comic-book fiend.”
She smiled. “I was more into girl stuff. Maybe because that’s what my parents expected. I had a lot of dolls when I was little. Then I hit my teens and got into clothing. When I look back on that, it seems so superficial.”
“No. It was normal.”
She changed the subject back to him. “You didn’t see your brother much?”
“I spent some summers with his family in New Jersey. He and I didn’t get together much until after—”
He stopped, and she didn’t press him. She was pretty sure he’d been about to say “after Carol and Lisa died.”
She took another drag on her cola. As they sat facing each other, the pizza grew cold and less appealing, but they both made the meal last because staying in here was safer than going outside.
“We didn’t have a luxurious lifestyle. I guess my mother could have made me hate the Ridgeways, but she never bad-mouthed them. That’s why I could get together with John…later.”
She nodded, but her mind was zinging back to their current problem. “You think the cops got all the bad guys?”
“Well, that car pulled away. So we know at least one of them escaped.”
She tightened her fingers around her paper cup. She’d wanted to hear him say that they were safe, but he was too honest for that. When she saw that she was crushing the cup, she eased up on the pressure.
“I feel like I have a target on my back,” she finally said.
“Yeah, but there are no good choices because we’ve got to stick around here. The cops could still be looking for the couple who were involved in the disturbance. If they find us in the woods, they won’t think we’re taking a nature hike. If we start walking down the highway, we’re going to stand out. And going back to a stolen car is definitely out. There’s some chance the cops even think the thugs arrived in it.”
“But the black car drove off when the guy ran for it.”
“They don’t know where the man on foot was running.”
“I guess you consider all the angles.”
“My detective’s mind.”
She leaned back in her seat and took another bite of pizza. The other customers had left, and they were alone in the restaurant with the men at the counter.
He looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone and asked, “How many…individuals did Cortez make?”
“Karen might have had that information, but I don’t know.”
“How long did she spend locating them?”
“A couple of years.”
“How many people are in the organization she put together?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She raised one shoulder. “I guess it sounds like I’m pretty uninformed for someone who was willing to get in so deep.”
“You had your reasons.”
“Karen set up cells. We didn’t all know each other.”
He lowered his voice. “So you only worked with Karen and her brother?”
“Basically.”
She was thinking that they had to find the Paladin and get to his list of the others when the front door opened. As she looked up, she froze. It was one of the men who had followed them into the department store.
Chapter Thirteen
Brady followed Grace’s gaze. Cursing under his breath, he stood. He’d made a determination that it was safer staying here than other places he could have chosen. Apparently, he’d been wrong. Or maybe there were enough bad guys looking for them that it didn’t matter where they’d gone—as long as they were still in the area. But at least they had an escape route out the back way.
Or he’d thought so until Grace turned back toward him and went rigid, her gaze focused behind him.
Pretty sure of what he was going to see, he shifted to look over his shoulder, where he saw another one of the bad guys had come in the back door and was advancing toward them.
They were sandwiched between the two thugs, and it looked as if there was no way out, unless they could find a trapdoor in the floor.
The man who had come in the front walked over to their table. He’d been holding a gun down beside his leg, where the men at the counter couldn’t see it. When he was a few feet from them, he lifted his arm and pointed the weapon at them.
His face turned smug as he ordered, “Come on.”
“You’re not going to start shooting in here.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
Brady glanced at the counter where the two men had been working. They’d both ducked out of sight. Maybe they’d get a chance to call the cops—which could be good or bad, depending on how this went down.
Brady stood slowly. Grace did the same. Her face was white but determined, and he knew she wasn’t going to go quietly.
The pizza he’d managed to eat congealed in his stomach. What if she preferred death to capture?
“Out the back. Get moving.”
Taking a chance, Brady put his hands on the table as though his knees had gone weak, and he needed to steady himself.
“Come on,” the gunman growled.
Brady moved, shouting “Duck” as he picked up the table and used it to shield himself while he threw it at the guy who was coming in from the front.
The flat surface hit the man, knocking him backward. Grace moved at the same time, snatching up a sugar canister from the table and hurling it at the other thug.
He fired, but she had already scooted to the side, and the slug went into the wall.
The first guy was getting up, but Brady bashed him over the head with a chair. Blood from a scalp wound pooled on the tile floor, and Brady had the fleeting thought that it was going to be hard for the restaurant guys to clean up.
When he turned, the other thug was sprawled at Grace’s feet
with sugar scattered around him.
“That felt good,” she murmured.
“Yeah.”
One of the men behind the counter was peering over the edge.
“They’re down?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
Brady wanted to tell them not to, but that wasn’t going to make any sense to a guy who had just watched two customers fight off an attack from armed intruders.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said to Grace in a low voice.
“Hey, man, you can’t leave,” the man shouted.
Instead of answering, Brady turned to Grace. “Come on.”
“Which way? Front or back?”
He considered the question. If they went out the front, they’d have to hustle to get away from the cops.
If they went out the back, a big black car could be waiting to take them away. To their deaths. But maybe the driver was the one lying on the floor with his head bleeding.
Bending down, he took the gun from the guy’s hand. “Out the back,” he said, covering the door as they approached.
They stepped into the rear parking area, and he tensed when he saw the car. But nobody was behind the wheel. Apparently there had only been two thugs, and they were both out cold in the restaurant.
Opening the car door, he saw that the keys were in the ignition.
“Get in,” he said to Grace.
“The last time—”
He cut her off. “But they drove here. The brakes must have been working.”
“Or the car’s going to explode when you turn the key.”
He made a low sound. She could be right. The way things were playing out, this could be another death trap. In which case, he didn’t want anyone else getting blown up.
Reaching inside, he carefully extracted the keys from the ignition and tossed them into the Dumpster beside the front door.
Once again, he heard the sound of police sirens. He and Grace were already fugitives. If they got caught now, with two guys out cold on the floor of the restaurant, it was going to be a lot worse.
As he evaluated their chances of getting away, he knew the woods were the only option.
“Hurry.” Grabbing Grace’s hand, he took off in that direction, praying they could make it before the cops came charging out the back door of the restaurant.
