[A Thousand Faces 01.0] A Thousand Faces

by Janci Patterson

  Kalif tried valiantly not to smile. He stood over me for a moment, and then tackled me, rolling me over. We landed with his arms tangled around me, his body spooning me from behind.

  "For the record," he said in my ear, "I don't want you to be anyone but you."

  I laughed until my sides ached and my eyes filled with tears. Kalif shook his head at me, but he didn't let go. And as my giggles finally died down, I realized what he'd last said to me was more romantic than anything we could have done in the dark.

  Seventeen

  I wasn't sure how long we lay on the bed in the dark, but eventually my brain began to clear. Incubated in the cozy warmth of Kalif's arms, I started to think about our plan.

  I rolled over, nuzzling Kalif's throat with my nose.

  "Mmm," he said.

  "Are you awake?"

  He sighed. "Yeah. Barely."

  "Do you want to sleep?" I asked. "Or work?"

  The way his arms ran down my body told me that he wanted to do something else entirely, but then he sat up, rubbing his face. "Work. I've got another hour in me, at least."

  I was pretty sure that he didn't, but I wasn't in a position to argue. If Mom and Dad were going to be executed, we needed to find them as quickly as we could.

  Kalif set up the laptop on the tiny table in the corner, and opened it. "Can you get online from here?" I asked.

  "The hotel connection is terrible," Kalif said. "But I brought the portable hub."

  I stiffened. "Will your parents be able to track that?"

  "No," he said. "But if I need to get into the server—which I probably will—they could hire someone to track that. After they dig their way back into the system, that is. I changed everyone's passwords before I left."

  I smiled. "You weren't kidding about bringing them down with you."

  Kalif shrugged. "They'll get back in. Eventually."

  While Kalif got to work on the trace, I sifted through the stack of papers about the murders, spreading them out on the bed. I divided the papers into piles, one for each murder. There were seven cases in all, ranging from Ruben Ferreira twenty-six years ago to that CEO who died last month. The rest were spread between the intervening years, so far apart that it seemed improbable that they could be related. The police hadn't linked the crimes together. The victims had all been shot to death, but that wasn't exactly an unusual means of murder.

  I worked through the Ferreira file first, which was where I found the damning evidence. The images came from a security feed, complete with a time and date stamp from ten years before I was born. Two men stood over a woman unconscious on the floor. Her hair spilled over the carpet. The next page showed an enlargement of the woman's face.

  I stared down at the photo. It was my mother. That much younger, she looked almost identical to my home body. That figured, since I'd made it in her image.

  I shook it at Kalif. "This can't be real," I said. "There's no way."

  Kalif left the table and sat next to me on the bed. He took the image out of my hands, looked it over, and swore.

  I found the copy of the police report on the incident. "She got knocked out," I said. "A second assailant attacked the two men, and when they came to, she was gone."

  "This looks bad," Kalif said. "It happened after one of the murders?"

  I scanned over the papers, piecing together the story. "The Ruben Ferreira killing. Several witnesses said they saw him with his two body guards, but the guards both turned up later with alibis. Ruben was killed in a hotel, and another guest said they saw one of the guards fleeing the scene after the gunshots. Hotel security followed him, knocked him out, and they claimed he turned into her."

  Kalif cringed. "What'd the police think of that?"

  "They thought hotel security was in on it, but they couldn't make anything stick." I slumped over. "Do you think it was them?"

  Kalif scrutinized the photo. "Could be doctored."

  I rubbed my forehead. "By who? Your parents?"

  He looked at the picture of Mom again. "Or some cop at the time? One who knew about shifters?"

  I covered my eyes with my hand. "Or some other shifter could have been impersonating my mom, pretending to be knocked out." There were so many possibilities, and trying to eliminate each one would take time, and probably a trip to Chicago.

  Kalif leafed through the other files. "Do you want help looking through the rest of these? I can look through them if you want, and show you what I find."

  I shook my head. That wasn't the right way to work. I shouldn't believe anything I didn't see with my own eyes, even if it came from Kalif.

  Besides, his trace was my best hope for finding my parents. I gestured toward his computer. "How long is that going to take?"

  He looked regretful. "A while," he said. "This is good work—better than I've seen before." He smiled. "And this time it isn't mine."

  That made a sad sort of sense. If we were dealing with another group of shifters, they'd be as paranoid as we were, or maybe even more so. I just hoped we weren't dealing with a tech who was better than Kalif. If he'd decided to betray us, my parents and I were screwed.

  As Kalif returned to his computer, I sat paralyzed on the bed, bending forward as my previous doubts returned to sock me in the stomach.

  Kalif had come with me to help me, which was exactly what he would have done if his parents were using him to watch me. He'd even suggested that they wanted him to do exactly that, so that I would take his admission as evidence that he was trustworthy.

  But it wasn't. Words weren't evidence of anything. Aida and Mel proved that. Kalif had left with me so easily, without me needing to convince him.

  But if Kalif was lying to me, what was his goal? Certainly not to help me find my parents. To delay me, then? Until it was too late?

  Kalif glanced up at me. "Jory?"

  "Yeah?" I must have looked as terrified as I felt. I hadn't had my guard up with him. I hadn't thought that I needed to. Kalif had a way of disarming me.

  Was that purposeful? How long had I known him, really? Just a handful of months. Maybe it was all an act, right down to his ineptitude at shifting.

  Kalif leaned across the table. "Maybe you should get some rest, and look at the files in the morning."

  That sounded like a delay tactic to me, though at the same time it made perfect sense. That was exactly the sort of thwarting Kalif would be doing if he didn't want me to find my parents at all. It was also what a concerned boyfriend would say.

  I rubbed my temples. My thoughts spun through the loop a few more times, until I was certain I must be literally losing my mind.

  "Hey," Kalif said. "Talk to me."

  I shook my head, trying to snap out of my funk. But it was too late; I was running on stress fumes and no sleep. I reached for the smart, capable actress version of myself, but she wasn't there. "I'm just thinking."

  "About what?"

  I waved a hand in the air, failing to look nonchalant. "About how I don't know who to trust anymore."

  Kalif nodded slowly. "But you know you can trust me, right?"

  It took me too long to respond. He shut his laptop.

  "Jory," he said. "I'm just trying to help you."

  I shut my eyes. I had to get used to using my training against the people close to me. That's what everyone else had been doing. "Isn't that what you would say if you were working with your parents?"

  Kalif looked at me in disbelief. "You mean if I helped them kidnap your mom and dad?"

  "No," I said. "If you'd done that, why would you have helped me find them?"

  The words sounded like hollow reasoning, even to me. I knew better than to believe them. The two-man con was one of the oldest tricks in the book. One party would pretend to be the enemy, and the other would be the friend, while they were really working together all along.

  "Jory," Kalif said, "I swear to you, I am not working against you. My parents are going to be livid when I go home. I can't even imagine what they're going to do to
me."

  I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed. "I think I'm going crazy."

  I lay quietly, eyes closed, and after a bit I heard Kalif turn back to his work. He didn't come over to comfort me, and I wondered if it was because he thought I needed space, or because he was offended that I'd even suggest that he'd betray me. It was a terrible thing to think.

  It would be even more terrible if it were true.

  I focused on breathing slowly. In and out. In and out. If Kalif was out to get me, I would really be all alone in the world. I had to trust him.

  For now.

  I didn't intend to fall asleep, but the next thing I remembered was waking to daylight creeping under the heavy curtains. The papers I'd been searching still lay scattered about the bed. Kalif was stretched out on the floor, asleep with his head on his balled-up hoodie. I wondered how late he'd worked. I wanted to wake him up to figure out what he'd found, but the harsh cold of last night's doubts still haunted me.

  I moved quietly to the table, stepping carefully so as not to wake him. Kalif's phone sat next to his computer. He'd brought a disposable, so Aida and Mel couldn't use the phone to track us down. I picked it up. Trusting Kalif would be easier if I allowed myself some verification.

  I looked at his text messages and his call records, but all of his recent communication was with me. I checked the phone's features. One could erase the entire history, but not the individual entries. He hadn't been using his phone to contact his parents, then.

  I flipped through the other open tabs on Kalif's computer. There were the files Kalif had been searching—the server files already open.

  These all looked like the sorts of things I expected him to have open—his parents' emails, that deleted mission report. I opened his web browser and paged through his history. Halfway down the page, I found the link for his email.

  My cursor hovered over it. Searching his email was crossing a line—one we crossed every day in our work. But if we were together, did that make it different?

  No one else seemed to think so.

  I clicked.

  My heart stopped. There, on the top, was an email with his mother's name on it. Proof that he was corresponding with her. Once I read it, I'd know for certain that there was no one to help me. Kalif lay still on the floor, his head resting on his arms. It wasn't too late to slip away.

  I opened the email.

  Kalif, it said. We understand that you want to help Jory, but please help her by bringing her home. The people who have her parents will not hesitate to kill her, and you, if you interfere. If you care about Jory, you can show it by keeping her safe. Your father and I love you, and want you to be safe. Please come home.

  I read it once, and then again. Resting my head in my hands, I took long, slow breaths. Aida hadn't sent it from her email that was hosted from Kalif's server. She must still be locked out of her account. I could decide that this email, too, was part of the setup. But the fact was, it was impossible to know the true motivations of another person. This was what we did with our lives; we fooled people. But not each other. We weren't supposed to do this to each other. Mel and Aida made that mistake—they spied on their own son, they betrayed my parents. From what Kalif said about their past, they didn't even trust each other. Maybe my parents were the same. But I didn't want to be like that. Kalif had to be innocent until proven guilty, or whatever relationship was growing between us was going to die a cold, lonely death. And it would all be my fault.

  I closed the email, and then the computer. I knelt beside Kalif on the floor and put a hand on his shoulder. He stretched and opened his eyes. Then he reached for my hand.

  Our palms fit together like they'd been made for each other, and I wondered if we were subconsciously shifting them to be so. If I was, I could no longer tell—the shift had become part of my home body. I could already tell that in the last few days, my subconscious projection of myself had become older, more mature, more conventionally attractive. I wasn't trying, or stretching. Kalif was changing me.

  I had to trust in that change, or I couldn't trust in anything. Kalif sat up, and I leaned close to him, whispering in his ear. "I looked through your email to see if you were conspiring with your parents. Just thought you should know."

  Kalif rubbed his eyes and turned so his cheek brushed mine. "And am I?"

  "You have an email from your mother. She says if you love me you'll bring me back home where we'll both be safe."

  "Sounds like her. She always goes for the guilt trip."

  I pressed our foreheads together. "I'm sorry for doubting you."

  "Yeah, well," Kalif said. "It would have been a really good con, if I were a total asshole."

  "Forgive me?"

  And instead of answering, he cupped my chin in his hand, brought my lips to his, and kissed me deeply.

  An ache spread through me. Instead of the need to rush and forget, I felt a deep longing, a wish that couldn't be granted. When I found my parents, Kalif would have to go home. He couldn't come with me; my parents wouldn't believe that he was on our side, even if I did. They'd never allow me to contact him again, not after what his parents had done. I wanted to slow down these moments, to savor them as long as I could.

  But every moment I did, my parents were at risk.

  I drew back, and we held each other, catching our breath. "Did you trace the ISP yet?" I asked.

  Kalif sat back on his hands. "Still working on it. I quit when my eyes started closing. Did you sleep okay?"

  I stretched. "Surprisingly. Though I wish I hadn't slept in my jeans."

  Kalif nodded. "I thought about waking you. But I figured we both needed to get some sleep." He smiled. "Plus I had to write that email from my mom, to make sure that when you woke up and looked for evidence against me . . ."

  I punched him in the arm. "Shut up."

  "Come on. That one was funny."

  "Maybe," I said. "I'll let you know if I ever recover my sense of humor."

  "Seriously, though, there is something I need to tell you."

  A chill ran through me. That wasn't the follow up I was looking for. "What?"

  Kalif played with the ends of my hair. "You should know, my parents didn't find your family by accident. They're always looking for shifters—that's why we'd worked with Helene's family in the past. The people at Megaware did follow your dad. My dad had done jobs for them before, and they called him to try to track your dad down."

  I leaned hard against the bed. "You were working for Megaware?"

  "No." He spoke quickly, rushing to explain. "Dad took the tip and refused the job once he figured out it was another shifter. Then he and Mom followed Megaware to track you down. It wasn't easy, since you guys had moved, but they did it."

  They found us. And then they acted like it was an accident. They'd been liars from the very beginning. "Why?"

  "I always thought it was because they don't want to work alone. But I guess I was wrong."

  I closed my eyes. They were hunting us. Maybe they already knew about the murders, even then. Or maybe they fabricated them after the fact, to convince Asylum to take my parents out of the picture.

  If they'd followed my family even after we shifted and moved, that meant they were very, very good. It seemed such a shame to waste such talent and resources on destroying other people's lives.

  My heart sank. Of course, that's what my parents did, wasn't it? I'd always thought it was a weakness that I empathized with the victims. But maybe it wasn't.

  Maybe that was the only thing keeping me from becoming like them.

  "Thank you for telling me," I said.

  He shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't tell you before because it seemed harmless," he said, "but obviously it wasn't."

  He should have told me when we were investigating Megaware. But he was no doubt used to keeping his parents' secrets. I hoped that was all there was to it.

  I stood. "We need to move," I said. "You can keep searching from another hotel."

  "I
did some looking last night." He handed me a notepad with an address written on it. "The only hotel within walking distance is a nicer one, but I called ahead, and they'll take cash with a deposit. We have enough."

  "Let's be older," I said. "Teenagers paying cash look like trouble."

  "All we have is our jeans. What's our angle?"

  I walked over to the mirror over the sink. "Give me a minute. I'll figure something out."

  I stood in front of the mirror for five minutes, experimenting, before I settled on an impersonation of a tourist. A tall woman with well-kept blonde hair and flawless skin would appear responsible even in casual clothing.

  "Here," I said, spinning around for Kalif. "Make yourself something to match."

  I had to coach him a bit, but we left the hotel looking like a pair of newlyweds bumming around the Bay Area. We were old enough to be trusted with a hotel room on a cash deposit, but young enough not to look out of place in the clothing we had on hand. It was perfect, if I did say so myself.

  When we reached the new hotel, I went into the office with Kalif, because these personas went together as a package. I perused the brochures in the lobby while Kalif paid the clerk, even picking up a couple brochures for some shops in Carmel and flashing them at Kalif with a carefree smile. "We should go there."

  Kalif rolled his eyes. "Sure. More window shopping."

  I smacked him in the arm with the pamphlet, and we both grinned. The clerk finished checking us in, and handed Kalif a pair of room cards. "Fourth floor," he said. "With a view of the city." Kalif handed me one of the cards, and we held hands into the elevator. I rested my head against his arm, wishing we really were these two people, instead of ourselves.

  Shifting was a dangerous game. Sometimes, you didn't want to shift back.