A Million Shadows

by Janci Patterson

  “No new cars have arrived since you went in,” he said. “And there’s no one hiding out in any of these. I checked through the windows. I saw a cop car drive by, but he didn’t stop, and he hasn’t been back.”

  That was good news. If the place wasn’t being staked out, that meant we’d probably beaten everyone here.

  Unless one or more of them was already inside the apartment. I stuck my hand into my pocket, fingering the panic button. Pushing it would only bring Aida down on us—and I couldn’t trust her to help me yet, especially not if it came down to a fight between me, Mom, and Mel.

  But still, holding it made me feel better. Like maybe, just maybe, Kalif and I weren’t totally alone in this. More than anything, I wanted that to be true.

  The first thing I did was step into the kitchen and open the cabinet, finding the signal scrambler right where Aida said it would be, between a pair of salt and pepper shakers. I turned it on, and tried to relax. If the Carmines were looking at the cameras, or actively monitoring the bugs they surely had in this apartment, then they’d notice the signal drop, and possibly send someone to investigate.

  But Aida said she’d cover for me, and as far as I could tell, she’d been able to do so effectively for the last few days.

  I was in too deep not to trust her now. Plus she’d been prepared to shut their feeds down if she needed to, and I had to take any inclination of hers to work against her parents as a very good sign.

  I moved through the living room, checking quickly to make sure all the blinds were down. Like a true paranoid shifter, Aida had several layers of window dressing covering all the windows in the front of the apartment.

  I let my face melt into my own. If my mother was lurking around here, the last thing I needed was for her to knock me over the head, thinking I was Aida.

  I moved through the apartment as quickly as I could, like ripping off the Band-Aid. I checked all the corners, all the closets, behind every piece of furniture. Aida had decorated the place sparsely, but she had several things that weren’t necessary. Three art prints hung on the wall, depicting the skyline of San Francisco in geometric shapes. An end table was stacked with books on art, as well—I wondered if they were there as set dressing, or if Aida was planning on hitting a museum.

  Her bed was stacked with pillows and fluffy blankets, but I couldn’t help but notice that she’d gotten a twin. I’d been in her bedroom when she lived near my parents—she and Mel had slept in a king. She might be looking for Mel, but she wasn’t planning on taking him back into her bed immediately.

  At least that was something.

  Through the last door I tried, I found what must have been Kalif’s room. He’d taken a lot of his tech with him, but a server was still here, and his desk and floor were littered with cables and circuit boards and computer parts that I didn’t know the proper names for. His bed was also a twin, and it was still unmade, the covers thrown onto the floor. He’d never been one for keeping his space tidy.

  In his room, I found nothing else except for his scent. I wished he was in here with me, to help me handle this.

  At least he was outside. He’d have more freedom to help from there, if something went wrong.

  When something went wrong.

  I was about to announce the all clear into my headset when a knock banged on the front door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Hey,” I said into my headset. “Someone’s at the door. Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Crap,” Kalif said. “I didn’t see anyone approach, but I had to mute the phone to argue with a guy parking in a red zone.”

  I moved toward the front of the apartment. “Not really the point, is it?”

  “What do you want me to do?” Kalif asked. “I had to keep up my cover.”

  “What I want you to do is warn me when people are coming,” I said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Next time, I want a computer and a set of security cameras. Do you want me to intervene with whoever it is?”

  “Hang on,” I said. “Let me check it out.”

  I looked through the peephole in the front door and found a man standing there—the persona Damon had worn when we went to check out the police station.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s Damon.”

  “Okay. I’m waiting just around the corner, but he can’t see me from here.”

  This was my chance. My opportunity to test him, to see if he was working for the Carmines.

  I put Aida’s face back on and opened the door.

  “Hi,” Damon said. “I was told to meet someone here.”

  I made a show of looking behind him, to make sure no one else was listening. “Yes,” I said. “I’m Aida. Wendy told me she was sending someone.”

  I locked my face down, holding it perfectly still in one of Aida’s severe-but-innocuous expressions.

  Damon gave me a conspiratorial smile. “The girl you’re all after,” he said. “I found her for you. She’s expecting to meet me here soon. I’ll help you contain her.”

  I locked down my muscles, forcing myself not to react. My heart still picked up pace, and I struggled to slow it.

  Was Damon working against us? Had Kalif been right about him all along?

  My dad had this trick when he was in tense situations—he stimulated the part of his brain that produced serotonin to calm himself down and make himself feel like he could handle things. He’d tried to explain to me how he did it, but I couldn’t figure it out. I’d never felt bad about it—my mom never got good at it, either.

  But at that moment, I really could have used that trick. With my skin tone locked even and my muscles all held at calculatingly casual angles, I felt trapped inside the prison of my own skin. If I could have crawled out of it and run screaming, I would have.

  But I couldn’t. I had to be cool. I had to play this to my advantage. So I did the only thing I could think of: I stepped aside and let Damon into the apartment. This was part of the con. Figure out that he was working against us.

  And then . . . crap, what was I supposed to do now?

  “Who’s on the phone?” Damon asked, pointing to my ear bud.

  “No one right now,” I said. I hoped Kalif could still hear, if only so he’d have the sense not to charge in here and get us both killed. “But I was just talking to Wendy. She wants us to move forward with the plan.”

  Damon gave one slight nod, like he knew exactly what I was talking about—like there was a plan between the three of them—and walked farther into the apartment. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

  Did I mind if he locked himself in a small enclosed space in which I might be able to trap him? Not at all. Be my guest. “It’s through there,” I said, pointing in the direction where I’d just seen it.

  Damon gave me one more nod and ducked down the hall. I heard the bathroom door swing shut behind him.

  Adrenaline rushed through me, and I looked around for something to leverage the door shut. There was a window in there of course, but I might at least slow him down while I made a run for it.

  And then did what? I still had to find my mother. I couldn’t let her walk into this trap.

  “Kalif,” I said. “Damon just told me he’s looking to turn us in to the Carmines.”

  Kalif was quiet for a second. “Do you think he meant it?”

  “It sounded like it,” I said.

  “Get out of there,” Kalif said.

  “I can’t. My mom might arrive any minute. Hang on.” I grabbed one of the chairs from the kitchen table. I might be able to put it under the doorknob and buy myself some time to think, at least. Not that I was doing my best thinking right now, because I obviously wasn’t.

  The phone in my pocket buzzed.

  Not the one with the connection with Kalif, but the one I’d used to call Damon.

  What the hell?

  “Jory,” Kalif said.

  “Hang on,” I said again. I pushed talk and held the phone to my ear, speaking quietly so t
he Damon in the bathroom wouldn’t hear. “Hello?”

  “Jory,” he said, his voice serious again. “I’m at the apartment where you said to meet you. But there’s a woman named Aida here and she thinks I’m with the Carmines. I’m going out the bathroom window in a second, but I thought you should know it’s a trap. Stay clear, okay?”

  I blinked at the wall.

  “It’s a trap?” I said quietly.

  “No kidding,” Kalif said over my ear bud.

  “Yes. T-R-A-P. Aida thought I was someone she was waiting for. I don’t know how many of them there are, but I think it’s best if we beat it and meet up later at another location, okay? One I’m not going to arrange from inside this place.”

  My body relaxed. Maybe this was all part of an elaborate con, but more likely he’d just played along, so he could get out of here in one piece. If he was really working with the Carmines, he wouldn’t warn me.

  I lowered the phone from my ear and spoke quietly to Kalif. “Never mind,” I said. “Damon is clean.”

  “Do you want me to—" Kalif said.

  “No,” I said. “I need you to watch my back.”

  “Okay,” Kalif said.

  I raised the phone to speak to Damon again. “Come out of the bathroom, Damon,” I said through the phone, but loud enough he’d also be able to hear me through the door. “Aida is me. The real Aida isn’t here, but she gave me the key. I was checking to see if you were with the Carmines.”

  Damon stepped out of the bathroom, still wearing his persona. He held out a hand. After we’d verified each other’s identities, we both sighed.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack,” I said.

  “Same here,” Damon said.

  “Have you been waiting all this time for me to betray you to them?”

  Damon gave me half a smile. “Hell, yes. You, too?”

  “Obviously,” I said. “Sorry, but I needed to be sure.”

  Damon smiled. “So what are we really doing here?”

  I took a deep breath. “We’re looking for my mother.”

  “The one the Carmines asked me to find.”

  “Right. She’s been in the hospital, and I was worried if you were looking, you’d find her.”

  Through my earbud, Kalif sighed. “Can we bare our souls to each other later?”

  He didn’t sound angry, and where Damon was concerned, that was progress.

  “Okaaay,” Damon said. “But if she’s been in the hospital, why are you looking for her here?”

  My mind swam. There was too much back story, and too much pressure right now to sort out what I should tell and what I shouldn’t.

  I hated the person I became when I had to constantly question the motives of everyone I knew. And lately, that was all the time.

  I needed to cut it out.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “I can fill you in later. But my boyfriend is outside pretending to issue parking tickets. Between the two of you, maybe you could monitor the building and let me know when someone approaches.” For real this time.

  Over my earbud, Kalif chimed in: “This sounds like a buddy comedy waiting to happen.”

  I smiled. Yes. This was definitely progress.

  Damon hesitated. “I at least need the Cliffnotes version. I get the feeling you’re in deep trouble. And I’m in it with you.”

  I took a step back. “Your feeling is right,” I said. “I’m expecting my mother to show up any minute, and she wants to kill the person whose persona I’m wearing. We’re also looking for Mel, the guy who shot you in the knee, and I don’t know which of them will show up first. If you want to split, I understand.”

  Damon took another step toward me. “I’m saying I want to help you. I’m being serious here.”

  He was. I could tell by the way he hadn’t hit on me even once since he’d entered the apartment.

  I opened my mouth to accept his help.

  And that’s when another knock came on the apartment door.

  “Kalif?” I said.

  “Yes?” he said over the headset.

  “Is there someone else at the door?”

  “I’d circled around the back of the building,” he said. “Let me check.”

  I heard a scuffling noise and a long pause, and then Kalif swore. “Yes, there’s someone there,” he said. “And that person is wearing my father’s face.”

  Twenty-nine

  “Okay,” I said, moving toward the door. “There’s someone outside who may be Mel. You ready to back me up?”

  Damon nodded. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Regardless of who it is, I want you to subdue them. Don’t kill them, though.”

  Damon nodded. “Unarmed takedowns are kind of a specialty of mine.”

  I nodded, looking at his muscles under his t-shirt. That, I could believe.

  Damon put his back to the wall next to the door, waiting as I looked through the peephole and found someone with Mel’s face standing immediately outside the door. As I stood there, he raised one hand and knocked again, loudly. His other hand stretched across his face, and he peered through his fingers at the peephole impatiently. He rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb, like what he was doing was the most annoying thing in the world.

  Mel tended to get that expression whenever anyone inconvenienced him. And he could probably already see my shadow through the hole, and had maybe heard us coming up to the door.

  “Okay,” I whispered, putting my hand on the doorknob. “On three.”

  “One, two,” Damon said.

  “Three,” I said, and I grabbed the door handle and jerked the door open.

  Mel sprang into action the moment the door cracked. He shoved the door right into me, hitting me in the shoulder as I ducked out of the way. Mel charged into the room, focused entirely on me. When he got far enough into the room to be clear of the door, Damon grabbed him from behind, throwing him to the ground and pinning him down. Damon’s foot caught the door, slamming it closed again.

  I backed away from them. And that’s when I got a good look at Mel’s face, covered in scars that stretched across his nose and cheek.

  My relief was so overwhelming it took me a second too long to speak. “Mom!” I said.

  Damon glanced up at me only for a split second, but it was enough. Mom twisted one arm away from him, pulling something long and metal from the belt of her pants.

  A crowbar.

  “Look out!” I shouted at Damon, but Mom was too quick; she whipped the crowbar up, taking Damon in the knee.

  The injured knee he shared with Mel.

  Damon shouted in pain, buckling over his bad leg, and Mom scrambled out from under him, lifting the crowbar above his head.

  Like an idiot, I shrieked instead of attacking. The bar took Damon across the side of his face, whipping his neck to the side. I recognized the maneuver immediately: Mom was trying to knock him out without killing him, though she obviously didn’t care enough about his life not to hit him in the head with a metal bar.

  Damon fell to the floor, his body making a heavy thump on the hard wood of the entryway.

  I scrambled backward. My mom was far better in combat than me, and I didn’t want to take the next hit before I could explain. My phone fell out of my pocket, and I saw that I’d lost my connection to Kalif. Why hadn’t he tried to call back? Was he waiting just outside the apartment?

  Mom raised the crowbar in my direction, and I stumbled back another step, letting my Aida persona drop, shifting back into my home face—not that I thought that would convince her, but it couldn’t hurt.

  “Mom,” I said. “It’s me. We saw that you searched for this address from inside the hospital. I know Aida lives here. I get that you want revenge, but she’s been protecting you. It’s not her who’s after us; it’s Mel and the Carmines. We’re working together, now, Mom. Aida and I are working together.”

  Mom’s face hardened. “You think I would believe that story? You think my
daughter would ever betray me like that? To work with you? As if you didn’t . . .” Her face contorted just slightly, and I knew what she was thinking.

  As if Aida’s betrayal hadn’t killed my father. As if that betrayal justified my mother in killing her.

  Mom advanced on me. My heart hammered harder, and at that moment I wasn’t sure who would be worse to be trapped here with—Mel, or a mother so murderous that she came in swinging a metal bar at everyone in sight.

  She wasn’t really that far gone, was she?

  I cringed away and held out my hand. “Mom,” I said. “It’s me. Really.”

  She stood over me, her fingers tight on the crowbar. I took another step back and ran into a wall.

  I could try to fight her, but she’d taught me self-defense. There was no way I could best her. “Mom,” I said. “I’ve been stealing money for you. I came to see you in the hospital. We talked about how you were going to get help. And then you left—you just left. And I know that someone was threatening you and I’m pretty sure it was Mel, but you have to believe me—Aida’s been helping us out. She’s the reason you were safe there as long as you were.”

  Mom hesitated a moment longer, then she reached out her hand. I passed her the first part of the signal and hers followed. She matched me, sign for sign.

  My knees went rubbery, and I nearly fell over. “Mom,” I said, "what the hell is the matter with you? He was helping me. How could you do that?”

  Mom glanced down at Damon’s body, and my hands went numb. Was he dead? Were his features about to turn in on themselves, like Dad’s did? I watched out of the corner of my eye, afraid to take my attention off Mom. But even out of my peripheral vision, I could see Damon wearing his home face, instead of a blank one.

  He was alive. For now.

  Mom frowned at him, like she’d expected him to morph into somebody she recognized.

  I should be calling the paramedics. My cell phone was still on the floor, and I heard nothing but silence in my ear piece. I didn’t dare alert Mom to Kalif’s presence, but he should be calling me back if we’d lost the connection.

  How long had it been since I’d heard his voice? At least since he’d told me who was at the door.