Replica (6 page)

The less heartening news was that Kurt hadn’t left anything for Nate. No note, no good-bye, no explanation. Kurt was a beginner at reading and writing—skills that weren’t highly prized in the Basement—but Nate had been steadily teaching him. Kurt could have managed a note, even if it would have been clumsily written and riddled with spelling errors.

For half a second, Nate wondered if he was being the most naive human being on the face of the planet. To anyone but Nate, the theft of all those dollars with no explanation would be evidence of the most damning kind.

Was there a chance Kurt was guilty?

Nate dismissed the thought. He didn’t care what anyone else thought. He knew Kurt, and Kurt hadn’t done this. He’d taken the money, but Nate could hardly blame him for that. Every second he’d spent at the apartment would have increased the danger that he would get caught. So Nate couldn’t hold it against him that he hadn’t taken the time to write out a letter of explanation.

But the thought that Kurt was now forever out of his reach, doomed to live the rest of his life in hiding, sat heavily on Nate’s shoulders. As did the realization that without Kurt’s account of what had happened on the night of his murder, Nate might never know who had really killed him.

*   *   *

By
the time Mosely finally allowed Nadia to go home, the heat in her cheeks and the weakness in her knees told her she was running a fever, and she felt like she was at death’s door. When she was escorted down to the security station’s lobby, her mother was waiting for her, sitting rigidly on the edge of a straight-backed chair, her chin held high and her eyes flashing with fury as she worked to maintain her fabled aura of superiority. No doubt she’d been sitting in the station’s lobby all day, but you’d never be able to tell by looking at her. Her makeup was still perfect, her hair neatly coiffed, her clothes unwrinkled. Nadia didn’t even want to think about how
she
looked right now.

Apparently, she looked as wretched as she felt, because as soon as her mother caught sight of her, the anger in her expression eased and a hint of concern entered her eyes. Nadia wanted to fling herself into her mother’s arms and sob, but of course the daughter of a president would never
dream
of doing something so undignified in public. No, Nadia’s eyes were merely watering because she was sick and exhausted.

“Please take me home,” she begged before her mother could say anything. “I need to lie down.” She sniffled loudly, playing up her illness in hopes of staving off a maternal lecture. She was rewarded by even more softening of her mother’s expression.

“My poor baby,” Esmeralda Lake murmured, reaching up to touch the back of her hand to Nadia’s forehead. “You’re burning up.” She glared at the two officers who had escorted Nadia, her face conveying the impression that she would hold them personally responsible for Nadia’s illness. Nadia noticed that neither of the men would make eye contact with her mother, both shifting awkwardly where they stood, and she suppressed a smile. Esmeralda might derive her status from her husband’s rank rather than her own, but she knew how to wield that status to devastating effect. Even big, bold, alpha-male security officers squirmed on the receiving end of her displeasure. Now, if only Nadia could somehow keep all that displeasure from being aimed at her.

Her mother put an arm around Nadia’s shoulders, and it took everything Nadia had not to lean into her and let the tears loose. She was holding on to her self-control by the most fragile of threads. Nate had been murdered. Nadia had been questioned like a suspect, threatened with a stay at Riker’s Island. Bishop was running for his life. And she had allowed herself to be bullied into spying on her best friend and future husband. It was all too much to handle, and yet somehow she had to hold it all inside.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked, the cold having turned her voice into a hoarse croak that would embarrass a frog.

“He’s in a meeting,” her mother answered. Nadia fought a wave of hurt that her father would allow himself to be called away at a time like this. “With the Chairman,” her mother hastened to add when Nadia gaped at her. “He couldn’t very well refuse to see Chairman Hayes, now could he?”

No, of course he couldn’t. And Nadia couldn’t help suspecting that Chairman Hayes had deliberately separated Nadia from her support system. It was clear to anyone who had eyes that her father was the softer, more sympathetic of her parents. Her father would take one look at her now and immediately cosset her like a sick child. She doubted her mother would let her off so easily.

Naturally, the press were camped out in front of the station. When the security team had arrived in the morning, Nadia had been wearing no makeup and had on drawstring pants and a light, boxy sweater. They hadn’t allowed her to change before bringing her in, and no doubt she looked the worse for wear. The idea of having her picture taken when she looked like that made her want to crawl away and hide.

Her mother apparently didn’t like the idea much, either. At her command, the security officers walked them to the waiting limo, using their jackets to shield Nadia from view. She had no doubt that tomorrow’s gossip columns would be filled with those photos, even if all they showed was the cluster of security officers.

Nadia let out a breath of relief when she climbed into the limo. Then she saw the look on her mother’s face and braced herself for the lecture she’d known was coming.

“Really, Nadia,” her mother said with a shake of her head, “what
were
you thinking, running off on your own with Nathaniel last night?”

Nadia groaned and closed her eyes, leaning her flaming cheek against the cool glass of the dark-tinted window. The coolness felt momentarily good, until it shot a chill through her entire body and she shivered violently. She wasn’t even trying to manipulate her mother this time, but it worked anyway.

Esmeralda sighed. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it later, when you’re feeling better.”

Nadia huddled in on herself and wished for oblivion. She didn’t want to think about anything, least of all about what the future would bring. How she wished she could turn back the clock and change the decisions she’d made last night. If she’d refused to let Nate bully her in the first place, maybe things would have turned out differently.

By the time the limo pulled up in front of the Lake Towers—named after Nadia’s grandfather, who had been the first president in their family line—Nadia was barely conscious. Someone—she was so out of it she wasn’t sure who—carried her into the building and up to her family’s apartment. She had the vague impression of someone else helping her out of her clothes and into her nightgown, and then the next thing she knew, it was morning.

Nadia’s eyes were crusty, and her head felt stuffed with cotton. When she reached up to rub the grit from her eyes, she noticed the IV stuck into the back of her hand. She blinked in confusion, having no memory of having seen a doctor.

“Someone lied about getting her flu shot this year.”

Nadia wondered what drugs were dripping into her blood from the IV, because she felt like she was reacting in slow motion. She heard the voice, then had to take a moment to figure out which way to turn her head to face the speaker. With an involuntary groan, she turned to the right and saw her older sister, Geraldine, sitting in the corner armchair Nadia liked to use for reading.

“Gerri?” she asked, noticing that while her voice was still hoarse and croaky, it didn’t hurt to talk. The improvement was certainly welcome. “What are you doing here?”

As eldest daughter, Gerri was their father’s heir, a role she took very, very seriously. Gerri might take a day off from work if her husband or children were on their deathbeds, but she surely wouldn’t do it because Nadia had a nasty cold.

Gerri smiled ruefully. “Mother drafted me. She has a dinner party to plan and didn’t feel she had time to properly, um, debrief you.”

Nadia closed her eyes and prayed she’d slip back into a deep sleep. She’d dodged the proverbial bullet last night when her mother cut the expected lecture short. She should have known that wasn’t the end of it. And she knew exactly why Esmeralda had chosen Gerri as her weapon. From what Nadia could tell, all mothers learned how to wield guilt like a deadly weapon, and Esmeralda liked to make certain Nadia was always aware of how her actions affected not just herself, but her entire family—including Gerri’s two kids, Rory and Corinne.

Gerri rose to her feet and came to sit on the edge of Nadia’s bed. She wore a ruby red power suit that said she planned to go to work after she was finished “visiting.” With the red suit, alabaster skin, and nearly jet black hair, she looked like an evolved version of Snow White: beautiful and deadly, instead of beautiful and fragile. She was twelve years older than Nadia, so they hadn’t exactly grown up together, but Nadia had always admired her sister’s strength and certainty.

Gerri’s marriage was an arranged one, of course, and her husband was—in Nadia’s opinion—a nasty little toad of a man. But Gerri never complained or seemed unhappy. She did her duty as an heir, as a wife, as a mother, with never the slightest hint that she might want something more. Gerri was the ideal Nadia strove to emulate, but she always seemed to fall a little short.

All of which meant Gerri would have little sympathy for Nadia’s dilemma. Nadia’s duty was clear: protect her family at all costs. If the only way to protect her family was to give in to Mosely’s demands and stab Nate in the back, then so be it. She would just have to figure out how to do it without him ever finding out.

“How are the kids?” Nadia asked her sister. It was a long shot, but maybe if she could get Gerri talking about her kids, she could squirm her way out of the “debrief” Gerri was supposed to give her.

Gerri’s ironically raised eyebrow said she saw right through the ploy. “They’re little demons sent from hell to torment me,” she said with a fond smile. “Corinne has an ear infection, and Rory is in one of those everything-goes-in-the-mouth phases. And if you think you’re going to divert me that easily, I’ll have to ask the doctor to check your meds.”

So much for delaying the inevitable. Nadia stared at the nearly empty IV bag. She had no idea what the doctor had given her. The label had been blacked out, which meant whatever it was had come from the black market. Thanks to import taxes, some medications manufactured by rival states were preposterously expensive and best bought under the table. Illegal, of course, but it was a rare Executive who used no contraband. Nadia wondered if she could pretend the drugs were making her too loopy to handle a serious conversation.

“I’ll give you the rundown of what happened, but please skip the lecture,” Nadia said. “I know I shouldn’t have gone off alone with Nate at the party, but you know how he is. I tried to stand up to him, but he’s a force of nature.”

Gerri gave her a hard look. “You’re going to be his wife. You’d better learn to stand up to him or he’s going to walk all over you for the rest of your life.”

Easy for Gerri to say. She’d inherited their mother’s backbone and their father’s power. She had no trouble issuing orders, and no trouble having those orders obeyed.

“You try standing up to Nate someday,” Nadia grumbled. She wasn’t sure who would win a battle of wills between Nate and Gerri, but if she had to bet, she’d place her money on Nate against just about anyone.

“I don’t have to. You do.”

Nadia flopped over onto her side, facing away from Gerri. “Fine. Tell me how inadequate I am. There’s nothing I’m more anxious to hear right now.”

Gerri sighed. “Don’t be like that. I’m not saying you’re inadequate.” She laid a hand on Nadia’s shoulder and squeezed. “I love you, you know. I’m just trying to help. I know Nathaniel would be a handful for anyone, but I also know that you’re the one who’s going to be stuck with him, and you’re the one who’s going to have to learn to live with him without being miserable.”

Nadia sniffled, though the black-market mystery drug seemed to be knocking out her symptoms with remarkable speed. Illness would not be her cocoon for very long. “Most girls would laugh at the idea that I’m ‘stuck’ with Nate.”

“Most girls don’t have enough of an imagination to see what a pain in the ass he is.”

Nadia turned over to face her sister, surprised by the words. But then, maybe she shouldn’t be. Gerri was the heir to their father’s presidency. Nate was far from the most dutiful heir in the world, but he had no choice but to fulfill
some
of his obligations, which no doubt meant he and Gerri had attended many a business meeting together. Clearly, Nate hadn’t made the best impression.

“I know you like him, Nadia,” Gerri continued, “but to be perfectly honest with you, I can’t see why. He’s nothing but a spoiled brat with an enormous chip on his shoulder and a deeply rooted conviction that he’s God’s gift not just to women, but to the universe itself.”

Nadia blinked. Gerri was not a kiss-ass, but it wasn’t like her to be so openly critical of someone who outranked her—and who held the future of their entire family in his hands. As long as nothing went wrong in the next two years and Nadia ended up formally engaged to Nate, their father would eventually be promoted and given a seat on Paxco’s board of directors—a seat that Gerri would inherit, when the time came. The power and prestige that came with becoming a board member were considerable, but there was another perk to the position, perhaps the most important perk of all: board members and their immediate families were eligible for periodic backup scans, and if there was a preventable death in the family, there was a high likelihood a Replica would be animated. Gerri had almost lost Corinne to a particularly virulent strain of flu that had swept the continent last year, and she was more aware than most of how fragile a human life could be.

Gerri smiled tightly. “I’m sorry to be speaking ill of your future husband. I just can’t help thinking that if he’d behaved like a responsible adult, you wouldn’t have been dragged into this mess.”

On that, Nadia and Gerri could agree.