by Jenna Black
“Is there anything else I can get you?” he asked, and the kindness in his voice was almost more than she could take.
“You don’t happen to have a cure for Dirk Mosely sitting around somewhere, do you?” she asked. She was being too open with him, too unguarded, but Mosely had weakened her defenses, and the quip escaped before she thought better of it.
His smile looked almost sad. “If I had that, I’d be making a killing selling it on the black market.”
“How can you stand working for him?”
The warmth and openness faded from Dante’s face. “I work for your father, not Dirk Mosely. And I’d better get back to it if you don’t want anything else.” He turned his back to her. As if he hadn’t already hammered home the fact that their conversation was over. Apparently hinting that he worked for Mosely was all right, but coming right out and saying so wasn’t.
Nadia stood up, wincing as her abused stomach muscles protested the movement. It was lucky Dante had turned his back to her again, because if she’d seen another look of sympathy on his face, she might have screamed. Or cried. He didn’t get to be all warm and nice and sympathetic, not when he worked for the enemy.
It took more effort than she’d have liked to admit to keep her pace steady and unhurried as she headed for the door, trying not to long for things she couldn’t have. Thanks to the hint of scandal that had attached itself to her, she was cut off from Chloe’s warmth and sympathy—though in truth, their friendship had never been half as deep as Nadia’s friendship with Nate. Thanks to Mosely’s blackmail, she could no longer rely on Nate either, and if he ever learned the truth, she would lose his friendship forever. And thanks to Mosely’s scheming, her father had been forced to accept a spy into their household. The fact that she was intrigued by said spy didn’t make him any less of a spy.
All her current woes could be squarely laid at Mosely’s feet. Somehow, someday, she was going to turn the tables on him. She didn’t yet have the first idea how, but if it took her whole life, she was going to find a way to destroy him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Despite all the effort she’d put into avoiding Nate—and potentially learning too much that she’d have to share with Mosely—Nadia ended up going to see him instead of the other way around.
After her encounter with Mosely, she realized she couldn’t stand to go to her Teen Charity League meeting anyway. Though they had no interest in helping those less fortunate than themselves, the Trio always attended the meetings, reveling in the chance to prance and preen and lord their lofty status over lower-ranking Executives. Dealing with Jewel was bad enough, but fending off verbal jabs from the entire Trio—in front of their adoring fans, no less—held no appeal. And Chloe would be there. Nadia wasn’t up to pretending she wasn’t still angry and hurt by her friend’s desertion, no matter how well she understood it.
Besides, if she didn’t get the tracker planted on Nate as soon as possible, Mosely might get impatient with her. More impatient than he already was.
Getting in touch with Nate turned out to be harder than she’d expected. He wasn’t at home, he wasn’t at work, and he’d either turned off or was refusing to answer his personal phone. According to his majordomo, Nate was dodging his father, who wanted him to make some commercial. Eventually, Nate got word that she was trying to reach him and asked her to meet him at his apartment—after the workday was over so his father was less likely to ambush him with a camera crew.
The first thing she noticed when she saw him was that Nate looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a droop to his shoulders she’d never seen before. He was dressed as if for the office, but he’d dispensed with the coat and tie—if he’d ever worn them—and rolled his sleeves up to just below his elbows. Mosely had suggested she plant the tracker in Nate’s wallet, but she wondered whether he took it with him when going to the Basement. If she planted the tracker in his wallet and he didn’t take it with him, Mosely was probably going to hold her responsible for it.
Her eyes caught the glint of the gold chain Nate wore under his shirt, the one holding the locket she’d supposedly given him. He might not take his wallet to the Basement, but he wore that locket everywhere, and it could be easily concealed under his clothes.
Nate smiled at her in greeting, but the smile didn’t light up his eyes as it usually would. No doubt some of it was worry about Bishop. However, if Mosely was telling the truth about Nate’s venture into the Basement last night, Nate might very well be every bit as sleep-deprived as he looked. Nonetheless, he managed a shadow of his usual jaunty grin as he invited her in.
If she were being a proper Executive, Nadia would have been careful to make sure that she and Nate stayed within sight of the servants, preserving her reputation, but Nate had long ago broken her of that particular cautious habit. She might hesitate to go off alone with him in public, but in the privacy of his home—or hers—she was willing to make exceptions. No servant who couldn’t be trusted to keep his or her mouth shut would hold on to a job in the Chairman Heir’s household.
Accordingly, Nate led her to the private sitting room right outside his bedroom. It was a cozy, comfortable room, with overstuffed chairs, bookshelves that might be considered full with only half the number of books on them, and a large gas fireplace that Nate flipped on automatically, even though it wasn’t cold. Nadia would have grumbled about the waste, except she knew how much Nate liked having a fire going.
“Want a drink?” he asked, ignoring the comfortable chairs and pacing in front of the fire.
Nadia didn’t think her stomach would welcome any company, and she almost refused. Then she realized a drink could give her the opportunity she needed to plant Mosely’s tracker. She needed to get Nate to take off the locket, and she suspected the only time he did that was when he showered.
“A hot cocoa would be nice,” she said, though she knew that wasn’t the kind of drink Nate had in mind. Nate might decide he needed to shower if she spilled wine or beer on him, but he might just change his clothes. The chocolate would make a more significant mess, which was just what she needed. If Nate hadn’t been so busy staring moodily into the fire, he probably would have seen the guilt playing across her face and wondered about it. But he didn’t, and she did a decent job of keeping her voice light and guileless.
“Maybe with some Bailey’s in it?” Nate said, but didn’t wait for her approval before ducking his head out the door and signaling to a servant. “Two cocoas with Bailey’s.”
Nadia shook her head at him behind his back. It never occurred to him that she might want something other than what he suggested. Sometimes, it amazed her that he could be such a good guy and yet be so oblivious to everyone and everything around him. Just more proof that Nate’s Replica was exactly like the original Nate—to the point that she had a hard time remembering that he wasn’t.
“It’s like he never died,” she murmured to herself, but Nate heard her and shifted uncomfortably.
“The original Nate, you mean. I never quite know whether to use first person or third when I talk about stuff that happened to him. I mean, it happened to him, but I remember it happening to me.” His brow furrowed, his expression becoming uncharacteristically serious. “But someone really did die. There’s a body and everything. I feel like I should … I don’t know, be more torn up about it or something.”
Nadia nodded. “I should be grieving for him,” she said, “but it’s hard to feel like he’s dead when you’re here.”
“Guess that’s kind of the point of Replicas.”
They both fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Nate stared at the fire, and because she was too restless to sit still, Nadia perused the overloaded bookshelves—although she’d done it before and knew better.
Nate very much enjoyed shocking people, so of course the books he kept so prominently displayed in his sitting room were predictably not what a respectable young Executive should be reading. In fact, if Nadia’s parents had any idea what sor
ts of books were sitting here out in the open where she could get her hands on them, they’d never allow her into the room.
Nadia blushed and smiled ruefully as she read the spines of a couple of books that, based on their titles, looked to be gay porn of some kind. To someone who didn’t know better, those books probably seemed to be there only for their shock value, or to complete his collection of erotica. In reality, they were probably the only books on display that he’d ever read. If Nate were paying any real attention to her, he’d be teasing her for looking at them, pulling favorite titles from the shelves and trying to get her to look at pictures. It showed just how troubled he was that he didn’t even seem to notice.
With a sigh, Nadia moved away from the bookshelf while her luck held, and moments later the hot cocoa arrived. Nadia thanked Nate’s butler on both their behalf, and Nate quickly shut the door behind the man. He must have been feeling especially paranoid, because he flipped on his sound system, scanning the contents until he found a soundtrack that seemed to be a thunderstorm at the beach. The kind of sound that would mask their voices if anyone was listening outside the door but wouldn’t force them to shout to hear each other. It was the first sign she’d gotten that Nate truly understood the seriousness of the situation. He gestured her to a pair of wing chairs in the far corner of the room, and they both sat, putting their cocoas on the small table between the chairs.
The chairs were overstuffed and made for comfort, and the high backs and the corner location made Nadia feel almost as though she were sharing a secret cave with Nate. If there was a more private place to talk anywhere in his apartment, she didn’t know of it. She took a quick sip of cocoa, both to moisten her throat and to test its temperature. Too hot to “spill” yet. She wanted to get the whole ugly thing over with, but she fought down her impatience. She wondered if she dared question Nate about his efforts to locate Bishop.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to.
“I went to the Basement last night,” Nate blurted.
Nadia recoiled as if shocked, widening her eyes and letting her jaw drop open. “You did what?”
Was she overdoing it? He would expect her to be shocked, maybe even angry with him for his recklessness, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to him doing shocking things. She should probably recover quickly from her initial reaction, so she snapped her mouth closed and tried to make herself relax.
She felt like an actress, playing a role for which she was not adequately prepared. Sure her guilt was written in big, bold letters all over her face, she dropped her gaze and grabbed for the cocoa, desperate for something to look at other than Nate’s face.
But though Nate might be feeling paranoid enough to put on the thunder and waves to cover their conversation, it never occurred to him that the real threat might be in the room with him. He went on blithely without even glancing at her to see her reaction.
“I have to find Kurt, and the only place I can think of to start looking is in the Basement.”
“Why do you have to find him?” she asked, before she thought better of it. Mosely would expect her to encourage Nate to keep looking for Bishop, and if she should somehow talk him out of it … But what were the chances of that? Nate was not the kind of person who’d allow himself to be deflected once he’d set his mind to something. And yet Nadia couldn’t help pressing when Nate gave her an outraged look.
“I know why you’d want to find him,” she hastened to clarify. “But why do you feel you have to? If he’s hiding in the Basement, it’s because he has … connections there. Surely those are the kinds of connections he needs if he’s going to keep from getting caught. You aren’t going to be able to help him with that. Besides, if he wanted your help, he’d have reached out to you. He hasn’t, has he?”
Nate’s face reddened, and he looked away. “I’m not looking for him because I want to help him.” He grimaced. “Well, I was at first. But you’re right, and I know he doesn’t want my help. But I need to find him anyway. I need him to tell me what happened the night I was murdered.” His fists and jaw were clenched tight, his body language closed off. Was he angry because of what had happened to him, or because Bishop had left him in the dark? “I need his help to figure out who really killed the original Nate. I can’t even come up with a reasonable guess who it could be. I mean, they had to know they couldn’t really get rid of me, so what was the point? Whatever made them do it, it happened during the blank spot in my memory, so I have nothing to go on. I need Kurt to tell me what happened after you went back to the ballroom and left us alone.”
“But aren’t you worried you’ll lead Mosely’s people right to him if you find him?” Nadia didn’t want to know what Mosely would do to her if he could hear her right now. But the words seemed to trickle out of her mouth without conscious thought.
“I’m being careful!” Nate snapped, no doubt taking her words as an implied criticism.
Nadia sucked in a deep breath and told herself to stay calm. This was the way he always reacted to what he perceived as criticism, and she should be used to it. And clearly, he was being careful. Mosely knew he’d been to the Basement last night, but he hadn’t been followed or observed. That was an impressively sneaky maneuver—one he wouldn’t be able to pull off again once Nadia completed her assignment.
“You got lucky,” she said, knowing how little Nate would appreciate it. “You’re trying to outwit a professional spy with a whole network at his fingertips. Do you really think you’re up to the challenge?” Mosely would likely drag her off to Riker’s Island right here and now if he could hear what she was saying. And yet she couldn’t seem to make herself shut up.
It’s what Nate would expect you to say anyway, she consoled herself. If she meekly accepted his determination to find Bishop no matter what the risks, he would know something was wrong, even if he didn’t know quite what.
“I have to be,” Nate said grimly.
“But—”
“I’ll be careful. Besides, Kurt isn’t in the Basement. In fact, he’s not even in Paxco anymore.”
“What?” Nadia swore if one more shock came her way today she was going to pull all her hair out by the roots. “How do you know?”
Nate clasped his hands in his lap and stared at them instead of looking at her. “I want you to promise me not to make a big thing out of this.”
“Out of what?”
Nate cleared his throat and faced her, though he only held eye contact for a second before he looked away, and she could see by the set of his shoulders that he was bracing for her reaction.
“Kurt and I used to go to the Basement together sometimes. You get treated better there when you’re paying in dollars, so I always kept a pretty good stash in the apartment. Kurt and I were the only ones who knew where the money was…”
“And now it’s missing,” Nadia finished for him. On the one hand, this probably meant that Bishop was out of Mosely’s reach and whatever objectionable actions Nadia was forced to take wouldn’t condemn him. On the other hand, stealing Nate’s money—without, apparently, leaving any word of where he was going and without any explanation or apology—didn’t much seem like the act of an innocent man. Maybe she and Nate were both being naive about Bishop. Maybe he was guilty. People the world over did terrible things for money.
“I told you not to make something out of it,” Nate said tightly, reading the thoughts on her face. “He was in trouble, and he needed money. I don’t begrudge him.”
“Of course not,” Nadia murmured, despite a chill of unease. To get to that money, Bishop would have had to flee the scene of the crime in Long Island, return to Nate’s Manhattan apartment, and then escape to the Basement without being caught. The side trip to Nate’s apartment seemed almost fatally dangerous …
Unless he’d already stolen the money and had taken it with him to the mansion. Maybe Nate had caught him with the money, and Bishop had stabbed him to keep him from talking.
“Nadia, he didn’t kill me,” Nate sa
id. “I know he didn’t.”
Nadia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The evidence certainly looked damning. But surely if Bishop had wanted to steal Nate’s money, he could have done it at any time. Why would he have chosen to do it on that particular night, with all the heightened security of the Hayes mansion standing in his way? Why not just slip out of the apartment quietly, in the middle of an ordinary night, while Nate was asleep?
“I believe you,” she said, and it was true. “And I understand why you want to find him. But if he’s not even in Paxco anymore, then why did you go to the Basement?”
“Kurt and I have some … mutual acquaintances there. I thought some of them might have an idea where he’d gone, or at least be able to get a message to him for me.”
“Any luck?” she asked, though she could tell from the slump of his shoulders that the answer was no.
“Not yet.”
“So you plan to go back.” The little tracking device tucked in her pocket felt like it was burning her through the cloth, but of course that was just a symptom of guilt. Nothing she’d learned had changed what she had to do, nor had it made her task any less distasteful. Betrayal was betrayal, whether the plan had a high likelihood of success or not. And whether they could lead Mosely to Bishop or not, the “mutual acquaintances” Nate talked to were going to have huge bull’s-eyes painted on their backs, thanks to Nadia.
“I have to,” Nate confirmed. Then he ran a hand through his hair and looked uncomfortable. “But I have a little, er, problem.”
If whatever he was thinking made Nate uncomfortable, Nadia was quite sure she didn’t want to hear it, so when he fell silent, she didn’t prompt him to continue. Not that she thought that would save her from whatever Nate was about to get her into.
Nate squirmed in his chair. “Like I said, dollars are the currency of choice in the Basement, and Kurt took all of mine…” He gave her an imploring look.