“Something weird is going on with the Lord of the Geeks,” I said in a low voice. “Nothing about him adds up. Pam told me—”
Charlie cut me off. “I didn’t think you and Pam did much talking that night.”
I ignored the comment. “She told me this guy is a member of one of the richest families in Britain—he’s bankrolling their dig for the next five years,” I went on. “Why would a man with that kind of money want to go off and live in the middle of nowhere like this?”
“Love, maybe?”
“I’m telling you, Charlie, something’s not right here,” I said, digging into my carryon for my passport and boarding pass.
Charlie handed his pass to the airline agent, who checked it and returned it to him. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Yeah,” he said. “The something that’s not right is you.”
We boarded the plane and stashed our bags in the overhead. Charlie struggled with a seat not made for someone of his bulk. “I hate flying,” he grumbled. He fluffed his travel pillow. “You want to know what I think?”
“Shoot.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Charlie tucked the pillow behind his head. “I think you’re looking to create problems where there aren’t any. Give it up, pal.”
“Ah, the prodigal returns,” Ally greeted me as I entered her office. Alberta Ashland was an attractive woman in her early forties, conservatively dressed, a façade that concealed her fiery personality. She was one of the most brilliant editors in the business, due to her willingness to take risks. She was also one of the few people on the face of the earth who could actually put up with me. While other women came and went in my life, Ally was the only female constant. That was most likely due to the fact that she was too smart to ever get romantically involved with me.
“Clichés are beneath you, Ally.” I plopped down in one of the chairs across from her and propped my feet up on the desk.
“Get your feet off the desk or you’ll be a cliché,” she warned. “Dead as a doornail.”
I grinned. “You’ve got to wonder about some of those clichés—dead as a doornail, for instance. A doornail is an inanimate object, so it can’t be dead. Happy as a clam—who knows if a clam is happy or not?”
Alberta laughed. “What’s got you in this mood? Did Hefner give you the keys to the Playboy mansion?”
“No, unfortunately. And I’m not in a mood.”
“Right. I hear you’re trying to dig up dirt on the ex-wife’s new husband.”
“Nothing gets past you, does it, Ally?” I asked.
“You really do hate to lose, don’t you?” she asked.
“What is it with you and Charlie, anyway?” I asked. “I didn’t lose her to him. I lost her while he was still using training wheels.”
Alberta shook her head. “You know, Darcy, there’s a saying that only the good die young,” she started. “If that’s true, you’re going to live forever. God doesn’t want you and the devil won’t have you for fear of a power struggle.”
I ignored her sarcasm. “There’s something really strange about that one, Ally,” I maintained.
She looked at me accusingly. “And you’re still looking for the skeletons in the old closet.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“My spies are everywhere. You should know that by now.” She seated herself behind her desk. On the wall behind her were her many journalistic awards. On the shelves, revealing her sense of humor was an R2-D2 action figure and humorous sayings, all in silver frames.
“Nothing about him adds up.” I sat up straight. “And I haven’t dug up anything on him. I’ve been trying. Big difference. I even Googled him and came up with zip. It’s like he didn’t even exist before he turned up in Egypt last year. I can’t find birth records, academic records, anything. Duchess won’t talk, and no one else on their team seems to know much about him, beyond the fact that he comes from money and his family is funding the excavation for the next five years.” I took off my glasses and rubbed my tired eyes.
“What, exactly, made you suspicious of him?” Alberta asked. “The wedding ring?”
“This.” I removed the photographs I’d taken from the portfolio I'd brought with me and passed them across the desk to her. “What do you make of that?”
She examined them thoughtfully, then handed them back to me. “In a word, Photoshop.”
“I didn’t fake these, Ally,” I said. “When I developed them, at first I thought there was a flaw in the film. I’ve considered every possibility.”
Alberta gave me a skeptical look. “And this is why you’re suspicious of him?”
“He didn’t want wedding photographs, Ally,” I said. “He was supposedly marrying a woman he adored, but he didn’t want photos.”
“Do you have photos of all of your weddings?” she challenged.
“No, but—”
“If you did, you’d need a storage locker just for wedding albums.” Alberta laughed. “Darcy, you’re just looking for trouble—which you found when you convinced Charlie to go to Egypt after I vetoed the idea. This, I assume, is why you pulled that stunt.”
“He smashed my camera after I took some shots of him at the dig site.”
“So he guards his privacy. Again, not a federal offense,” she pointed out.
I paused. “What did Ben tell you when you forced his confession? Did he ever find anything?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. He’s clean. Was probably a boy scout.”
I snorted. “I’m betting he was never a boy.”
“Darcy—”
I shook my head. “I think the guy’s a long way from clean, Ally,” I insisted. “I’m certain he’s hiding something.”
“You’d like to think he is, anyway.”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that there’s nothing on record about him?” I wanted to know. “I know you think I’m being paranoid, but—”
“I think you probably are, yes. I don’t know about Connor Mackenzie, but you should come with a warning from the Surgeon General—Warning: May Cause Insanity,” she said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that you have far too much time on your hands…”
I should have said no to another assignment, I thought as I let myself into my apartment. I should have turned her down flat.
I wasn't up for it.
I parked my duffel bag on the floor next to the front door. I hadn’t been home in almost two months, but everything was in order. The place was immaculate; my mail was in the basket on the desk and the newspapers and magazines were stacked neatly on the floor. The smartest move I ever made was hiring that cleaning lady—she was a gem. All the advantages of a wife—well, almost all the advantages—with none of the headaches.
I went into the kitchen and found three cans of chili and a package of microwave popcorn in one cabinet and a six-pack of beer in the refrigerator. There wasn’t much point in grocery shopping, since I’d be leaving again in a few days. I decided to get take-out from the Chinese place on the corner.
I still couldn’t figure out how Ally had managed to talk me into taking the new assignment. I was supposed to be on vacation—and I needed the break. She thought I needed a shrink. I tried to reason with her—but Ally could be a royal pain. Sometimes, it was easier to just give in to her.
I rummaged through a desk drawer, looking for the take-out menus I kept there. Cooking had never been my thing. I could microwave—that was the extent of my skill in the kitchen. I called in my order and accepted my culinary shortcomings as just one more for the list of my many flaws.
I picked up a framed photograph on the desk and stared at it for a long time. My kids. The photo had been taken at least ten years ago. Sam would be twenty-nine or thirty now—I couldn’t even remember how old my own son was. Christina would be about twenty-seven. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen either of them. For all I knew, I could have been a grandfather.
A grandfather? Me? It was laughable. I hadn’t been much of a father. I’d been in
Moscow when Sam was born—I didn’t even see my son until he was two months old. My first wife and I had already separated by the time Christina was born. I hadn’t seen much of either of them while they were growing up. When they wanted me, needed me, I’d never been there for them. When they begged me to come home, to give them just a little of my time, I’d always been too busy. Now, they didn’t want or need me at all. By the time they were teenagers, the only thing either of them felt for me was resentment. That resentment had been honed over the years. My son sent me a CD one Christmas—that Harry Chapin song from back in the seventies, Cat’s in the Cradle. There was a definite message there.
It hadn’t bothered me much in the past. My unwillingness to have more kids had been the biggest problem between Lynne and me when we were married. She wanted kids. I didn’t. I tried to tell her I’d learned from experience that I wasn’t cut out for fatherhood. Unlike most men, I’d never felt the need to have children to guarantee my own immortality—my work would do that. As far as I was concerned, I was a father because my wife had been careless.
That was how I’d felt then, anyway.
As I continued to stare at the photograph, I found myself thinking about Sam and Christina, wondering where they were, what they were doing—and wondering if they would ever be able to forgive me. I wouldn’t blame them if they couldn’t. I’d never been there for them. I’d never acted like a father. I acted like a stranger.
Wasn’t it Thomas Wolfe who said “You can never go home again”—or something like that? It was a little late to try to make amends, much as I would have liked to. About twenty-five years too late.
The ringing doorbell interrupted my pity party. It was the delivery boy from the Chinese place. I pulled my wallet from my pocket and paid the kid, then went into the kitchen to get a fork. I didn’t have the patience for chopsticks.
I put on a DVD—I had just about every movie Schwarzenegger had ever made, and when I wasn’t in the mood for Arnold, there was always Bruce Willis—and parked myself in front of the TV, eating straight out of the cartons. What I wouldn’t give for about six months of this, I thought.
A year ago, my doctor told me it was all going to catch up with me sooner or later. I once smoked four packs a day, before I married Lynne. I drank far too much. My blood pressure was too high and my last blood test showed there was enough crap in my veins to block the Holland Tunnel. I was courting a coronary. None of my ex-wives would believe that one. None of them believed I had a heart to damage. They’d all been in agreement on that. Three out of three ex-wives can’t be wrong—or can they? I wondered.
Funny, I hadn’t noticed it before—before seeing Lynne with Mackenzie—but it did seem to be catching up with me. I was not only feeling my age, I felt about ten years older.
I decided to see what Fate had in store for me. I broke one of the fortune cookies in half and pulled the narrow strip of paper from it, expecting to find the usually vague, often silly “fortune” on it.
YOU ARE ABOUT TO EMBARK ON AN IMPORTANT JOURNEY.
Enough already, I thought, tossing it aside. I broke open the second cookie.
YOUR DESTINY IS AT HAND.
38
Connor
“You’re so tense,” Lynne noticed as she massaged my back and shoulders. “Stress?”
I brushed it off. “More strange dreams, that’s all,” I said.
“Stranger than usual?” she kissed my bare shoulder. That almost made me forget all the rubbish that was cluttering my mind. I wish it could have.
I kissed her forehead. “Now I’m being told to take you to church.”
She drew back, surprised. “Take me to church? Which one?”
“I haven’t a clue. I told you it was strange.”
My satellite phone rang then. “If it’s Edward, don’t answer it,” Lynne told me. “Every time you talk to him, you end up in a foul mood.”
“I have to talk to him this time, darlin’,” I said, pulling away from her.
She reached for the phone on the nightstand and passed it to me reluctantly. “I’ll go make some coffee,” she said. “Don’t let him get to you.”
I waited until she left the room, then took the call. “Edward,” I said. “Is it done?”
“No.”
“No? Why not?”
“You have to come back here," Edward insisted. "We have people to answer to."
"Correction—you have people to answer to," I told him. "I have no obligation to anyone but myself and my wife."
"Wife? You married her?"
"Yes. As a wedding gift, you can forget you ever knew me. Won't cost you a dime."
"You have no idea what that would cost me—and you," Edward snapped. "You can't do this—"
"Try and stop me!"
"They'll never let you go."
"They don't own me, Edward."
"What about Sarah?" he asked then. "Are you going to turn your back on her, too?"
"Of course not!"
"Reconsider this, Andrew—"
"Connor."
"Reconsider. Before it's too late."
Then the line went dead.
I stared at the phone for a long moment, confused by the conversation that had just taken place. I wanted to call him back, to find out what he’d meant, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t about to concern Lynne with any of this bullshit. Not yet.
Not until I knew what kind of rubbish Edward was trying to pull this time.
Lynne was in Cairo with Tim. They would be away all day. I rang up Edward. The perfect time to have it out with him, I decided.
“Start talking, Edward,” I demanded.
He hesitated, then reconsidered. “They’ve demanded your immediate return to London—with your wife.”
“What has Lynne to do with any of this?”
“You should never have married her.” There was a desperation in his voice that made no sense. “If she gets pregnant—”
"She's already pregnant," I said. "What business is it of theirs?"
"They've been waiting for you to procreate."
“What the hell are you talking about?” By that point, my patience was nonexistent.
“I was trying to keep your wife from meeting the same fate as your mother,” Edward said, panic rising in his voice.
“What about my mother?” I asked, anger rising within me.
Edward told me everything.
39
Lynne
I saw Connor’s motorcycle parked in front of the trailer when Tim and I returned from Cairo. “He must not have gone to the lab today,” I said.
“Maybe he’s having pregnancy symptoms,” Tim said with a grin. “In case you’ve forgotten, every time Isabella was pregnant, I had the morning sickness, weight gain, fatigue, the whole fun package,” he recalled. “She had an easy time in childbirth. I had all the labor pains.”
I did remember, and it made me laugh. “Connor’s had a few cravings.”
“Anything really bizarre?” Tim asked as he parked.
“Not for food.”
Tim waved me off. “Don’t want to know,” he laughed. “I think you’d better call it a day, babe. Put your feet up, eat ice cream and jalapenos, watch a corny movie.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds hideous.”
“I hope it’s triplets.”
“If it is, one of them is yours.”
He shook his head. “No more babies for me. When Isis was born, my mother asked Isabella what we were going to name her. Isabella said, ‘Enough.’”
“See you in the morning,” I said as I got out of the Land Rover.
I went inside. “Connor?” I called out to him. “I’m back. Finally.”
No answer.
I took off my baseball cap, removed the elastic band from my hair, and ran my fingers through it. “Connor?” I called to him again.
Still no answer.
Then I heard a muffled sound coming from behind the closed bedroom door. I found Connor there, packing our s
uitcases in a fury.
“Connor—what’s going on?” I asked, trying to stop him.
“My mother,” he said angrily, yanking shirts from their hangers. “My mother's death wasn't an accident. She was murdered.” He threw the shirts down onto the bed.
“Murdered?” I asked. “Who told you this?”
“My dear stepfather,” Connor snapped. “They killed her. The bastards killed her.”
I was confused. “I don’t understand.”
“We have to leave here. Now. Tonight,” Connor insisted.
“And go where?”
“Somewhere. Anywhere. Where they can’t find us.” He took one of the handguns we kept for protection from the nightstand and checked the clip.
I stopped him, grabbing his shoulders. “They—who?” I asked. “Connor, you’re not making any sense!”
He sank down onto the bed, cradling his head in his hands. “There’s so much I haven’t told you,” he said wearily, “things I should have told you before we were married.”
I was apprehensive. “I’m not going to want to hear this, am I?” I asked.
He gestured to me to sit next to him, struggling to compose himself. I shook my head. “I think I’ll stand for now.”
He sucked in a deep breath and looked up at me. “My name isn’t really Connor Mackenzie,” he confessed.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“My real name—my given name—is Andrew Stewart. I’m a geneticist,” he went on. “I was involved in some experiments that were not exactly legal. I was—am—wanted by the authorities. That’s why I’ve been using an alias.”
“Human cloning,” I guessed.
He nodded. “But that’s only a small part of it. The night we met, I was already planning to leave London. You needed funding, I needed a place to hide,” he said. “It was a win-win situation.”
“And now they’ve found you?”
He shook his head. “No. They have no idea where I am.”
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