Perfect Copy

by Judith Gaines

  Edward sat with his back to the broken window, his food hardly touched, watching Roman. He’d spent the afternoon going through files and sorting what should be hidden away from the lab. Brina had been happy enough to have him in the opposite end of the house.

  Russ coughed. “The news said it’ll keep snowing all night.”

  Brina stopped eating to break Roman’s bread into smaller pieces.

  Edward looked at Russ. “I suppose that’ll give us time to finish with the boxes.” His feet shuffled under the table, and he took a sip of his wine before adding, “They’re all on the landing. You two can finish while I close the lab.”

  Brina pulled her napkin from her lap and wiped her mouth. “I have to put Roman to bed first.”

  Russ’s fingers drummed the edge of his plate. “I’ve been thinking; Mathew has snow chains for the truck that should get us down to the highway. The DOT is probably sanding and salting already.”

  “Where would we go?” she asked.

  “West Virginia, the place I mentioned before. My family has a hunting cabin near Orton. We can pick up I-79 and then cut back on one of the state highways.”

  “Roman doesn’t like being closed in. I don’t know how well he’s going to travel.” She imagined the rest stops on the way and the gaggle of travelers that congregated at even the non-vacation times of the year. “And what if someone gets suspicious?”

  “There’s a better chance of that happening here,” Russ said.

  “You said you watched the news? Was there anything about Mathew’s accident?”

  He shook his head. “The phone hasn’t rung all day either. I wonder what happened to your ranger friend.”

  Brina leaned over and picked up the receiver from the wall. “The line’s dead.”

  Edward pushed his plate back and snorted. “Probably more limbs coming down,” he said. “Not much we can do; the cell phones don’t work out here.”

  “I don’t like the idea of being cut off like this.” Russ picked up his plate.

  “If the police can’t call, wouldn’t they send someone to follow up?” she asked.

  “Not necessarily. Where would we go? Cops around here know what the roads are like when it snows. At least that buys us some time.”

  Brina passed their plates to Russ and then attempted to clean Roman’s face. After a moment, she gave up and pulled the stained shirt over his head, turning it inside out to catch the debris. “Bath time,” she announced.

  Russ rinsed a plate and stacked it in the dishwasher. “Knock on my door when you’re done,” he said.

  Edward poured himself another glass of wine from the bottle on the table. A drop of the red tannin rolled the length of the label, settling in a ring around the bottle’s fat bottom.

  She swung Roman up on her hip and set her own empty glass by the sink. “Edward, do you think you should be drinking so much tonight?”

  “What better time? My work is done; it can’t get more complete than that.” He pointed at Roman.

  “What about the diagnosing and curing of disease before a child is even born part?” she quoted from her first interview. It seemed ludicrous now.

  “Nobody’s going to buy what we’ve done here. Mathew wanted Roman, and I—hell, I don’t know what I wanted. This certainly wasn’t it.”

  Russ motioned to Brina to drop it.

  “But it worked,” she added, ignoring him.

  “What good that does me now.”

  “Brina, I think Roman’s cold,” interrupted Russ.

  She cut her eyes at him as she helped Roman down from his chair. “I’m upstairs for the night. Russ, I’ll let you know when I can help.” She left the kitchen, paused long enough at the front door to check the lock, and then forced her legs up the stairs.

  “Well, Roman, can you say West Virginia? Actually, don’t say it. Right now, you’re the only one of us who won’t need to plead the Fifth,” she said. He looked up, repeating her tones under his breath.

  Brina delivered him to the bathroom and sat him beside the tub. Hot and cold tap mixed with bubble bath, pushing Roman’s plastic boat and two bight yellow cups against the sides. He climbed in amid the growing foam. Brina left him to play, keeping an eye from the open doorway. She folded down his blankets and closed the matching curtains. They probably came with the house, she thought, since she knew Mathew had no taste. The man wore very expensive mismatched clothes. She smiled, wondering if Edward had fixed that gene in Roman.

  When she finished, Brina sank into the armchair and pulled out Mathew’s appointment book. It only went back to January 1. He’d spent the first part of the month in Atlanta, and according to his schedule, he didn’t have much time off.

  She flipped through the following weeks, but all the entries were in Mathew’s shorthand: meet AD at Omni, Lunch Ro-C, EDDS 1:30. It would take time to figure out what all the initials stood for. Mathew could have been meeting one of these coded initials this morning.

  It was hard to imagine it had only been one day. She rubbed her eyes. It still wasn’t clear if Roman was any safer without Mathew pulling the shots.

  The storm and winter dusk closed off the daylight. The lamp’s sixty watts made it too hard to read, so she gave up and crossed back to the bathroom. She slipped the appointment book under her pillow on the way.

  Roman had resorted to smacking soap bubbles on the tub wall and tossing his toys on the floor, signaling he’d had enough. She rubbed him down with a towel and helped him step his legs into pajamas. The little mundane acts somehow made staying worthwhile. His wet hair, slicked around his head, making his eyes appear bigger. Roman unburied his fingers from the arms of his pajamas and took off in a leap to his new bed.

  “Be careful, don’t fall off,” she called, catching him anyway and tickling his ribs. His laugh erupted, spontaneous and carefree. She grabbed a book from the nightstand and settled with him against the pillows.

  “Do you know which one this is?” she asked, holding it up by the gnawed corners.

  He smiled and nodded emphatically, “Moth.”

  “You’re right.” She opened to the first page of Lady Luna. Before she could read the first sentence, Roman was reaching for the pop-up tab. Lady Luna’s wings rose from the page. “Moth fly.”

  She watched Roman’s eyes widen at the wings fanning his face, trying not to react to his sudden chattiness. The next page showed a green inchworm, poised to creep across a branch on the verge of a spring bloom.

  “Worm.” He beamed a smile at her.

  “Roman, where did you learn so many new words?”

  He patted his head and smiled. “Here.”

  Chapter 7

  Brina tucked Roman in with a kiss on the forehead and a night-light to help him settle in. During the afternoon, she’d watched his new room feed his curiosity. He touched everything, traced the pattern on the quilt, opened the closet, stepped in and examined how the door worked, and tested every dresser drawer. The window had drawn his fascination. He’d stood, hands flat on the glass, staring down at the garage’s roof, the trellis outside the window, and the woody vine that roped along its faded slats. With the leaves gone, dots of light from other houses on the mountain sparked like fireflies in the dark.

  Brina switched off her bedroom light and stepped across the hall to find Russ. Edward’s door was open. He sat at his desk, typing on Mathew’s computer.

  He looked up. “I’ve already told Russ where to put everything. He’s gone downstairs for tools.”

  “What for?” she asked, looking around his room from the open doorway. She couldn’t see much, but it was very neat and put together, unlike his desk in the lab.

  Edward swayed back in his chair, stretching his neck. He had pulled a sweater on over his button-down oxford, and a cup of hot tea sat to the side of the computer. She thought he looked rather cozy, considering the circumstances.

  “The storage space was boarded up a few years ago. We’ll put our files in and seal it back up. The room’
s not on the original house plans, so no one should notice it unless they’re willing to tear down the walls.” He looked relaxed and more stable than he had at the dinner table.

  “You’re awfully calm. I find your level of preparedness a little scary.”

  Edward smiled. “Then I won’t fill you in on any more. It’ll only keep you up tonight.”

  Russ came up the stairs carrying a crowbar and a hammer and humming to himself. Everyone seemed to be in a damn humming mood and it was getting a little irritating.

  Brina pictured his soft hands doing manual labor. It was a hard stretch.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded, flicked a small wave at Edward, and headed down the hall. Edward nodded at Russ and then kicked the door shut with his foot, throwing the hallway into a gloomy hush.

  Brina opened the attic access and fished around for the pull string to the light. The bulb dangled from a wire and socket that snaked through a hole in the ceiling.

  “Have you ever been up here?” she asked.

  “No.” Russ squeezed ahead of her and went up the narrow stairs. The ceiling overhead, which angled parallel to the steps, dangled cobwebs and desiccated insect corpses at them.

  “This place is exactly what you’d expect in a bad horror movie. All we need now is for the power to go out.”

  The steps ended in another door at the top. Russ gave the tarnished knob a turn and then rattled the door against the old catch. “It’s locked. Do you know where Mathew kept the extra house keys?”

  “Don’t you have them?”

  “Not all of them.”

  “There’s a bag of keys in the kitchen drawer. One of those might work.”

  Russ ran his hand along the top of the doorframe, checking the most logical place to stash a key, but turned up a handful of dust. “Go ahead and check, and bring a flashlight too. If the light bulb in there is as bad as this one, we’ll need it.”

  The bulb swinging from the wire cast yellow shadows along the stairs, making her blink to discern any detail.

  Brina went down the stairs two at a time. A quick check showed that Roman was still asleep. His quiet breathing, amplified by the intercom, echoed through the bath from her room.

  In the kitchen, she dumped the contents of the junk drawer on the counter and dug through old bread ties, paper clips, and appliance receipts, coming up with a plastic Ziploc bag holding assorted skeleton keys, several of which looked about the right size.

  Wind howled around the corners of the house, and a continuous tapping at the back wall hinted of another gravid branch about to collapse. Ignoring it, she pilfered a cookie from the pantry and darted back upstairs with the flashlight.

  “There are four in here,” she said, coming up the stairs. She passed the baggie over to Russ.

  The second key clicked the lock open, allowing the door to squawk on dried-out hinges.

  Unfinished rafters with plywood nailed to them formed the attic walls. Pink insulation bulged through cracks, spilling smaller tufts onto the floor. Another wall, to their right, divided the attic in half, with a door opening up to what must have been servants’ quarters in the past.

  Russ pulled another light cord, swaddling the room in more dingy light. Discarded furniture and boxes with clothes half tumbled out were covered in what looked like a century of dust.

  “This looks like a perfect place for rats,” observed Brina. “So where is our storeroom?”

  Russ pointed with the crowbar to the back wall. It held up a king-size headboard and a quilt-draped armoire covered in black droppings.

  Chapter 8

  “Just lovely.” Brina closed her eyes, in a long, drawn-out blink. “If you clear that stuff, I’ll start bringing up boxes.” She backed up with a hand on the doorknob.

  “Hold on. You’re not leaving me. Here, grab the other side.” Russ shut the armoire doors with a solid click and began sliding it out from the wall. Brina hesitated, checked that none of the droppings was on her side, and crooked her fingers under the edge. It moved in short lurches over the rough plank floor.

  “Let’s stop about here,” said Russ. “That’ll give us room to slide the bed out.”

  They cleared the wall down to the wood covering it. It appeared rough and cracked, like the floor, and looked original to the house. Comparing it side by side with the plywood, Brina thought it was the least likely spot anyone would look for a boarded-up room. Russ grabbed the crowbar and started working the lever under one of the edges.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, pulling his arm back. “You’re going to split the wood.”

  “Here, then you do it.” He passed the tools over and plopped down on a plastic bag full of clothes, using it like a moth-bitten beanbag chair.

  Brina kicked his foot. “You’re not going to sit there and watch me work. Go get the boxes.”

  “I see your blood sugar’s a little low—or is it just one of your moods?”

  “I’m holding sharp implements; does it matter?” She meant it to sound teasing, but the threat got him moving.

  Russ laughed, “I’m just having fun with you. I’m not the cold, dark mad scientist you think I am.” He pulled his feet up under him and stood, sending twists of dust into the rafters.

  “So what are you, then?”

  “A warm, bright, happy scientist.”

  “I can’t believe you wait until now to show personality.”

  “I’m just thinking personality will be all I have left soon. I don’t think the university is going to want me back.”

  Brina ditched the reply she had in mind and instead braced the forked end of the crowbar under a nail head and wiggled it free. The wood was dry enough that she only had to get the nails started before she could pull them out with her fingers. By the time she had removed enough boards to squeeze through, Russ had all of the boxes stacked inside the door.

  “Bring me the flashlight,” she called.

  Russ angled the light over her shoulder into the hole. The tiny room beyond was short, with the roof low over a crate and two half-rusted file cabinets. Cold air drafted out, stirring her hair across her face.

  Brina tucked her bangs behind her ears and pulled her sweater sleeves down over her arms. “I’ll get in on the other side and you can pass the boxes through.”

  Russ squinted at the dark shapes, “Are you sure? Maybe I should be on that side.”

  “It’s a little cramped, and I’m smaller. Besides, once we get the boxes in, there won’t be any room left.” She straddled her leg through the opening, shining the light deeper. “I wonder what this other stuff is.”

  Russ appeared with the first box. “What does it look like?”

  “It’s hard to tell. There’s no insulation in here, and I think the roof leaked. These file cabinets could be a few years old, or a few decades.” She pushed a drawer label up out of its slot and rubbed the dirt off on her jeans. “This says ‘Project MR dash two’. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “MR? Could stand for Mathew Roman.” Russ looked at his watch. “Let’s get finished. We can snoop later.”

  Brina fidgeted with the flashlight until it was balanced on top of the cabinet and the bar of light illuminated as much of the small room as possible. She suspected rats were still hovering in the corners, just waiting for an opportunity to jump out at her.

  From the hallway below, the alarm system beeped twice, making them pause.

  “Edward must have gone out for something,” said Russ. He passed a box through to her and went to get another.

  “It’s still snowing,” she called back. “I can hear the ice hitting the roof. The temperature must be in the twenties. What in the world he does need to do outside?”

  “He’s probably just checking to make sure everything’s locked.” Russ poked his head through, looking at her. “You sound worried.”

  “No, I’m curious; we’re miles from anywhere and it’s late.” Brina wedged the box he gave her between another one and the roof. �
��It’s getting tight in here. I hope that was the last one.”

  “Two more.”

  “They’ll have to go where I’m standing.” She pointed to the crate and file cabinets, “Let’s take a look at what’s in these while there’s still room to move. Where do you want to start?”

  “File cabinet.”

  Brina pulled open the top drawer and walked her fingers through the labeled tabs.

  “These look like personnel records.” She passed a few out to Russ and then opened another drawer, reading the names. “I don’t think I know any of these people. Do you know—oh, wait.”

  “What’d you find?” Russ had plopped into his trash-bag seat again and was flipping the pages in one of the folders.

  “Carnes, Edward.” She snatched it from the drawer and crawled out into the attic.

  “This is Edward’s.” The first page was a copy of his résumé, but it was out of date by at least ten years.

  “Let me see that.” Russ shuffled through the pages. “His is like the others. They start with a résumé, and then it goes into a detailed medical history. There’s even a lab receipt in each of them for blood typing.”

  “Since when is a drug test not enough?”

  “When you work for Mathew Roman.” He closed up the file. “Put these others back; I want to hang onto Edward’s and ask him about it.”

  “Ready for the crate?”

  “Why not.”

  Brina squeezed her body around the contours of the boxes to the wood-framed crate. Tapping lightly with the hammer, she wedged the crowbar under the lid, forcing it up.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know yet. Give me a minute.”

  A chill crawled under her skin, making her head tingle as she pushed the lid to the side. Dry, yellow newspaper shreds buried the contents out of sight. Brina hesitated, then reached into the tangled paper nest.