Dead Ringers

by Fossen, Delores

  Full pissed alert.

  Because Rusty and Grace weren’t alone. Vince was with them.

  “I have some new reports,” Rusty said, holding up some papers, “but I figured you’d want to talk to Vince first.”

  Yes. And that was an understatement. Jack had a dozen questions he wanted to fire at the man. Where the hell have you been? Did a killer follow you back? How could you have been so stupid and careless with Dana and Grace’s safety?

  Vince held up his hands in a mock surrender, as if he’d already heard those questions. “I was careful.” He slid his gaze from Jack to Dana when she walked out of the wine room to stand beside him. “Hope you two were, too,” he added in a growl.

  Jack figured Vince could have been referring to their earlier departure to meet with Janski, but there were gruff, disapproving undertones that made Jack think that Vince had known exactly what had gone on in that wine room.

  “I hope this risk you took was worth it,” Jack settled for saying.

  “I think it was.” But he shrugged when he glanced at Grace and saw her expression. She was as riled as Jack was. Well, in a different sort of way. She’d obviously been worried about Vince. Jack just wanted to pulverize the man.

  “I paid a little visit to Kirby Arrington,” Vince explained. “But why don’t you tell me about your meeting with Janski first?”

  Jack considered what he should and shouldn’t say, but Dana spoke before he could. “Dr. Hartwell was crazy and was into cloning, eugenics and reincarnation.”

  “Yeah,” Vince mumbled. “Dr. Frankenstein meets Hitler meets Mommy Dearest. Arrington said pretty much the same. I think the bottom line is she considered us her creations, and that’s why she left us her money. That, and she didn’t have anyone else to leave it to since her eugenics research group no longer exists.”

  Jack couldn’t argue with any of that. “What'd Arrington have to say about who’s trying to kill us?”

  Vince shook his head. “He doesn’t know there’s an us, just a me. Or at least I didn’t tell him that there was more than one Layton duplicate. Figured my visit alone would be enough of a shock. Funny thing, he didn’t seem that shocked.”

  “Neither did Janski,” Jack admitted. “But then Janski knew about Dr. Hartwell’s research. Hell, he probably helped her make us.”

  “Maybe,” Vince said, “and maybe we were made well before that.”

  “You mean from embryos cloned or duplicated,” Grace suggested. “Jack is looking for surrogates that the doctor might have used.”

  Vince made a grunting sound that could have meant anything.

  “Could Kirby Arrington be the killer?” Grace came out and asked.

  “It’s possible. He hated Layton, was stealing from him, and he hated Alyssa because he thought she’d pussy-whipped Layton. Maybe Arrington got our names from Dr. Hartwell’s will, and maybe he still has enough rage that he wants Layton and Alyssa dead all over again.” Vince paused. “What about Janski? Could he be a killer?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack said at the same moment that Dana said, “Definitely.”

  “Janski was in love with Alyssa,” Dana continued. “Still is. If he managed to get his hands on the will and then realized Layton and Alyssa could get back together again, again and again. Then, maybe he decided to wipe our DNA off the face of the earth for good.”

  Both of these were good theories, but Jack thought they were missing something, especially since neither Janski nor Arrington were the number one suspect in the original murders.

  “So, either Janski or Arrington could be the person after us now,” Grace concluded.

  “Or Eric,” Jack and Vincent said in unison.

  This conversation was getting creepy, but then just looking at his face on another man already had the creep level pretty high.

  “You don’t think Eric committed suicide?” Grace asked.

  “Arrington believes Dr. Hartwell could have hidden him after he murdered Layton and Alyssa,” Vince explained. “And now with Mommy dead, maybe there’s no one to stop him from trying to kill us.”

  “According to Janski, Eric was mentally ill,” Dana added.

  Vince nodded. “Arrington said the same.” His gaze drifted to the wine room. “Anything else happen while I was gone?”

  Jack shot the man a scowl, but Grace followed his gaze to the wine room and then looked at Dana. Something passed between the two. Probably more of that identical sibling telepathy. Hell. If so, Grace was getting a mind full right now.

  “The lab called about our DNA,” Grace explained to Vince. “No surprises. Dana and I match. Jack and you match.”

  Vince scowled that time. “We should run a DNA check on Dr. Hartwell, too.” His attention shifted back to Jack.

  “Of course. Why? You think we have a genetic link to her?”

  “Maybe,” he repeated. “Me and you, anyway. I think Janski left out one important detail about Layton, Eric and Cornelia Hartwell.”

  Vince reached inside his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. He handed it to Jack, but both Grace and Dana had a look at it as well. Jack hadn’t expected Vince to give him anything that he didn’t already know, or anything that would shock him.

  But he was wrong.

  “Who the hell are they?” Dana asked, looking at both Vince and Jack.

  “Layton’s on the left, Kirby Arrington’s in the middle,” Vince explained. “That’s Eric’s on the right.”

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Grace mumbled.

  Jack just stared at the man on the right. Even though it wasn’t identical, there were enough similarities for Eric to have been Layton’s sibling. And Vince’s and his.

  That face was yet another mirror image of them.

  #

  Well, he sure as hell wasn’t pleased that Dana and Jack had managed to get away from him in the apartment courtyard. He could thank Vince Langford for that. A trashcan bonfire. How juvenile of him, and he would make the idiot pay just a little extra when he finally had his hands clamped around his soulless throat.

  Every minute that the four of them lived was abhorrent. Like a giant boil on the ass of humanity. They should have never been born, and if he could have found them sooner, he would have made sure they wouldn’t have pushed out one more vomitous breath.

  He loaded the dart into his gun and smiled when he realized his hands weren’t shaking. The fit of temper was gone.

  Good.

  The temper would only slow him down, and besides didn’t people always say that revenge was best served up cold? Well, he wasn’t sure he’d ever reach the cold point in his reaction to them, but he sure as hell could relax and enjoy it. After all, he’d waited nearly thirty years for this.

  He looked at the text message from one of the PIs he’d hired. Grace was responsible for that info in the message.

  She’d given him a gift. Unlike the others.

  Well, as a reward he would show Grace a little mercy. A quick kill so she wouldn’t have to suffer. It was the least he could do since she’d led him straight to the house where all four of the soulless fuckers would die.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dana stared at the picture and then shook her head. “Janski never mentioned that Eric and Layton were brothers.” And he’d had plenty of opportunity during their conversation, especially since he’d volunteered just about everything else.

  Well, everything else that he’d wanted to volunteer.

  “No, he didn’t,” Jack agreed. “And from the looks of this photo, they are.” He glanced at Rusty. “Get started on finding us a DNA sample for Dr. Hartman. Eric, too, if possible.”

  Rusty took out his phone, made a quick call about that and then dropped the paper that he’d been holding onto the coffee table. He drew in a long breath. “There’s a lot,” he warned. “I’ll start with Alyssa.”

  The PI sifted through the papers and extracted a photo. Not another look-alike, thank God. Dana had had her fill of those. This was a man and a woman who looked t
o be in their late thirties.

  And then Dana looked closer.

  Not look-alikes, but they did resemble Alyssa. Not in a freaky cloning sort of way but a normal one.

  “They’re Alice and Carson Moss, and I think it’s a good guess that they’re Alyssa's biological parents. They were both members of the Zeus Project. That’s the same eugenics project that Dr. Hartwell and Janski were involved with as well.”

  “Are her parents alive?” Dana asked.

  Rusty shook his head. “They died a few years ago, natural causes. And they had no other children. In fact, that single child family was the foundation of the Zeus Project. One perfect baby and two doting parents to make sure the kid got all the attention he or she needed to succeed. Alyssa got it. Eric, didn’t. His father died in a car accident when he was three, and the accident disfigured Eric.”

  Vince moved closer, glanced at the photo and thumbed through the reports. “How many nutjobs were involved with this Zeus project?”

  “Six couples, but only five had children. Three males, two females. That doesn’t count Layton because he was born a few years after that initial group.”

  “Not a big gene pool for Dr. Hartwell to do her matchmaking to come up with a viable third generation,” Jack observed.

  “No, and she limited the group even further by insisting that all so-called eligible babies had to be started in test tubes.” Rusty flexed his eyebrows. “Dr. Hartwell believed sexual pleasure was for animals and that it would taint the biological chemistry of the perfect offspring.”

  Grace made a slight sound, and Dana gave her a sympathetic look. All of this was digging at their old scabs and baggage, and Dana was afraid it was going to get worse. Rusty’s expression certainly wasn’t getting any better.

  “So, Dr. Hartwell was a sex prude,” Vince said. He went closer to Grace and quietly slipped his arm around her waist. “There were multiple embryos created at the same time?”

  “Well, at least one other embryo in Eric’s case,” Rusty confirmed. “Because I’m pretty sure that Layton was born from either an identical embryo or a cloned one. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Dana glanced at Jack, and they shared a look questioning whether any of this made sense.

  “During the car accident, Eric’s penis and testicles were crushed,” Rusty continued. He made a face. Both Jack and Vince winced. “He couldn’t have fathered children. So, no third generation for him or his mother. That’s when I believe Dr. Hartwell hired a surrogate to be implanted with the second embryo and give birth to Layton.”

  “Why not carry him herself?” Vince asked.

  “Because she was a single parent then,” Grace provided. “It wouldn’t fit with her philosophy. That’s also why she didn’t raise him as her own.”

  “That’s right,” Rusty verified. “I’m not sure when Eric and Layton met, but it’s clear from that picture that they knew each other.”

  Dana agreed. There was no way Layton could look at Eric and not see that they had the same blood.

  The same soul.

  She flinched.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  But she didn’t get a chance to answer. Her cell phone started ringing, and Dana fished through her purse that she’d dropped by the side of the sofa.

  “It’s Samuel Wright,” she told Jack after glancing at the screen.

  “Who?” Vince wanted to know.

  “A PI that Patricia Snyder hired,” Jack answered. He took the phone, pressed the button to answer the call and put it on speaker. “This is Ted Smith, Dana’s bodyguard.”

  Dana had forgotten the fake name that Jack had given the man when they first met. Jack obviously remembered, and he wanted to handle this himself. He put his index finger to his mouth in a stay-quiet gesture.

  “I need to see Dana,” Wright insisted. “There’s some strange stuff going on that she needs to know about.”

  “I can pass on any information to her,” Jack countered.

  “No. This has to happen face-to-face. I have to let her know that she’s in grave danger. I have to make her understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  Wright didn’t say anything for several seconds. “I can’t get into it over the phone. I must see her.”

  “I’m sorry, but that can’t happen.” And Jack hit the end call button, his gaze going straight to Rusty.

  “I’ll get on it as soon as I’m done here,” Rusty assured him.

  “Get on what?” Grace asked. “You think this PI is the killer?”

  “Could be,” Jack answered. “He could have called to try to pinpoint our location. He can’t, not with this cell phone anyway. I changed the settings just as Vince did to yours.”

  “My cell’s dead anyway,” Grace mumbled. “No power cord. And when I went to Dana’s apartment yesterday, I hadn’t planned for an overnight stay.”

  Neither had Dana, and she figured her cell would soon be dead, too. Of course, that was a very minor problem considering everything that was going on. The killer. And Jack.

  Always Jack.

  She met his gaze, and she could have sworn he was thinking the same darn thing. Or maybe he was thinking about what had gone on in the wine closet because the corner of his mouth lifted in a very slight, very short smile.

  When this killer mess was over and done, she clearly had some issues to work out.

  Some of them in bed.

  “Back to Alyssa and Layton,” Jack said, sliding her phone into her purse and returning his attention to Rusty. “Any idea how Dr. Hartwell got them together?”

  “Not sure about that, but Layton and Alyssa met for the first time when he was twenty-nine. In the Zeus philosophy, that's supposed to be the ideal age for a man to father a child so maybe Dr. Hartwell arranged for them to meet.”

  “The same age I am now,” Jack mumbled.

  Was that a coincidence, Dana wondered? She was afraid it wasn’t, that this was still all somehow part of Dr. Hartwell’s grand design.

  “But Alyssa was several years older than Layton,” Rusty continued. “Not ideal, according to Dr. Hartwell. Still, she was desperate to create a third generation baby.”

  “And did Hartwell succeed?” Vince asked.

  “Not that I can find. Remember, initially there were only five second generation babies--Eric, Alyssa, a woman named Lisa Davidson and two men that I haven’t been able to identify. Eric couldn’t father children after the accident, so Layton was born to take his place.”

  “What about this Lisa Davidson?” Dana wanted to know. “Can you talk to her?”

  Rusty shook his head. “She’s dead, and she had no children. But we’re still searching for the two men. Maybe one of them did manage to father a third generation, even though Dr. Hartwell wouldn’t have recognized the child as a Zeus offspring because the child’s mother wasn’t part of the project.”

  The more Dana heard about Dr. Hartwell, the more she despised her.

  “I think Dr. Hartwell wanted to insure she’d get that third generation with all of you,” Rusty went on. “Maybe she cloned Alyssa and Layton and created embryos from them or maybe she already had embryos stored away. Either way, when they were murdered, she might have believed she needed to have all of you born to increase her chances of continuing her Zeus legacy.”

  “And her own,” Grace pointed out. “She was probably pleased as punch when Alyssa and Layton immediately had the hots for each other.” But she stopped. “Except Dr. Hartwell wouldn’t have approved of their having sex.”

  Rusty nodded.

  Grace cursed. “Hell’s Bells. I wonder if she tried stitching crosses on Alyssa’s panties.”

  Dana had no idea why Vince chuckled. Or no idea why the sound of that chuckle caught her attention. And then she realized, she’d never heard him laugh. It was one brief light moment in the middle of a pile of dark ones, and it didn’t last. Rusty’s briefing drew them right back to him.

  "One more thing. Alyssa wasn�
��t infertile,” he said. “Shortly after meeting Layton, she had herself sterilized so that she couldn’t have children.”

  “That must have pissed off Hartwell,” Vince said.

  “Probably. But there are plenty of clues that Layton and Alyssa weren’t buying in the whole project. Layton was making notes to ask for a federal investigation. Janski would have been named, and by then he was soaring to the top in his field.”

  So, there were motives other than insane obsession and jealousy for Layton and Alyssa’s murder. Solid motives, like Hartwell and Janski not wanting to go to jail for their illegal research.

  But Hartwell wasn’t the one trying to kill them now.

  That left Janski. Or the money-stealing Kirby Arrington. Of course, it could be someone else that they weren’t even aware of. That was the scariest of the scenarios.

  “If we’re really Dr. Hartwell’s creations,” Grace said, “then why wouldn’t she have tried to bring us together when she was still alive?"

  “Not the right age yet,” Jack suggested. “I think that’s why she included all our names in the letter. She must have figured we’d be curious and that we’d meet, eventually.”

  “She probably kept tabs on us over the years.” Definitely no almost smile for Vince now. “Just waiting for us to get ripe.” He paused. “But she must have managed to keep our names hidden from the killer, or else he would have come after us sooner, maybe when we were kids.”

  Dana shuddered. Violence on an adult was bad enough, but then she thought of the attack on Jack and his family. “You think the killer went after you when your parents were killed?”

  “No,” he quickly answered. “Because I didn’t change my name or location. If that attacker had been the killer, he would have come back to finish me off.”

  That brought on more than a shudder. It sickened her. All of this violence did.

  Dana cursed when her phone rang again, and she snatched it from her purse, prepared to tell Wright, the PI, to get lost. But it wasn’t Wright. It was Sarah Gray, her bartender’s name on the caller ID.