“May I help you?” he asked. Beautiful mid Atlantic accent. The kind of thing that you’d hear in Hollywood films from the thirties. Like if David Niven was on his way to teach a class.
He turned toward me. Up close, the man matched the voice. Maybe a bit more Errol Flynn than David Niven, he had a roguish smile, a glint of mischief in his eyes, and a full head of thick, wavy hair.
“I was hoping to talk to Professor Deyermond,” I said. “Is there any chance you know where she might be? She’s not in her office and I didn’t know if maybe there was a faculty meeting you might know about?”
“Mr Danet?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Caruthers,” he said. “Winston Caruthers. I’d like to speak to you about Sarah. Miss Deyermond. If you’d care to follow me, I think this would be better in private.”
I felt a stab of jealousy. This was it. She had been considering her options, and now the handsome, acclaimed poet who looked like Errol Flynn’s sober brother wanted to talk to me, man to man, don’tyerknow old boy.
He led the way back to the office and tried the door, which was locked, then patted himself down, in a very absent-minded professor kind of way.
“Damn. Not used to carrying that key yet, don’t you know. No matter, we’ll commandeer a conference room. God knows they have plenty.”
I had a knife in the trunk of my car. I could end this today. Follow him home, ring the bell, then surprise him when he answered. One quick thrust, up under the breastbone, dismember him in the bathtub and sink the parts in the Merrimack in a series of weighted plastic trash bags. An afternoon’s work.
The strength of the impulse surprised me. I couldn’t remember feeling that murderous towards a man I had hardly met. Who hadn’t even shot at me. I’d have to get a handle on this jealousy before it got me in trouble.
I decided I’d hear him out.
For now.
I followed him to one of the rooms off the main hall of the library. It was airy and well lit, big windows looking out onto the quad. There was a long table surrounded by chairs and a white board on the wall.
He closed the door, leaned nonchalantly against the wall.
I forced the jealous anger down. If there was anything going on, and I was only guessing, panicking that there was, then it wasn’t really his fault. Sarah was an adult, and she wasn’t my property; she could make her own decisions. I couldn’t really blame Caruthers for going after her.
I could still stab him.
Wouldn’t help me with Sarah, though. If I’d blown it, that was all on me.
Maybe I could give him a black eye. He’d have to understand that.
“In the past day or so, have things seemed...odd between you? Has she seemed distant? Not herself?”
Let him talk, I told myself. You can always hit him after he’s done.
“Maybe,” I replied, feeling a bit defensive.
He made a face of grim and manly determination. Rubbed his chin. Errol Flynn if he played a doctor preparing to tell a patient that he had terminal cancer.
“And have you been intimate? At her request?”
Red began to creep into the edges of my vision. My knuckles whitened where they gripped the back of one of the chairs. I decided not to hit him only because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop once I started.
“What?” I growled.
“I’m just confirming a suspicion, before I— ”
“Look,” I cut him off. “If there’s something between you two, why don’t you just spit it out?” Practice for your teeth, I thought.
His jaw dropped. “Is that– Oh my good man, I’m so sorry. Yes, I do see how you could jump to that conclusion. No, no. Nothing of that sort.”
I took a deep breath, felt the horrible, sinking feeling in my chest start to fade. “Oh, thank God for that.”
“Don’t break out the champagne yet, old boy,” he said. “It’s worse.”
“Worse how?” I asked. “Before you tell me, just be aware that I was thinking about stabbing you to death a few minutes ago.” I did grin to take the sting out of the statement.
He laughed. “Now that I see how it sounded, I wouldn’t have blamed you. No, I must admit that the young lady has not succumbed to my charms. But she might well have been...replaced. Impersonated would be a better term.”
“Not sure I’m buying that,” I said. “I’m fairly certain I know who I slept with.”
“I understand your skepticism. But hear me out.”
He paused, as though considering how much to tell me.
“May I be frank with you, Mr Danet?”
“Only if I can be Dino.”
He blinked twice, then shook his head.
“Rat Pack reference,” I said. “Please, go on. Speak freely.”
He looked at me for a moment, then continued. “I know a bit of your history, Mr Danet. Your recent run in with Mr Doors, for example.”
“I thought that was going to stay quiet,” I said. I certainly hadn’t discussed it.
“I’m sure it was intended to. And don’t blame anyone. My clan is very...adept at gaining information.”
“So you are–”
“A bit like you. Gifted. In a different way. My family can change our appearance.” As he spoke, his face lengthened, his eyes became deep set and darker, his nose more prominent. His hair grew longer and darker, and his voice deeper. More Basil Rathbone than Errol Flynn now.
“Holy shit,” I observed.
“So you see why I suggest that you may have been deceived.”
I nodded slowly. Maybe that could explain the differences. Why she seemed to be not quite herself.
Not herself.
“So what’s happening with Sarah, who would impersonate her and why? And why are you telling me?”
“I’m not certain,” he said, his form sliding back to the way I’d first seen him. “But I think I can guess fairly accurately. We’ve known about you for a few months, through a spy we have in Doors’ organization. Someone has taken an interest in you. I believe they abducted your girlfriend, observed her mannerisms and used our unique abilities to get close to you.”
“But why?”
“Your genes, Mr Danet. They want your healing. Your longevity. There’s no way to get those gifts for themselves, but for the family, for the next generation...” He spread his hands. “That’s why I asked you about the intimacy.”
It also explained the questions she’d asked about the limits of my regeneration. Like checking out private schools. She just wanted to know that she was getting the best for the baby.
“As far as how they abducted Miss Deyermond, they could have posed as anyone she knew and picked her up, taken her out for a ride. Maybe she thought she was taking a walk with you.”
The idea of someone using my likeness, wearing my appearance like a suit, using me to get to Sarah made me queasy. Then I thought of someone using her likeness to manipulate me.
“So now what?” I asked. “Does this imposter let Sarah go?”
“Not quite yet, I wouldn’t think,” he said. “I’d think they’d want to be certain of conception. It’s a lot of work and risk to be any less than certain.”
“So is Sarah safe now?” I asked, trying to keep my fear in check.
“Probably,” he said. “If this didn’t work, they’d want to use her knowledge to find another way to get to you. She’s an asset, until they get what they want.”
“How can I get her back? Would they trade a test tube full of my boys for her release?” Yeah, I know. We don’t negotiate, all that. But for Sarah’s life I’d compromise pretty much any principle.
He seemed surprised by the offer. “I doubt the thought had occurred. This is something that my clan would have wanted to do quietly, secretly. We live by secrecy. It’s our strength.”
That begged the question: why was he volunteering this information?
“So if you’re not here to negotiate, then what?”
“I don’t ag
ree with the way this has been done,” he replied. “Our business has always been information. That’s acceptable to me. We trade in it, and it’s the most legitimate use of our talent. But there are those who have taken advantage of our gifts as burglars, assassins, every manner of fraud. It’s a stain on the clan’s honor, and I’d prefer to see it erased.”
Maybe. Maybe there was more to it.
The question was: did I believe him?
Well, I had noticed something odd about Sarah’s behavior, and if he were telling the truth, it would explain that. And if she were in danger, I’d have to take even the threat of that seriously.
The best thing to do, if he was telling the truth, was to find out as much about the enemy as possible. And while he might lie, he might not, and once I had his information, I could try and verify it. Then I’d have a better idea if I could trust him.
“Are there any limits on how much your clan can alter their appearance?” I asked, “Could you be taller? Heavier? Female?”
“In theory, any of those,” he replied. “Mass, however, is mass. I can be taller, but I’d have to stretch myself. I could look fatter or thinner, but only by compressing or expanding myself. But there are limits to that. I can’t stretch myself out flat and slip under a door. I could look like a woman, but I wouldn’t be one. We can change the look, but not the hormones, or the internal organs. I could be a very convincing woman, but I couldn’t bear a child.”
“How about race?”
He shrugged. “A bit darker, a bit lighter. It’s just shifting pigment. The extremes are hard, but that’s all.”
“And you could imitate a specific individual?” I asked. “I mean, very convincingly?”
“The look is easy. The voice is easy. We develop the talent for those early. Mannerisms are harder, but we do tend to be good actors. The more we’ve observed the target, the better a job we could do. And if the look is right, it’s not that hard to put off questions. People will believe excuses. Sorry, I’m just tired, preoccupied, not myself.” He smiled. “I do quite like ‘I’m just not myself,’ I have to admit.”
It was a smile I wanted to drive a fist into. Oh, it was charming, but the amusement he seemed to feel at doing his dirty deeds in somebody else’s skin really rubbed me the wrong way. It made me wonder how many men had paid the price for something that one of these doppelgangers had done. If, as he said, they worked as spies, I’m sure men were imprisoned or divorced or executed for the things done under their identities.
I’m no saint, and I’ve tried to dodge the consequences of my own misdeeds when I could, but I never actually tried to get some other poor bastard hanged for them.
Rather than knock those perfect teeth out of line, I returned the smile. “Well, thanks for the information. Any way I could get in contact, find out Sarah’s still healthy?” I didn’t say “alive.” I didn’t even want to think about that question.
“Right now, I’m not sure where she is, or even who is holding her,” he said. “But I’ll do my best to find out. In the meantime, don’t trust anyone who shows up looking like her.”
He pushed himself forward off the wall, nodded and touched his index finger to his forehead in that annoying faux salute that some people think is charming and roguish. I’ve been a charming rogue for centuries and it just irritates the hell out of me. I offered a hand for him to shake.
He took it after pausing a moment with a surprised look. Like he wasn’t used to shaking hands. Maybe they didn’t do that in his circles.
I looked him in the eye as I grasped his hand. “Is there any way I can contact you if I need to talk to you?”
“Take my card,” he said, handing me one. “And remember, anyone you meet might not be who you think they are. You’ll be watched. Don’t change your routine, don’t do anything that would tip them off that you know something’s wrong. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything.”
I walked back to my car, drove home slowly, thinking.
This was a lot to take in. I turned it over in my mind, processing it, waiting for the buzz of thoughts in my head to slow down enough to make sense of.
Did I believe him? Well, it was far fetched, but so was a lot of what I’d dealt with. And it did explain some odd things about Sarah’s behavior. And the price for not believing him and being wrong was high, whereas investigating a bogus tip was pretty low risk.
But how to investigate? If she had a double, a convincing one, then casual acquaintances wouldn’t know she was missing. She might not have missed a day of work, or had a long absence from her apartment. I could talk to people close to her, see if anybody had noticed her acting strange, but that was hard to judge.
And someone close to her could easily be a double and report back that I was suspicious.
So, could I meet possibly fake Sarah and try to pry a bit? Or would she pick up on it? What could I say or ask that only she would know? That somebody who could pose as a policeman or me or her mother couldn’t have gotten out of her?
I got back to my apartment. I started pacing. It annoyed the cat, but sometimes it helped me to think.
So, how to look for Sarah when all the usual ways to find somebody were out. And that person may not even be missing, and if she were, people would have seen her around anyway, so they wouldn’t know she was missing or believe she was if I told them. And my asking would seem suspicious, which would be very bad if she really did disappear or turn up–
I stopped. I felt like my heart was a lead weight in my chest, sinking down, dragging me toward hell. I couldn’t breathe. Just the idea of finishing that thought filled me with dread.
I forced myself to concentrate. Pulled in a big breath, blew it out. Come on, I told myself, focus. I’d seen horrible things before. You can’t help anybody if you freeze up.
If I started asking strange questions, and Sarah’s...body was found later, it would look bad for me. In fact, if I got too close, the easy out for her captors could be dumping her body and watching me go to jail. They could look like anybody. Do it, and walk away. They could even get what they were after if they posed as forensics techs and needed a sample from me to match to evidence found at the scene.
I had to force myself to breathe again.
It’s no good to shrink from the idea of what could happen. I had to consider the worst they could do, prepare for that. And from here, it looked like their worst was pretty bad. Maybe they’d shrink from murder, but maybe they wouldn’t. They’d already stooped to kidnapping, if Caruthers could be believed.
If that was his real name.
Not much point in investigating him. It was Sneaky Spy Trick 101 to give me some info and see what I did with it. That would tip them off that I was suspicious.
Damn it.
So. How to find Sarah without actually doing any legwork that might tip my hand. That wasn’t tricky or anything.
Short of a crystal ball or divining with sheep entrails–
Divining.
Sarah’s uncle Bob might be able to help. I’d met him last winter when she and I needed a place to hide. His off-grid house up in the White Mountains had been just the place.
While we were talking last winter, he claimed he could dowse for water. When he’d been in the Army, they’d tried to recruit him for a special project. He went into Special Forces, and Intelligence had wanted men who could find rebels or hidden weapons or downed pilots or whatever.
It sounded like New Age superstitious bullshit, but what I can do sounds like New Age superstitious bullshit. And I’d met people who could teleport and now some more who could shapeshift, so I wasn’t going to dismiss the idea that Bob might have some ability that seemed supernatural at first glance.
I picked up the phone and dialed his number. He answered on the third ring.
“Sean?”
“Hi Bob,” I said. “How’s things?”
“Can’t complain. House is patched up. Things are quiet. You’ll have to come up here some time soon. What’s going on wit
h you?”
I blew out a breath. I thought of how to explain everything that was happening without breaking into a hysterical cackle. “Things are...complicated. I have a question. It relates to things you did in the Army.” Give him a chance to decide if he wanted to talk, or felt safe to talk before I asked directly.
“Go ahead.”
“With the things you tried, could you dowse for a person? Find somebody who’s gone missing?”
“In theory,” he replied. “You missing somebody?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I got no place else to be,” he said.
So I told him my long story.
Chapter 7
BOB’S HOUSE UP IN the Great North Woods was about a three hour drive from Philips Mills. I got there late afternoon.
Bob answered the door in his summer dress uniform: tee-shirt, sandals and cargo shorts. He looked good. His beard might have had a bit more grey in it, as did the long hair pulled back into a ponytail, but he didn’t seem to have lost any muscle.
A patch covered his left eye. I felt a twinge of guilt about that. He’d been tortured by people who were looking for me and Sarah. So that was kinda my fault. But he got captured because he tipped off the wrong people while checking up on me, so he figured it was kinda his fault. I had gone in and rescued him, patched up some other injuries, but I couldn’t fix the eye. He chose to be grateful for the rescue instead of resentful about the loss, but I couldn’t help but feel like he gave me too much credit.
He looked down at me from his six and a half feet and took my hand in a vast, calloused grip, thumping me on the shoulder with his left hand. It was OK, I heal fast.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Worried. But I’m coping,” I replied.
“Come on in,” he said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
He led me to the kitchen table. I saw it was covered with maps.
“Have you done this kind of thing before?”
“Sort of,” he replied. “I’ve dowsed for odd things, and found them. The intelligence community wanted me to dowse for rebels or weapons, but that’s not easy to do if I don’t have a connection to them. I’ve found personal items for people. I’m hoping to reverse the process here.”
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