Mother Tyeesha hunched up her shoulders and shifted in her chair. “There’s a stiffness in Vaughan’s arms, a perfunctory quality to his words. As if he’s playacting.”
“It has been nearly nine years since you’ve seen him,” Belle said. “We’ve all changed.”
She wondered what Mother Tyeesha expected after so long. And after they had endured the rigorous physical and mental training Dr. Carlhagen had prescribed for them.
“Vaughan was always such a warm, loving boy.” Mother shook her head as if she couldn’t figure it out.
Belle didn’t understand what the old woman was talking about. Vaughan had been nothing but warm to Mother Tyeesha since arriving.
“It’s as if it’s not even him,” Mother Tyeesha said. “There’s too much guile in his eyes.” Her dark gaze lifted from her cup and met Belle’s.
Belle wanted to withdraw from that stare. It seemed to drink her in and at the same time weigh her on a scale. “Maybe it’s because you sent us off to a fate worse than death.” She kept her hands clasped tightly in front of her and refused to allow herself to fidget. Every instinct urged her to move out of Mother Tyeesha’s sight, which at Belle’s words had intensified to a knife-sharp focus.
“I sent you off to have the finest education on the planet,” Mother Tyeesha said, her voice lifting just enough at the end of the sentence to make it a question.
She doesn’t know, Belle realized. All these years, Mother Tyeesha had believed Dr. Carlhagen’s lie that the Scions were being prepared for a great destiny.
18
My Remaining $25 Million
Humphrey unbuttoned his white suit coat and yanked loose the blue bow tie, letting the tail ends fall across his lapels. With a great sigh of relief he undid the top button on his shirt. As loose as it was, it seemed to strangle him. He let out a sigh.
Even Dr. Carlhagen’s tie is trying tried suffocate me.
The irony of his situation—that he had to pretend to be the old man—grated on him. That he was apparently quite skilled at it made him queasy. If there was anyone he wanted to be unlike, it was Dr. Carlhagen.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Fending off the senator’s surprisingly energetic advances and getting her to bed had taken a lot more physical effort than it should have. He’d done so only with the help of three more glasses of wine. He’d practically had to carry her down the hall, until Alice appeared and took charge of the old woman.
Humphrey headed back towards Dr. Carlhagen’s office, planning to go through the drawers and search for information about the new Scion School the senator had mentioned. As he approached, he heard a voice coming from inside. It was Mr. Justin speaking to someone.
The door was closed. Humphrey pressed an ear to it. Vaughan’s voice came to him then, though he couldn’t understand what was being said. He decided that if Mr. Justin was talking to Vaughan there’d really be no reason to keep Humphrey out. He rapped a knuckle on the door and turned the knob and stepped in.
Mr. Justin stood behind the mahogany desk holding up a hand to silence Vaughan.
“Hello, Humphrey,” Mr. Justin said.
Humphrey shrugged off the suit coat and tossed it on a chair. He could hardly wait to be rid of the damn thing. Stretching until his shoulders and ankles popped, he paced around the room. “That was awful. Did you tell Vaughan what we learned?”
Mr. Justin’s face pinched in an odd way. “This is not Vaughan.”
Humphrey’s eyes snapped up. He stepped around to stand beside the butler and stared down at the twelve-inch-tall hologram. Realization made his jaw clamp tight.
“Dr. Carlhagen,” he said through gritted teeth. “What do you want?”
“He is demanding to speak to the senator,” Mr. Justin said. “I refused him.”
On closer inspection, it was clear from the holo’s face that he was Dr. Carlhagen. On the surface, he looked like Vaughan, but somehow, his expression had twisted in a way peculiar to the old man.
“So,” Dr. Carlhagen said, “my erstwhile Scion is playing at being headmaster. And you, Mr. Justin, are a traitor. I know what you’re up to. But if you think you can use my Scion as your puppet, you have no idea the contingencies I have in place.”
“I only serve the best interests of the Scions,” Mr. Justin said. “I have nothing else to say to you.” With that, Mr. Justin left, shutting the door quietly behind him.
“What have you done to Belle?” Humphrey demanded.
“Done to her?” Dr. Carlhagen said, smiling. “I don’t want to do anything to her. She is very valuable to me. In less than a year she’ll be overwritten and I’ll get my remaining twenty-five million dollars from her Progenitor.” Dr. Carlhagen frowned at that. “I never should have discounted so deeply for the early Progenitors.” He shook off his momentary disappointment and looked Humphrey up and down. “I see you’re wearing my suit. You’re such a disappointment. You could never fill it.”
“Your disapproval of me,” Humphrey said, “is the best thing I’ve heard all day. Speaking of which, this has been a long one and I want to go to bed. You’re not going to speak to the senator. She just passed out in her room, quite drunk.”
“And what are you going to do when they find her Scion has gone missing?”
Humphrey froze. How did Dr. Carlhagen know that Summer was missing? Humphrey had only found out himself a half hour earlier. Had Mr. Justin told him?
“I’m going to deny all knowledge of it,” Humphrey said. “And from the state of the senator’s health, I don’t expect her to live more than a few weeks, and then it will be a moot point.”
“I cannot impress upon you enough,” Dr. Carlhagen said, “how critical it is that you secure her Scion and transfer the senator. She’s perhaps the second most important Progenitor of the lot. If something happened to her . . .”
“What?” Humphrey asked, but Dr. Carlhagen had clamped his mouth shut. Humphrey wanted to demand more information about the new Scion School, but he didn’t feel that revealing that knowledge would be wise. Dr. Carlhagen wouldn’t confide anything to Humphrey.
He wondered where Dr. Carlhagen was that he could communicate by holodesk. The answer followed right after. Mother Tyeesha’s. That was a fine place for him, Humphrey thought. As angry as Dr. Carlhagen was, he had no power to do anything about what happened in the Scion School. Once the senator and her people were gone—however that came to pass—then he could worry about Dr. Carlhagen.
Smiling at the pleasure of it, he disconnected from Dr. Carlhagen and set about searching through his papers.
19
Seems an Odd Topic
“You’ve had suspicions about the school, haven’t you?” Belle said to Mother Tyeesha in a bare whisper.
“Suspicions that something was not right?” Mother leaned forward and grasped Belle’s hands, forced them apart. Mother’s palms were hot, dry and rough. “Always. But no proof.”
Belle closed her eyes and barely resisted squeezing those hands and holding onto them like a lifeline.
“Tell me, child,” Mother Tyeesha urged.
Belle pulled a hand free and took a long sip of the tea, grimacing as the bitter liquid eased her dry throat. She swallowed again, trying to pull back the bitterness she felt toward Mother Tyeesha. And yet, why shouldn’t she feel bitter? If the woman had suspicions, why hadn’t she sought answers?
“You’re telling me you don’t know what happens at the Scion School?” Belle said. “You don’t know that we’re clones?”
“I did know that. Dr. Carlhagen said that the wealthy and privileged had entered a secret program. He said that you children would one day be welcomed back into their families and raised as their children.”
Belle let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t think you will even believe the truth.”
“Try me,” Mother Tyeesha said. “Please.”
Belle explained it all. About how the Progenitors arrived on the Scions’ eighteenth birthday, were introduced as the Scions�
� parents, and then taken for a “medical test,” one which transferred the mind of the Progenitor into the Scion. “It erases the Scion from existence, Mother. All so the Progenitor can live another life.”
As Belle told the story, Mother Tyeesha’s grip hardened on her hand. Her craggy face tightened, and tears streamed down the wrinkly waterways of her cheeks. Belle wrested her hand free and gripped her sides, shivering. “I’ve seen the machine. I’ve seen the bodies of the dead Progenitors. That means that Vin, Dante, Sarah, and Ping . . . They’re all gone.”
They fell into a long silence, and only Vaughan’s voice, a baritone rumble down the hall, disturbed the quiet.
“So why did Dr. Carlhagen let you leave the campus?” Mother Tyeesha asked.
Such a simple question. Such an obvious one. Belle berated herself for not having figured out an answer already. She opted for the truth. “Dr. Carlhagen is dead. Vaughan and I decided to find a way off of the island. That’s why he’s using your holodesk. He’s trying to contact someone to come get us.”
Mother Tyeesha’s lips turned down, and an eyebrow arched high on her forehead. “But that’s impossible. There’s no communication connection to the outside from here. Even with all his leverage over me, Dr. Carlhagen never trusted me. He figured I would reveal the school’s existence.”
The woman seemed to shrink before Belle’s eyes as the weight of her part in the Scion School settled over her shoulders.
“What kind of leverage did he have?” Belle asked.
Instead of answering, Mother Tyeesha straightened and cast a glance at the hallway toward her office. “Tell me something. Did Vaughan spend much time alone with Dr. Carlhagen?”
Belle didn’t know what had happened after Vaughan had been knocked unconscious by Elias. Vaughan said that he’d been strapped to a bed somewhere in the hacienda and that Dr. Carlhagen had come to him occasionally.
“Not by choice,” Belle said.
“And did Dr. Carlhagen ever talk to you about Children’s Villa and the nursery and teaching staff?”
“Not to me. Why?”
“Well, I found it odd that Vaughan asked about Robin and Marcus.”
Vaughan couldn’t have known their names unless Dr. Carlhagen had told him. Or unless Dr. Carlhagen was him. Belle kept the realization under wraps. “Dr. Carlhagen must have told him, I suppose.”
Mother Tyeesha’s eyes crinkled. “Seems an odd topic to bring up at all.” She was going to say more but clamped her mouth shut as Vaughan’s footsteps came down the hallway. His jaw was clamped tightly and a muscle beneath one eye twitched with barely suppressed fury.
He forced a smile. “Would you excuse us, Mother Tyeesha? I need to speak to Belle privately.”
Mother Tyeesha clapped her hands together and grinned. It, too, looked forced. “Certainly. I need to go check on my classroom. Hopefully the children haven’t torn it apart.”
She cast a long, cautioning glance at Belle, then left.
By the look on Vaughan’s face, his conversation hadn’t gone well. Belle drank the rest of her tea, this time savoring the bitterness on her tongue.
20
Whoever Possesses Her
“So?” Belle asked Vaughan. “Did you reach the outside? Is a boat coming?”
“No. Things are complicated.”
Belle imagined they were, since Mother Tyeesha had told her that there was no outside connection from her office. “Who did you talk to?”
Vaughan threw up his hands, nostrils flaring. “That traitor Mr. Justin. He’s using Humphrey to take control of the school.”
“We’re not going to be able to do anything about the school from here anyway,” Belle said. “We have to get away, find a place of safety. Maybe we’ll just have to get off the island ourselves. Driving here, I saw a skiff by the docks.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Vaughan barked, eyes blazing. “We can’t take some little boat across seventy kilometers of open water. You have no concept how big the ocean is.” The twist of disgust on Vaughan’s lips was pure Dr. Carlhagen.
Belle’s face burned, and she looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice suddenly soft and warm. “It seems like every time I get angry, he creeps back to the surface. I hate this. I hate being two minds in one body.”
He slipped off his chair to kneel next to her. Just as Mother Tyeesha had done, he took her hands in his.
She refused to look at him. He leaned low, nearly putting his head in her lap until she had to meet his eyes.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I need you. You’re the only reason I’m getting this chance to prove myself. With your help, I know we can get away from here. Together.”
Sense data, she thought. Such sweet, welcome sense data.
She wondered why resisting this flow of input was even harder than turning away from his abuse just moments before. She lifted her head, holding Vaughan’s gaze, commanding herself to stay rational. His beautiful face hovered so close to hers. His large hands held hers, making her feel small.
As hard as it had been to decline Mother Tyeesha’s embrace, this was a thousand times harder. She wanted nothing more than to pull Vaughan’s lips to hers. But if she gave in, if she dipped below the surface of that desire, she would never come up for air.
With great effort, she gently pulled her hands free of his. “What do you propose we do?”
His jaw thrust forward, betraying a slight irritation, but then he stood and paced the floor.
“There’s only one way out of this for us, I think. I have to convince Senator Bentilius that I am Dr. Carlhagen. Then we ride out on her helicopter.”
“That should be simple enough,” Belle said. “You seem to know a lot that Dr. Carlhagen knew. The problem is getting in contact with her.”
“Yes. Yes, it is. Damn that Mr. Justin!” He stopped at the kitchen counter and held onto it, swaying. “And damn this dizziness.” He licked his lips. “I just need a few andleprixen, and I’ll be able to think more clearly.”
“We don’t have any. Why don’t you get some sleep? You’ll be of no use if you pass out.”
He nodded absently, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. He shook it off. “We have to get out of here.”
“Why?” Belle demanded.
“Because once they realize Summer is gone, they’ll search here right away. They’ll search the docks, too.”
“What does it matter if they find us? You want to talk to the senator, don’t you?”
“Her guards won’t listen to me at all if they think I’m merely another escaped Scion. I need leverage.” He brightened and snapped his fingers. “Summer. The senator’s Scion is the key to this whole thing. Whoever possesses her has the bargaining power.”
Possesses? That choice of words sounded even more like Dr. Carlhagen than Vaughan’s burst of rage earlier. Was she going to have to put up with these erratic swings the rest of her life?
But what choice did she have? She needed him to get off the island.
She needed him. Period.
Vaughan sat down heavily and put his head in his hands. “Ugh, this cursed headache. I must have my pills.” He pressed his palms to his temples. “If Summer sneaked out of the gate behind us, she’s probably to the docks by now. We’ve got to go get her. And we need to do it now, before the senator’s people realize she’s gone. Yes. And once I have her, I can force Senator Bentilius to talk to me. I’m positive that I can convince her that I’m Dr. Carlhagen. I know things about her that Mr. Justin doesn’t even know. And that means Humphrey can’t know them either. We’ll turn Summer over in exchange for a ride back to North America.”
“Do you really trust the senator that much? What’s to stop her from pushing us out of the helicopter?”
Vaughan smiled. It was a strange smile, oddly filthy, as if he had some salacious secret. “Trust me, my dear. If Maxine believes I’m Dr. Carlhagen, she’ll want to keep me around.” He looked at his hands, admiring them. “Espe
cially in this packaging.”
Belle stood and moved to the opposite side of the room, covering her retreat by taking a quick look out the front door. Vaughan was clearly losing his battle with Dr. Carlhagen at the moment. “Why?”
“Because Senator Bentilius and I—I mean she and Dr. Carlhagen—have had a longstanding love affair.”
Belle covered a flinch by fidgeting with the rubber band holding her ponytail. What she didn’t need was another competitor for Vaughan’s attentions. If the senator ended up in Summer’s body and then sought to rekindle her relationship with Dr. Carlhagen . . .
She gritted her teeth. Summer had been a shameless flirt, fawning over Humphrey at every opportunity the past few months. It hadn’t worked on him because—for reasons Belle would never understand—he’d been head over heels for Jacey. But if a woman in Summer’s body focused that kind of obsessive adoration on Vaughan . . .
No. Summer is barely more than a child.
Vaughan is too noble to succumb to such temptations. Isn’t he?
The thought that he wasn’t completely Vaughan returned to her. She wished she could have just a few weeks of uninterrupted quiet with him. She was sure that, with enough rest, he could recover completely. In time, he would come to appreciate Belle’s better qualities even more.
“I have another idea,” she said. She dug in a pocket for the paper she had surreptitiously taken from Dr. Carlhagen’s office. She unfolded it and spread it on the kitchen table. “This is a list of all the Progenitors and Scions. Using Dr. Carlhagen’s memories, you should be able to tell me which Progenitors are less important. Isn’t there another Scion we could give to the senator? Perhaps one that belongs to a Progenitor who isn’t so powerful in the outside world. Maybe one who’s a bit older? In fact, the senator might enjoy a change for her next go-around at life. Someone prettier than Summer.”
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