Replica (7 page)

“There’s no use wishing Nate didn’t act like Nate,” Nadia said. “I’m not stupid enough to think he’s magically going to change.”

“You’re right, he’s not. Which means
you
have to.”

Nadia wanted to slap herself. She’d walked right into that one.

“I did what I thought was right at the time. Nate suggested he was going to make some kind of trouble if I didn’t leave the party with him. If I’d known what was going to happen, of course I’d have called his bluff. But I didn’t know. How could I?”

Gerri pursed her lips. “I know hindsight is twenty-twenty. But still, even if Nathaniel behaved like a complete boor, that would have reflected poorly on
him,
not on you.”

“And if he’d created some kind of international incident, it would have been my fault.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Gerri snapped, her narrowed eyes and the intensity of her disapproval making her resemblance to their mother more obvious. “No one’s going to hold a sixteen-year-old kid responsible for the Chairman Heir’s actions.”

Heat rushed into Nadia’s cheeks, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of her sister’s dismissive reference to her as a “kid” or because she realized the ridiculousness of her own argument. She might have felt guilty if Nate had done something scandalous in retaliation for her refusal, but that hardly would have made his actions her fault.

“You went off alone with him because you
wanted
to,” Gerri concluded. “I was sixteen once myself, you know. I understand the lure of hormones, and I even understand Nathaniel’s appeal to a girl your age. But you’re not some little nobody Employee who can afford to indulge her every whim. You have to think about consequences, not just to yourself, but to all of us.”

Nadia wanted to sink into the softness of her bed and disappear. How could Gerri simultaneously be so right and so wrong? Obviously, Nadia’s hormones had nothing to do with why she’d let Nate draw her away from the party, but she was pretty sure there
had
been some part of her that had wanted to go with him, despite the risks. If she were being perfectly honest with herself, she’d have to admit that she sometimes enjoyed—or at least envied—Nate’s recklessness. The idea of taking part in it could be … supremely tempting.

Unable to think of a good reply, Nadia settled for silence, picking at the loose edge of the tape that held her IV in place. She was ready to have the thing out and get out of bed, if only to escape Gerri’s penetrating gaze.

“I guess you already know you made a mistake,” Gerri continued in a conciliatory tone, “even if you won’t admit it. But what’s past is past. Tell me what happened at the security station. Mother never could get a decent explanation for why they held you for more than fifteen hours. I refuse to believe even a black-hearted bastard like Mosely would think you’re an assassin.”

Nadia felt sure Mosely had at least briefly entertained the notion, as ridiculous as it might be. Slowly, reluctantly, she told her older sister about her interview with Paxco’s chief of security. It was like picking at a scab, and though the fever was gone, she started shivering anyway.

“What are you going to do?” Gerri finally asked, chewing on her lip.

Nadia fought to contain another shiver. “I don’t have a whole lot of choices,” she said morosely. It probably would have been better for her if she hadn’t received medical treatment last night. As long as she was sick and feverish, she couldn’t be expected to spend much time with Nate, and the less time she spent with him, the less Mosely would expect her to learn.

“No,” Gerri agreed. “But you’re going to have to be very careful. Nathaniel would not take well to you conspiring with Mosely, even under the circumstances.”

That was something Nadia didn’t need to be told. If something Nadia did or said helped Mosely locate Bishop, Nate would never forgive her. It wouldn’t matter that her future and the future of her entire family rested on her shoulders. He would never stomach betrayal, not unless his Replica was a substantially different person from the one she’d known. Their marriage had been arranged by their parents, and Nate and Nadia didn’t have much say in it, but she was sure Nate would find a way to convince his father to pick someone else if he got angry enough.

“Don’t be afraid,” Gerri urged, taking Nadia’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “We’ll get through this. Do you know
anything
about Kurt Bishop that Mosely isn’t likely to know? Anything that might help?”

“He’s Nate’s valet,” Nadia said. “Why would I know anything about him? Other than that he was born in the Basement and isn’t ashamed of it.”

Gerri thought about it a moment, then fixed Nadia with a frank look. “If you knew anything more, would you tell me?”

Nadia swallowed hard, not sure how to answer. She loved her sister, but Gerri would never stick her neck out for someone like Bishop. Not because she was a bad person, but because she would tolerate no risk to the family.

“I was questioned for fifteen hours yesterday,” she finally said. “I’m not an idiot. I know how much trouble I’m in, even though I had nothing to do with the murder. I told Mosely everything I know.”

“I thought there might be things you’d be willing to tell me that you wouldn’t tell him,” Gerri prompted. “I have my own resources, you know. Maybe I can help find Bishop without you having to tell Mosely anything. If Bishop could be captured without you having revealed anything to Mosely…”

Nadia took a deep breath and squelched her knee-jerk, angry response. Gerri was just being practical, trying to protect their family from Mosely without destroying the potential marriage arrangement. But sometimes practicality made Nadia want to scream with frustration.

“Do you even care that Bishop isn’t guilty?” she asked, unable to remain wisely silent.

Gerri frowned. “You can’t know that. There were witnesses who saw him fleeing the scene of the crime with blood on him. That sounds about as damning as evidence can get.”

Maybe it did, if you actually believed it. Maybe she was being naive, but no matter how she looked at it, Nadia couldn’t imagine Bishop hurting Nate. Certainly not
killing
him. No, Bishop was nothing but an easy scapegoat, a powerless Basement-dweller who could be very publicly brought to justice in very little time and with a minimum of fuss, at least in theory. Was Mosely even entertaining the possibility that Bishop wasn’t guilty? It hadn’t seemed so to Nadia, and she hated the thought that the real killer—whoever it was—was going to get away with it so easily.

“But if the evidence didn’t point to him,” Nadia persisted, “would you care? If you were sure he wasn’t guilty, would you still cheerfully hand him over to Mosely to be executed?”

The look in Gerri’s eyes turned flat and hard. “I wouldn’t ‘cheerfully’ turn over my worst enemy. But if turning over an innocent man was what I had to do to protect my family, then I’d do it. I certainly hope you’d do the same.”

Nadia averted her gaze. Gerri was right, and she knew it. Her first duty was to her own family.

“Tell me you’re not going to risk my children’s future for the sake of some lowlife Basement-dweller who’s probably guilty as hell,” Gerri insisted when Nadia didn’t answer quickly enough. “Nathaniel should have left the creature in the Basement where he belonged.”

Nadia’s chest tightened with the effort of holding in her outrage. She’d be the first to admit she didn’t like Bishop, but he was neither a lowlife nor a “creature.” It wasn’t his fault he’d been born in the Basement. No doubt his life there had been unsavory, and he had probably done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but he should still be entitled to a certain level of decency and fairness.

But hers was the minority opinion among Executives, who felt that providing the most basic necessities for human survival—food, shelter, and rudimentary health care—was an act of unparalleled generosity toward Basement-dwellers, who contributed nothing to society at large, were unemployed, and generally unemployable. That most were born into it and couldn’t escape didn’t lessen the taint of their status.

But what Bishop should be entitled to was irrelevant. Nadia had already promised Mosely that she would be his spy, and she couldn’t afford lofty ideals.

“Have you ever known me not to do my duty?” she asked Gerri, bitterness dripping from her every word. Most of the world envied the members of the Executive class for their money and power and privileges. Most of the world had no idea how much personal freedom those privileges cost. Nadia would give it all up in a heartbeat if she could be an ordinary Employee who could choose her own path in life. But that was a luxury she would never have.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” she finished. She couldn’t blame Gerri for wanting to secure her children’s future, but she also couldn’t quite stand to look into her sister’s face anymore. “Just don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

Gerri made a little snorting sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. Nadia risked a quick glance at her sister and saw from the tightness around her mouth and eyes that
she
wasn’t happy about it, either. Which made Nadia feel just a little better, even if it didn’t change the ugly reality.

CHAPTER FOUR

Nate
began his first morning as a Replica much the way he remembered starting every other day of his life since he’d left normal classes and graduated to “on-the-job” training. Which, granted, had only been a handful of months ago.

He made liberal use of the snooze button on his alarm clock, refusing to drag himself out of bed until he was sure to be behind schedule for the rest of the day. Usually, it was Kurt who eventually persuaded him to get out of bed, but today Nate had to do it himself. His butler had offered to serve as his valet until a replacement could be found, but Nate had brushed the suggestion aside with something akin to horror.

His breakfast was served with a printout of his daily agenda on the side. Hartman, his majordomo and self-appointed social secretary, had long ago learned that Nate had a tendency to neglect his online calendar and thought the printout made it more likely Nate would show up where and when he was supposed to. Glancing at the agenda, Nate didn’t know whether to laugh or scream when he saw he was scheduled to shoot a commercial for Replicas in the afternoon. You’d think his father could wait at least a day or two before trying to profit from his own son’s death.

Eating breakfast by himself made Nate feel ridiculously alone, though it wasn’t like Kurt usually ate breakfast with him. He couldn’t risk his other servants finding out that Kurt was more than just his valet. And yet knowing that Kurt was far away, out of his reach, made the whole apartment seem bigger and emptier. The eggs tasted bland, the toast dry, the coffee too sweet. Nothing was quite right.

Nate ignored the business briefs a truly dedicated heir would have pored over during breakfast. Sometimes, he skimmed them to keep his father off his back, but stories of mergers and acquisitions hadn’t held his attention
before
he’d been murdered. They seemed even more massively boring and unimportant now, so instead he checked out the media coverage of yesterday’s events. Even though he knew better.

He was the lead story for every news and gossip show on the net, and every story seemed to lead off with the footage of him biting off the reporter’s head, his language bleeped out to protect delicate ears. This was often followed by footage of Nadia exiting the security station after her questioning, although all you could see were her feet because of how carefully the security officers were blocking her from view. He doubted that would do much to protect her from the gossipmongers.

Nate forced himself to shut off his handheld before he was tempted to smash it against the wall.

According to his agenda, his first formal obligation of the day was a two-hour board meeting at Paxco Headquarters, but there was no way he could face that. Sitting in a room with a bunch of self-important fossils with sticks up their asses as they droned on and on about pointless crap was the last thing he wanted to do.

Knowing he would pay for it later, Nate sent word to his father that he was “indisposed” following the trauma of his birth from the artificial womb. The Chairman wouldn’t buy it, naturally, so Nate decided not to be home when the Wrath of Chairman Hayes hit.

Nate had spent a long and mostly sleepless night wondering where Kurt was and if he was safe. Maybe with all those dollars missing, Nate should assume Kurt was out of Paxco’s reach, but the unrelenting tightness in his gut wouldn’t let him relax. Besides, even if Mosely was content to blame the murder on Kurt in absentia,
Nate
wasn’t. He wanted to know who had killed him, and why. He wanted the bastard to pay for what he’d done, and since Kurt appeared to be the last person to have seen Nate alive, he might be able to shed some light on what had happened.

The first step in his private investigation had to be to talk to Nadia. She might not know what had happened to him, but she could fill in some of the blanks.

Nate left his apartment, “forgetting” his phone so that he wouldn’t be too easy to reach when the Chairman went on the rampage. He even ordered his driver and his bodyguard to turn off their phones. He pretended not to notice how uneasy the order made them. At least, he
thought
it was the order that made them uneasy. It was possible it was the fact that he was a Replica that bothered them, but if that was the case, they were just going to have to get over it.

Satisfied that he’d bought himself at least an hour or two of free time, Nate directed his driver to take him to the Lake Towers. He’d tried to call Nadia last night, but had been told she was too ill to come to the phone. He wasn’t sure if her illness was genuine or merely an excuse, but he couldn’t blame her for wanting to go to ground. Being around Mosely gave him the creeps, and he couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Nadia to endure an entire day of questioning. He hoped she’d had more sense than he and had avoided watching the media vultures use her misfortunes as entertainment.