He got up and went outside to stand on the rear deck, leaning on the rail to watch the dusk fall. Well, they could always start over with a new lawyer. Mike didn't answer to the hired help. It was the dent to Ian's confidence that was the real problem.
He's got the backbone for a fight, though. I bloody well hurt all over.
Eventually the back door opened and Mike walked up to lean on the rail next to him. Rob was trying to think of a new apology when Mike put his hand on his back.
"Sorry, buddy. What a goddamn drama queen. I apologize."
Rob did a theatrical lip wobble, relieved that he was forgiven. "Our first row. I'm going home to Mother."
"I must be hormonal or something."
"Well, if we can't take a pop at each other now and again and shake hands, we're not real mates, are we?"
"I'm even more invested in Ian than I realised. That's kind of scary."
"I'm not going to fight you for custody."
Mike didn't smile. "Yes, I know what my issues are. I'm that goddamn cat."
"What cat?"
"Oh, a broody cat. Can you call cats broody? Whatever. I just want to make everything right for Ian and I can't. Not even with my resources."
"Welcome to the classic dad experience, Zombie. Okay, I'd better go and talk to him. How pissed off is he with me?"
"Not at all. He always finds a reason not to feel hard done by."
"I'll tell you something," Rob said. "He could punch the shit out of me. And not just because he's younger."
"What do you mean, that this is something linked to his genes?"
"No idea, but you can look at the bruises." Rob straightened up and braced himself to face Ian. "I need go and unfuck this."
When he tapped on the bedroom door, Ian was reading in the sitting room of his suite. It was actually hard to think of him as Ian for a moment. Rob began to realise just how much of a leper Ian might become. It didn't bode well.
"Hi mate. How are you feeling?"
Ian looked up. His eyes still hadn't changed like the rest of his features. That was something. "Bruised. You?"
"Yeah, I've got some lumps." I'm going to have be careful with you, son. "How are we going sort this morphing thing, then?"
"I'm meditating. Not now, obviously. I've got photos of the way I looked before. I'll keep concentrating on them." He was reading something on the tablet that Mike had given him. "I think that really was me, you know."
"Can I do anything? Talk? Sod off?" Rob glanced around the room, which was as predictably as clean and tidy as a barracks. The black and white photo of Maggie's dad stood on the windowsill. Rob wandered over to take another look. "Maybe if you stop trying and get an early night, it'll help."
"Maybe."
When Rob picked up the photo, he felt like he was intruding on a private, silent conversation. That picture must have meant the world to Ian. By the look of it, it wasn't a professional job, more like the a typical snap taken by a mate, a bit posed and self-conscious with the focus as much on the hardware as the man. But as he studied David Dunlop, he realised what he was drawn to: the man's face, and in particular his eyes. He was clean-shaven with buzz-cut hair that could have been anywhere between brown and mid-blonde – perhaps even ginger. It was hard to tell from a black and white photo. But the eyes were familiar.
If Rob imagined David Dunlop a lot younger and darker, then he'd seen that face before. Is that wishful thinking? If it's not, then I bet I know how Ian comes up with the faces. Maybe Ian hadn't realised how he was doing it.
Rob handed him the picture. "Why don't you take a look at that and compare it with your last photo?"
Ian took a few minutes to scrutinize both images. Eventually he shrugged.
"I hadn't noticed before. That's what comes of not believing the mirror for so long."
It certainly couldn't be a family resemblance, but Rob didn't point that out. Ian didn't need any more reminders of what he wasn't. Somehow, though, he'd reproduced some of the features of a man who couldn't have been related to him. He'd made that happen himself. Whatever took, that ability was still somewhere within Ian. But he was the only one who could find it.
He'd certainly found the ability to punch hard and fast. Rob wondered what else lay within, waiting to be let out.
KWA STAFF RESTAURANT, LANSING
SEPTEMBER.
Optical illusions were a bitch.
This puzzle couldn't be decoded or calculated. Dru would either see the solution, or she wouldn't, and there was no process or knowledge that she could apply to work it out.
She put her sandwich to one side and tried defocusing. No matter how long she stared at the apparently random black and white pattern, her brain still couldn't form an image. How much longer should she give it before turning to the back page for the solution? Her eyes only had one chance to get this. Once the image was revealed, she could never go back to seeing the illusion in its raw, unsolved state. She found it fascinating that a written answer – a description, not an image – could instantly turn the random patches into a clear picture. It said a lot about the way the brain was wired.
Dru hated giving in. If she looked at the answer, she couldn't avoid seeing the other solutions and ruining the rest of the puzzles. She laid the book face down on the table and took another bite of her sandwich.
It was her first visit to the staff restaurant in a couple of months. When she lunched there, she created her own exclusion zone. She wasn't sure now if nobody tried to sit at her table because she read while she ate, or because she was the corporate Grim Reaper. People took furtive glances at her, probably thinking she knew their fates in the reorganization.
A shadow fell across her table. Alex was standing over her. He nodded at the puzzle book.
"They're weird, aren't they?"
"Optical illusions? You said it." Dru pushed her chair back a little. Maybe he was going to join her. "It's the black and white ones that get me. I just can't see this one, and I daren't look at the answers and spoil the rest."
"Want to know?"
Dru dithered for a moment. Perhaps she was making a religion of not quitting. Persistence could get out of hand. "Okay."
"It's a horse running through trees."
As soon as she turned the book over and looked again at the black and white pattern, the randomness had vanished and she saw the horse. It would always be a horse now. She could never un-see it or imagine something else.
"Damn," she said. "So it is."
"But there's still no actual horse. That's the crazy thing. You fill in the gaps around a few fixed points that could be a horse."
Dru had learned never to underestimate people with no formal education in her field. "Why do we all eventually see the same picture, then?"
"Maybe because we all learn what a horse ought to look like. Generally speaking. The main points. Makes you wonder what someone would see if they didn't know what a horse was."
It had the makings of a great debate. Dru indicated the tubular steel chair next to her. "Are you going to join me?"
"Thanks, ma'am, but I was just passing through and I saw you looking like you were going to pull your hair out. Looks real nice, by the way. I almost didn't recognise you when you first had it done."
Alex gave her a polite nod and went on his way. The brief exchanges she had with him were often the most enlightening. With the puzzle solved, her thoughts went straight back to Kinnery, and Weaver's apparent acceptance of his confession.
Something still didn't fit.
Weaver had played her the recording of the Skype call about Maggie Dunlop. But no penny dropped. There was no eureka moment when the random patches became the horse. Kinnery's story didn't explain how the leak about Maggie playing the mule – or the guinea pig – became the rumour about a transgenic child. It didn't explain why she'd tell a friend about it. And it didn't explain why Kinnery had sold his share in KWA, no matter how big the bill for his divorce settlement, and moved to a more expensive city in
Canada.
It doesn't fit. It doesn't gel. Still too many gaps.
Then there was the one detail that really nagged at her. It certainly didn't explain the Seattle phone number.
That was an open door again, banging in the wind at night and keeping her awake. Kinnery's story about his security adviser almost held water until she heard the Skype recording. He'd just skipped over Weaver's comment about using the Seattle number as a starting point to look for old friends based in Washington. Dru would have expected him to remind Shaun what the Seattle number actually was, and correct him. But he didn't even react.
He's a goddamn liar. If he's lied for years, it's second nature now.
If Weaver didn't have his own doubts, it was because he knew something she didn't, or because he wasn't as smart as she thought.
Or maybe he's got another plan he hasn't shared with me.
Dru finished her sandwich and went back to her office, her old suite on the third floor, not the basement. It was sunlit and felt almost threatening now, an exposed arena with too many people walking in and out of the HR department and too many directions to watch. Knowing how insecurity took hold was no defence against falling prey to it. She got an odd look from Bobbie as she unlocked her door, but she didn't understand why until she logged in and read the e-mail addressed to all HR staff, tagged as confidential and bearing the header HR STAFF CHANGES.
Dru got that shivery, bristling feeling in her scalp as she started to read it.
It'll be me. The bastards. It'll be me. Just try it, Weaver.
But no, it wasn't: the casualty was Sheelagh, her boss.
She was out the door – culled, pink-slipped, surplus to requirements. Halbauer's head of HR was taking over and Sheelagh Thompson was leaving. Dru could breathe again. When the axe was swung within your own castle walls, you the last to know, especially if you were the target. But the blade had missed her. That was all she could afford to care about.
Dru could see Bobbie through the frosted glass panel in the door. She tapped to come in.
"You saw the e-mail?" Bobbie asked.
Dru nodded. "Yes. Before you ask, no, I've never met the incoming manager."
"Are they going to honour our vacation arrangements?"
Comradely solidarity was a wonderful thing. Perhaps everyone would sign a nice sorry-to-see-you-go card. "I hope so. I already booked my time off over Thanksgiving."
Dru wondered what this did to the hierarchy in the department, but she was determined not to get involved in jockeying for position. She went back to reading her mail. The thought of Kinnery's patchy story wouldn't let her go. She made an appointment to see Weaver in the morning.
Her paper files from the Ringer investigation were locked away at home. There was nothing on the premises to show that it had ever taken place – not from her end, anyway – and therefore there was nothing for an incoming manager to stumble across. That was the way it had to be.
She didn't need to wait until the next day to see Weaver, though. As she left for the day, she stepped out of the elevator into the parking garage and saw him locking his car, heading into the building.
"Hi Dru," he said. "You heard about Sheelagh, I take it."
"I did. Have you got five minutes?"
"Sure."
"I know you said Kinnery was done and dusted, but I have serious doubts."
Weaver shuffled his briefcase impatiently from hand to hand. He'd obviously rushed back for something important, but she had his attention. "What, the phone number again?"
"Mostly, but there are still other gaps that worry me."
"I'm really hoping I've buried whatever ill-advised actions Charles may have taken. Is there a good reason for disturbing the soil again?"
"Is that an instruction to stop keeping an eye open?"
Weaver tilted his head slightly as if he was considering the implications. "Anything active runs the risk of starting this off again." He lowered his voice. "But you've still got a budget. I don't want PIs hired, people contacted, or anything that'll get noticed. Passive observation only. And if you locate anything, you stop immediately and hand it over to me. That's as far as you need to go."
"Okay." Well, that was a definite order to carry on digging. "Understood."
"Do you mind my asking what you think is still missing?"
"There's a man involved," she said. She still didn't want to mention anything too specific, like names. That just created expectations she might not be able to deliver on. "Maggie might have had a male relative."
"The one The Slide mentioned? Well, any gene therapy she underwent wouldn't have been germline, so she couldn't pass it to a son. She'd have been forty-plus at the time anyway. You think Charles had a second subject?"
"The point is that I can't make a son, husband, or grandson fit the story as it stands without finding out more. If the number was Maggie's and not Kinnery's security, then it raises questions about the timing of calls and who had access after her death. We know she's dead. That's all we can verify from an independent source. The rest is all Kinnery's word."
"I see what you mean," Weaver said. "But no dramas, okay?"
"Don't worry. My ex-husband never saw it coming either."
Weaver didn't smile. "Keep me posted."
Dru drove home, working out what she could monitor now without needing to tell or involve anyone else. There were keyword alerts and any number of feeds, and she could observe Dunlop Ranch in a roundabout way. Realtors would know if the property was put up for sale. It might have already been sold, and if it hadn't been, a relative or someone close to Maggie now owned it. Trying to get a copy of a will was too risky. Dru would have to approach this sideways.
While Clare was doing her homework, Dru shut herself in her study to set up a watch system of alerts and feeds. She started typing keywords and wildcards.
Shape-shifter. Shape shifter. Morph. Morph*. Trickster. Werewolf. She struggled to think of more terms. Change form. Changeling. Polymorph. Mimic. Mimic*. Ringer.
It was probably worth adding surnames and locations as well. Dunlop Ranch. Athel Ridge. Maggie Dunlop. Ian Dunlop. Charles Kinnery. Shaun Weaver. Who else? There were a couple of scientists whose names had cropped up in the Ringer files, plus the senator who'd been involved, the one Weaver called to cover his ass. Adding those might at least filter out thousands of irrelevant pages at some stage.
Lawrenson. Dominici. Brayne.
She'd add more as they occurred to her. The next step was to bookmark sites and forums that might discuss shape-shifting. Zoe Murray would have this information network at her fingertips; it was a shame they couldn't collaborate. The realtor sites would probably take more hands-on searching and maybe even some calls, but at least Dru had an automated eye on the places most likely to yield results.
But this could take years. I'm obsessive. It's official. And If I go crazy reading those UFO forums, I'll make a master's thesis out of it.
The timeline of events would be the key. Dru tried to avoid pet theories in case they blinded her to better ones, but the one lead that kept surfacing and waving to her was the significance of the British guy who took that call.
If he wasn't Ian Dunlop, then he probably knew where Ian was.
CHALTON FARM, WESTERHAM FALLS
ONE WEEK LATER.
The old face still hadn't returned.
No amount of meditating, willing, and pleading with whoever might be Up There had changed a thing. Ian psyched himself up in front of the bedroom mirror, torn between accepting this was the look he'd have to hang on to and busting a gut to get back to the way he'd been. Rob had never explained how to tell the difference between giving up too soon and knowing when make the best of a bad job.
But this isn't me. I don't really like this face.
He still had his new muscles, though. That was something.
Livvie said a few months of meditation caused physical changes in the brain that showed up on scans. This stuff was real. But it wasn't doing a go
ddamn thing to turn him back to the way he wanted to be. He kept a split-screen image on his phone, made up of the photo of David Dunlop and the picture that Livvie had taken on the way back from the garden centre, scaled to match. He concentrated on the twin images for hours until it gave him a headache. Something should have triggered whatever it was in his brain that told the various nerves, muscles, and pigment cells to do this or do that.
Perhaps he needed to try something different. When he'd morphed in Livvie's car, the moment had been a real mess of stressful emotions; fear of who was tailing him, anger that they'd dared to, and shame that Livvie felt she had to protect a grown man. If he wanted to recreate those conditions, he'd need to go do something dumb and dangerous.
Yeah, but look what happened when I got worked up in a boxing match. A friendly one that I knew wouldn't really damage me.
I should go out on my own. Test myself a little. Nobody's stopping me.
He couldn't stand in front of the mirror all day feeling sorry for himself. He went to find Mike, intending to go straight to the gym to do some phys, but Mike was in his study with the door open, reading something on his computer.
"Hey Ian. Want to see where your money is now?"
Ian wandered in. "Would I understand it? You're the money expert. I mean, I trust you to know what to do."
"I still need you to know about it. Transparency. Education. Whatever." He beckoned Ian over to the desk and showed him documents on the screen. "That's the proceeds from the sale of the ranch. When we get your ID sorted out, you can open your own checking account, but this is the trust the lawyer set up for you. The money can sit there until we can move it somewhere you can access easily."
Ian felt it was time to ask. "You bought the ranch yourself, didn't you?"
"Yes." Mike shrugged. "We had to hide the ownership from prying KWA eyes as fast as possible."
"It cost you."
"Damn, you're picking up Rob habits. You do realise how much money we have, don't you? And I mean that in a don't-worry kind of way. Not an I'm-loaded kind of way."
Ian hoped that Livvie kept an eye on Mike's generosity. A high IQ and a good education didn't make a guy sensible, and throwing money away was dumb, no matter how much you had.