Dead Ringers (28 page)

“Tess!” one of them called again. To her. The woman had spoken to her.

“Lili,” she rasped. And then she recognized the other woman, too. Audrey Pang.

“Get the hell out of here!” Lili said. “Right now, or I swear to God I'll cave in your fucking skull.”

The original Tess blinked. For the first time, she saw the crowbar in Lili's hand—the kind that nearly every car had in the trunk with the spare tire.

“But we live here,” New Tess said, so reasonable. Even polite. “I think you two ought to go before my husband and I call the police.”

Nick came out the front door. Maddie, screaming in fear and confusion for her mother, tried to follow him out but he pushed her back inside and yanked the door shut. Just before it closed, the original Tess met her daughter's gaze, and suddenly she didn't feel like the original anymore. She felt like the
only
.

“Go on and call them,” Audrey said. “I'd love to have a conversation with them about who you are and who that woman on the lawn behind you might be. Especially once we get the real Nick Devlin down here.”

Not-Nick strode angrily up beside the imposter. “You're making a mistake. This doesn't have to be painful for any of you.”

Not-Tess snickered. “Oh, I disagree.”

Tess took a hitching breath and forced herself to stand. Wavering on her feet, she nearly puked. Instead, she spat on the grass between herself and the doppelgängers.

“I still have the bruises to remind me how much you disagree about hurting us,” Tess said, then glanced at Lili. “Knock her goddamn head off.”

Lili started forward, crowbar cocked back, but Audrey grabbed her arm to stop her. Audrey took her free hand from behind her back and revealed her cell phone.

“I've already called 911,” she told the imposters. “You want to be here when they arrive?”

The false ones exchanged a glance. Not-Tess twisted her mouth into an ugly sneer, turned, and grabbed Tess by the hair. Audrey shouted and Lili swore, rushing at them with the crowbar. The man who wasn't Nick caught her wrist and she punched him in the throat with her free hand. He grunted and took a step back, still holding her. Twisting hard enough that she screamed as she brought the crowbar down on his arm.

Not-Tess yanked Tess toward her, put her lips to Tess's ear.

Her breath felt like winter on Tess's skin.

“You will wish you had vanished,” the double hissed. “I promise.”

She hurled Tess to the grass and stormed toward her red Mercedes. Lili swung the crowbar again, hitting Nick's double in the side, but he only winced and shoved her away. He pointed a finger at Audrey and for just a moment, in the waning afternoon light, his features shifted to the rotting death mask Tess had seen in the mirrors of the psychomanteum.

Audrey screamed, raising her hands and wheeling backward in fear.

“Just stay right there,” Not-Nick warned, flesh shifting again.

Audrey lifted her chin defiantly, visibly fighting her terror. “As long as you're leaving.”

He ran to his Lexus, climbing behind the wheel even as Not-Tess hit the gas and her Mercedes rocketed backward out of the driveway. The car tore away, and an instant later, the Lexus roared after it, leaving Lili, Audrey, and Tess standing on the grass exchanging looks of relief and disbelief.

Audrey reached Tess first, grabbed her by both shoulders and studied her closely. “You're all there.”

Tess frowned.

“When we drove up,” Lili said, “it was like you weren't all there. Like part of you was invisible.”

Tess still felt a million miles away, as if she had retreated deep inside herself now and could see these events unfolding from far off. She took several deep breaths and squeezed her eyes shut and the feeling abated, but she knew it would come again.

“We have to stay together from now on, no matter what,” she said without opening her eyes. Her knees began to buckle, but Lili and Audrey caught her and held her up.

Lili and Audrey,
she thought. But could she be sure?

She opened her eyes and studied first one, then the other. How would she know, really, if one of them had already been replaced, the way her double had tried to take over her life? Her double, and Nick's.

“For safety,” she said.

“And so we know who's who,” Lili replied.

Audrey nodded in agreement, but Tess could see in her eyes that her thoughts had already gone to that same, dark place. It was too late to be sure who was who. They would have to pay very close attention to the words and actions of those around them, just in case. Beyond that, they would have to proceed on faith, which was in very short supply.

The front door opened and Maddie rushed out, leaped from the top of the steps and nearly fell on the front walk before careening toward her mother.

Me,
Tess thought as the little girl rocketed into her arms.
I'm her mother
.

“I love you so much,” Tess said, as Maddie cried, babbling out a dozen frantic questions.

Tess put a hand behind her head and gazed down into her daughter's red, teary eyes. “I don't really know who they were,” she said, and it was neither the truth nor a lie. “But I'll tell you what I can once we get everyone inside.”

Lili came over and took one of Maddie's hands while Tess held the other, and then headed back toward the house.

“First, though,” Tess said, “we have to call your dad.”

“That man wasn't Dad,” Maddie said. “At first I thought he was, but then he was so mean, and Daddy would never…”

Tess squeezed her daughter's hand. She had so many misgivings about who Nick had turned out to be, but she never wanted to shatter Maddie's faith in the man. That might happen soon, when Nick told her that he and Kyrie were moving to London, but Tess wanted no part of it.

“That's right, sweetie,” she said. “Daddy would never. Let's get him on the phone and you can hear his voice. You'll know right away that you're right—that mean guy is nothing like your dad.”

But Tess stumbled going up the front steps, still weak and hollow and barely tethered to her body. Though all the old pains were surging back, the feeling of fading remained, and she wondered about Nick. Had they already gotten to him? What if he had already been taken, vanished completely? What if the man who had slammed the door in Maddie's face was all that remained of her ex-husband?

“The phone,” she said to Lili as they walked into the apartment. “Hurry and get the phone.”

 

FIVE

Nick sat on a bench just inside the Voodoo Lounge on St. Paul Street, just down the block from the office of WBUR, the university's radio station. St. Paul Street was narrow and intimate in comparison to Commonwealth Avenue, one of Boston's main arteries. Boston University sprawled for miles along Comm Ave and there were dozens of chains, pizza joints, and cafés lining that stretch, but Nick had always preferred the spots that were sort of tucked away—the places you had to search for. Voodoo Lounge had several locations in the Northeast, but he didn't think it would be fair to call it a chain. In his mind, it would have been impossible for a chain to serve food this good. He'd always liked Cajun and Creole food, and that was the specialty of the Voodoo Lounge—that and about ninety-nine kinds of beer.

Sitting on that bench, he gazed out at St. Paul Street and watched the sidewalks, waiting for Aaron to appear. They were all supposed to gather again tomorrow, but Aaron had called a little after noon and asked if Nick could meet for a beer or a coffee in the afternoon. Nick figured it was as good a reason as any to walk the four blocks from his office at BU's archaeology department to the Voodoo Lounge. They served the best gumbo he'd ever had outside of New Orleans, and on a chilly, gray day, a cup of steaming gumbo would be just the thing to warm his insides. He felt poorly—numb and lost in a fog, as if he were coming down with the flu.

Not all there,
he thought, scanning the sidewalk across the street.

He had chalked it up to distraction and worry. No matter how good the gumbo might be, it couldn't cure him of those things—but as he sat there waiting for Aaron, he could smell the spicy aromas in the air and he knew that the gumbo would help, at least for a little while. He wouldn't feel quite so cold or so empty.

His stomach growled at the thought. The clock on the wall behind the hostess stand put the time at just about three o'clock, much too early for dinner, but a cup of gumbo was just a snack. An early appetizer. Tonight he needed to sit Kyrie down and try to explain the madness that had entered his life, so a little sustenance in advance of that conversation would not go amiss.

He spotted a familiar figure bobbing along the sidewalk across the street, beneath a tree whose leaves had begun to turn a fiery red. Aaron glanced in both directions before stepping off the curb and sailing toward the front door of the Voodoo Lounge. His eyes darted around, and Nick knew he wasn't scanning for oncoming cars. Aaron looked skittish, and when he came through the restaurant's door and saw Nick waiting for him, he exhaled with relief.

“You look like you're about to jump out of your skin,” Nick said.

Aaron nodded, glanced right and left. “Not in here.”

Nick's stomach growled, yearning for gumbo. “What are you talking about?”

“Walk with me,” Aaron said, gesturing back through the door with a tilt of his head.

“You think something's going to happen in here?” Nick asked, trying not to let himself say the word
paranoid
out loud. Yes, they had things to fear, but not inside the walls of the Voodoo Lounge. Not now, in the middle of the afternoon.

“I just want to keep moving,” Aaron said, his features pale. He stared into Nick's eyes. “We all need to keep moving now. I'm out of this, my friend. Earlier today I packed up my car and tonight I'm driving out of here.”

Nick frowned. “Where are you going?”

Aaron rolled his eyes in frustration and pushed open the Voodoo Lounge's door, holding it for Nick. Mentally bidding farewell to the gumbo he'd so desired, Nick walked outside. St. Paul Street had fallen mostly into shadow as the sun crawled down toward the horizon. They had hours until sunset, but already the daylight had turned even grayer. The trees along the street and the closeness of the buildings gave the road a twilight gloom.

“It doesn't matter where I'm going,” Aaron said, starting south along the sidewalk. “That's the thing that troubles me the most. I can't even be sure that you're you. So I'm leaving, and I'm not coming back for a few weeks, and you don't need to know where I'm going because by the time I come back, all of this will be resolved one way or the other.”

Nick shoved his hands into his pockets, his skin crawling in the presence of the crazy emanating from Aaron. He took half a dozen steps as he tried to understand what had happened to set the man off like this.

“Your double is out there,” Nick said quietly as leaves skittered around his feet.

“Why do you think I'm leaving?”

“But if we can't stop these people … if they kill us—if that's what they're trying to do—then your double will be waiting for you when you come back. And how the hell are you explaining all of this to your wife?”

Aaron grew more agitated. He glanced around again, anger flashing in his eyes.

Nick stopped walking. “Enough of this shit, Aaron. You tell me what happened to set you off like this. If there's more trouble, the rest of us need to know. What've you seen, man?”

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket but he ignored it, staring at Aaron to press him for an answer. The anger in the other man's eyes flared more brightly.

“We need to go, Nick. My car is just up around the corner. I want you to come with me.”

“Out of town? I've got a daughter here, remember? And what about the others? Hell, my double tried to mess up my relationship with my Realtor to interfere with me trying to move out of the area. What makes you think they'll
let
you go anywhere?”

Aaron grabbed him by the arm and tried to propel him along. “Walk, damn it. I'll explain it all to you when—”

Nick tore his arm away, face flushing as he rounded on the smaller man. “Fuck off, man. Seriously.”

“I'm not asking you to leave Boston,” Aaron said, jaw tight as he tried to contain his temper. “But we need to go.”

The phone began to buzz in Nick's pocket again and a tremor of worry went through his heart, defusing his anger. Aaron was pissing him off, but two calls that close together felt like trouble to him. It had to be Tess or Kyrie. His breath quickened. If something had happened to Maddie—

Aaron grabbed his wrist.

“Jesus!” Nick snapped. “I said ‘fuck off!'” He dug into his pocket for his phone and turned away. “If you want to tell me what your problem is without this paranoid bullshit, I'm here to listen, but I've got to worry about the people I love, and I'm not going to let you take me away from…”

His words trailed off. He'd turned around, his back to Aaron, but now he saw Aaron again, up ahead of him, standing in front of the Voodoo Lounge. This Aaron seemed just as harried, but pale and insubstantial, almost ghostly. As Nick stared at him, this other Aaron shifted position, staring back, and nearly vanished in the deepening afternoon shadows.

The double, he thought, a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Shit,” he said, turning back toward his friend. “Do you see—”

“Nick!” the ghostly Aaron shouted. “Stay away from him! The son of a bitch is
not
me!”

Frozen, Nick stared at the solid Aaron, the one who had come rushing into the Voodoo Lounge and hurried him away. The one who had seemed so paranoid, so skittish about who might be coming after him. Of course he couldn't be sure—the faded one had shouted that the other Aaron was not him, but the double could easily have said the same thing.