Constance (Constance #1)(99)

What happened when someone with a god complex became one?

Across the lab, Con saw the womb holding yet another waiting clone of her aunt. Maybe it was time to put her aunt’s theory to the test. Con set the syringe down on the floor. It wasn’t murder if the person had a clone, was it? She hoped her aunt would appreciate the irony. Gently, Con plucked the LFD from behind Cabigail’s ear. She didn’t know how much access to the complex her aunt had given her, but she wasn’t about to risk losing it.

Cabigail protested but could barely lift her arm to stop her. Instead, she let her head fall toward the rDog. Con realized almost too late what her aunt meant to do and clamped a hand over Cabigail’s mouth. Her aunt bucked with all her waning strength, thrashing hopelessly, trying to get free. But the poison had spread too far, and she was too weak to throw Con off now. Right to the end, Con could hear her trying to shout muffled commands to the rDog. Con watched in terror for any sign it understood, but the rDog never so much as flinched, sitting motionless by its master’s side while Con smothered her.

When Abigail Stickling was dead, Con fell back on the floor and lay there until she didn’t have to concentrate simply on breathing in and out. She climbed unsteadily to her feet and stumbled over to the door leading to Zhi’s room. What she did next hinged on whether her aunt had had the presence of mind to limit her access to the medical cabinets. If the door didn’t open, then Con would be trapped down here forever. But not alone, because her aunt’s clone was already being prepped in its womb for download.

Con’s hands shook as she entered her biometrics, and she held her breath while the door took an eternity thinking about it. But then the lock turned from red to green. The door swung open.

She went down the hall and cracked his bedroom door. Zhi was lying on his back in bed, but when she got closer, she saw he wasn’t sleeping. His eyes were open, staring glassily up at the ceiling. He’d been dead for a little while now. Her aunt must have triggered something remotely. Once he’d served his purpose, she’d euthanized him like the laboratory experiment he was to her. Con closed his eyes and sat on the edge of the bed the way she’d done on countless occasions visiting him in the hospital. But for the first time, she felt only relief that he wouldn’t wake up to this nightmare. How strange that she’d come all this way only to wind up where she’d begun.

She took his hand in hers and said a final goodbye. Then she went out to the lab and pulled the plug on her aunt’s new clone. Did that qualify as murder? After seeing Zhi, she really didn’t give a damn.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


When Con emerged into the living room of the cottage, the enormous fireplace closed of its own volition, sealing up the underground complex behind her. Con couldn’t even find the seams in the wall with her fingers. That was probably for the best. In the kitchen, she took a glass from a cupboard and filled it with water, relieved that the cottage wasn’t entirely for show. Leaning against the counter, she gulped it down and looked out the window.

A car sat idling out front.

At first she assumed it must be Gaddis, but how had he gotten past the gate? And the last two rDogs were nowhere to be seen, which meant that the car and its occupants must be trusted by her aunt. What would that make them to Con? She cast around for a weapon and found a dull kitchen knife in a drawer. How far was she going to get with that?

She went back to the window. The car hadn’t moved, but she caught a glimpse of a bald white head peeking out from above one of the Adirondack chairs. Someone was sitting on the porch enjoying the view. When she cracked the front door a few inches, a white man stood to greet her. He was convincingly tall, with a patrician bearing that Con associated with movies from the twentieth century. He had to be at least sixty but looked tennis fit in his crisp blue suit.

“Hello, Miss D’Arcy.”

“You know me?” Con said, ready at the first hint of danger to shut the door.

“Only from your picture,” he said, running his fingers across the remnants of his hair as if smoothing a blanket too small for the bed it covered.

“And who are you again?”

“Oh, I apologize. Where are my manners?” he replied, extending a manicured hand. “My name is William Small. I’m a senior partner at Daniels Lovell in DC. I am Abigail Stickling’s personal attorney and continue to represent certain of her lingering interests.”

“Well, you sure talk like a lawyer,” she said, opening the door and shaking his hand.

“Occupational hazard,” he acknowledged. “I’m quite harmless otherwise.”

“How long have you been sitting out here?”

The man looked at his watch with pursed lips. “Not long. I knocked but no one was home,” he said, although she had clearly come from inside the cottage. “Not to worry. My instructions were to wait.”

“For?”

“You.”

“How? How did you know I’d be here?” Con asked.

“I’m afraid I’m not free to discuss that.”

“When were you told to come?”

“I’m not able to discuss that either. May I come inside?” he said, picking up a briefcase from between his feet. “We have a great deal to go over.”

Con let him into the house. He asked for a glass of water, and she brought it to him in the living room. He was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, shaking his head.