Finding Fiona (2 page)

She sought out the name of the authors:
Richard and Fiona Normans.

That was why the name Fiona had stuck out to
her–it was her mother’s name.

The headline read,
Human Replication–Is It Possible?

The article was only a page long and prefaced
a longer study to come in the next issue. The two had studied the
possibilities of human replication for nearly two decades. They
worked primarily out of their lab in New York City while trying to
replicate both organic and inorganic objects. On the surface, the
theory sounded impossible, but Fiona found herself nodding along to
their claims.

She swallowed, looking back at
their pictures. She stood up quickly and checked to make sure this
was the most recent issue. She looked at her watch. Still half an
hour before the computers opened. She’d have to call
American Physics
. Maybe
they could talk to Richard and Fiona for her. Maybe they’d tell
them she was alive and well. Maybe she could actually be reunited
with them.

Of course, the doubt that her parents were
even alive hovered in the back of her mind. She remembered being so
panicked when she ran through those flames, sobbing uncontrollably.
She wasn’t sure if they’d survived the fire.

She started jogging for the door. She turned
the corner of an aisle and ran straight into someone, dropping the
journal. “Oh, I’m so…” she trailed off when she saw the guy
standing in front of her. He was a few inches taller than her. He
had black hair, and he stared at her unabashedly.

Fiona couldn’t believe how familiar
he looked: the narrow face, the golden brown eyes. She
knew
him.

He slowly reached down and picked up the
journal. He looked at the title, then stared at her again. She
clenched her hands into fists, hardly daring to hope. Could it be?
Could he really be someone from her past? Why else would he be
staring at her like that?

“
Elizabeth?”

Recognition exploded within her. She'd been
called that before; she just knew it. Tears stung her eyes, and she
blinked them away, embarrassed. “I…”

“
Oh, my god. Is it really
you?”

“
I don’t know.” Fiona’s voice
shook. “Who do you think I am?”

He stared at her. “You don’t… you don’t
remember me?”

“
I recognize you. What’s your
name?”

“
James.”

* * *

Chapter Two

Fiona put a hand over her mouth. ‘James’ was
the only name she remembered from her past, and it had flooded her
with feelings of warmth and safety. To put a face to the name was
amazing. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She wanted to
know every detail of her life and their relationship and why he had
been the one she remembered in Hannah’s car.

James shifted his weight, glancing around as
he chewed his bottom lip. “Maybe we should talk somewhere
else.”

“
Why?” she asked breathlessly.
“What do you mean?”

“
It’s… I mean, we shouldn’t be in a
public place,” James said. “We could talk in my car.”

She didn’t respond for a moment. She knew
getting into a car with a stranger–especially when the stranger had
a couple inches and at least thirty pounds on her–wasn’t a good
idea. But her instincts spoke louder than Troy’s warnings, and she
believed she could trust James. She nodded.

She took the journal from him and put it in
her purse. When they walked through the metal detectors, it beeped
annoyingly, and Fiona picked up her pace. She heard a librarian
call out to her, but she ran out of the library.

James jogged after her. “Left! That little
black car.” He unlocked the doors with his keys, and she jumped
into the passenger’s seat. “Why did you take that magazine?” he
asked, laughing breathlessly as he started the engine.

“
Where are you taking me?” she
asked, panting. She reached for the door handle.

He looked at her in surprise. “You really want
to keep that magazine?” He nodded to a librarian searching the
parking lot.

Fiona hesitated. She didn’t want to let this
journal go, not with that article from her parents. Not with those
pictures. The only thing she had of them. It may have been
irrational, but she didn’t care. “Fine, but I don’t want to go far.
I’ll jump out of the car if I have to.”

He shook his head. “You won’t have
to.”

The small black car was impeccably clean. The
inside smelled new, and she wondered if he was wealthy or if it was
a rental. He looked her age, maybe a couple years older. She stared
at him for a moment, taking in the angles in his face, the way his
hair fell.

He stopped a few blocks away from the library,
and she let herself relax a little bit. He turned off the engine
and stared at her for a moment, and she actually didn’t
mind.

“
I can’t believe this,” James said.
He reached out to touch her, but stopped a few inches from her face
and pulled his hand back. “You don’t remember anything?”

“
I remember some things. I have a
lot of childhood memories, like taking a driver’s test, or playing
in a McDonald’s play place, Christmas, watching Night of the Living
Dead. Things like that.”

“
What about the day of the
fire?”

“
I remember being in the fire. All
that smoke and heat.” She closed her eyes as she thought back to
her fuzzy memories of that day. “I remember running from someone,
but they grabbed me. They pulled me into the back of the van.
There’s a gap in my memory, but later, I’m in a car with a girl my
age with brown hair. I’m bleeding from the stomach. We stop
somewhere, and then I black out. The next thing I remember is being
in Hannah’s car.”

“
Hannah?”

She opened her eyes. “Yeah. She was
vacationing with her family, and she found me on the harbor. She
took me to the hospital.” She showed him the scars on her arms and
stomach from the burns and stab wounds. He stared at them with
something like revulsion.

“
Those animals.” James’s eyes were
wide. He touched her seat, his fingers only inches from her leg.
“Are you okay? Physically?”

She nodded. “Most of the burns were only first
or second degree. I had surgery on my small intestine and I lost a
lot of blood, but I’m fine now.”

“
Who have you been living
with?”

“
Hannah, she lives in Boston. She’s
been great.” Fiona waved her hand. “But what about the fire? What
happened?”

He took a deep breath. “Well, you don’t
remember anything else? What about the Alarias?”

“
No. Who are they? What’s my last
name?”

“
Normans. Elizabeth
Normans.”

“
Elizabeth. Four months ago, Hannah
gave me a book of baby names. I remember seeing Elizabeth, but
I chose Fiona.” She took the journal out of her purse. “I didn’t
realize why until I saw this. Are these my parents?” She showed him
the article.

He nodded, frowning and rubbing his forehead.
“Yeah, that’s them.”

She stared at him. “Are they still
alive?”

James’s face fell. “No. They… they died in the
fire.”

Fiona closed her eyes. She’d felt almost sure
one or both of her parents had died in the fire. She remembered
sobbing uncontrollably as she fought through flames and smoke.
Actually hearing the truth from someone else took her breath away.
A few tears trickled down her cheeks, and she wiped them from her
cheeks in what she hoped was a furtive manner. When she thought of
her parents, she had vague images of brown curly hair, old cheesy
movies, warm beaches, and burnt lasagna. She stared out of her
window. “What happened?”

“
Your parents were physicists, and
they were working on a big project. The Alarias were two brothers
who used to work with them, but your parents kicked them out. The
Alarias wanted the information. They killed them for
it.”

She turned to him. “Killed them?”

“
That’s what we think, but the police
didn’t arrest them because there wasn’t enough
evidence.”

“
What were they working on?” She
thought of the article: a replication project?

James hesitated. “I think I should let you
breathe for a little bit.”

She glared at him. “I’ve been completely in
the dark for four months now! I want to know who I am and what
happened.”

He bit his lip and ran a hand through his
hair, sighing. “Beth, I just. . .”

“
It’s Fiona. Just call me
that.”

James glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Fiona,” he repeated faintly.

“
Why would they kill the people who
had the information? Was the lab in New York City? Why did they
leave me for dead?”

“
You were working for them in the
lab,” James said. “You were one of the only people who knew about
the project they were working on.”

“
How do you know about it?”

James leaned over. She almost backed away
from him, but he reached for the glove compartment. He pulled out a
small, brown journal and held it out for her. “This is yours. I got
it for you a few years ago.”

It had a soft, velvety cover. She opened it
and recognized her own handwriting. “Thank you,” she whispered,
meeting James’s eyes.

James cleared his throat. “I did read it. I
had to, though. I had to find out what happened. I wanted to find
you.”

Fiona nodded. “It’s fine. But what about
everything else?”

“
This is a lot to process,
Beth—”

“
Why did it take you so long to find
me?”

“
You just disappeared,” James said.
“We thought you died in the fire. We didn’t know. . .I
think if you read the journal, it’ll explain some
things.”

She turned the journal over in her hands.
“Did the Alarias get the information they needed?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. A lot
was destroyed in the fire.”

“
Why would they burn down the whole
building?”

“
I don’t know. They didn’t tell
me.”

“
Then why do you think they did
it?”

Fiona’s phone rang, and both of them jumped.
She took out her phone: Troy. She ignored the call and put it back
in her purse.

“
Who was that?”

“
My guardian’s annoying boyfriend,”
Fiona said.

James ran a hand through his hair. “They’re
still looking for you.”

“
How do you know?” Her phone dinged,
alerting her to a new voicemail.

“
Well, I don’t know for sure, but they
think you have information. We’re lucky I found you first.” He
paused, biting his lip. “I just don’t understand what happened that
day. Daniel got in a car wreck near here, but I don’t know how you
got away.”

“
Or who stabbed me,” Fiona
said.

“
Right,” James said quietly. “Or who
the girl in the car was.”

She didn’t respond for a moment. Her mind
raced with questions, doubts, and confusion. “Was I from New York
City?”

“
Yeah, you lived there with your
parents.” James glanced out the windshield. “I don’t know why the
Alarias were out here.”

“
New York City.” Fiona nodded; she and
Hannah had visited the city a few times, and it had felt familiar.
“So, what are you doing here?”

“
I was trying to find you. I thought
because of Daniel’s car wreck, you’d be close by.” He touched her
knee, his palm warm against her skin. The touch sent a shock up her
leg. “I wish I’d found you earlier.”

He pulled away before she felt justified to
call him a creep.

“
I have so many questions, but we
should go to the police,” Fiona said. “Now that you’ve found me, I
could tell them what I remember about the Alarias.” It wasn’t much,
but they could make the connections between two men pulling her
into a car and kidnapping her. She was so close to a chance at
going home and finding out what happened.

James’s lips pursed. “That’s not gonna
work.”

“
Why not?”

“
Look, Fiona, I can’t—” He took a
breath, staring at her. “I think you should read the journal. If I
try to explain it, you’re going to think I’m crazy. It’ll make more
sense if you read it from your own point of view.”

“
I don’t understand. Is this about
that human replication stuff?”

“
Look, I need to go back to New York
and think this all out.” His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed,
and he fixed her with a steady look. “Do you trust
Hannah?”

She nodded. “Yes, but—”

“
What does she do for a
living?”

“
She’s a real estate agent, but
James—”

“
I think you might be safer
here.”

Fiona tried to hide the disappointment from
her face. “I want to go home.”

“
The Alarias will expect you in New
York or here, but they’d never look for you in Boston,” James said.
“Fiona, please trust me. I have to work things out first. I
have to think about where you’d stay and who to tell
and—”