Finding Fiona (5 page)

Troy nodded, staring at the phone.

“
What are you staring at?” Fiona
asked, furrowing her brow.

The woman came back on the line. “I’m sorry,
Sarah.”

Fiona held up her pointer finger to Troy and
shut the door.

“–
But you’re not on the list of
next of kin or authorized individuals to have access to Miss
Normans’s records.”

“
Oh. Oh, well, that’s fine. I’ll
talk to someone who does.” She paused, wondering if the
receptionist would tell her who did.

“
Okay, then,” the woman said.
“Thank you.”

She hung up before Fiona had a chance to say
anything else. Fiona sighed. She opened the door, and Troy stood in
the exact same spot. “Make that new appointment?” he
asked.

“
Yeah,” she said, narrowing her
eyes at him. “So, what are you guys seeing?”

❃

Fiona sat in the living room, staring out the
window and turning over the events of the last few days. She’d
researched Elizabeth Normans and human replication as much as she
could. She’d memorized the events of the fire and Daniel’s car
wreck according to the news articles.

She’d spent hours at the library or
on the computer researching human replication. She could
maybe
see how it could be
possible, if science advanced ten, maybe twenty, years. She
practically had that article in
American
Physics
memorized, and she wished she could
read their full report. What she would give to be in that lab in
New York.

Fiona kept hoping James’s black car would roll
up in front of her house. It had been three days, but it felt like
years. She’d called him once each day, and they’d had short
conversations, but he said he didn’t know much about the Alarias at
the moment. He also didn’t know anything about Elizabeth’s death
records. She was tired of waiting. She’d have to get a bus ticket
to New York if Hannah wasn’t going for a meeting soon.

She’d called the
Boston Herald
half a
dozen times, but the reporter had never answered. Was she ignoring
her calls? No, she must be paranoid. Who wouldn’t be after hearing
a theory that her parents were killed?

Hannah came home early afternoon. “Hey, how
was your day?”

“
Boring,” Fiona said. “How was
yours?”

“
It was all right.” Hannah dropped
her briefcase by the couch. “I’m going to New York for a meeting
tomorrow.”

Fiona sat up, her eyes wide.
“Really?”

“
Yeah,” Hannah said, smiling. “You
still want to come, right?”

“
Yes!”

Hannah walked toward the kitchen. “Cool, we’ll
see a movie or something.”

The next day, they left around
seven for Hannah’s noon appointment. Fiona chewed on her lip as
they moved down the interstate. She had only been in the city
riding in Hannah’s car, but she was going to attempt the metro
system today to find Elmscott Avenue.
She
usually had a good sense of direction, but the thought of
navigating around New York City by herself still made her
nervous.

“
So, what are you going to do while
I’m in my meetings?” Hannah asked.

Fiona shrugged. “Probably go
window-shopping.”

“
You want some money?”

“
Oh, Hannah, it’s okay. I have some
money for the bus.”

Hannah fished around in her purse, swerving a
bit.

Chuckling, Fiona said, “Hannah, just
drive!”

Hannah handed her a twenty. “Here. Get
yourself something fancy. The fanciest thing you can get for twenty
dollars.”

Fiona smiled, taking the bill. “You’re the
best, Hannah.”

She returned the smile, brushing her brown
hair off her shoulder. “Just don’t get lost. Although usually,
you’re pretty good at getting unlost.”

“
Unlost. You’re the queen of
inventing words.”

Hannah had a few properties around the city,
and she had an interested customer in Manhattan. She parked in
front of a condo building where her first meeting was, and Fiona
said she’d walk to the bus stop from there.

“
Well, give me a call if you get
lost,” Hannah said. “Oh, and hold your purse close. Remember when
that guy almost pick-pocketed my wallet?”

“
That was crazy! Don’t worry, I’ll
be fine.”

“
Have fun!” Hannah said, squeezing
Fiona’s hand. “I should be tied up in meetings for at least two
hours, but I’ll call you as soon as I’m done with this one. We can
meet up somewhere if you’re bored, okay?”

“
Okay, thanks, Hannah.”

It took Fiona an hour to figure out the system
and her map. Some things seemed familiar, but other streets and bus
lines made no sense to her. She finally got to a bus stop a couple
blocks from Elmscott Avenue. After ten minutes of walking, she
found 2673 Elmscott Avenue.

It was a two-story building, and Fiona could
easily see how it’d been a bank with its arched windows and
pillars. It looked like it may have been beautiful at one time, but
the rebuilding made it look disjointed, torn between two different
eras.

She looked for a sign indicating what the
building was, but she found nothing. She walked up to the arched
front doors, paused, and pushed the buzzer.

“
Yes?” a voice came from the
intercom.

She gasped; she hadn’t expected anyone to be
here. Would James be here? “Yes, I’m looking for… for James,” Fiona
said.

“
James?” the voice
repeated.

“
Yes.”

“
Sorry, can I tell him who this
is?”

“
Fiona.”

“
Just one minute.”

Fiona waited for a moment. She stepped back
and looked up at the building. The blinds were drawn on most of the
windows except one on the top floor. Fiona glanced around again,
then someone spoke from the intercom.

“
He says he’s coming out to see
you.”

Fiona’s eyes widened. She smoothed down her
hair, then swore under her breath. Why did she care how she looked?
She wanted answers, not to flirt with him.

James came outside, his eyes wide. “What are
you doing here?” he demanded.

“
I’m tired of waiting around. I
want answers.”

James took her arm gently and pulled her down
the street behind him. “Come on, it’s not safe here.”

* * *

Chapter Four

Fiona and James walked along briskly. James
took a cell phone out of his pocket. After a moment, he said,
“Keith, make sure no one is following us. Just trust me, okay?” He
hung up and turned to Fiona. “I told you you’d be safe with
Hannah.”

“
How can you expect me to stay
there when I know everything now? Boston is so far from here.”
Fiona glanced over her shoulder toward the bank as it fell from
their sight. “Is that where the lab was? I thought it was
destroyed.”

“
It was, but the insurance paid for
some rebuilding,” James said.

“
Why are you staying
there?”

“
I’m not. I was just there now.
We’re trying to figure out if it’s safe to bring you
back.”

Fiona stopped walking and glared at him. “Safe
from the Alaria brothers? I looked them up, James. They’re
intellectuals, not murderers.” Her previous search had brought up
academic articles and news about Greg Alaria’s fertility clinic.
Based on Elizabeth’s entries, they did seem persistent, but she
couldn’t make the connection between the determined, slightly
creepy scientists and the violent men in her nightmares.

“
You think I’m making it up?” James
sounded hurt.

“
No, of course not,
but–”

“
Don’t forget about how they
kidnapped you and left you for dead.”

She clenched her hands into fists. How could
she possibly forget that? “Why would they leave me for dead if I
had information they needed so much?”

“
I don’t know! Obviously, we don’t
know all the answers. But can we please keep walking?”

“
Fine.” She took out the map book.
“Where’s Holy Trinity Cemetery?”

James’s face fell. “Beth.”

“
Don’t call me that.”

“
Why not? You’re
Elizabeth.”

“
Or this supposed
replica.”

“
Don’t say that. I know you’re
Elizabeth.”

“
How do you know?”

James shrugged, taking a step closer to her. A
soft breeze blew past them, unsettling his black hair and sending a
drift of his cologne under her nose. “I just know.”

She glanced down at the map book. “Well, I
like Fiona, okay? Where’s the cemetery? I want to visit their
graves.”

James hesitated, glancing around and
scratching the back of his neck. “All right, it’s up on Broadway
and 155th. It’s probably quicker if we drive.” He peered at her.
“Are you sure you want to see them?”

“
If you’re set on not taking me
into the lab.”

“
I am. Just give it another day or
two, okay? Walter and I–”

“
Who’s Walter?” Fiona
asked.

“
Your uncle. Your mom’s
brother.”

Fiona’s mouth dropped open. “I have an uncle?”
she said quietly.

“
Yeah. He’s trying to figure out
what to do.” He glanced around. “Okay, I’ll go grab my car. Want to
wait over in that parking lot? I’ll come pick you up.”

She nodded, still stunned to hear she had
living family. An uncle. James jogged back toward the house, and
she walked to the parking lot James had pointed out. She wondered
what her uncle’s name was. What he looked like.

Fiona kicked at fallen leaves as she waited.
The red and orange leaves crunched under her feet, and the trees
were only half-dressed. Their branches stuck out against the
blue-gray sky like veins.

James picked her up, and she got into the
passenger’s seat. “Is this a rental?” she asked as she looked
around at the clean leather.

“
No,” he said, smiling, “I just
take care of my car.” His smile faded a bit. “It’s kind of an
obsession, really. When I wasn’t working or looking for you, I’d
clean my car.”

“
Well, now you found me, and this
car doesn’t need any more cleaning.” She sighed, watching buildings
and people roll past them. She liked it here in the city, the
bustle, the chaos. “I just want to come home.”

“
I know. I want you to come home,
too, trust me. But the Alarias… not to mention everyone you knew
thinks you’re dead. Everyone but us and the Alarias.”

“
What about Sarah?”

James raised his eyebrows at her. “You sure
you don’t remember anything?”

“
I read the journal. She was an
assistant in the lab, and she knew about Remus. Does she know there
was a replica?”

“
Yeah, she knows… I don’t think she
really believes it, though. I haven’t talked to her in a couple
weeks. She’s kinda disappeared.”

Fiona frowned. “What do you mean?”

“
She and Keith broke up again. She
usually avoids me for a week or two after that.”

“
And Keith and Faith, do they
know?”

“
Keith knows because Walter asked
him to live in the old house. I haven’t told him about finding you,
though. Faith doesn’t know. I don’t know how she’d take it
all.”

“
How did you find out about Remus?
What made you want to read my journal?” she asked James.

“
Well, I knew Remus was why the
Alarias did it. I wanted to find out more about it, and I started
looking around in what was left from the fire. I found your
journal, and when I read about the Remus project, I knew you had to
be alive somewhere.” He made eye contact with her,
half-smiling.

Her face warmed, and she almost reached out to
take his hand, but thought better of it. “Why did you think it was
me–or Elizabeth–that the machine replicated? It could have been
anyone.”

James shrugged. “It was probably more hope
than anything else.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. If
she was Elizabeth, would her memory ever come back? She and Hannah
had done plenty of research on amnesia when Hannah had first taken
her in. One man lost forty-six years of memories after slipping and
hitting his head. The cause of the amnesia was probably from the
lack of blood flow to his temporal lobe, but when Hannah paid for
Fiona to have a few scans on her brain, the scan didn’t detect
that. She did have a bad bruise on her head when Hannah first found
her and a mild concussion from it, but no lasting brain
damage.

The psychologist she’d met with for about two
months said she probably had dissociative amnesia, which was caused
by extreme psychological stress. That definitely made sense,
considering what had happened to her. She seldom had a sound night
of sleep. With other cases of amnesia, sometimes the memories came
back, sometimes they didn’t.