Replica

Nate ignored the business briefs a truly dedicated heir would have pored over during breakfast. Sometimes, he skimmed them to keep his father off his back, but stories of mergers and acquisitions hadn’t held his attention before he’d been murdered. They seemed even more massively boring and unimportant now, so instead he checked out the media coverage of yesterday’s events. Even though he knew better.

He was the lead story for every news and gossip show on the net, and every story seemed to lead off with the footage of him biting off the reporter’s head, his language bleeped out to protect delicate ears. This was often followed by footage of Nadia exiting the security station after her questioning, although all you could see were her feet because of how carefully the security officers were blocking her from view. He doubted that would do much to protect her from the gossipmongers.

Nate forced himself to shut off his handheld before he was tempted to smash it against the wall.

According to his agenda, his first formal obligation of the day was a two-hour board meeting at Paxco Headquarters, but there was no way he could face that. Sitting in a room with a bunch of self-important fossils with sticks up their asses as they droned on and on about pointless crap was the last thing he wanted to do.

Knowing he would pay for it later, Nate sent word to his father that he was “indisposed” following the trauma of his birth from the artificial womb. The Chairman wouldn’t buy it, naturally, so Nate decided not to be home when the Wrath of Chairman Hayes hit.

Nate had spent a long and mostly sleepless night wondering where Kurt was and if he was safe. Maybe with all those dollars missing, Nate should assume Kurt was out of Paxco’s reach, but the unrelenting tightness in his gut wouldn’t let him relax. Besides, even if Mosely was content to blame the murder on Kurt in absentia, Nate wasn’t. He wanted to know who had killed him, and why. He wanted the bastard to pay for what he’d done, and since Kurt appeared to be the last person to have seen Nate alive, he might be able to shed some light on what had happened.

The first step in his private investigation had to be to talk to Nadia. She might not know what had happened to him, but she could fill in some of the blanks.

Nate left his apartment, “forgetting” his phone so that he wouldn’t be too easy to reach when the Chairman went on the rampage. He even ordered his driver and his bodyguard to turn off their phones. He pretended not to notice how uneasy the order made them. At least, he thought it was the order that made them uneasy. It was possible it was the fact that he was a Replica that bothered them, but if that was the case, they were just going to have to get over it.

Satisfied that he’d bought himself at least an hour or two of free time, Nate directed his driver to take him to the Lake Towers. He’d tried to call Nadia last night, but had been told she was too ill to come to the phone. He wasn’t sure if her illness was genuine or merely an excuse, but he couldn’t blame her for wanting to go to ground. Being around Mosely gave him the creeps, and he couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Nadia to endure an entire day of questioning. He hoped she’d had more sense than he and had avoided watching the media vultures use her misfortunes as entertainment.

Whether she was sick or not, Nate had to talk to her. She was his best friend, and she’d been through absolute hell yesterday. And knowing Nadia’s family, they hadn’t made the situation any easier on her, so she might appreciate the sympathetic ear. Assuming she didn’t completely freak out about him being a Replica.

But Nate’s motivation for going to see Nadia wasn’t entirely altruistic. He certainly couldn’t rely on the media’s account about what had happened on the night of the murder, but he hoped Nadia would be able to give him the first in the trail of breadcrumbs that would eventually lead him to Kurt—and, through him, to the true killer.

* * *

An ordinary citizen would have had trouble getting through the Lake Towers security even with an appointment, but there were privileges that came with rank, and Nate wasn’t shy about taking advantage of them. He was in the elevator on the way to the penthouse before the security staff had finished bowing and scraping. He’d worried that the story of his murder and reanimation would make people treat him like a freak, or even an impostor. In some ways, he was an impostor, not the real Nathaniel Edison Hayes, no matter what he looked like or remembered. But he should have known that the Lake Towers staff would act like professionals and treat him as if nothing had changed. And if they were whispering and staring at him when his back was turned, he didn’t have to know about it.

When the elevator doors opened at the top floor, the Lake family’s butler, an aging gentleman named Crane, was waiting to meet him.

“Good morning, Mr. Hayes,” Crane said with a polite bow.

Nate refrained from rolling his eyes, but it was always an effort to contain his sarcasm when Crane was around. The old fart was so stuffy he was a caricature of himself, but he didn’t know it. From the penguin suit to the mannerisms—like bowing, for God’s sake—to the British accent from a man who’d been born in the state of New York, back when it existed, everything about him was affected and overdone.

“Miss Lake will join you in the morning room,” Crane intoned. Nate wanted to point out that it had been at least a couple of centuries since anyone had had a “morning room” in their house. “May I bring you some refreshments?”

Nate wanted nothing more than to have a private conversation with Nadia, but he knew from experience that if he didn’t allow Crane to bring refreshments, the butler would check in on them every few minutes to see if they wanted something—either because he was desperate to be of service, or because he was a nosy bastard who didn’t like the idea of his charge being left alone with a man, even if that man was her presumed fiance.

“Some coffee would be nice, if you don’t mind,” Nate finally said, deciding it was the option that would lead to the fewest interruptions.

“Very good, sir,” Crane said, bowing again, and this time Nate did roll his eyes. Of course, Crane was too busy bowing to notice.

Nate started toward the “morning room,” which everyone other than Crane referred to as the den, his bodyguard falling into step behind him. Nate stopped in his tracks and gave the man a withering look. Ordinarily, his bodyguards knew better than to hover so close, and Fischer was usually one of the more laid back of them.

Fischer didn’t take the unspoken hint, neither backing down nor even lowering his eyes.

“You think you need to guard me inside my fiancee’s home?” Nate asked with a shake of his head. He supposed he should have expected an extra dose of paranoia from his guards after he’d been assassinated, but it somehow hadn’t occurred to him.

Fischer shrugged his massive shoulders. “Just doing my job.”

“Your job is to guard me when I’m out in public,” Nate reminded him. “You don’t have to stick to me like gum on the bottom of my shoe. Stay here.”

“The Chairman—”

“Isn’t your boss,” Nate interrupted, though he wasn’t so sure that was the case. If it came down to Nate and the Chairman giving the man contradictory orders, there was no question whose Fischer would follow. “I intend to have a private conversation with Miss Lake, and you are not invited.”

Fischer looked unhappy and even a little alarmed. Nate wondered if Mosely or his father had given him orders to stick extra close—and report on Nate’s every move. If he decided to launch his own search for Kurt, he would have to be very, very careful not to lead Mosely and his men right to him. Even though Kurt was almost certainly out of Paxco by now and would have fled to a country or state with no extradition agreement with Paxco, Mosely had frighteningly long arms.

“If it’ll make you feel better,” Nate said, “you can turn your phone back on. But if my father calls, you make sure to tell him I can’t come to the phone. Do not interrupt me under any circumstances.”

Fischer looked even more unhappy, but when Nate strode toward the den, the guard remained behind. Nate thought he heard the man muttering to himself. It was probably a good thing for both of them that he wasn’t able to make out the words.

Nate felt an unaccustomed flutter of nerves as he approached the den. Nadia was the only person other than Kurt whose opinion actually mattered to him. If she looked at him and saw an impostor masquerading as her dead best friend, he wasn’t sure he could take it. His father didn’t love him, his mother had been absent from his life for ten years, his “friends” were all sycophants, and now he’d lost Kurt. He couldn’t lose Nadia, too.

With an effort, Nate ordered himself to man up and get on with it. He took a deep breath as though