Replica

here.”

“Guess that’s kind of the point of Replicas.”

They both fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Nate stared at the fire, and because she was too restless to sit still, Nadia perused the overloaded bookshelves—although she’d done it before and knew better.

Nate very much enjoyed shocking people, so of course the books he kept so prominently displayed in his sitting room were predictably not what a respectable young Executive should be reading. In fact, if Nadia’s parents had any idea what sorts of books were sitting here out in the open where she could get her hands on them, they’d never allow her into the room.

Nadia blushed and smiled ruefully as she read the spines of a couple of books that, based on their titles, looked to be gay porn of some kind. To someone who didn’t know better, those books probably seemed to be there only for their shock value, or to complete his collection of erotica. In reality, they were probably the only books on display that he’d ever read. If Nate were paying any real attention to her, he’d be teasing her for looking at them, pulling favorite titles from the shelves and trying to get her to look at pictures. It showed just how troubled he was that he didn’t even seem to notice.

With a sigh, Nadia moved away from the bookshelf while her luck held, and moments later the hot cocoa arrived. Nadia thanked Nate’s butler on both their behalf, and Nate quickly shut the door behind the man. He must have been feeling especially paranoid, because he flipped on his sound system, scanning the contents until he found a soundtrack that seemed to be a thunderstorm at the beach. The kind of sound that would mask their voices if anyone was listening outside the door but wouldn’t force them to shout to hear each other. It was the first sign she’d gotten that Nate truly understood the seriousness of the situation. He gestured her to a pair of wing chairs in the far corner of the room, and they both sat, putting their cocoas on the small table between the chairs.

The chairs were overstuffed and made for comfort, and the high backs and the corner location made Nadia feel almost as though she were sharing a secret cave with Nate. If there was a more private place to talk anywhere in his apartment, she didn’t know of it. She took a quick sip of cocoa, both to moisten her throat and to test its temperature. Too hot to “spill” yet. She wanted to get the whole ugly thing over with, but she fought down her impatience. She wondered if she dared question Nate about his efforts to locate Bishop.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to.

“I went to the Basement last night,” Nate blurted.

Nadia recoiled as if shocked, widening her eyes and letting her jaw drop open. “You did what?”

Was she overdoing it? He would expect her to be shocked, maybe even angry with him for his recklessness, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to him doing shocking things. She should probably recover quickly from her initial reaction, so she snapped her mouth closed and tried to make herself relax.

She felt like an actress, playing a role for which she was not adequately prepared. Sure her guilt was written in big, bold letters all over her face, she dropped her gaze and grabbed for the cocoa, desperate for something to look at other than Nate’s face.

But though Nate might be feeling paranoid enough to put on the thunder and waves to cover their conversation, it never occurred to him that the real threat might be in the room with him. He went on blithely without even glancing at her to see her reaction.

“I have to find Kurt, and the only place I can think of to start looking is in the Basement.”

“Why do you have to find him?” she asked, before she thought better of it. Mosely would expect her to encourage Nate to keep looking for Bishop, and if she should somehow talk him out of it … But what were the chances of that? Nate was not the kind of person who’d allow himself to be deflected once he’d set his mind to something. And yet Nadia couldn’t help pressing when Nate gave her an outraged look.

“I know why you’d want to find him,” she hastened to clarify. “But why do you feel you have to? If he’s hiding in the Basement, it’s because he has … connections there. Surely those are the kinds of connections he needs if he’s going to keep from getting caught. You aren’t going to be able to help him with that. Besides, if he wanted your help, he’d have reached out to you. He hasn’t, has he?”

Nate’s face reddened, and he looked away. “I’m not looking for him because I want to help him.” He grimaced. “Well, I was at first. But you’re right, and I know he doesn’t want my help. But I need to find him anyway. I need him to tell me what happened the night I was murdered.” His fists and jaw were clenched tight, his body language closed off. Was he angry because of what had happened to him, or because Bishop had left him in the dark? “I need his help to figure out who really killed the original Nate. I can’t even come up with a reasonable guess who it could be. I mean, they had to know they couldn’t really get rid of me, so what was the point? Whatever made them do it, it happened during the blank spot in my memory, so I have nothing to go on. I need Kurt to tell me what happened after you went back to the ballroom and left us alone.”

“But aren’t you worried you’ll lead Mosely’s people right to him if you find him?” Nadia didn’t want to know what Mosely would do to her if he could hear her right now. But the words seemed to trickle out of her mouth without conscious thought.

“I’m being careful!” Nate snapped, no doubt taking her words as an implied criticism.

Nadia sucked in a deep breath and told herself to stay calm. This was the way he always reacted to what he perceived as criticism, and she should be used to it. And clearly, he was being careful. Mosely knew he’d been to the Basement last night, but he hadn’t been followed or observed. That was an impressively sneaky maneuver—one he wouldn’t be able to pull off again once Nadia completed her assignment.

“You got lucky,” she said, knowing how little Nate would appreciate it. “You’re trying to outwit a professional spy with a whole network at his fingertips. Do you really think you’re up to the challenge?” Mosely would likely drag her off to Riker’s Island right here and now if he could hear what she was saying. And yet she couldn’t seem to make herself shut up.

It’s what Nate would expect you to say anyway, she consoled herself. If she meekly accepted his determination to find Bishop no matter what the risks, he would know something was wrong, even if he didn’t know quite what.

“I have to be,” Nate said grimly.

“But—”

“I’ll be careful. Besides, Kurt isn’t in the Basement. In fact, he’s not even in Paxco anymore.”

“What?” Nadia swore if one more shock came her way today she was going to pull all her hair out by the roots. “How do you know?”

Nate clasped his hands in his lap and stared at them instead of looking at her. “I want you to promise me not to make a big thing out of this.”

“Out of what?”

Nate cleared his throat and faced her, though he only held eye contact for a second before he looked away, and she could see by the set of his shoulders that he was bracing for her reaction.

“Kurt and I used to go to the Basement together sometimes. You get treated better there when you’re paying in dollars, so I always kept a pretty good stash in the apartment. Kurt and I were the only ones who knew where the money was…”

“And now it’s missing,” Nadia finished for him. On the one hand, this probably meant that Bishop was out of Mosely’s reach and whatever objectionable actions Nadia was forced to take wouldn’t condemn him. On the other hand, stealing Nate’s money—without, apparently, leaving any word of where he was going and without any explanation or apology—didn’t much seem like the act of an innocent man. Maybe she and Nate were both being naive about Bishop. Maybe he was guilty. People the world over did terrible things for money.

“I told you not to make something out of it,” Nate said tightly, reading the thoughts on her face. “He was in trouble, and he needed money. I don’t begrudge him.”

“Of course not,” Nadia murmured, despite a chill of unease. To get to that money, Bishop would have had to flee the scene of the crime in Long Island, return to Nate’s Manhattan apartment, and then escape to the Basement without being caught. The side trip to Nate’s apartment seemed almost fatally dangerous …

Unless he’d already stolen the money and had taken it with him to the mansion. Maybe Nate had caught him