Replica

“It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “With the dollars he took, he could be on another continent by now.”

“And yet he’s close enough to get that note to me in a matter of hours. If he’s so through with you, and so desperate to get you to stop looking for him, why is he delivering the message through Angel and trying to blackmail me into helping? Why didn’t he just do the deed himself last night and tell you to your face he never wanted to see you again?”

Nate gave her a look that was equal parts cold and stubborn. “Maybe he was worried someone had planted a tracker on me and I’d lead Mosely right to him.”

“Or maybe he knew that if he tried to deliver the message personally, he wouldn’t be able to hide what he really felt,” she countered, warming up to her own argument. Maybe she was the world’s worst judge of character, but she couldn’t see Bishop betraying Nate the way he supposedly had. No, there was something else behind his actions, and Nadia realized she had a good guess as to what.

“He loves you, Nate,” she said. “He just doesn’t trust you to be careful enough.”

“What?”

“I didn’t tell you about Mosely because I thought you would fly off the handle the way you do and that I and my family would suffer for it. And Bishop doesn’t want you getting anywhere near him because he’s afraid you’re going to be careless and lead Mosely to him.”

Nate looked at her as if she were crazy. “That’s ridiculous!” Color warmed his cheeks, and she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment. “I’ll admit I’m a bit … impetuous sometimes. But I’ve been very careful about everything. Paranoid, even.”

“Mosely knew you visited the Basement on Tuesday night,” she countered. “That’s why he had me plant a tracker on you last night. Which you wore into the Basement while looking for Bishop.”

“So it’s my fault that you planted a tracker on me?”

Nadia held on to her patience, though it took a concerted effort with the way her emotions were rioting. “All I’m saying is that as careful as you were trying to be, you were still taking risks. Risks that could have led Mosely to Bishop. As it is, you can be sure Mosely is going to question Angel, since he must know you talked to her.”

Nate shuddered. “Mosely probably had someone spying on me. They wouldn’t have seen what actually happened—we were in a closed room—but they’d know I left the place in bad shape.”

“Hopefully, they’ll just think you got mugged for asking too many questions,” Nadia said, though she didn’t have high hopes. “If she’s brought in for questioning, do you think she’ll talk?”

Nate’s scornful expression was answer enough, and, in truth, Nadia had known it was a dumb question. She doubted even the noblest of human beings could stand up to the kind of pressure Mosely could apply, and a Basement power player like Angel was not going to be the noblest of human beings. If she knew where Bishop was hiding, she’d tell Mosely and it would all be over.

“Let’s hope that when Bishop found the tracker, he realized what it meant for him and took appropriate precautions,” Nadia said, though she wasn’t honestly sure what precautions Bishop could take if Mosely was close on his tail. Why on earth was he still in Paxco if he had enough money to get out? There had to be a damn good reason.

Nate rubbed at his eyes like he had a headache. “I really want to believe you’re right.” He gave a grunt of frustration. “But why won’t Kurt talk to me, damn it!” The frustration propelled him to his feet, and his sudden wince of pain proved that sudden movement wasn’t a good idea.

“How could he have had me attacked and beaten instead of just telling me to back off?” he said more softly, rubbing a hand over his apparently sore ribs.

Nadia had to fight the urge to reach out to him. Nate was in more than just physical pain, and she was responsible for some of it. “He hurt you because he thought making you think he was the bad guy was the only way to keep you away,” she said as gently as she could. “We both know you’d have ignored him if he’d just asked you to quit.”

Nate hunched in on himself. “They beat the crap out of me,” he said in a voice so subdued it hardly sounded like him. “You really think Kurt could have them do that and still … care about me?”

“He’s from a different world, Nate. A much harder world. He did what he thought he needed to do to protect himself. And I’m sure he feels bad about it.”

“Not as bad as I feel.” But she could tell she’d gotten through to him by the renewed life in his eyes. He wasn’t going to wallow in his misery for long. Which might or might not turn out to be a good thing.

“Nothing’s changed,” she reminded him. “Bishop is obviously very, very serious about not wanting you to look for him.”

“And you’re still spying for Mosely.” The cold was back in his voice. “You’re going to repeat this conversation for him as soon as you have a chance, aren’t you?”

Nadia hadn’t even thought of that, so absorbed in her own guilt she hadn’t considered the full implications of what she’d figured out. She’d come to Nate to unburden herself, but the fact remained that Mosely had ordered her to find out what had happened last night, and she just had. He would no doubt be in contact before the day was out, demanding to know what she’d learned.

“I don’t know how much he’ll know about what happened last night, how much the tracker would have told him. But he will question me, and if he’s anywhere near as good at knowing when people are lying as he’s supposed to be, it could get ugly.”

Suddenly, the weight of it all was too much, and Nadia bowed her head as her chest tightened with another stirring of panic. There was no way she could repeat everything she and Nate had discussed this morning to Mosely. Nate had gotten too close to finding Bishop last night, and while the information they’d shared wasn’t enough to conveniently lead Nate straight to Bishop’s doorstep, it could very well be everything Mosely needed. So she couldn’t tell him. And yet she couldn’t face the consequences of not telling him.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Nate said, his voice softer and gentler than it had been from the moment she’d blurted out her confession.

He meant the words to be comforting, but she wanted to scream at him. When was he going to accept that he couldn’t make promises like that? He’d probably told Bishop the same thing when he’d made him his valet, and look what had happened!

“Please don’t tell him what I just told you,” Nate continued. “He’s probably already watching Angel, but he has no way to know for sure that Kurt’s been in contact unless you tell him. And if you tell him that Kurt stole my dollars, he’ll make the same assumption I did, that Kurt’s not in Paxco anymore.”

Nadia shook her head, not sure how she was going to keep Mosely from prying this information out of her. She swallowed hard. “Do you have any idea what would happen to me, what would happen to my family if Mosely catches me lying to him?”

“I won’t let him hurt you or your family, Nadia. I mean it.”

She glanced up at him in exasperation. “Wake up, Nate! You can’t stop him from hurting me. You can’t stop him from getting pissed off at me and taking it out on my niece or my nephew. You think he can’t get some scumbag to hurt them for him? Without ever dirtying his own hands? All he needs is a little plausible deniability, and he can get away with just about anything. You think throwing a temper tantrum is going to stop him?”

“He’s not invincible!” he snapped back. “And I’m not some whiny, powerless kid. Can I officially order him to leave you alone and expect him to listen to me? No. But I can sure as hell make a lot of noise he would find inconvenient, to say the least. He can threaten you all he wants, but if it comes down to actually acting on the threats, that’s a whole other story.”

He’s already hit me once, she thought, but refrained from saying, afraid the words would have the absolute opposite effect from what she wanted.

Nate might be right. Mosely might be making empty threats. Not because he didn’t have the power to carry them out, or even because he would fear the consequences of doing so, but because if the situation escalated to that point, she wouldn’t be useful to him anymore. Once Mosely followed through on the ugliest of his threats, if he actually had Gerri arrested and sent to Riker’s Island or had someone hurt Corinne or Rory, the threat lost its power to control her.

But even if Nate was right, even if Mosely didn’t plan to follow through on his threats, how could she possibly risk her family’s safety on that assumption?