“Wait, what?” Kelly dropped her arms. “Where is she taking my clothes?”
“Don’t worry, you’re going with them. Becks, get the countersurveillance kit from the closet and take her to the bedroom. I want everything she has swept for trackers, bugs, anything that might transmit. Don’t bring her back until you’re sure she’s clean.” I gave Kelly a reassuring look. “It’s not personal, Doc. We just need to know.”
Kelly surprised me: She didn’t argue. She just sighed, looking resigned, and said, “I understand decontamination procedures,” before picking up her briefcase and turning to Becks. “Where do we go?”
“This way.” Becks slung the laundry sack over her shoulder and led Kelly from the room. The door closed behind them with a snap as Becks engaged the interior locks. They’d be a while.
Alaric and Dave were watching me warily when I turned to face them. I smiled faintly. “It’s a fun day, isn’t it? Alaric, turn on the wireless speaker. I want the two of you to hear this.”
“Hear what?” he asked, beginning to type again.
“I’m going to play the concerned citizen and call the Memphis CDC. I want to extend my heartfelt condolences to my good friend Joseph Wynne,” I said blandly, pulling out my phone. “Dave, start the server recording.”
“It’s on,” he said.
“Good.” With all the necessary steps taken, I flipped my phone open. Most guys my age have girlfriends and drinking buddies on their speed dial. Me, I have the Memphis CDC. Sometimes I really think I never had a chance in hell of having a normal life.
“Dr. Joseph Wynne’s office, how may I direct your call?” The receptionist’s voice was bright, perky, and generic. I might have spoken to him before; I might not have. Office staff at the CDC seemed trained to behave as interchangeably as possible.
“Is Dr. Wynne available?”
“Dr. Wynne has asked not to be disturbed today.”
“And why is that?”
“There has been a recent personnel change, and he is attempting to redistribute tasks in his department,” said the receptionist pertly.
That was the coldest way I’d ever heard to describe somebody’s death. Rolling my eyes, I said, “Tell him it’s Shaun Mason calling with condolences for his recent loss.”
“One moment please.” There was a click and the speaker was suddenly playing the elevator music version of some bloodless pre-Rising pop hit. Removing the lyrics and most of the subliminal bass actually improved the song.
Dave and Alaric got up and came to stand beside me, as much for the psychological benefit as to hear what was going on; the speaker was broadcasting every tortured, tuneless note to the entire room, and it kept broadcasting as the music clicked off, replaced by the tired, Southern-accented voice of Dr. Joseph Wynne: “Shaun. I wondered when you’d be calling.”
“I just finished processing the news, sir. How are you holding up?”
“Oh, as well as can be expected, I suppose,” he said. Someone who thought Kelly was dead might have taken the strain in his voice for grief. Since Kelly was in the next apartment showing Becks parts of her anatomy that only her gynecologist would normally see, I recognized his hesitance for what it was: fear.
I was talking to a man who was scared out of his mind.
“What happened?” I asked.
“We don’t rightly know yet, although I wish we did. There’s a group of folks here from the Atlanta office going over our security tapes and checking all the facilities. There’s no way anyone should have been able to ghis far into the building, but they managed it somehow.”
“I’m so sorry, sir,” I said, exchanging a nod with Dave. It was good tactical thinking. Set up a convoluted enough break-in and distract the security teams with picking it apart, rather than looking too closely at “Kelly” while she was still in the morgue. The body would be cremated almost immediately—hell, it might have been cremated already, depending on her family’s wishes—and any chance of them identifying it as a clone would be lost. Sure, Dr. Wynne would be fucked beyond belief if the break-in was revealed as a fake, but Kelly would be in the clear.
“I’m still a bit in shock,” he said. “I’m sorry to say it, Shaun, because I know the wounds are still raw for you, but it’s like Georgia all over again.”
Shit, hissed George.
“George?” I said, automatically.
Luckily for me, Dr. Wynne was one of the few people I knew who hadn’t received the “Shaun has lost his marbles” memo. Him and my parents. “The way we lost her was just so damn sudden,” he said, continuing our conversation without missing a beat.
He’s saying it was an emergency evacuation, you idiot, said George. She may not know it, but he got her out to save her life. God, I wish there was a way you could ask if he was sure she wasn’t bugged.