Mindspeak (25 page)

Well, I would have no part of it.
And they couldn’t force me.

“What happened to you? You look
awful.”

I spun around. I hadn’t even
noticed Danielle when I stormed in. She glanced up from the open laptop on her
bed where she sat in a half lotus—a Yoga position that would kill my knees.

“Thanks.” I puffed a lazy strand of
hair off my face as I struggled to bend down and pick up the fallen book.

“Seriously, what happened?” She
closed the laptop and swung her legs off the bed and onto the floor. “Did you get
into a fight?”

I dug through my bag and pulled out
my cell phone, then walked to my desk and pulled out the starfish trinket box
that Dad had sent me. In it, I had stored the card from Marci Daniels, the
journalist who delivered the box.

“What?” I asked as if it was the
stupidest question ever. “No. I didn’t get into a fight.”

I typed a text message to Marci in
my phone.
“Hi, Marci. Need to see u. Can u come to me? Hard 4 me to leave
school. ~Lexi.”

As soon as I had texted Marci, I
fired off one more text to her.
“P.S. What do u know about Sandra Whitmeyer
and John DeWeese?”

I stared at the phone, willing
Marci to text me back instantly. Even I realized how ridiculous it was to
expect that. The phrase
a watched pot never boils
came to mind.

Danielle began tapping her bare
foot on the floor. I raised my eyes and found her arms folded tightly across
her chest.

“I’m sorry. No, I didn’t get into a
fight. Jack and I were in an accident.”

“What? Lexi, why didn’t you call
me? Are you okay? Is Jack okay?”

“We’re both pretty sore, but I
think I got the worst of it. Which is pretty good, considering we’re both alive
and walking around.” I tried to laugh.

“Well, thank God.” Danielle stood
and hugged me. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

“I feel the same way. Thanks, Dani.”
I hugged her back.

My phone buzzed with an incoming
text. From Jack.
“Get 2 room OK? Take pain pill and get sleep. Meet for
dinner?”

Mmm. Cafeteria food. How could I turn
that down? I was not taking one of those painkillers. They made me completely
loopy and overly tired. With everything going on, I wanted my full wits about
me.

I shrugged at Danielle after
reading the text. “Jack.”

“Ahhh. I can’t believe we’ve been
here six years, and this is the first guy you’ve dated.”

“We’re not dating,” I protested.
Not really. It was one date. I quickly fired off a text to him.
“Sure. C u
l8r.”
Who was I kidding? I was in love.

“Yeah, right,” she said as she
began packing up her books. “Keep telling yourself that.” She swung her
backpack over her shoulder. “Hey, I’ve got a study group to get to. You need
anything before I go?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got some studying
to do myself.”

Danielle left. Just as the door
clicked closed, my phone buzzed again.

“Be there in one hour. ~Marci.”

~~~~

“What do
you
know about
Sandra Whitmeyer?” Marci answered my question with a question.
Journalists
.

“Not much, really,” I said. “Only
that she worked with my Dad and Dr. DeWeese once upon a time.”

Marci twisted and wrung her hands
in her lap. We sat on a bench outside a classroom building. It wasn’t a popular
spot on Sunday afternoons.

From her sneakers and jeans all the
way to the conservative auburn ponytail, Marci looked different than in the
snazzy business suit and three-inch heels she’d worn the day I met her. No amount
of make-up could cover the darkness now living under her eyes.

“Well… I have some articles that
were written about her twenty or so years ago. Some feature her research and
some societal stuff. Your father didn’t speak very… um… favorably of her.”

“Any pictures?” Did Marci know I
was the spitting image of Sandra Whitmeyer from the time those articles were
probably published?

“If there were pictures, I didn’t
notice them.”

“Strange that Sandra’s name didn’t
sound familiar to me when I first heard it. I’m sure she would have been mentioned
in the scores of articles I’ve read regarding my dad’s old research.” Noticing
Marci shift where she sat, I reached over and placed my hand on her fidgety
hands. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. This has all been a little too
much.” A couple of girls jogged behind us, and Marci jerked toward the scuffle
of feet. “My editor wants to go ahead and publish the articles. But the FBI has
threatened to squash the articles forever… a matter of homeland security.”
Marci wrung her hands in front of her.

“Homeland security?”

She nodded. “The government can
stop anything from going to press. We can yell ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘First Amendment
rights’ all we want, but if the government deems it a matter of national
security, our lips are sealed.”

“Can you tell me what the articles
are about, now?”

The sadness, or maybe it was fear,
that swam in Marci’s dark, brown eyes gave her a more youthful appearance, and
made me want to comfort this woman who, I suspected, had loved my father for more
than the scoop he provided.

“Before I tell you, you should know
why I’ve fought my editor to keep these articles unpublished since your father’s
death.”

“Okay.”

“Your father made me promise him
one thing before I moved forward.” She stood and walked a few steps before turning
and facing me. “I promised your father time to move you somewhere secure. He
thought you were safe at Wellington while the public was in the dark about his
research. But he also thought these articles might put you both in danger. He
was already receiving threats.”

“And now you think I’m in danger?”

“I think anyone who knows what I’m
about to tell you, or
could
know about it, is in danger.” She sat again.

Was this about Jack and me? Did she
know that we were genetically-altered, cloned humans? Was Dad on his way to
move me the morning he was killed? “Just tell me,” I whispered.

“Lexi, your father was working for
the FBI when he was killed. He had compiled information about a governmental
program that was cloning human beings that were genetically altered to be
healing machines.”

She could have punched me in the
stomach and not have knocked the air out of me as quickly as those words did.
Healing machines? “What are you talking about? How many human clones are we
talking?”

“He didn’t know.” She buried her
face into her hands. “Or he was killed before he told me.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?” My voice
was barely coherent.

“Lexi. He wanted to tell you. He
planned to take you away with him.”

That was becoming obvious to me.

“Do you know why Dr. DeWeese went
to Sicily?”

I shook my head.

“I suspect that, because your
father gave them full guardianship over you, they went to collect his
belongings.”

I’d never known exactly where my
father lived. “You think his journals are there,” I whispered. What gave Dr.
DeWeese the right to collect
my
father’s things?

“I think his latest journals
could
be there, but…” Marci glanced over her shoulder and then scanned the area
around us, stopping on the school’s gate in the distance where a couple of men
stood.

“But?” I prompted.

“Your father’s too smart to have
left his journals where they would be easily discovered.”

“If Dr. DeWeese thinks these
journals are in Sicily, and if you and your editor already know what this ‘discovery’
is, then why is someone trying to kill
me
?”

“What do you mean?”

I shared the details of the wreck
with Marci. Worry and fear weighed the bags under her eyes down even further.

“Are you safe here?” she asked.

“I think so. But I need your help.”

“With what? I’ll do anything I can.”

“I want to know exactly where
Sandra Whitmeyer is. Do you have contacts that can find her? Her current
address. What she’s doing now.”

“Have you asked John DeWeese? Seems
like he would know. Or is it too awkward?”

I arched a brow. “Why do you say
that?”

“They were supposed to be married
before she broke it off. I just assumed he probably kept up with her
whereabouts.” When my eyes just about popped out of my head, she continued. “I
assumed you knew. I didn’t realize the importance of that. Their engagement
announcement made the society pages.” She reached down and began sifting
through what looked like a satchel of file folders. “Now that you mention it, I
think there might have been a picture.”

~~~~

I know you’re up here
.

I pulled my knees in and scooted
further into the darkness. Hiding from Jack was the mature way to go. The roof
of the girls’ dorm used to be the place I could escape at nights. To figure
things out. Lose myself in the stars above. Be closer to heaven and God, maybe.

God. I chuckled. Oh, how he must
have cringed when Jack and I were created. No wonder we were almost killed
Friday night. We were an abomination.

Lexi, I know you’re upset.

Upset? No, upset was way too kind a
word. I fought hard to close off my mind and keep him out of it. Jack probably
thought I was being quite the drama queen. It wasn’t that I was hiding. I was
assessing. Searching for some sort of survivor instinct deep within me.

His footsteps grew closer. The
stars above me twinkled, reminding me of a time when my grandmother used to
sing to me and whisper nursery rhymes as I fell asleep.

Amazing how complicated life can
get. I fingered the starfish and the key hanging around my neck.

Please stop this, Lexi.
His
foot shuffled as he made a turn. He stood close.
Look, I’m sorry. I should
have told you.

Go away, Jack. I’ve reached my
allotment for insane stories today. My entire life was engineered eighteen
years ago. Right down to whom I was supposed to love. And you knew. I know you
did.

“At least you’re talking to me now,”
he said softly, almost a whisper.

I don’t want to talk to you
right now. Don’t you get it?
I peeked around the corner of the wall I hid
behind.

He turned his head left, then
right, and then at me.

I leaned my head against the wall.
Did he see me? This really was juvenile.

“You would only have heard my
actual words if you were near,” he said, leaning against the brick and towering
over me.

I tilted my head up. He peered down
at me with a smile.

“What do you want? Is it too much
to ask for time to deal with all this… all this… life-controlling junk?”

He stepped away from the wall, and
I thought he was going to leave. My heart practically stopped. It was what I
wanted, right?

Instead of leaving, he walked
around and sat beside me. His shoulder against mine. His knees bent in front of
him like mine and flush with my legs. Only his were longer.

“You’re right. I’ve had longer to
deal with a lot of this junk. I wish I could give you that same gift.”

I risked a look at him. I hadn’t
thought of that. He must have been surprised when he learned what his father
had done all those years ago.

“The simple truth is we are what we
are.” Jack grazed the back of his hand against my knee. “And because of that, someone
wants one or both of us dead.”

The lump in my throat prevented me
from speaking.

“The other simple truth is…” He
slipped his fingers under mine, and cradled my hand in his lap. “In one
weekend, someone tried to drug you, kill us in a car accident, and drown you in
my swimming pool. I don’t know if it was the same person every time, or what…”
Jack leaned his head against our tangled hands. “I won’t let anything happen to
you.”

“I don’t think you can make that
promise anymore.”

“That’s why I think you should run.”

“What?” I angled my body towards
his.

“I’ll help you. I know someone I
can trust who can get you a passport under a different name. Cash. Whatever. We’ll
map out a plan—”

“Are you kidding me?”

He shook his head, with a look of
defeat. “It’s your only option.”

I pressed my finger to his lips. “No.”

“You have to.” His lips were soft,
warm. He spoke through my fingers.

“I’m not running.”

“Lexi, please,” he pleaded.

“My grandmother would be left all
by herself. I would have no one. There is so much I still don’t understand
about who I am. Why my father was killed. I’m not going to live a lie. I… We
were created for some purpose I don’t understand. I’m not going to turn my back
on whatever that purpose is. Not yet, anyway. Not before I at least understand
it.”

Jack leaned his forehead against
mine. Took in a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I didn’t think you would agree,
but I had to try.” Something in his voice told me this wasn’t the last time we’d
discuss this. “But you’re going to have to get used to seeing me a lot more. I’m
not letting you out of my sight.”

I smiled. “I think the dean might
have a problem with you moving in with Dani and me.”

“I don’t care. I’ll pull the ‘she’s
my sister’ card.”

I stifled a laugh.

“Okay, not that. I’ll think of
something.”

We sat there for several minutes.
Jack played with my hair that hung against my cheek and down past my shoulder.
His eyes drifted down to my lips. I leaned closer giving him full permission.

He leaned in and pressed his lips
gently to mine. They were soft and carried a faint taste of mint. He tugged on
my arm and guided me closer. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in his lap,
cradled against him. His lips were hot on mine.