Jenna Black - Replica

Mrs. Reeves made a sound between a snort and a laugh. “Always favored the cleaver, myself. Gets the point across faster.” The hint of humor restored her mood, and the redness in her cheeks started to recede.

Nadia smiled a little. “Less of a mess with a meat tenderizer.”

Mrs. Reeves arched her eyebrows. “Clearly you’ve never seen what I can do with one.”

“Will you please ask around for me? Without terrorizing anyone?”

Mrs. Reeves frowned. “I can’t condone anyone being a sneak on my watch. I can promise I won’t fire anyone without running it by your parents first, but if I find out someone put a nasty letter on your tray, I’m going to let them know exactly what I think of them and don’t think you can stop me.”

Nadia had to concede. Mrs. Reeves was much more likely to find the answer than Nadia was, and whoever had put the note on her tray really shouldn’t have done it. It was an offense that would get someone fired in most households.

“Thanks, Mrs. Reeves. Let me know as soon as you find out something.”

“Of course.”

Nadia left Mrs. Reeves to her work and retreated to her room to freshen her makeup and firm up her resolve. She would need everything she could muster to face the inevitable specter of Dirk Mosely.

Nadiaknew better than to hope Mosely would be willing to debrief her over the phone. Instinct told her he’d be in an uncommonly bad mood after having lost the tracker’s signal last night, and he would want to take it out on her. Maybe he’d even want her to come to the security station again for another more formal—and more intimidating, more reputation-damaging—interview. She circumvented him by talking to one of his underlings and making an appointment for Mosely to meet her at the apartment. He might ignore the appointment, or he might show up with a handful of officers in tow and “ask” her to come to the station, but she was pretty sure she could at least start their interview on her home turf.

The question then became, how could she lie to him without being found out?

Realizing that she had never been able to act normal around Mosely, Nadia decided her best chance of surviving the interview with him was to offer an alternative explanation for her inevitably unnatural behavior. So while she waited for him to arrive for their one o’clock appointment, she dipped into her parents’ liquor cabinet and sampled several of her favorite liqueurs. If she’d wanted to get truly drunk, she’d have gone for the vodka, but all she’d wanted to do was take in enough to make life a little fuzzy around the edges—and to make her breath smell like she’d been drinking.

By the time Mosely was announced, Nadia’s cheeks were nicely flushed from drink, and the alcohol had made her feel almost brave. The pretty little earrings with their secret transmitter helped. Just the thought that she might someday be able to make him pay for his abuses was heartening. She even managed to smile in greeting when Mosely was shown into the room, and he looked at her as if she’d gone mad. He was expecting her to cower after their last encounter, and the look on his face when she smiled at him was enough to make her want to laugh. So she did, letting the alcohol loosen her inhibitions and enjoying Mosely’s discomfort as a girlish giggle escaped her lips.

Nadia batted her eyelashes at him and made her way to the couch, making sure to look unsteady on her feet before collapsing ungracefully into the middle seat. Despite her smile and the giggle, her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird in her chest.

“Are you drunk?” Mosely asked incredulously.

Nadia giggled again, though this time the sound was a little more forced. She’d never been truly drunk in her life, but she’d seen enough people overindulge to feel like she had a handle on how to act. The more out of her mind she could make herself seem, the less likely Mosely would be able to see through her lies. At least, that was the theory.

“I might have had a little too much wine with lunch,” she said, licking her lips absently like she could still taste it. “I just wanted to … settle my nerves a bit before we talked.”

Mosely stalked over to the nearest chair, sitting on its very edge and glaring at her. “And why did you feel the need to do that?”

She arched an eyebrow. “You need to ask after our last meeting?”

He pushed to his feet, giving her a look of contempt. At least her impersonation of a drunken idiot seemed to be convincing. All she had to do was hope he’d buy the rest of the act.

“I’ll come back after you’ve had a chance to sober up,” he said. “Might I suggest a large quantity of black coffee?”

“Don’t you want to know what Nate told me about his trip to the Basement last night?” she asked, blinking up at him with wide, innocent eyes.

Mosely gave her one of his creepy stares, one that made her feel as if he could see right through her. If her head weren’t so cloudy with alcohol, she might have wilted, or at least looked nervous. Instead, she gave him a coy smile and hoped he wouldn’t insist on coming back later. Seeing him once in a day was more than enough already.

“So he actually told you something useful?” Mosely asked, and she couldn’t blame him for the skepticism in his voice. Up until now, she hadn’t exactly been a very effective spy.

“If he hadn’t, I would have at least tried to convey the information in a phone call rather than meeting with you personally.” She let a bit of her usually well-controlled resentment creep into her voice. “After the things you’ve threatened, I’d do anything I can to keep you as far away from me as possible.” She feigned a gasp, reaching up and covering her mouth with her hand as if the words had just slipped out. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to say that. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that wine.”

Nadia feared her act was completely transparent, but Mosely resumed his seat, watching her with an expression that would have frozen her marrow if she didn’t have enough alcohol running through her veins to keep her warm. Maybe she’d had a little more liqueur than she realized, because she felt uncommonly brave.

“Tell me what Nathaniel told you about his trip to the Basement last night,” Mosely demanded.

Nadia clasped her hands together in her lap and stared at them, tensing up her shoulder and neck muscles so she looked like she was internally resisting what she was about to say. She even started and stopped a couple of times before she began to speak, as if, even with the alcohol, it was taking all her willpower to get up the nerve to tell him what she’d heard.

“Nate went to the Basement last night. Went to a club called Angel’s.” Nadia frowned, realizing Nate had never told her why he’d gone to that particular club, although it was obvious that last night hadn’t been his only trip there. “I’m not sure why he was looking for Bishop there—I didn’t think to ask him, and he didn’t say. But anyway, he told me he was asking questions, trying to find someone who knew where Bishop was or who would take a message to him.”

Mosely was watching her with such intensity that Nadia had to fight the urge to examine her clothing and make sure she didn’t have a button gaping open or something. His face was almost perfectly expressionless except for the severity in his eyes, and he sat so still Nadia wondered if he was even breathing. The pressure of his scrutiny tightened her throat, and she squeezed her hands together more tightly in her lap.

“Nate told me he bribed someone to set up a meeting between him and the club’s owner, but apparently she didn’t like him asking questions in her club. When he wouldn’t stop, she lured him into a back room, then had her bouncers beat him up and rob him.” She was trying her best to keep her voice level, to keep the pace of her narrative smooth and uninterrupted so there would be no discernible change between her tone when she was telling the truth and her tone when she was lying. She couldn’t tell from Mosely’s closed-off expression whether she was having any success or not.