The Immortality Virus (32 page)

She’d been giving this a lot of thought and only one place made sense: The cabin where he had hidden out while on the run from the law. It would be a familiar pattern for him. She described her theory to Alex and Sam.

“It’s a good place to check,” Alex said slowly, “but I’m not sure I agree. My uncle was waiting for someone to come looking for Grandpa. If Grandpa got in touch with him, if he was hiding out at the same place he’d hidden before...”

“Then Ethan probably already has him,” Grace said. “Would Ethan kill his own father?”

Alex shrugged. “He was willing to kill me. If he’s got Grandpa then I don’t think we’ve got much hope of finding him alive.”

Grace considered for a moment and then shook her head. “If Ethan had Jordan, would he have been so panicked?”

“Maybe, if he thought Grandpa left a trail others could follow.”

Great. She had no means to launch a rescue mission if Ethan had Jordan. Maybe Matt did, but she would need to make sure Ethan had the man first.

“Ethan lives in St. Louis,” Grace said. “Either way, we need to leave the city.”

“I can talk to Matt,” Sam said, “but there will be people following us wherever we go. If we go tearing off after Jordan without backup, somebody else is likely to get to him first. Or Ethan will kill him.”

Grace heaved a heavy sigh. “Alex, I need a private word with you.”

Sam raised his eyebrows, but Grace ignored him.

“Um, sure,” Alex looked back at Sam and shrugged. There seemed to be a silent competition between them. Why had she named her computer after Sam? Now he would think she still had feelings for him. Maybe she did. It wasn’t like you could love a man for fifty years and then start thinking of him like a stranger.

Alex and Grace headed to the bedroom, prepared to ask Meg to leave, but Meg walked out and went to sit on the sofa. She didn’t say a word, but she must have been listening at the door.

Grace’s bedroom was just as she’d left it–a bit of a mess. She hurriedly shoved some clothes in the closet and then turned to face Alex. “I know where your grandfather was for four hundred years. Stanton Sr. had him locked away.”

Alex sucked in his breath. “He was a prisoner?”

“Yes.”

“And now Matt wants to imprison him again?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t let him do that.”

“I don’t want to do that, but Alex, your grandfather knows the secret to aging. Is there any way you can convince him to help Matt of his own free will?”

Alex turned away. “I guess I can try, but it may be a moot point. We don’t know where he is. If my uncle has him, I’m not sure how to get him. If we find him, we can be sure at least three other parties will be right on our heels ready to fight one another over the rights to have him, hold him, or kill him.”

They just couldn’t get past the fact that wherever they went, someone would be following them. Grace started to sit down on her bed to give it more thought when inspiration struck. She stood up before she even hit the bed. “If they’re going to follow us then maybe what we need to do is send someone else.”

It was a stupid plan. Grace checked the time for the millionth time and continued to wear a hole in the living room carpet. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Where was Meg? She should have been back hours ago. Alex had given her specific instructions and Matt had provided an escort and access to an underground tunnel leading out of the city. No one had followed Meg. They had all followed Grace as she checked the apartment where Jordan had once relocated his wife to keep her from being killed. It turned out to still be standing, after a fashion.

She started to pace. Pace, turn. Pace turn. Grace didn’t have enough space in her living room for a truly satisfying gait.

Something crashed next door. Then she heard a high-pitched shriek. Then a door slamming.

“What was that?” Alex asked.

“Neighbors fighting again,” Grace said. She checked the time again. Barely thirty seconds had passed since the last check.

Sam opened the door and peaked outside. A wheezing, choking sort of cry came through the open door. It sounded like someone was dying out there. For a moment, Grace forgot about Meg and ducked her head into the hallway.

Lissy was lying on the floor in the fetal position, crying in gasping, choked sobs that were not at all feminine. She hugged her belly as if someone had threatened to take her baby away.

“What’s going on?” Grace asked.

Lissy shook her head. She didn’t seem capable of speech.

“Let her inside,” Sam said. “Come on, we can’t leave her like that.”

Sam and Alex helped Lissy inside and sat her on the couch, where she doubled over and hid her head in her hands.

Grace checked the time again. Thirty more seconds. Still no Meg. She went to get Lissy a glass of water, though she expected the woman would choke on it before she could drink it.

To her surprise, Lissy managed a half-smile when she handed her the water. She stifled a sob and managed to get down a few swallows. “Thanks for inviting me in,” Lissy said.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“Roy kicked me out.”

It sounded more like he’d beaten her out, but Grace didn’t say so. She got a better look at Lissy’s face, which was smeared with tears and something Grace now recognized as blood. “He broke your nose!”

Lissy hid her face again. “What am I going to do? I don’t think he’ll take me back.”

Grace had a sudden flash of another conversation much like this one. Years ago her sister had been with someone who had not only beaten her, but their son as well. Yet she’d also wanted him back.

“Who else have I got?” Lissy finished the water and fell into slow, sporadic sniffles.

Grace looked at Alex and Sam, who just stared back helplessly. When had she become the sort to take in strays? All of a sudden she had Meg and Lissy. Although Meg hated her for it and might be dead for all she knew. Grace checked the time again.

“Are your parents alive?” Sam asked in what he must have thought was a gentle tone, although Grace heard the tension in it.

“Yeah, but they won’t take me back.” Lissy sighed. “They sold me to him in the first place. One hundred credits. That’s how much I’m worth.”

The apartment fell silent for a moment. In the background, Grace could still hear the shield bombardment going on. She went to the window to look out and saw the same scene she’d seen for two days–planes in the air; some friend and some foe.

“They’ll be getting in the city soon,” Alex said. “The shield can’t hold out forever.”

“Maybe we should turn on the news and get an update,” Sam suggested.

It would be better than pacing and trying to console Lissy, so Grace jumped on the idea. “Holoset on. News channel 38.”

“We have reports of fighting within the city now,” a reporter was saying. “We’re trying to get a hovercar up to the St. Joseph area. As far as we know, the shield is still up, so we’re not sure how Edgers’s troops are getting in.”

“What’s wrong with your set?” Sam asked.

“No 3-D,” Grace replied.

“Hard to see what’s going on,” Sam said.

“Fine. Holoset off.”

“I didn’t mean for you to turn it off,” Sam said.

Grace shrugged. “What else should I do? Edgers is getting inside. Probably has some help from someone on the inside. We know there are tunnels in and out. Meg should have taken one and been back by now.”

“Who’s Meg?” Lissy asked.

The doorbell buzzed. Grace raced to it, paused, grabbed her weapon–a new Smith and Wesson disruptor with stun capability–and looked through the peephole. She expected to see Meg, but it was Roy.

“I know she’s in there!” Roy called through the door.

Lissy stiffened.

Grace did not open the door, but she replied loudly enough for Roy to hear her. “You kicked her out. It’s none of your business now.”

“I don’t give a damn what you do with that lying blip, I just came to drop off her stuff.”

Something thudded to the ground outside the door, and Roy walked away.

“I’ll get it,” Grace said with a sigh. She opened the door, grabbed a bag full of clothes, then locked the door again. Why she had let herself get involved in a domestic dispute was beyond her. Maybe it was Lissy’s pregnancy. It was making her soft.

To her surprise, Lissy was sobbing even harder. Alex had an arm around her. “You can’t let words hurt you like that.”

“But it’s true,” Lissy sobbed. “I am a blip.”

Grace looked at Lissy with a great deal more interest. Blips were rare–less than one in a million people were born with the genetic anomaly that caused them to age as people once had. Most of those lived alone as they were feared and hated. For twenty to thirty years they could get along unidentified, but after that people started to notice.

“How do you know?” Alex asked.

“They did blood tests when I got pregnant.” Lissy said. “The doctor told me six months ago. She told him a couple of weeks ago.”

That explained a lot. Grace had noticed that the intensity of the fighting had gone up noticeably in the last couple of weeks.

The doorbell buzzed again.

Grace ran to the door, readied her weapon, and for the second time looked out the peephole hoping to see Meg. It wasn’t Meg. It wasn’t Roy again either.

It was Captain Flint.

Grace blinked. “What?”

“Can I come in?” Captain Flint asked.

Grace turned to look at the faces of her guests. Lissy seemed preoccupied with her recent revelation. Alex and Sam looked curious.

“May as well,” Grace stepped aside and let him in.

“I had hoped for a private word,” Captain Flint said, “but the man we have tailing you said the two men staying with you weren’t showing signs of leaving and this just can’t wait.”

“So they did get to you,” Sam said. “Matt thought they might have.”

“You don’t understand,” Grace said.

“No, he doesn’t,” Captain Flint said. “There are rumors going around that you’re looking for the secrets of aging.”

Grace kept her face completely impassive.

“I won’t ask you to confirm or deny,” Captain Flint said, “but I want you to know that the people I work for are questioning whether it’s worth it to let you live. Mostly, they’ve decided it’s not, and they’re questioning whether it’s worth it to let you finish this investigation before you die.”

“Terrific,” Grace said. “I suspected as much.”

“Of course,” Captain Flint said. “There’s something else, though. Someone out there is protecting you. One assassin was already sent in here and he was shot down. Now, I don’t know who did that, but something tells me it wasn’t Matt Stanton’s men. When you find what you’re looking for, you may have a war on your hands.”

“I figured that, too,” Grace said. “So, did you come here figuring I couldn’t add two and two, or did you come here to plant that listening device you’re so casually trying to press into the carpet?”

Sam rushed forward and snatched the device. Then he put it on the card table and smashed it with the butt of his disruptor.

Captain Flint looked oddly relieved. “I had to try. They wouldn’t have let me in here otherwise. Look, I don’t know exactly what you’re after but I suspect the rumors are true. I also suspect it doesn’t matter anymore if they are or not. A dozen different parties are fighting over you even as we speak. Oh, and Matt Stanton has gone missing.”

“What?” Sam said. “When?”

“I don’t know,” Captain Flint said. “Everyone’s looking for him, though. Everyone wants to get their hands on him. We went to arrest him a couple hours ago, but he wasn’t at home or at Medicorp. He might have gotten wind that someone was after him and then gone into hiding.”

“Arrest him for what?” Sam asked.

“For the murder of his father.” Captain Flint gave Sam a contemptuous look.

“What evidence do you have?” Grace asked. She hadn’t turned any over to them.

Captain Flint shrugged. “They don’t have anymore than they did the day I spoke to you, but they’re worried. They’re worried about the armies outside the city, about the possibility that he really is after some aging secret, about a lot of things.”

“So they’re basically kidnapping him,” Grace said.

Captain Flint waved her comment away. “The point is Mr. Stanton’s gone. He’s out of the picture. There are people out there who will decide who gets whatever you’re after. Edgers’s troops are inside the city. The Kansas City Establishment has its own troops and a close eye on you. I think there are others–maybe loyal to Matt–maybe someone else. I’m not sure you have that choice.”

“Anything else?” Grace asked, trying to make it sound as if the thought of several distinct armies with an intense interest in her didn’t faze her one bit.

Captain Flint shook his head. “For the record, I hope you don’t die.”

Grace opened the door by way of saying good-bye, but Captain Flint didn’t take the hint. He stood there so expectantly that Grace followed him out into the hallway to indulge him for a minute. She didn’t talk. She just waited to hear whatever he had to say.