“Come on, give us a song!” someone yelled out happily, which was greeted with laughter and cheers.
“They’re calling your name, mi amor,” Elena said, resting her head on Stephie’s shoulder.
“I’m not getting up there alone,” Stephie said, looking over at Con.
“Oh no, no. No,” Con said, and then, in case anyone had missed it the first three times: “No.”
Dahlia, perched on the arm of her mother’s chair, was grinning at her. “You so are.”
“Why are you still up?” Con asked. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Straight A’s,” Dahlia said. “Fact.”
“What do you say?” Stephie said, taking Con’s hand and giving it a firm squeeze. “I will if you will.”
Con looked from Stephie to Elena to Dahlia and back to her oldest friend. How could she say no to any of these people? “One song.”
“One song,” Stephie agreed. “Your choice.”
Acknowledgments
One of the first lessons you learn as an author is that if you have a good idea while falling asleep, get up and write it down before you do. Because if you don’t, then in the morning, all you’ll have left is a faint chalk outline of that idea and the melancholic certainty that it was the best one you’ll ever have.
One night, nearly five years ago now, I was in that lovely halfway house between consciousness and sleep when a simple thought occurred to me: Wouldn’t it be cool if someone had to investigate their own death? I remembered the old Edmond O’Brien movie, D.O.A., in which he had to figure out who had poisoned him before he died. And I was sure there had to be hundreds of supernatural stories about the dead searching for answers, but how could someone living be in a position to solve their own murder?
I stared at the ceiling for a while until I wondered: What if the hero were a clone of the murdered person with all their memories except those of the murder itself? I executed a flawless movie sit-bolt-upright-in-bed eureka moment and somehow managed to make it to my desk without injuring myself. I spent the rest of the night jotting down pages and pages of world-building notes and wrote the first draft of what is now chapter four. Then I put it all in the proverbial bottom drawer and went back to work on the second Gibson Vaughn book. It would be four more books before I felt ready to return to Constance.
When I finally did return to my notes, it took a host of generous and talented people to help me flesh out and finish the book that you’re holding. It is fair to say I could not have done it without them, and so, my heartfelt thanks . . .
To my agent and friend, David Hale Smith, and his colleagues at InkWell Management Literary Agency.
To my editors, Megha Parekh and Grace Doyle, and to everyone at Thomas & Mercer who worked on this book.
To Steve Konkoly, Joe Hart, and Ed Stackler for reading an early draft and helping point me in the right direction.
To Nadine Nettmann for her boundless patience as I repeatedly spun out the cotton balls of possible plotlines crowding my head.
To Johnny Shaw who read a partial draft when I was struggling to see the ending and helped me get back on track.
To Elizabeth Little for somehow carving out time to read a draft of the manuscript and offer some essential late-game suggestions.
To Katie Lahnstein for helping to imagine how legal protections for clones might, or might not, function; to Lee Kovarsky for explaining how a clone-related lawsuit would make its way to the Supreme Court; and to Steve Feldhaus for his expertise on trusts and wills. Any mistakes or liberties taken are mine, not theirs.
To Lara Atella for her suggestions on the neural-psychological repercussions that cloning might have on the human brain. Again, any mistakes or liberties are mine.
To Tim Lyons and Melissa Wolverton for advice on all things music and band related.
To Aaron Bachmann for his cartological knowledge of Charlottesville, Virginia.
To Mike Tyner for projecting how security and privacy might function twenty years from now.
To Matt Misiorowski for his engineering insights, particularly in the potential directions of electric-vehicle design.
To Boneza Hanchock for her invaluable work as the book’s primary sensitivity reader and for helping me do justice to Con’s experience.
To Valerie Klemczewski for helping me locate Con’s edge and for never letting me soften her.
To Eric Schwerin, Nathan Hughes, Karen Hughes, Giovanna Baffico, Jess Lourey, Matt Iden, D.M. Pulley—you’re all the best.
And to Vanessa Brimner, first and foremost.