“There,” he said. “That’s better.”
“Surveillance suppressor?” she asked, although she’d never heard of gear that small. Law enforcement had been pushing to ban personal audio and video recording blockers for the better part of a decade, but industry lobbyists and the ACLU had fought them every step of the way.
“For any friends who might want to record a keepsake of our conversation,” the man said, gesturing abstractly to the walls and ceiling. “Do you know who I am?”
She rolled her eyes at him. He was Franklin Butler: founder, leader, spokesperson, and self-appointed messiah of the Children of Adam. She thought from his videos that he would be taller. Older too. In person, he didn’t look anywhere close to forty-two, and she understood why he had grown the beard. It had to be a challenge to lead a hate group with the face of a cherubic Boy Scout.
“Good,” Butler said. “We don’t have time for lengthy introductions. And for the record, I know you as well. Hard not to, given how the media has obsessed over you. Clone solving the murder of her original. Compelling stuff.”
In a previous life, before becoming the face of the anti-clone movement, Franklin Butler had been a rising star at the University of Chicago in the Department of Philosophy. Was that why he talked like a patriarch in an old black-and-white movie?
“Why am I here?” she asked, although what she meant was Why am I not already dead? Franklin Butler’s position on clones was well documented. There was a standing bounty for any clone caught south of the Potomac River, and in the past five years, at least eight clones who’d strayed into the wrong state had been murdered—put down, in the parlance of the CoA—and, of course, none of the eight had been prosecuted as homicides. One of the killers had actually been convicted, but only for destruction of property. He’d received a token fine. Franklin Butler had reveled publicly in that decision. So, despite his refined, civilized patina, Con knew exactly what his presence meant for her chances of walking out of here alive.
“Ironically, I have precisely the same question,” Butler said. “Why am I here?”
“Hey, you kidnapped me.”
“Well, as the facts will bear out, I did not.”
“Those assholes had CoA tattoos. That means they answer to you.”
Butler laughed derisively. “Were it only that cut and dried. Were you hurt or mistreated in any way?”
That was an unexpected question. Beneath his bluster, though, she thought he seemed on edge. Nervous. It made her curious but wary. “Apart from the kidnapping?”
“Apart from that,” he allowed.
“No,” she said. “But I could eat.”
“So could I, now that you mention it.” Butler took a handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it on the table. Almonds spilled out. He picked one out and popped it into his mouth. “Please. Be my guest.”
She left them untouched.
“If I meant you any harm, you’d already be harmed,” he said, managing to sound offended that his grand gesture had been rebuffed.
She took one and made a show of eating it. “There. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Why am I here?” she asked a second time.
“The reason you are here and not hanging from a tree the way Big John intends is that, an hour ago, I received a message from the CoA’s largest single donor requesting that I personally intercede to prevent anything drastic from occurring to you. You’re welcome, by the way. This donor has always insisted on absolute discretion and anonymity. I’ve never met them nor know their identity. Given the generosity of the sums involved, I was perfectly content with the arrangement since, until now, he or she never asked for any considerations. Well, I am no longer content.”
“What do you want from me? I don’t know who your investor is,” Con said, although she wondered if that was true.
“Vernon Gaddis has taken quite an interest in you.”
“You think your anonymous investor is Vernon Gaddis? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. He hates the CoA with a passion.”
“And we, him,” Butler confirmed. “But humor me. Vernon Gaddis has already ridden to your rescue once, yes? Swooping in like some medieval knight-errant at your hour of greatest need. Honestly, the whole thing should come with its own classical score. Why wouldn’t he do it again? Or do you have another wealthy benefactor I should know about?”
“He’s not my benefactor,” Con said, careful not to mention Brooke Fenton, who would only incite Butler’s worst impulses. In the last few years, Butler had spun out one conspiracy theory after another detailing the sinister motives behind the existence of clones. His followers ate it up—the more outlandish, the better. What would happen if a natural-born conspiracy-monger learned that her head contained Abigail Stickling’s lost research? What wouldn’t he do to keep it away from either Vernon Gaddis or Brooke Fenton?