The Progeny Read online

  “I’m sorry. There’s no record of that name.”

  “It has to be under one or the other,” I say, hearing the panic in my own voice. “Please look again. Emily Porter. P-O-R-T-E-R. Audra Ellison.” I spell it out as well, not caring about the camera anymore.

  A few seconds later, he shakes his head. “There’s no record of anyone by either name ever having visited this Center.”

  “I didn’t visit. I was a patient!”

  He lifts his gaze to me. “There is no record of you entering the clinic in any capacity.”

  I look at the lettering on the wall behind him. St. Francis Center for Memory Research. This has to be it. This is it. In fact, I finally figured out why Clare wore a Franciscan tao cross. But how do you convince the watchdog at the front desk that you know—remember, even—that this is the place you had your memory selectively erased?

  “Clare Thomas,” I say swiftly. “My caretaker was Clare Thomas. Look it up under her name. She left here with me the day of my procedure, traveled and stayed with me for four weeks.”

  He types again, but he’s already shaking his head.

  “We have no log of a Clare Thomas visiting the Center.”

  “She wasn’t a visitor! She was my caretaker, on staff here! If you would just page her—”

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “Yes, it is. She finished her term with me a week ago, so she’s back.”

  “You don’t understand.” He levels his gaze at me. “There is no Clare Thomas on staff at this Center.”

  The white-tiled floor tilts beneath my feet.

  “Could you just . . . try one more thing,” I say. “Could you look it up by record number? Please.”

  “I can try,” he says.

  “Three . . . eight . . . five . . .” I give him the number from Clare’s cross.

  I stare at him for a suspended moment, willing him to find it.

  “I’m sorry. There’s no record with that number.”

  I clasp my hands together on the desk to hide my agitation. “Do you have a supervisor, someone I could speak with? Please. It’s important.”

  “Not at this hour. You’re welcome to come by again tomorrow morning.”

  But whoever I’m protecting may not have that long to wait. I glance past him to the metal door, wonder how hard it would be to get this man’s access card and a log-in to the patient system.

  He slides back slightly in his chair. Just enough for me to see the gun at his hip.

  After a moment’s silent standoff, I turn and push my way out the door, brain firing, grasping for straws.

  9

  * * *

  Rolan’s on his phone when I emerge from the Center. Seeing me, he abruptly ends his call and gets out of the car—then stops, staring at my empty hands.

  “Something isn’t right. They have no record of me. Under any name. Told me I could come back tomorrow,” I say, walking past him to the passenger side. I try to breathe, but once I’m in the car I’m this close to what I imagine a panic attack must feel like. I remotely register Rolan getting in, shutting the door.

  He rubs his face, fingers audibly scraping over two days’ worth of stubble. “You sure this is the place? We passed a hospital campus a few blocks back.”

  “Yes.”

  He stares intently at the Center, and for a moment I actually wonder if he’s thinking of going inside. And then I follow his line of vision to the camera at the corner of the building.

  He’s casing the place.

  My eyes narrow. “Why are you helping me do this?” I say. “Why search for them? You said your only priority is me.”

  “It is,” he says. “Which is why the last thing we can afford is you flying off the handle and doing something equally insane again. When you said we should come here, look up the emergency contact and address in your file, I thought, fine. We’d get your family to a safe house. Because I know you’re not going to let it rest. You may not know me, but I’ve spent months watching you, Audra.”

  “I’ll try to make sure I don’t die and lose you your Christmas bonus,” I say sarcastically.

  My mind runs ahead, to tomorrow. But I may not have until tomorrow. Tonight, then. I don’t need to look to remember the cant of the security camera over the entrance. The glass doors.

  “Whatever we do, we can’t stay here,” he says, starting the car.

  Rolan checks us in to a hotel off the highway, one of those inns with suites, complete with fireplace and kitchen. I note that his credit card has a different name on it.

  As soon as I’m staring blankly out the window of the room, he leaves to park the Pathfinder around back, pick up a few things from the mini-mart downstairs.

  By the time he returns with sodas, sandwiches, and bottled water, I’ve already called the four hospitals listed in the hotel’s guest services binder. None of them has a Clare Thomas on staff.

  “You followed me for nearly a year,” I say, the tuna sandwich untouched where it sits on a plate beside the hotel binder. “There has to be a hostel or hotel or someplace you remember me staying. Someplace I can call, say I need a copy of my bill—anything that might have the address from my old passport, a credit card . . .”

  He shakes his head. “You stayed with people you knew. I never once saw you check in to a hotel.”

  “Then give me an address! A street name. Anything.” While he appears to have recovered his cool, my adrenaline level has ratcheted so far up that nothing short of a five-mile run is going to calm me down.

  “If they were Progeny, they’ve moved since the news of your death, if not before.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “It’s what they do, Audra. Hide in plain sight in large cities or as far off the grid as they can get. Assuming they know who and what they are, they never stay in one place for long.”

  How long had I planned to stay in Maine? I hadn’t specified anything about moving after a certain amount of time. I told myself to live a quiet life—to even fall in love. Nothing about moving. Had I thought I would be safe enough, unplugged in the north woods of Maine, to stay indefinitely?

  But I wasn’t always aware of what I was. I went to school like a normal kid—college, even, at least for a while, though I don’t know where.

  “E-mail,” I say suddenly. I had it at some point. How hard could it be to come up with an address based on my name from a popular service? “Can I see your phone?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “Any search for your old name will flag the Scions.”

  I ball my fists and get to my feet, drop my hands on top of my head.

  Even if I had an old e-mail address, how would I get the password? I’ve effectively deleted the details with which I would have encrypted my life; I wouldn’t know my adopted mother’s maiden name any more than I know the street I grew up on, or the city in which I was born.

  “So much for superpowers,” I say sourly. “I couldn’t even get him to find my record.”

  Rolan goes still. “You persuaded him . . . and it didn’t work?”

  I throw up my arms. “I don’t know. I thought I was persuasive.”

  Do I imagine it, or do his shoulders relax? “Not the same thing.”

  “Then I guess I don’t know how.”

  “You don’t remember how.”

  “Whatever!”

  Maybe it’s because I’m tired. Maybe it’s because my head is swimming, I’m hungry but can’t eat, amped on adrenaline. I can’t focus. I miss my meds. For too many waking hours in a row I have fervently held to the idea that today I will learn enough to ensure this wasn’t for nothing. That I will rediscover the face or faces behind my choice of anonymity over my own life. But right now I am completely stymied. More than that, I am afraid.

  Think, Emily. Audra—whoever you are. But nothing so far has made sense—from my missing records to the numbers in Clare’s cross. I must have known it might come to this. Must have left a fail-safe somewhere . . .

&nb
sp; I pause, glance from the Formica cupboards of the kitchenette to the Keurig coffeemaker plugged into the crooked outlet. But what if Rolan’s right? If I was willing to publicly die to protect myself and others . . . if the situation was indeed so deadly . . . could I have given specific instructions not to share my records—even with myself? A veritable “Do not resuscitate” on my memory?

  “What are you thinking?” Rolan says.

  “That I’m too tired to think. I just keep going in circles.”

  “Is it possible you ever had a criminal record?” he says. He is surprisingly focused despite his own lack of sleep.

  “Somehow I doubt it.”

  I should eat, though my stomach’s in knots. I pick up the tuna sandwich from the coffee table with a glance at the open three-ring binder of the hotel guide, then pause, the sandwich halfway to my mouth, as my gaze travels the tabs.

  CHECK IN/OUT . . . TV STATIONS . . . AREA DINING . . . BUSINESS CENTER . . .

  INTERNATIONAL CALLS . . .

  I drop the sandwich back on the plate and grab the hotel guide as Rolan sighs and pushes up, paces several feet away. I flip to the International Calls tab. It’s a page of instructions for dialing out of the country, with a complete list of country codes.

  “Rolan.”

  He doesn’t answer at first.

  “What countries did I spend the most time in, in Europe?”

  “Uh. Maybe Hungary or Croatia.”

  My gaze slides down the page, which has been unceremoniously colored in crayon by a previous guest’s child.

  Hungary.

  36.

  I scan up the list.

  Croatia.

  385. A three-digit country code.

  My heart begins to pound. I pick up Rolan’s phone, tap in 0-1-1, and slowly begin to dial.

  3-8-5-9-1-1-5-7-1-2-6-9

  Rolan turns, starts to say something, and stops.

  “What are you doing?” he says, striding toward me.

  A phone on the other end rings.

  I lift my eyes to Rolan, who is on the cusp of tearing the receiver from my hand. The ringing stops.

  A pause. And then:

  “Audra? Is that you?”

  10

  * * *

  I spin away from Rolan.

  At first, I can’t speak. After several seconds of silence, the accented voice—a man’s—says, “If you can hear me but can’t talk, cough.”

  “Who is this?” I say at last.

  “Audra!” Relief mixed with wonder. “I heard you died! I held on to this phone just in case—”

  “Who is this?” I ask again.

  A pause. “Audra. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Please tell me who you are.”

  A slow, audible exhale on the other end. “My God. You did it, didn’t you?”

  “Please, who is this!” I can barely hear through the hammering in my temples.

  “It’s Ivan. Not that it will mean anything to you now. You did the right thing calling me.”

  The name conjures no image. Triggers no memory.

  “How do we know one another?” I ask. “Do you know where my family is? My adoptive parents? Any siblings? I need you to tell me how to find them! All of them.” My voice falters. I feel strangely fragile. Far too vulnerable.

  “Audra, are you sure you’re safe? I can’t tell you anything unless you’re safe.”

  I glance at Rolan, who slowly sits, gaze fastened on me.

  “Yes. I’m with a Watcher.”

  “A Watcher.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re with someone claiming to be a Watcher.”

  “I need to warn my family. He can send someone to get them to a safe house. But I don’t know how to contact them or where they are. I don’t remember their names. And I can’t remember who I knew there, in Europe, but if they’re like me they’re in danger. Please.”

  The voice on the other end is speaking, but something else has snared my attention: Rolan’s jacket, gaping open as he leans forward on the sofa. The butt of a gun peers from his side.

  “Audra?”

  I quickly look away. “Yes.”

  The voice says, very low, “Is there someone with you? Clear your throat for yes.”

  I quietly clear my throat.

  A soft curse from the other end. “Listen to me very carefully. There is no such thing as a Watcher. Your adoptive parents died a few years ago. Anyone close to you knows that. Whoever you’re with, he’s testing you. Get out of there, Audra! If he thinks for a second that you know or remember anything of value, he’ll kill you for it.”

  I feel the color drain from my face, abruptly pace to the window, back to Rolan.

  “I see,” I say, my voice unsteady.

  “Say whatever you have to to get away and call me back at this number. I’ll hold on to it as long as I can.”

  The line clicks off.

  I stand with the phone to my ear a moment longer, try to collect myself.

  “Yes,” I say to the dead line. “Please ask him to call me. No, at this number. I’m sorry to bother you. Okay. Thank you.”

  I tap the phone off and exhale a shaky breath before turning around.

  Rolan looks expectantly at me. “Well?”

  “Well, he definitely thinks I’m off my nut,” I say.

  “Who?”

  I give a little shrug, mind racing. “This guy named Marko. He recognized my voice, though I guess he only knows me through his brother. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.”

  “What’s his brother’s name?” He’s staring intently at me now, eyes that should be fatigued crystal sharp.

  “He didn’t say. He just said his brother was at work and that he’d have him call me back at this number.”

  “Did he know anything about your parents?”

  “No. He barely knew me. Like I said, he probably thinks I’m crazy.” I hand him back his phone and hug my arms around myself.

  He hands me a glass of Diet Pepsi. “Where’d you get that number, anyway?”

  I take a sip and then a long pull, just now realizing how dry my mouth has gone.

  “I found it a few days ago. I couldn’t figure out what it was, so I memorized it. I thought it was too long to be an international number, but Croatia’s country code has three digits instead of two . . .” I gesture toward the guest services binder.

  I’m trying to act normal, but I feel like he’s seeing right through me. If he is, though, he’s a better actor than I am.

  “You always were sharp,” he says, a faint smile turning the corner of his mouth. For the first time since leaving Maine, I do not find it reassuring. In fact, I find it unnerving—the smile and the way he talks about me as though he’s known me for years. “So we’ll wait for him to call back. Unless you can think of something else?” His brows lift slightly.

  But all I know is I must call that number back.

  I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t even think straight.” I turn away, down half the Diet Pepsi.

  “You should get some sleep. I’ll wake you if he calls.”

  “Yeah. Okay,” I say, before looking around me as though lost and then wandering into the bedroom and quietly locking the door behind me.

  Inside, I set the glass on the desk, look around frantically.

  So he’s not a Watcher. Watchers don’t exist. Or was the mysterious Ivan lying? Clare gave me his number. If there was ever a question of whether that number came to me by mistake, it’s gone now.

  I walk into the bathroom, lock the door, and turn on the faucet full blast.

  Think. Think! Two men, both trying to appear helpful. Rolan, whom Ivan says is a liar. Ivan, whom Rolan would call a liar. One is a liar. Which means one must be telling the truth. And Ivan . . . Why did Clare leave me his number? What did she say? In case you find yourself in trouble.

  One thing I know for sure: Both Clare and Rolan are not who they claim to be.

  I lean down to the sink, rin
se out my mouth. My stomach is knotted so tight I actually think I could puke.

  I turn off the water, grab a towel. According to Rolan, Luka’s out to kill me. According to Ivan, Rolan is poised to kill me.

  If he thinks for a second that you know or remember anything of value, he’ll kill you for it. This, about the man who claimed his only priority was my safety—and then spent two days driving me to Indiana to retrieve my past. I think back to the night I saw Rolan behind the Dropfly—was it only two nights ago?—arguing with Luka. Luka, who saw me, but hid it from Rolan before chasing us halfway to Kokadjo. In an effort to do what? Get me away from Rolan so he could kill me?

  And then I see them again, walking away, Luka’s arm draped over Rolan’s shoulders as if they were old fraternity brothers.

  Only then does it occur to me that they could have been working in tandem, that the chase up Lily Bay Road was all for show. If the endgame was to get me to return to the Center, it worked. And if what Ivan says is true and Rolan is a killer, I don’t dare return to the Center tonight. I don’t have that long either way; if Rolan’s phone doesn’t ring in a matter of hours, he’ll know something’s wrong.

  I tentatively open the bathroom door, half-expecting to find Rolan standing there, gun drawn. But the room is quiet and dark, the sun having long set so that the only light comes from under the door to the sitting room. I pause near the nightstand, fingers on the phone. But it’s one of those types with the light that comes on if a handset is lifted.

  I need to talk to Ivan. He’s the only one I seem to have placed as a contingency in my postprocedure life . . . which means he’s the only one I trust.

  I cross to the door, press an ear against it. Nothing but the faint sound of the television.

  I unlock the door and quietly push it open. Rolan is not only not dozing as I had hoped but sitting forward on the sofa, talking in low tones on his phone in a language I assume to be Romanian. I’ve hardly made a sound, but he glances up the moment I crack the door open and ends the call.

  He’s also shed his jacket. It lies folded on the coffee table, the pistol atop it. His eyes follow my gaze and return languidly to me. “Everything all right?” he says, laying the phone aside.