The Mirror Man, стр. 39
In the lab, Jeremiah wondered about the implications of that possibility.
“As I said,” Waterson told the clone, “I’m not the right person to diagnose this. I’m just relaying my impressions from the Meld experience.”
“Does this mean she won’t have to be moved, after all?” the clone asked.
“For the moment, I wouldn’t be opposed to her staying here with us. Emotionally, it might be best for her to stay. I’d like to bring in a specialist, perhaps even put her under the Meld again. That’s quite an exhilarating drug you’ve got there.”
“So I’ve heard,” the clone said.
For the next few hours, Jeremiah paid hardly any attention to the monitor. He had no desire to watch the clone drag through his day at the office after what he’d just seen. Instead, he allowed his mind to wander to thoughts that twisted back in on themselves until he felt dizzy: If his mother could slip so quickly into mental illness, what did that mean for him? Or had the Meld sparked something that had lain dormant in her all this time? What if he’d been wrong all these years about her? What if the things he’d always thought of as eccentric—all her moving around, her restlessness and curiosity—pointed to something more serious than simple quirks? He’d taken the drug more times than she had. Was it having the same impact on his own mind? Could the Meld suicides be related to some dormant insanity? And far more troubling, if his mother didn’t have dementia, why the hell did she suddenly not recognize the clone as her son?
Did she know?
Chapter 19
Day 102
On the night of their wedding anniversary, the ViMed cameras caught the clone and Diana upstairs in the midst of getting ready to go out. Diana was wearing a green top and black satin pants Jeremiah had never seen before. At the moment, she was shoeless, and the hems of the pants were getting caught under her feet as she walked back and forth between the mirror and her jewelry box. He wondered if they were going to the new restaurant in the shipyard that she had wanted to try. That he didn’t know these details annoyed him more than he thought it should.
“Did you give Parker money for a pizza?” the clone asked her.
“Yes.”
“And you checked the reservation today?”
“Honestly, Jeremiah,” she said. “It’s a Wednesday night at eight o’clock. I doubt there’s going to be any problems. Quit worrying.”
“Okay,” the clone said, “just checking.”
Jeremiah could understand the clone’s concern. They hardly went out at all anymore. He was out of practice at the art of securing a table anywhere nicer than a pizza place.
“Your wife is pretty when she wants to be,” Brent said.
“Even when she doesn’t want to be,” Jeremiah told him. She was. That much had never changed.
On the wall, the clone straightened his tie in the mirror and Jeremiah vaguely wondered whether he’d even bothered to comment on how Diana looked. He doubted it. He wouldn’t have thought of it himself if Brent hadn’t brought it up.
Diana checked her lipstick in the mirror, grabbed her purse and a black sweater and headed out to the hallway.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” she said. “I just want to make sure Louie gets out to pee before we go.”
Ordinarily, it would have been him taking Louie out before they left. Jeremiah figured nothing had changed with the dog’s distrust of the clone, even with the medicine they were giving him.
The clone stopped at Parker’s closed door, knocked once and opened it before he went downstairs.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “We’ll be home around ten.”
“Yup,” Parker said without looking up from his computer monitor. “Have fun.”
“Is the homework done?”
“Yup.”
“Okay. Don’t forget to order that pizza before it gets too late. And keep an eye on Louie.”
“Yup, I will.”
The clone closed the door and headed downstairs and to the garage, where ViMed cameras followed him seamlessly. Jeremiah wondered for the hundredth time exactly how many cameras Scott had hidden around his house. By his best estimate, there must have been at least a dozen. His double hit the switch on the wall to raise the garage bay door and then the button on his key chain to unlock the car. Diana came into the garage holding Louie by the leash, her arm outstretched to keep him away from her clothes. The dog took a wide arc around the clone as he went to the door to be let back in. The clone glanced down at him with something Jeremiah recognized as unhappy resignation, and for the first time, he understood that Louie’s sudden aversion toward him must be hard on the clone. Jeremiah sincerely loved that dog so, presumably, the clone loved him, too. It must be awful. He’d never thought of that before.
When they got into the car, the cameras switched on from somewhere near the rearview mirror. For twenty minutes, Brent and Jeremiah watched as the clone and Diana rode in relative silence to the shipyard.
They parked and got out, and the camera stayed on inside the empty car, the only light coming from the red blinking car alarm signal on the dash. This was their view for the next two and a half hours while the clone and Diana were inside the restaurant. Presumably, Scott hadn’t anticipated the need to arm every eatery in town with surveillance equipment. During the lull, Jeremiah and Brent played crazy eights and poker and glanced sidelong at the wall every few minutes for signs of activity.
When the clone and Diana came back out to the parking lot, Jeremiah heard them before he could see them, Diana’s voice so belligerent that it startled him. He straightened, paying attention.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have had that second gin and tonic before dinner,” she snapped. “You know you can’t drink on an empty stomach. Every time you do, it turns into a scene. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. We won’t be going back there again any