Finally, once Pike was satisfied with the readings, he ushered Jeremiah into an adjacent office that had been outfitted as a dental suite. Jeremiah had been here once before for a routine cleaning.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Adams. I will administer a sedative to put you under, if you like.”

“No,” Jeremiah told him flatly. “Just numb me up. I want to be awake so I can see your face when you yank a perfectly healthy tooth out of my mouth.”

Pike sighed. Fifteen minutes later, Jeremiah stood wobbling to his feet, a blood-soaked cotton ball clenched between his gums and one hand cradling his numb jaw.

“Now that that’s over with,” Pike said, “I believe you’ve earned those three food choices.”

“Sure,” Jeremiah mumbled through the cotton. “Now that you’ve seen to it I won’t be able to eat anything for three days. Just get me some decent beer.”

When Pike returned Jeremiah to his rooms, he found Charles Scott waiting for him with a dark-haired, impossibly thin woman he’d never seen before. They were standing in the middle of the living room. The woman had an oversize tote bag slung over one bony shoulder and was nearly dwarfed by its girth.

“It’s time for your haircut, Mr. Adams,” Scott told him. “Miss Phillips here will do the honors.” He handed the woman a photograph of the clone. “This is what we’re looking for,” Scott told her. “He needs to look precisely like this. Make it as exact as possible. No deviation.”

“Sure,” the woman told him, a substantial Boston accent making the word come out more like “Shoo-wah.”

“Can’t we do this another time?” Jeremiah mumbled through the soggy cotton in his mouth. “I need to lie down.”

“Now, Mr. Adams,” Scott said. “You can lie down afterward.”

“Pike just pulled a tooth out,” he said. “I’m in no mood for a shave.”

“Don’t worry,” the bony woman said. “I’ll be very gentle. You just sit yourself down and we’ll have you done in no time.” She patted the back of one of the kitchen stools, dragged in to serve as a barber chair, and Jeremiah reluctantly sat down.

“Accuracy is more important here than speed,” Scott told her, a hint of warning in his tone. “Precision is crucial. He needs to look exactly as he does in the photograph.”

She shrugged. “It’s a guy’s regular and a clean shave,” she said. “It’s not rocket science.” She took a plastic cape out of her tote bag and draped it around Jeremiah’s shoulders, fastening it behind his neck.

“Just make sure you’re meticulous,” Scott said. “That’s what you’re being paid for.” He shot a quick, stern look at Miss Phillips.

When Scott retreated into the kitchen, dialing his phone as he went, Jeremiah toyed with the idea of writing a note for Diana, slipping it to this woman and imploring her to get it into the right hands. But he couldn’t risk it. Not with Scott in the next room, and not with someone as chatty as this girl. It would take him too long, he decided, to make her understand.