Chapter 16

Day 90

Brent wasn’t due until after eleven the next morning, and Jeremiah spent three hours slinking by the painting between the bedroom and the kitchen. Ordinarily he might have passed the time reading or watching the news on the monitor, but he couldn’t get himself to sit in the living room now that he knew Scott could be watching. So, instead, he ate three bowls of bran cereal standing at the kitchen counter and then took a shower until the water went cold. He was getting dressed when he heard Brent come in and went into the living room to meet him.

“Come into the kitchen for a minute.” Brent was sitting on the couch, directly in line with the surveillance camera, and Jeremiah paused with his back purposely toward the painting. “I have a new smoothie recipe.”

“Smoothie recipe? Okay, Jamie Oliver. But if it’s made with that fat-free yogurt, I’ll pass, thanks.”

“I’m serious, it’s good. Just come in.”

Reluctantly, Brent got off the couch and followed him to the kitchen. Jeremiah poured half a carton of low-fat milk into the blender, tossed in a few ice cubes and switched it on.

“That’s your recipe?” Brent asked above the din.

“I know this place is bugged,” Jeremiah blurted. “I found the camera. In Mel’s painting. I want to know if you knew about this.”

“Bugged? What? There’s no way.” Brent looked at him with an expression of authentic doubt, enough to make him believe he knew nothing about it. It was possible, Jeremiah thought, that Brent was in the dark about a lot of things.

“Go see for yourself,” he told him. “It’s almost exactly in the center, inside one of those little circles. You can see it if you get up close enough.”

Brent left the room and came back a few minutes later, shaking his head in a way that suggested he’d found it. Jeremiah put two more ice cubes into the blender and turned the setting up to Puree.

“I swear, Jeremiah, I had no idea.” Brent held his hands up at his shoulders in a show of innocence. “I had no clue. Are there any others?”

“Not that I could find, and believe me, I looked. Why am I being watched?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Scott wants to see what happens when you’re watching the clone? The way the camera is facing, toward the center of the room, that’s the only thing he could see, I think—us on the couch when we’re watching the monitor.” He paused and shook his head slowly again. “I’m being watched, too, I guess. Maybe he’s doing it to make sure my reports are accurate. I don’t know. But I swear I had nothing to do with this. I had no idea.”

“So, what do we do? Cover it up? Take it out?”

“I don’t think so,” Brent told him. “I mean, that won’t do anything but show Scott we’re onto it. Maybe the best thing to do is just leave it there. For now at least.”