DR. GOYER HAD EXPLAINED mountains to Martyr, but nothing prepared him for the massive, gray, snow-capped peaks. The drive to Chugiak took about twenty minutes on the highway, and Martyr stared at the mountains until Kylee stopped the car in front of a sign that read Markley’s Taxidermy and Souvenirs.
As they went inside, and a bell over the door chimed. Marty froze just inside the door and stared at the stuffed horse’s head staring down from the wall. Large sticks grew out from behind its ears. A dozen other animals hung on the wall around it. Some were whole and some were only heads. One was only a furry paw with long, black claws. Abby took Marty’s arm and pulled him toward the counter.
He went reluctantly. “What happened to that horse?”
Abby looked over Martyr’s shoulder and grinned. “That’s a moose.”
Moose? “Why is its head on the wall?”
“I’ll explain later.”
A short man with a round belly and a protruding lower lip stood on the other side of the counter. Martyr stared at the man’s belly. “Is that man growing a baby?”
“Shh.” Abby glared at Martyr. “Later.”
But Abby had still not explained about the baby in Aliza’s belly.
“You here to pick something up?” the man asked.
Abby draped one arm on the counter and smiled. “Are you Jim Markley?”
“What’s it to you?”
“We’re in desperate need of your help,” Abby said, trying to think of a way to broach this topic tactfully. “It involves a place called Jason Farms.”
“Out!” The man pointed over Abby’s head. “I’m not talking to any reporters.”
Abby winced. She had sure botched the tact. “We’re not reporters. And we know about the scientists Dr. Markley worked with.” Abby shot a quick glance at Martyr. “We know how she was killed.”
The man folded his arms. “Who says she was killed?”
“Marty witnessed it,” Abby said.
The man fixed his watery eyes on Martyr in a way that made Martyr feel anxious, then he turned away and spit into a red and white can that read Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup. “Wait here.”
Martyr glanced at Abby, whose nose was wrinkled as if something smelled bad. Perhaps spitting into a can was strange, even to her.
The man walked around the counter and locked the front door, then flipped the sign in the window to CLOSED. On his way back, he waved them to follow him back behind the counter. As they passed a long table, Martyr examined various chunks of wood, animal hair, and cans. There were even a few more soup cans. This facility made Martyr wish he could reach out and touch Abby, but she stayed ahead of him as she followed the man toward a blue sheet that hung over a doorway at the back. The man held the fabric aside, and Martyr ducked under and stepped into a small, one-room cell with a tiny kitchen at one end and a dirty mattress at the other.
Martyr moved very close to Abby.
The man gestured to the mattress. “Pull up a seat.”
Martyr sat down next to Abby and Kylee on the very edge.
The man picked up a red can off a shelf and spit into it. This can said Sam’s Choice Cola. The man crossed his arms and leaned against the wall just inside the doorway. “Let’s hear it, then.”
“It’s sort of complicated, Mr. Markley,” Abby said. “First I need to explain—”
“No.” He pointed to Martyr. “You say he saw it. I want him to tell it.”
Abby glanced at Martyr. “Well, he’s not really … he doesn’t understand how to … uh …”
Martyr squeezed Abby’s hand. “Do not worry, Abby Goyer. I can tell him.” And he could. Dr. Woman had been a wife to this man; he needed to know what happened.
Martyr told Mr. Markley the same story he told Abby, making sure he knew Dr. Woman was a nice doctor to the clones, that everyone had liked her. He thought the man would like that part. Abby squeezed Martyr’s hand long and hard when he got to the part of the story she had not wanted to hear before. Kylee started to cry. Mr. Markley’s face remained pale, like one of the masks Dr. Max had shown them once.
When Martyr finished, Mr. Markley said, “I knew it! I knew something had happened with those twisted scientists.” His voice cracked a little. “There’s still no proof. Only a story, which isn’t much better than mine. If I go to the cops with that, they’ll still think I’m nuts. ‘No body, no crime,’ they’d say.”
“But that’s exactly why we came,” Abby said. “We need evidence. Proof Dr. Markley worked at Jason Farms. Do you have anything that might help? Old pay stubs? Any personal research, computer files, pictures, anything?”
“She was real secretive about her work there. I was gone a lot, up on the pipeline. And she paid the bills, so I never saw her paychecks. I gave her computer to the cops along with her cell phone and organizer. They didn’t find anything.”
“Maybe they didn’t know what to look for,” Abby said.
Mr. Markley spit into the Sam can again. “They gave all her stuff back to me. It’s in a storage unit back in Fishhook. After Corrie disappeared, and the cops were finally convinced I was innocent, I went through a rough patch. Lost my job with BP. Had to move. And I couldn’t deal with all the staring and gossip. Threw almost everything we owned into storage and sold the house. Bought this little shack, learned a new trade.”
“Could we look at the storage unit?” Abby asked.
“I can meet you over there tomorrow, say eleven thirty? I’m not much of a morning person anymore.”
“Thank you, Mr. Markley.” Abby squeezed Martyr’s hand and smiled. “That will be perfect.”
It was dark by the time Kylee’s car entered Fishhook city limits, but for the first time in the past few days, Abby felt hope. They’d found out a lot about the Farm and had a plan that could possibly bring down the cloning operation. She prayed the boys could go into foster homes, maybe be adopted. It would be wrong for them to move from one prison to another.
“Uh oh,” Kylee said.
Red and blue lights illuminated the dark night as Kylee slowed the car to a stop on the side of the road.
Abby looked out the back window. A patrol car pulled up behind them almost like it had been waiting for them to drive past. “Kylee, were you speeding?”
“No way. What should we do?”
“I don’t know.” Abby’s heart pounded as a man wearing a tan Fishhook Police Department uniform stopped outside the driver’s window. Abby’s gaze focused on his holstered gun, which was perfectly eye level as the officer knocked on the glass with the back of his knuckles. As sweat beaded on her forehead, she forced herself to look up. The cop—Allam, according to his name badge—had blond hair and looked to be twenty-something. He could have been a surfer if this were a beach town.
Kylee rolled the window down. “Was I going too fast?”
Officer Allam clicked on a flashlight and shone the blinding beam on each face. Then he pointed the light at a paper in his gloved hand. “Step out of the car, please.”
“But what did I do?” Kylee asked.
“Step out of the car, all of you.”
Kylee slipped and almost fell to the pavement as she climbed out. Another officer appeared on Marty’s side of the car, and Abby could feel the man’s bad intentions coming through the passenger’s side. Marty cracked open his door, but Abby grabbed his shoulder and leaned over the seat.
She slipped her phone to Marty and whispered, “Take my phone. If they try to take you, run, okay? Hide somewhere, then use the contacts to call Pete Goyer. He’s my uncle. Tell him everything.”
Marty nodded and climbed out. As soon as he was standing outside, Abby lifted the lever and pushed the seat forward while the other officer waved for her to hurry up. Marty backed up a few steps, his entire body alert like a deer preparing to flee. A strip mall glowed off to their right. If Marty could get a head start, he might find a place to hide. She slowly stretched one leg out of the car.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” the officer said. “Move it along.”
Abby squeezed the rest of the way out and examined the cop on her side of the car. This officer—Runstrom—was fortyish, well built, with dirty blond hair, a scruffy face, and the pinked cheeks of a man with rosacea—or an alcoholic, but that was unlikely. Either way, he wouldn’t have much difficulty taking down Marty in a fight.
“What’s the problem, sir?” Abby asked. Marty was still backing away one small step at a time. With the red and blue lights flickering on his face, he looked like a scared child in the dark shadows.
“Watch the kid!” Allam said.
Runstrom wheeled around. “Hey! Get back here.”
“Go, Marty!”
Marty spun around on the shoulder of the highway and started to run, but his feet slipped under him and he went nowhere, as if running on a treadmill. Runstrom ran after him. Marty managed to get going, but the officer’s speed was already faster. He tackled Marty, and the bodies slid two yards on the icy blacktop before coming to a stop.
Runstrom rolled Marty facedown on the road and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. “Your daddy’s been looking for you, boy.”
Abby jogged toward them and willed herself to stay composed. “You’re making a huge mistake. This isn’t JD Kane. This is Marty. He’s a witness in a murder case. He can tell you exactly what happened to Corrine Markley four years ago.”
Runstrom jerked Marty to his feet. “Bet he can tell me where the Easter Bunny lives too.”
“We can get you proof,” Abby said. “A woman was murdered, and if anyone is to blame, it’s Dr. Jason Kane. Please don’t let him have Marty.”
Runstrom led Marty to the squad car and shoved him into the backseat. Marty’s elbow cracked against the side of the door as he went inside.
“Hey!” Abby said. “A little rough, aren’t you?”
Runstrom glared down on Abby. “You’ll want to watch that mouth. Now, you can climb in after your boyfriend here or I could put some cuffs on you too. What’s it going to be?”
“We’re only looking for your friends, miss,” Allam told Kylee. “You’re free to go.”
Abby craned her neck over the car. “Kylee, meet Jim tomorrow! Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” Kylee stood next to her open car door, tears glistening on her face in the flashing lights.
Abby climbed into the backseat beside Marty and hugged herself. Her surroundings froze her train of worry. She’d never been in a patrol car before. The backseat was hard, black plastic, contoured to sit two. No cushions. She reasoned the hard seats would be easy to clean and collect evidence from, then berated herself for having such a thought. A steel barrier wall with an open, thick plexiglass window separated the front of the car from the back.
Runstrom fell into the passenger’s seat and began settling into the upholstery while Allam walked back to the squad car and climbed into the driver’s seat. Slowly, Kylee’s car pulled back onto the road and drove away.
Abby leaned up to the plexiglass window. “Have you heard of Dolly, the cloned sheep?”
“Cold out tonight,” Runstrom said. “Might see some northern lights if I get off on time.”
Allam glanced at Abby in the rearview mirror. “Doesn’t look likely with this load.”
“You’re making a mistake.” Abby couldn’t believe how they were treating her. “Dr. Kane is the real criminal. He has an underground lab at the Jason Farms barn. This boy is not JD Kane, he’s one of Dr. Kane’s clones. Find an old picture of Dr. Kane and you’ll see. JD Kane is a clone too. A woman died at the Jason Farms facility. Dr. Corrine Markley. The clones killed her, and Dr. Kane covered it up. You have to go investigate. Dr. Kane and his staff are doing experiments on the boys. He wants to take Marty’s kidneys.”
Abby paused to breathe, knowing she sounded like a babbling lunatic. Hysteria wasn’t making her wild story any more believable, either.
“What say we grab a bite after we drop these perps?” Allam asked.
Runstrom turned to face his partner. “Chepo’s or Peking?”
“Chepo’s. I hate that Chinese bird food.”
Abby kicked the back of the seat. “It’s true! Listen to me!”
Runstrom slid the plexiglass window shut.
“Abby, do not be upset.” Marty’s soft voice calmed her.
“But don’t you know what this means? Dr. Kane reported his son missing. Who knows what story he gave the cops, but they think you’re him. It was Dr. Kane’s way of finding you and it worked. You’ll be back at the Farm in time for bed.” Abby leaned back against the hard seat and started to cry. What would Dr. Kane do when he got Marty back? Would he kill him right away? Abby couldn’t handle thinking about it.
“Abby Goyer?” Marty whispered in her ear. “I could give you kiss? It made me feel better before.”
Abby smiled and turned her tear-streaked face to Marty’s.