Free No One Lives Twice (A Lexi Carmichael Mystery) by Julie Moffett Page A

apartment to make certain no unauthorized persons had entered while I was gone. The place was clean of lurkers, but still a disaster area. Even more depressing, I knew I had to do laundry today or I’d have nothing to wear to work tomorrow. But first things first. I needed to check the internet.
    I sat down at my desk and booted up the system. I may have a tiny apartment and not much in the way of furnishings, but I was damn proud of my computer. My laptop was considered “geek chic” among most computer aficionados, myself included. I liked it because it was sleek, elegant and lightweight. Next to Basia, it was my best friend.
    I Googled “Bright Horizons” and “Richmond, Virginia” and came up with one hit.
    Bingo.
    I clicked on the link and the Bright Horizons website appeared with a pretty logo of a sun rising over the horizon while a happy couple held a smiling infant in their arms.
    “Well, lookie here,” I murmured. “A fertility clinic.”
    The Bright Horizons clinic was actually part of a larger medical research company called CGM, Inc. CGM had been founded in 1952 in Richmond as a medical clinic and expanded into a research facility in 1964. In 1984 Dr. Geoff Sandberg launched the Bright Horizons fertility clinic in Richmond, using various techniques of in vitro fertilization. It appeared that Bright Horizons had been quite profitable for CGM, boasting a sixty-five percent pregnancy rate per embryo transfer over the past two years, which must be good if they bragged about it online.
    In 1990 CGM expanded into biotechnology, receiving a slew of prestigious academic grants and attracting top medical names in the field. The company had expanded internationally and currently had offices in London, Morocco, Genoa, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Paris. They currently employed over twenty thousand people worldwide.
    I sat back and linked my fingers behind my neck. Okay, there was nothing necessarily sinister here. Bright Horizons had apparently contracted Basia to translate some documents for their international clients. No biggie, right? Except why had she sent the documents to me, why were two guys with guns ready to kill to get them, and what did the word Acheron written in code at the bottom of page three mean? Just thinking of Acheron prompted me to do another search of that word, but I came up with nothing more interesting than what the twins had told me.
    It was clear I needed further expert assistance.
    I drove over to the Zimmermans’ and knocked on the door. Elvis answered this time and smiled when he saw me. He still wore the same clothes he had on last night and I wondered if he had slept. In fact, I wondered if he ever slept. Maybe geniuses didn’t need sleep. Funny how he didn’t look the worse for wear, whereas I was sure I looked like death warmed over.
    “Hey, Lexi. Long time, no see. Come in.”
    “Sorry to keep bugging you guys,” I said, stepping across the threshold. “But things are getting weird.”
    “Yeah?” said Xavier, coming out of the command room. “What kind of weird?”
    I went to the couch, picked up the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I decided to be straight with the twins and told them everything that had happened to me since yesterday evening.
    They listened with their usual intense focus, and when I finished, Elvis leaned back against the cushions, stroking his chin. “Bright Horizons is the name of the company, you say?”
    “Yes,” I answered.
    “You know anything about the people who work there?” he asked.
    “Only what’s in their bios on the website.”
    “Was the name of their IT guy listed?”
    “I don’t know,” I admitted, feeling as though I’d failed a homework assignment. “I didn’t check it.”
    But I instantly knew why they wanted to know. Elvis and Xavier would check to see how good the IT guy was—possibly tracing him to his home, finding out what kind of broadband service he was running and what kind of firewall and routers he had