Dead Ringers Read Online Free PDF Page B

different address—anywhere but this Newbury Street art gallery. Meeting Not-Nick had been weird enough. If the artist at the gallery really turned out to be a perfect double for Lili … Tess thought she might rather not know.
    But they were on their way. The taxi’s engine rumbled and the chilly night air blew through the half-open windows as the storefronts and human sidewalk traffic blurred by in a familiar rhythm. During the day, the city was so familiar—she thought she knew every brick and turn. At night, though, it seemed almost like another place entirely. A place where anything might happen.

 
    THREE
    Frank had no idea where the guy had gotten handcuffs, but he knew where the handgun had come from. A nine millimeter SIG Sauer, it had rested in a shoe box on the top shelf of the closet in his parents’ bedroom for at least a decade. Had the man with his face found the gun just by searching, or had he already known where he ought to look? Did having Frank’s face mean he knew what Frank knew?
    Don’t be an idiot, he thought. That’s just stupid.
    But was it? How much more outrageous was that idea than the reality of this guy having his face? Frank had been handcuffed to the round, pitted metal iron support column in his own basement for three days, and theories that had seemed ridiculous on Monday somehow did not seem quite as absurd as Thursday wound to a close. Not when he was naked from the waist down in a cold basement, surrounded by concrete and boxes of old tax files and rusting tools from the days when his father would actually visit the workbench down here.
    The cuffs might be stolen from somewhere, or purchased from some law enforcement surplus or online vendor. Frank had tested them enough to know they weren’t chintzy sex shop handcuffs. He’d used his weight and leveraged himself against the pole, trying to break the chain between the cuffs. Kept at it until his wrists bled and even then he had tried to use the blood as a lubricant to slide his hands out. They weren’t coming off, and he couldn’t risk further injury, or an infection.
    Unless the fucker decided to let him go—which didn’t seem likely—the best he could hope for was that his captor would make a mistake that would allow Frank to get the drop on him. He had this fantasy that his double would leave a fork behind and he could bend all but one of the tines, using that last one to pick the lock on the cuffs, but the logistics were impossible. Even if he could hide a fork and have the guy forget about it, and even if he had the skill to pick the handcuff lock, his hands were behind him and the pole made it impossible for him to maneuver so that he could see them. If he was a fucking ninja or something, or Batman, he could pull it off.
    But he wasn’t Batman. Or a ninja.
    Exhaling, he slumped back against the pole. The blanket under his bare ass provided little protection from the chill of the hard concrete floor. He’d given up being ashamed of his nakedness on the second day, realizing that the guy holding him prisoner probably had exactly the same junk as he had. But the humiliation stayed, burning inside him, keeping him angry. He thought anger would come in handy when the moment arrived.
    The moment . The very idea of it had weight and heft. Concept as weapon. Despite being fed, inactivity was taking its toll, weakening him. With no way to escape the cuffs, he had to act during one of the times—early morning, dinnertime, and late at night—when his double came down to bring him food. He would descend the stairs with a tray of food in one hand and Frank’s father’s gun in the other. Setting the tray down, he would toss Frank the key to the cuffs. Frank would unlock the cuffs while the guy stood eight feet away with the gun barrel pointed at his chest.
    Near the washer and dryer was a big plastic bucket that was all Frank had for a toilet. At gunpoint, he