The Clone's Mother (12 page)

Chapter 21

A picture of Howard on the floor in a puddle of blood flashed into my head as I approached Anna’s house. My stomach twisted and turned inside-out with dread that I’d find Anna or Joe clubbed to death and the baby gone.

When the taxi pulled into their driveway, everything was dark, silent.

They could have been lying dead inside already, the scary, hairy guy long gone.

Once again, I told the driver to wait. By now I owed him so much, I was confident he wasn’t going anywhere without me.

I started first with the doorbell. If the scary, hairy guy was anywhere near by, I wanted him to vamoose out the back door before I went in. After ringing the bell incessantly, I pounded on the door, now more panicked about their well-being than meeting up with the murderer.

I opened my mouth to scream out Anna’s name and the door flew open. There stood Joe, his eyes like two silver CDs. He was strung tighter than a sharp piano and was ready to spring.

When he saw me, he relaxed—or tried to—and grabbed his chest over his heart.

“What on God’s green earth are you doing here this time of night, Kate? You scared me to death!”

“Are you all right? You and Anna and the baby? All of you are all right?”

“We were until you woke us up. This was the first night the baby slept through her night feeding. We were sacked out, Kate.”

I rushed in and flipped on the lights, dashing around the room like a ball in a pinball machine, making sure no one was lurking behind the drapes or under the dining table.

“What are you doing?” he said from the entryway where he still held the door open.

“I called and called. Why didn’t you answer?”

“We turned off the phones. Kate, for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?”

I told him. I told him my whole theory—except the cloning part—that the scary, hairy guy, hired by the evil biological father, had taken files from Howard’s office which had information about the families my uncle was representing for adoptions, and now he was going to their homes and abducting their babies to find the missing baby. And I was certain Joe and Anna could be the next target.

He couldn’t contain the skepticism that leaked out of his expression, but when Anna came downstairs halfway through my oration, she stopped squinting from the lights and her face took on a mixture of panic and dread.

“Joe, we can’t stay,” she said. “He’ll know to find us here.”

“Relax, Anna,” he said. “No one is going to come after us.” Then to me, “Have you talked to the police about this? If there were any real danger, I’d suspect they’d be the ones here telling us about it.”

“I haven’t had a chance. There isn’t time.” I couldn’t tell him alerting the police might get my new boyfriend in trouble. I still hadn’t figured out if turning in Carl would implicate Mack too. “You’ve got to get away, go to a hotel, rent an RV, anything. At least until something is figured out,” I insisted as I dropped to the floor and looked under the sofa.

Anna agreed and pushed Joe to comply. He finally gave in and said they could go to his parents’ vacant condo in the morning, the
sun-lit
morning.

That wasn’t good enough for Anna, who was pulling her windbreaker on over her smocked cotton nightgown.

“I’m going to get Charlotte and drive there tonight. I hope you’ll come, Joe, but I’m not going to stay here, not until I know we’re safe.”

It took thirty minutes before Anna had everything assembled that she’d need for a few days away. Sometime during the process, Joe joined in her frenzied packing, swept up by the tension and energy produced by the fear that something dangerous was imminent.

When they were finally ready, they loaded up the car, got Charlotte in the car seat, and disappeared into the night. With a huge sigh of relief, I waved to the red dots fading up the distant hill as their tail lights grew too small to see. Then I got back in my cab and tried to figure out where to apply for the loan I’d need to pay the fare.

When I got home, I ran inside and raided the teapot hidden in the oven for my Christmas money and trotted back down as fast as I could to pay the driver before I’d owe him my quarter collection as well. I’d probably need that to pay the rent, since I no longer had a job.

I dragged back up the steps, ready to collapse now that I’d made sure Anna and Joe and their baby were safe. Each step seemed twice as high as the last.

Ollie wondered about my frantic entrance and exit, and now my sluggish reentry. I scratched him behind his brown velvety ear and said, “Let’s get some sleep, your Highness. I’m beat.”

He purred like a Jacuzzi and followed me to bed.

Chapter 22

I woke up way too early. But I could catch Mack before he went to work. I wanted to tell him what I’d done the night before and talk out my theories with him. I’d forgiven him about the sudden departure at the restaurant. He was a doctor anyway. Doctors often had to fly off at a moment’s notice to save lives and change the world.

I tried not to remember he was in research. The urgency of a summons to doctors of research came in just behind dermatologists.

When Mack answered, he sounded uptight and angry. His hello snapped out like an over-stretched rubber band, and it stung when it hit me.

“Hi,” I said.

He sucked in a deep breath before he said anything. My stomach knotted. Maybe I shouldn’t have called. His voice was hushed, like he didn’t want someone to hear him talking to me.

“Hi, Kate. I can’t talk now.” His voice didn’t give anything away.

“Okay. Sorry to bother you.” It sounded a little hurt, like I had been slighted. Rather juvenile of me, but I couldn’t help it. I’d made myself vulnerable by calling, and now I was being told I wasn’t wanted.

Then I heard a noise. Either Mack had a new cat or a baby was crying in the background.

“Is that Tutu the cat, or is that a
baby
?”

“I have to go.” Dead air. He’d hung up on me.

***
 

I stood outside of Mack’s door listening for some sound on the other side, like for his new cat-baby. I knocked a couple of times, but there was only silence, so I pushed open the mail slot in his door to see if I could see anything on the other side.

The door swung open. I snapped up and hid alongside the doorframe. That was really dumb. Even if Mack hadn’t seen me at first, I think the doorframe imitation was bad enough he’d be on to me. He stood there with a very stinky cloth diaper held far from his body, looking at me like I was a fool.

“What are you doing?” he said.

Hmm. I had two choices here. I could stand very still and hope he’d realized the Kate-looking doorjamb was just playing tricks with his eyes in the bright morning sunshine, or I could fess up and admit I was spying on him.

I chose the former and stood as stiff as a board.

“Kate, what are you doing?” His voice was irritated. Maybe I should’ve answered.

I gave up the charade and stepped out of my well-concealed hiding place.

“Hi, Mack.”

“Kate?”

“Something disconnected us. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

So cool. I could think on my feet.

“I’m fine.” He came out of his condo, closing the door most of the way behind him before he proceeded to the trash chute.

“Pee-ewe. What’s in that?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

That was a pretty stinky nothing.

“Smells like a bean burrito, after it’s digested. Poorly.”

Just then a squall came up from behind the door. Mack turned red.

“You know you’re not supposed to throw those away. Cloth diapers aren’t disposable. Even with a poorly digested bean burrito in it.”

“No one had a burrito,” he said, his irritation barely contained. He tossed the diaper down the chute and stood in front of his door, like an Indian chief guarding his teepee. “This isn’t a good time, Kate. I don’t have time to talk.”

“You shouldn’t feed Mexican food to babies. Unless, of course, you live in Mexico. Then all their food is Mexican. Except when you order out Chinese. Can I come in?” I stretched up on my tiptoes and tried to see around his broad shoulder as he cracked the door a tiny bit more and tried to squeeze his whole buff self inside through the narrow cranny.

“If you want to get back in, it’d work better if you opened the door first.” I’m so clever.

“Kate, I have to go. Like I told you last night, it can’t be helped. I have something to take care of for the rest of the day.”

“Yeah, like a baby. I can help. Sounds like it needs a woman’s touch. I can change diapers, feed bottles, shake rattles. Remember, I’m a professional. Where’d you get a baby anyway? You babysitting?”

“Go home.” He didn’t sound very friendly. I started to pout, but thought better of it and sucked my lower lip back in.

“Aren’t you going to work today? You’re late.”

“Go
home
.”

“All right. I’m going. You don’t need to get bossy.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Kate—”

“No, no,” I said stoically. “I’m going. I’m gone. Forget it.” And I scooted down the steps and away before it got any more awkward.

***
 

At home, I collapsed on the lumpy, orange couch. The outing had taken it out of me. I wasn’t sure if the stress of Mack acting so weird affected me, or if it was left over from all the emotions surrounding Uncle Howard’s death. But either way, I knew I wasn’t right. I decided to call a doctor—but a new one, and this time I’d make sure he was a she.

I called my insurance to find out who I could go see. That’s when I found out I could go to any gyne doc I wanted. I didn’t need a referral for that. What I really needed was probably an Internist or an Oncologist, since I most likely had some terrible terminal disease anyway. But I didn’t want to wait the three to five business days it would take to process a referral for one of those. I could easily be dead by then. And then what would I do?

I opened the yellow pages and eenie-meenied my way through all the gynecologists whose names looked remotely respectable. When my finger landed on the tiger’s toe, I dialed, confirmed it was a she-doctor, and got myself in for that afternoon. They’d just had a last minute cancellation before my call.

When I locked up the apartment to go, I realized I didn’t have my sunglasses. The last time I’d had them was at the Greek restaurant. I must have left them there when I had skedaddled in such a hurry on Thursday night. So I dialed them up and sure enough, they had found them and would hold them for me. I didn’t have time to get there before my appointment, so I planned to drop by afterwards.

Once I arrived at Dr. Chen’s office, I waited in the waiting room while my mind wandered back to my impromptu visit at Mack’s. That baby thing was weird. What would he be doing with a baby? And why would he try so hard to hide it from me? Maybe nothing was as it appeared to be.

I was mulling over all the absurd possibilities when a nurse called my name and escorted me to an exam room via a scale, which by the way, lied and said I’d gained five pounds.

I was pleased to discover my doctor was a very kind physician. Of Asian descent, she was petite with sparkling eyes and black silky hair to her collar. I declined the pelvic, and she didn’t seem to mind, once I told her I’d just had one a few weeks ago. When I told her how sick I’d been and all the stress I’d been under, she did a lot of nodding and head tilting with a dose of sympathy mixed in. She asked if I’d ever considered talking to a counselor. I told her I was fine and just wanted a prescription to stop the vomiting, that I really only came to a gynecologist because it was easier to get in and it worked out with my insurance. Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch when I said that, or act insulted at all. Cool lady.

Her exam consisted of some pokes, peeks, and palpations. I gave her a few deep breaths—
in and out through your mouth please
—followed by a quiet pause while she listened to my heart beat. She also asked a few inevitable gyne questions like,
When was your last menstrual cycle
? and
Have you ever been pregnant
? I knew the answer to the latter, but I really had no idea when the last period was. As I concentrated on a ceiling tile, muttering something about mid-summer while trying to calculate when last I laid hands on a tampon, she suggested we do a pregnancy test.

“Ha,” I laughed. “Save the bunny. I haven’t had much more than a kiss in years.” Somehow it was easier to admit to a fellow-woman professional.

With a straight face she said, “We don’t use bunnies very often nowadays. Something with PETA, I imagine.”

What do you know? A fellow jokester.

“Two months is a long time to go without a period, Kate. We should run the test.”

“Will it be expensive?”

She fanned through my chart to the back page. “Your insurance should cover it.”

I tried to argue, telling her, no really, there’s no reason to do an hCG level. But she wanted to check my electrolytes anyway, so as long as we were going in for the red stuff, we might as well cover everything. It wouldn’t be too swell if my potassium or sodium was screwy from all the barfing. That could even be serious. And as long as we were at it, we might as well see about my hematocrit and hemoglobin. And a white cell count wouldn’t hurt either. Heck, we might as well call in Dracula and drain the whole five liters while we’re at it. If there was something wrong with it, wouldn’t it be better to be rid of it all anyway?

She suggested I go home once I’d had my blood drawn and rest till she knew more from the tests, and she gave me a sample of some over-the-counter concoction to help keep my stomach from regurgitating. She shook my hand, smiled a doctor smile and told me to dress, proceed to the window where the lady would take my money, then turn right and I’d find phlebotomy.

In the drawing room was a humongous Eskimo-looking guy sitting in the chair reading last month’s wrinkled
Cosmo
. His white lab coat, which was straining against his
Incredible Hulk
size, cued me that he was the fellow I needed to drain my blood. The Sumo phlebotomist had trouble getting his large-bore needle into my dehydrated, shriveled vein, so before I left the office my arm sported a beautiful hematoma the size of Alaska, replete with four puncture wounds. The first three holes looked like two eyes and a nose to me. Before the final needle stick I suggested to the over-sized tech he complete the face with a knife slash across my arm, then he could just catch the blood in a bucket as it spewed from the gash. I was about to emphasize he make it a happy slash, but the evil-eye he shot my way reminded me
he
held the razor-sharp, beveled pipeline that was about to be plunged again into my arm. So I shut up and let him work his magic.

Well, what he did wasn’t really magic, but he finally found the vein—about the time I was ready to ralph on the sweaty rolls of his bald head, which was bent over the pin cushion I sometimes like to think of as my arm. He got his three red-capped tubes and one purple-top tube filled with my lifeblood, taped a folded cotton gauze inside my elbow before he flexed my arm closed, and he sent me on my way.

***

When I arrived at the restaurant, it was filling up with the dinner crowd. A line was forming of High Society waiting to be escorted to their tables. All the glitz made me feel out of place with my saggy Levi’s and wrinkled shirt. But I would just snag my glasses and go on my way, being careful not to tarry and ruin everyone’s dining experience.

I squeezed my way through the congested doorway to the maître d’s counter, receiving one icy glare after another from all the prim and painted prima donnas hanging on bent Armanied elbows in the foyer. They eyed me like I was going to cut in line or something.

When I got to the front of the line, the host recognized me with a bit of a frown. He eyed my apparel. I assured him I was just there to grab my sunglasses. He told me he’d already returned them to Dr. Mackenzie. With a gesture toward a far corner table—the same table I’d sat at with Mack—he pointed out Mack, once again, occupying “our” table.

And he sure as heck had no baby with him now. Of the infantile persuasion, anyway.

Ooh, baby.

Across from my supposed
boyfriend
sat the most glamorous woman I’d ever set eyes on. Not a baby, but a
babe
! She looked more Greek than Mack, with dark curls framing a stunning slender face. Her skin was olive oil—rich and smooth—flawless and glowing. The black spaghetti straps of her gown snugged over tanned, well-defined shoulders—round and firm, strong and perfect, set off beautifully by her black, elegant lace shawl draping over the back of her chair. Everything about her was perfect.

And the smile she was bestowing on Mack shined with even, perfect pearls, just like the strand accentuating her long, beautiful neck.

I looked back at the maître d’. He was smirking at me. The whole restaurant seemed to be mocking me. Except Mack, who was ogling the goddess at his table. He didn’t see me, thank goodness. His chair was sideways to me.

I stammered to the host that I’d get the glasses when it was a more convenient time for the doctor, and I pressed my way back through the crowd to the street outside where I escaped with my shame into the darkness.