The Clone's Mother (13 page)

Chapter 23

Ollie greeted me when I bumbled in through the doorway. He head-bumped me while he roared his purr engine up to full throttle.

It’s nice to be loved.

I pretended he never did that exact same thing to the wooden chair leg.

I felt like telling Ollie all about Mack’s infidelity, but as I tried to put together the words, I realized how ridiculous it would sound. Where did I get off thinking he was all mine? He’d never promised I was the only one he would date. He had never said he’d stay away from all gorgeous goddesses so that miserable, plain, dull me wouldn’t feel left out. What was I thinking? A sexy hunk like Mack could have any woman he wanted. Why would he settle for me? He wouldn’t. And he hadn’t. And I had to find a way to live with it.

So I took a fudge bar from the freezer, and as I licked the chocolate that was beginning to drip down the side almost as soon as I got it out of the wrapper, I stuffed every thought of Mack deep down, out of reach.

I flopped on the couch and snapped on the TV thinking I’d catch the end of the news before popping in a George Clooney movie. Ollie opted for my lap over the empty faded chair cushion, and he settled down to wait for some entertainment on the tube.

As I sucked the Popsicle stick for every last molecule of fudge, Willie the Nerd did a recap of his lead stories—of course using his deep and low Brokaw impersonation. The latest kidnap victim had been found and returned to her foster family.

My eyes must have bulged like Jiffy Pop. And my body must have jumped off the couch because Ollie was suddenly on the floor scolding me with fury.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Ollie, ignoring his complaints for being dumped. “Emma is back!”

Ollie was too upset to put it all together. But my mind was racing with all the information I’d collected.

Two babies kidnapped. Two babies returned. Both from Howard’s client list. A third baby on his list—Nikki’s baby—wanted by Carl the Baby-Maker because of his illegal cloning. His partner, my supposed
boyfriend
, suddenly in possession of a baby he denied having and acting very suspiciously about it.

If Mack were somehow involved with Carl in an illegal activity, his mysterious baby might have something to do with the kidnappings.

If
? What was I thinking? I already knew the two doctors had been involved in illegal activity. Could it be too great a stretch to think they had something to do with kidnappings?

What was happening to me? I was believing the preposterous. My brain enzymes must have gone helter-skelter from all the puking. Ollie agreed with Dr. Chen. I needed some serious counseling.

It had to be coincidence that Mack happened to be in possession of a baby just when another disappeared. And suddenly out of possession right after it reappeared. And coincidence he didn’t want anyone to know he had a baby. And coincidence that his buddy the Baby-Maker was a schmuck and had been hunting for a baby he’d cloned.

Wow. Those were a lot of coincidences.

But then there was still the thing with Howard. Mack wasn’t involved with that. He couldn’t be.

No way.

No how.

Oh, no! What is going on?

Did I really even know this man? I’d just seen him with some mysterious woman—
sans
baby—having a fantastic time in a world of glitz where I could never belong. Maybe he just happened to have a baby on the exact day another one was stolen—one who just happened to have been adopted out by the same lawyer as the baby being hunted by Mack’s partner in illegal baby-making.

If I gave him a chance, maybe he’d give an easy explanation. Maybe it was the child of some neighbor who had to run out to the market for a minute. Perhaps the kid belonged to a friend who was out of town for the weekend and needed some low-cost childcare.

Yeah, right.

If that was the case, he did a quick job of dumping the kid in order to go out with Miss Greek Gorgeous Glamour Queen. He seemed able to take care of baby business fast enough to get free for
her
.

I needed to call Fosdick and tell him all I knew.

Boy, was I sounding like a spoiled brat. I wanted to tattle and get him into trouble.

But I had every right, come to think of it. He’d been a real jerk to me.

The softer side of me wanted to argue. The
wimpy
side. I told her to leave me alone, I was busy feeling sorry for us, but she insisted on looking at other possibilities.

What if there is a reasonable explanation?

Yeah, sure.

No, really. What if there is some good reason why Mack had a baby? Maybe he was babysitting. Maybe the date was a business dinner. There could be a thousand answers to the puzzle. We could ruin his career, and any chance of a relationship with him if we jump to conclusions. Why should we assume the worst?

“Oh, shut up,” I told her. “I’ll tell you why.
She
was gorgeous, and we’re not.
She
was skinny, and tanned, and muscular, and we’re not.
She
was the one sitting across from him making goo-goo eyes, not us.”

That did it. Miss Wimpy shut up and let me feel sorry for us. After all, that was my specialty.

I settled back down into the cushion of the couch and let Ollie get situated. Before he did, he gave me a glare. He was out of patience and wanted to watch the show.

“Relax,” I told him. “You’ll get your entertainment. I’m all right now. I’ll just sit here and feel depressed while you pretend nothing is wrong.”

While he watched, completely oblivious to my situation like the typical male that he was, my mind wandered to the possibility of calling Mack to find out where he was, what he was doing, and where his baby was. I knew he probably wouldn’t be home yet, but I did have his cell phone number.

It was tempting, and my mind went all over the place thinking of what I’d say to him, what he’d reply, and the piece of my mind I’d give him once he fessed up and told me it had all been a great misjudgment on his part and he hoped I’d forgive him. In the process, I realized I had no proof of anything. And I sure didn’t want to jeopardize any chance to win Mack’s affection by telling Fosdick.

I decided I’d wait till Mack got home, maybe even just falling asleep, and I would call him. That would give me the clear advantage in my attack. I’d put the pressure on, but keep it just between the two of us, so he wouldn’t be in any danger of
real
trouble. Just enough to make him wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. And notice me.

At just the perfect moment, I rallied up my nerve and called him. My body was shaking so much, I must have looked like Katharine Hepburn in her last years. But I was determined. I was going to do this.

It barely rang and went straight to voicemail, like it wasn’t even on.

I never got that chance to give him the piece of my mind I fantasized blasting him with (Ollie thought I had none to spare anyway) because he never turned his phone back on. I tried calling more times than I’d want to admit.

About two o’clock, I woke up with a jerk. I was dreaming of Mack with that other woman who stole him from me. And the images I saw clearly explained why his phone was turned off. I shut off the TV and straggled to bed convincing myself it was only a nightmare.

***
 

The next morning, I stayed in bed till I couldn’t stand it any longer. My stomach felt wobbly. Could it have possibly been the fudge bar? Or maybe it was the Oreos I finished off after the stash of M&M’s I found behind the couch cushion. Who could know? Either way, I wasn’t interested in breakfast, so I’d managed to sleep until noon, then the sun was in my eyes and my back ached. So I extricated myself from the sheets and managed to get to the couch.

I stared at the ceiling, wondering what I was supposed to do with my life. No job, no boyfriend, no class, and I couldn’t even eat chocolate for breakfast anymore. What was existence coming to?

Then the phone rang. I answered it without thinking.

“Hello?”

“Hi.”

It was Mack. My ex-almost-boyfriend.

What happened next was totally out of my control. I went Southern, and I hadn’t even known I could speak it so fluently.

“Hah. Hew’s thee-us? Yew’ve got thuh wrong numbah.”

That must have done it. He went quiet. Ready to hang up, convinced he’d dialed wrong, I was certain.

“Kate? What are you doing?”

“Ah’m not Kite. Gotta ruhn. Bah now.”

“Would you stop it,” he said.

My hand suddenly pulled the phone from my ear and dropped it onto the base, hanging it up. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t see it with my own eyes. Just picked it right off my ear and hung it up.

But I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was. Mack was at my apartment entrance within a half-hour. I couldn’t very well pretend to be a Southern Belle when he rang my door buzzer without looking pretty stupid, so I let him in.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked.

“You buzzed, so I figured you wanted in,” I said. So smooth.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me? I’m sorry I had to leave dinner so suddenly. And then I didn’t invite you into my place. It was rude of me,” he said so innocently.

“I’m fine. Didn’t give it a second thought.” I was as detached as an amputated foot. Didn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking it made any difference to me if he jumped up and left me stranded. Or wouldn’t invite me in. Or
lied
to me, or
cheated
on me.

“Oh. Good, then. I’m glad you’re okay with it. You’re just brimming with
okay
about it.”

I just stared at him.

“Come on, Kate. This is important to me.
You’re
important to me.”

That did it. His face was too kind, too sincere-looking for my soft side to resist. Treacherous tears from that inner wimp threatened to betray my strong-woman façade.

“Then why did you lie to me?” I asked.

“I didn’t mean to.”

I kind of lost it then. The tears were as much anger as hurt, and they seemed to grease the way for a more explosive show of emotion.

“I know all about the baby,” I shouted through my tears. Ollie went to hide in the bedroom. Mack took a step backward with his eyebrows up. “I know
who
she is and
why
you had her.”

I hit a nerve with that one. He winced.

“I can trust you to keep it to yourself, can’t I?” he said gently and without a trace of guile.

In spite of his feigned innocence, I stifled the sobs and gave him a look of indignation and defiance.

“You will, won’t you?” he urged me.

“I will not,” I blurted.

Then his face went kind of stern.

“That is really none of your concern, Kate.”

“It’s not right, Mack. You have to do something.”

His features got harder. Like stone. Like really hard, cold, rough, craggy granite. Oops.

“Don’t tell me what I have to do, Kate.” I’d never heard him talk like that. Really low and scary. “I have my reasons for what I’ve done, and neither you nor anyone else will undo all my effort.”

Wow. Put me in my place. That expression wasn’t going to take any guff from me, so I shut down my emotional outburst. I felt pretty stupid about the eruption and decided I better come at him from another direction. I grabbed a Kleenex and swiped at my nose really quick. Strong was going to be better than Simpering Whiner. I couldn’t pull it off with a runny nose.

“You say I matter to you. So why were you with that other woman last night?”

Hmm? Got an answer for that one, mister smarty-pants
? I didn’t say that last part out loud. At least I hoped I didn’t. It was hard to tell by Mack’s expression. His granite face had turned to furious hot-molten lava.

He sucked in a rapid breath. “You’re spying on me?”

“I went to pick up my glasses.”

“How are we supposed to build trust when you do things like that? What kind of relationship can we have?”

“How are we supposed to have a relationship if you lie to me?” Those stupid tears started back up again.

“I’d better go before I say words I’ll regret,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

He didn’t even say good-bye after that. He handed me my sunglasses from his coat pocket then just left. He showed me.

Chapter 24

I went to Uncle Howard’s church the next morning. I just wanted to be around people who had known him.

I tried to disappear in the back pew. It felt good just to sit there. The music was soothing and the atmosphere was peaceful. It helped me feel less sad about Uncle Howard and Mack. Nobody asked anything of me. Just a couple of familiar faces smiled and one said they were glad I’d come.

The pastor talked about forgiveness and how freeing it was. He said if we don’t forgive, it’s like hanging on to the tail of a snake that bit us. We’ll just keep getting bitten. It’s best to let go of that snake and not let bitterness or anger or hurt keep sinking its fangs into us. Forgiving was a much better way to go, he said. I wondered if that meant I was supposed to forgive Mack. It wasn’t like he’d really done anything against
me
. He’d been kind to me. Mostly. Other than that dating-other-women thing. Which made him yell at me when I brought it up. But if I was honest, I’d have to admit no rule existed that said he couldn’t date other women. Oh, yeah. There was the kidnapping thing too. Was I supposed to forgive him for things he did to others? But what if he wasn’t sorry for what he’d done wrong? Then how in the world was I supposed to forgive him? I didn’t get it. How do you forgive an unrepentant person? I wish Uncle Howard wasn’t busy fishing with Moses. I could use his advice about now.

I left the church a bit unsettled. No one had pestered me, but something was nettling me deep down inside. Something bigger than Mack.

On the way home, I stopped by the hospital. Paychecks had been distributed since I’d been suspended and since I’d neglected to ever sign up for direct deposit, I needed to pick up mine. As uncomfortable as it was, I had to go to L&D to collect it because the payroll office was closed for the weekend. Fortunately, the unit was really busy and all the staff were hidden away in their rooms delivering babies. I didn’t have to see more than the unit clerk to get my envelope.

After that, I just wandered around the halls a while, wondering if I’d ever get things straightened out enough to come back to work. That would be if I could even figure out
what
needed to be straightened out. I still didn’t know why I was on suspension. I couldn’t help but wonder if Schroeder was behind it, if he somehow found out I was on to him.

So I dropped by the nursing office to fill out a form to request a formal meeting to discuss my situation. Maybe on Monday someone would call me and tell me why I couldn’t work.

After that, I rode the elevators up and down a while. Then, lo and behold, I found myself on the seventh floor, down the hall from Schroeder’s office. It was dim lit and uninhabited. Just the recessed lighting lit the corridors—the weekend setting.

While I stood there staring, wondering what I was doing, a soft humming voice drifted down the hallway. A female voice, gentle and happy. I followed the mellow music, trailing it to the doorway of Schroeder’s office, which was propped open with a housekeeping cart. The voice came from inside.

I peeked in around the cart and found Lucy Brown filling the paper towel holder above the small marble sink in the corner of the office. I think she’d been working at the hospital since the Civil War.

“Hi, Lucy,” I said, hoping not to startle her.

“Good morning, lady,” she said with a wide smile. “What you doing up here on a day like today? Haven’t seen you ’round on your own floor in a time.”

“No, haven’t been there. I’ve been off for a while.”

She frowned. “Heard talk ’bout that. Bad, bad,” she drawled out. “No good. What’s that all ’bout?”

“I’m not sure. I’m wondering if it has something to do with the fellow who uses this office.”

“Ahg.” She kind of hawked the sound while she jerked her head sideways. “This one here, he up ta no good. I hear things, you know. Some think people like me don’t hear nothin’, but I got ears and I got a brain. This here man, he mean.”

I lifted my eyebrows, inviting her to say whatever was on her mind.

“If there anything I could do to help you out, I’d do it, ’specially if it had to do with crossin’ this mean man.”

“Well…” I said with hesitation. “I did sort of hope to see if I could find out some information.”

“If you was to need to take a look around or somethin’, maybe I could do just like some think, and have no eyes, no ears, no nothin’. If I just happen to leave the room with you in it after my cleanin’, and I didn’t notice you here, well, then, who could blame me, since I’m just an ol’ fool cleanin’ woman?”

With her offer, the picture popped into my mind of Carl slamming shut his private notebook and jamming it in the drawer when I walked in on him. I wondered if that book contained some information about his enterprise with Mack. Actually, I didn’t just wonder. I
had
to know.

“So,” I said to Lucy, “you’re saying, if I just happened to be over here,” I walked behind his desk and sat on the floor, “and you didn’t see me, you might just not realize I’m here and leave?”

She didn’t answer. I could hear the paper towel dispenser close, and she began humming again. But it was a different tune than before. And her humming changed into singing the words every time she came to the line,
All by myself, hm hmmm hm. All by myself, hm hmmm
. Her voice grew faint and the door clunked shut after her.

Not knowing how much time I could take, I got to work searching Carl’s desk for his notebook. One drawer was locked, so I did a thorough search of all the others first. From the junk in them, it was pretty clear anything of value had to be in the locked drawer.

At least I did find a pocketknife in the pencil drawer. It had several attachments, including a small screwdriver. Determined to get into the drawer, and seeing no other alternative, I crawled under the desk and started unscrewing the drawer runners so I could partially disassemble his desk.

After about fifteen minutes, the drawer dropped enough on one side that I could squeeze my hand in and feel around a little. The smooth leather surface of some kind of bound book was right on top. It took a lot of jiggling and tilting, pushing and shoving, but I finally got the thing worked out between the underside of the desk and the crooked drawer.

Inside, the first part contained page after page of handwritten notes, scribble I couldn’t begin to figure out with only a cursory glance. Toward the middle of the book, the pages changed to some kind of cataloguing, as if keeping track of scientific data. The last few pages were divided into columns. The first section came under the heading of
Jack
and the second column was titled
Zoe
. Then beneath these appeared lists of women’s names, with addresses and phone numbers, ages. Things like that. It also had a column labeled
Outcome
. Most lines in the column were left blank, but a few names were followed with entries. Two listed first trimester miscarriages, and one listed a therapeutic abortion for gross congenital abnormalities.

I turned the page and out fell some photos. Two of them were the prints of Nikki’s baby that I’d left in my scrub jacket. The other was a photo of another baby.

Or was it?

It looked just like Nikki’s baby, but it was obviously an older photograph. The date stamped on the bottom was from several years ago. But there was no doubt these babies were related. They even both had the same dimple beneath the left eye.

I looked closer at the page where they had been tucked in, and there in the column under
Zoe
, highlighted in yellow with several exclamation points, was
Nichole Trent
written in above some other name that had been scratched out. In the section for
Outcome
was written
live birth
and the date of Nikki’s delivery.

My heart did flip-flops. I wasn’t sure yet what it was exactly, but I knew it was incredible.

I began to turn the page again, to see what followed, and voices started up right outside Schroeder’s door. I slammed the book shut, shoved it back through the crack above the dismantled drawer and worked like fury to push the runners in place and twirl the screws back in.

While the voices continued to speak—Lucy was unmistakably one of them—I scrunched without moving beneath Carl’s desk. Then some very scornful language came muffled through the door, which sounded like the Nazi, and then it fell silent.

The doorknob jiggled and Lucy’s voice came with a patch of bright light shining on the floor.

“You still here?” she whispered.

I peeked up over the edge of the desk.

“You best be out of here quick-like, lady. That grumpy ol’ secretary will be back soon. I can’t keep her gone too long.”

I crawled from beneath the desk, jumped up, and dashed to the door. A terrible smell hit me in the face.

“What in the world did you do?” I backed up, puffing through my mouth to avoid breathing in the caustic odor.

“Come on, girl. Don’t have all day to explain. Get on out here.”

She locked the door after me, saying she spilled some cleaner to buy me time. Sent the Nazi running for fresh air, but it wouldn’t last long. She had given Lucy exactly five minutes to get it cleaned up.

“Get on outta here, now. She be back before you know it. Then you be on you own explaining.”

“Thanks, Lucy. I owe you a bunch.”

“Yes, you do, lady.” And she flashed her best huge, toothy grin, showing me she was enjoying the adventure more than I could know.

Realizing Nazi’s heart would never tolerate the exertion of using the steps, I left the elevator to her and disappeared down the stairwell before she could reappear and make my life more miserable than it already was.

Down in the cafeteria, I filled a nice big cup with ice and soda and got a toasted bagel to settle the nerves in my stomach. After a while of sitting at a table alone sorting out my thoughts and contemplating my discovery, Lucy came into the cafeteria with several other housekeeping staff, ready for their break.

Lucy left the group and came over to me. She sat down, looking very grave. I felt nervous, realizing the position I’d put her in. I started to apologize. But she cut me off with a bursting smile.

“Lordy, that was the most fun I had in a long time.”

I shot her my best incredulous, wide-eyed expression. “Are you serious?”

“Girl, you should have seen the look on that woman’s face when she thought I poured ammonia and bleach all over her floor. She swore I was dumber than a broken stick to not know better than to mix the two.”

“But you didn’t, right?”

“Mercy, no. I just made it smell like I did. She think I dumb. She don’t know how smart I really am.”

She grinned again, happier than a toddler in a mud puddle.

“Find anything helpful in there?” she asked.

“I hate to say it, but I think I confirmed my worst fears. I need some time to figure it all out.”

“Well, if I can help again, you just let me know. It sure ain’t fair you getting fired an’ all.”

“I’m not fired. Just on suspension for a while.”

She gave me a motherly look, like
call it want you need to, honey, but I say it ain’t fair nonetheless.

“That man just ain’t the same man he was before he lost his precious babies.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what happened for sure, but I know his babies is dead. Some kind of accident a year back or so. His boy and girl, dead before they ever got to a hospital. The wife, she was hurt bad but they flew her out of the mountains where the crash was. Never heard what happened to her after that. They didn’t bring her here.”

The wheels were turning. This had to have some bearing on what was going on. This was too big.

“Thanks, Lucy. I better go. I want to see if I can find out any more about this.”

***

I beat-feet it to my nearest Chicago Library branch to have access to a computer. I worked on finding an accident involving anyone named Schroeder in the last two years. It didn’t take long to sift through the few Schroeders in the news before I found a very small report of the accident Lucy had heard about.

In October of the previous year, an SUV had spun off a mountain road, leaving two children dead and their mother critically injured. The article gave little more information. But it did give two crucial facts: the two children killed—Carl Schroeder’s son and daughter—were named Jack and Zoe.

The scenario suddenly fell into place. Carl’s kids, dead. Carl and Mack cloning. Nikki Trent in Carl’s office nine months before delivering a baby. She swears it’s black. It isn’t black. Carl wanting that baby. The picture with the Trent photos.

Nikki’s baby was indeed a clone. A clone of Carl’s dead daughter, Zoe.

Now it was clear why Carl wanted Nikki’s baby so badly. Though poor Nikki had no idea, Carl really
was
the father of her baby. And he would do whatever it took to get her back, including kidnap and murder. I remembered the business cards stolen from my place. The break-in at Howard’s and Anna’s file getting hacked couldn’t be coincidence.