What Came First (11 page)

Following Helix Laboratories’ disappointing news that Ian had no close Y-line matches among their clients, I spent much of February and March combing through other online genealogy databases, searching for chunks of numbers that matched Ian’s.

Although I squinted at genetic codes till my head hurt, I couldn’t find a perfect or even a partial match. On the bright side, the latenight mental strain did help me sleep.

A few days ago, I was on the verge of giving up (or perhaps of
considering
giving up) when, to my astonishment, I—technically Ian—received a message from Helix:

For a stunned moment, I thought the man Helix had identified, a forty-year-old named John Fergus, might be Donor 613. It soon struck me, though, that he was several years too old. More likely, he was the donor’s brother or perhaps a first cousin.

It was too much to hope that Google searches and national address database perusals could reveal which of the hundreds of John Ferguses I found online was the right one. It was definitely too much to hope that I’d nail down a clear John Fergus with a younger brother born on the same day as Donor 613. For a good private investigator, however, tracking down that information should be routine.

At 10:14, I check in with Paulina, an attractive thirtyish blonde who smells just fine.

She says, “Kim’s just finishing up a phone call. I’m about to make a Starbucks run. Can I get you a latte or something?”

“Thanks, but I don’t need anything.”

Paulina makes good-natured Starbucks runs for her boss. If I were the crying type, I might have shed tears. Sometimes when I’m swamped, I’ll send Marissa to pick up lunch, but she makes me pay in so many ways that don’t involve money.

Paulina’s phone beeps. “Hi, Kim. Yeah, she’s ready for you . . . Sure thing, I’m on my way out. Tall vanilla latte, yes? No whip?” After a pause, she laughs and says, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Paulina leads me into Kim’s office, which has a large window with sweeping mountain views and a beautiful wood desk. Kim stands up and walks around her desk to greet me. I am tall for a woman, but she towers over me, and as we shake hands I feel weirdly small. As always, Kim looks impeccable and intimidating, with stylish, short dark hair, a tailored black suit, dove-gray silk shirt, and silver hooker heels that she somehow gets away with. One of those ageless women who looks like she could be anywhere between thirty and fifty, she is actually fifty-three. One of her repeat clients is a successful Orange County plastic surgeon, and he does good work.

“But no brownies,” Kim tells Paulina with a chuckle. “Too rich.”

“Mm-hm,” Paulina says, flashing her boss a warm smile before heading out to the coffee shop.

“Paulina’s feeding my chocolate addiction,” Kim tells me. “Who needs a man when you can have truffles?”

Somehow, I suspect she’s used that line a few times before. If the rumor mill is to be believed—and, really, I am so far out of the loop that by the time something gets to me, it hardly even counts as a rumor—Kim is sleeping with a spray-tanned junior associate gym rat named Bryce, but that doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy a bit of chocolate now and then.

Kim invites me to sit down with her. Not only does she have Paulina and a view, she has a leather couch and a coffee table with a big box of tissues. Divorce may be lucrative, but it is never pretty.

“I’m looking for a recommendation,” I say. “I need a private investigator.”

“For a client?” she asks.

“No.”

Her ageless face placid, she waits for me to fill the silence with an explanation; as if I’d fall for that old trick.

“Is there anyone in particular you’d recommend?”

“Depends,” she says. “Is this for surveillance?”

“No. More records research. Computer work, that sort of thing.”

“Ah!” She stands up and heads for her beautiful wood desk, opens a drawer, and plucks out a business card. “I’ve had good luck with this guy. Dexter Savage. Former cop—they usually are—but he’s more tech savvy than most.”

I stand up and take the stark white card.

She walks me to the door. “Let me know if he doesn’t work out. I’ve got some other names I can give you.”

I brace myself to skirt any further inquiries of my business, and then I realize: she doesn’t care.

As I don’t want any of my dealings with him tied to my office, I call Dexter Savage from my cell phone.

“Yeah?” Static crackles on the line.

“Am I speaking to Dexter Savage?”

“Yeah.”

“My name is Laura Cahill. I got your number from Kim Rueben, a fellow attorney at my firm.”

“Yeah.”

“Uh . . . right. Kim spoke highly of your research expertise, and so I’d like to retain your services. There’s a man I’m trying to track down. I know his date of birth and also his brother’s full name and date of birth. However, I’ve never met him and don’t know his first name.”

The line crackles some more.

“Bad reception.” The line goes dead.

I am redialing when the call comes through. Unknown number.

“Laura Cahill,” I say.

“You got that information for me?” Dexter Savage says.

“I do.” I give him John Fergus’s name and birthday, along with the information I have for Donor 613.

“Don’t you want to know what this is about?” I ask.

“Depends. Do you want to tell me?”

I consider.

“Not really.”

“Then I don’t need to know.” With that, he hangs up.

When Darren comes home from work and walks into the kitchen, he finds the kids and me in various states of hysteria, surrounded by a sea of pretzels. I am sitting on the floor, clutching my knees in an upright fetal position. Sydney lies facedown on the white ceramic tiles, pounding the ground. Tears puddle around her face. A pretzel, surprisingly intact, sticks to her forearm. Harrison is the only one standing. It is easier to kick the wall that way.

Just a typical Tuesday in the Winder household.

I bury my face in my knees. I am so ugly when I cry. I expect Darren to recoil from the scene and head for the safety of his computer and his virtual life as a single sports agent. He surprises me by putting a gentle hand on my back. He rubs up and down, up and down. His tenderness makes me cry even harder.

He says, “Maybe we should call a sitter and go out.”

A couple hours later, we are in P.F. Chang’s at Kierland Commons. The twins are home with Ashlyn Plant, Sherry and Lane’s younger daughter. Darren made the phone call. He still likes Sherry even though she and I aren’t friends anymore. He never liked Lane. Darren is a quiet engineer. Lane is a pharmaceutical sales rep with a nasty streak. During the year or so that the four of us hung out, Lane called Darren “Spock,” “Kirk,” and “Scotty.” Which is totally stupid. Darren doesn’t even like
Star Trek
. It would take too much time away from the Sims.

I am wearing my favorite dress, which just happens to be the only dress that fits me. It is from Chico’s, black and long and simple, with a crew neck and three-quarter sleeves. Darren is wearing a sky-blue golf shirt with khaki shorts.

Last time we came to P.F. Chang’s, a couple of years ago, maybe more, we had to wait over an hour for a table, but today we get seated right away—at a booth, no less. There’s something to be said for a weeknight in a recession. If you only go out to dinner once a year, it’s nice to have your choice of tables.

The darkness and the comfy bench seat make me unwind, just a little. We decide what to order and then keep looking at the menu because it gives us something to do. I’m too tired for alcohol, so I order a diet soda and about three thousand calories’ worth of nouvelle Asian cuisine. I’ll bring a lot of it home.

The waitress takes our menus. Darren and I make eye contact, and . . . that’s it. My mind goes completely blank. Sitting here with Darren feels like a blind date that isn’t going well. He puts his elbow on the table, his chin on his hand, and looks from the window to the ceiling.

“How’s work?” I ask, finally.

He shrugs. “Fine.”

“Are you still working on . . . that thing you were working on? With the, um, superalloy?” Surely I deserve credit for remembering this term.

“Uh-uh. We finished that a couple months ago.”

I wait for him to say more. He doesn’t. “What are you working on now, then?”

His eyebrows arch with skepticism. “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course.” Once, years ago, I told Darren that the only people who find engineering interesting are other engineers. I’ve regretted my words ever since.

“Well . . . okay. We’re trying to reduce the specific fuel consumption of our latest engine by changing the geometry of the turbine blades. The simulations of our latest design indicate we can probably achieve around a four percent improvement. Maybe more.”

He was right. I don’t really want to know.

A group of skinny young women walk by wearing denim skirts, shorts, and flip-flops. I tug at a sleeve.

“I’m overdressed.”

“Nobody’s looking at you,” Darren says, realizing about three seconds too late that that was an incredibly hurtful thing to say. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“I know.” No, I don’t.

The waitress brings our drinks. I consider asking for some rum to put in my Diet Coke. At this point in the awkwardness, it might be worth the headache. But I’d rather use the calories for something else. Like, say, ten Oreo cookies after everyone has gone to bed. Yeah, that’ll make everything better.

I make another stab at conversation. “Ashlyn sure has grown up. I hardly recognized her.”

Now thirteen, Ashlyn has traded her sparkly clothes for plain blue jeans and logo T-shirts. She has breasts, braces, and just enough acne to be noticeable. Even with all that metal, her smile is surprisingly sweet. I can’t remember her smiling a single time during the year or so when her mother and I were best friends.

“She seems like a nice girl,” I add.

“Mm.” Darren drinks his beer.

“She was such a bratty little kid, but I guess she grew out of it. That kind of gives me hope. I mean, with Harrison and Sydney.”

He doesn’t respond.

“You’re probably wondering about the pretzels,” I blurt.

He frowns with confusion. “I figured the kids spilled the bag.”

I shake my head, realizing, too late, that I could have left him with his assumption: The kids spilled the pretzels. I yelled. They cried. I broke down.

If only it were that simple.

“I gave them a snack at three. Oreos and milk and apples.” I don’t tell him that they refused to eat the apples. “And then an hour later, I was feeling hungry.” I don’t tell him that I’d eaten four Oreos at snack time.

“So I opened a bag of pretzels, which I’ve been trying to eat instead of chips because they have no fat. The kids were watching TV in the toy room, but they heard the bag rustle, so they came in and said, ‘Give me some
.
’”

My throat tightens at the memory. I swallow hard.

“So I said no because they’d already had a snack and this would ruin their dinner. Sydney started screaming and Harrison tried to grab the bag out of my hands. Which really, really pissed me off. I told them to go to the corner for time out, but they wouldn’t.”

My voice is starting to rise. I take a deep breath.

“So then I told them to go to their rooms. But they wouldn’t do that either. They just kept screaming, ‘Give me! Give me!’ Harrison started kicking the wall—even though he promised he wouldn’t do that anymore after we had to repaint. It was so
loud,
and I was so tired, so I just . . .”