Читать книгу Lock, Stock and Secret Baby - Cassie Miles - Страница 7

Blake watched her reaction, looking for a sign that Eve Weathers had been complicit in Prentice’s scheme. He saw nothing of the kind.

His information had shocked her. She gasped, loudly and repeatedly. Her eyes opened wide. Pupils dilated. She was on the verge of hyperventilation. Her chest heaved against the seat belt. “I can’t be pregnant.”

“I said it was a possibility.”

“Why would you say such a thing? And how the hell would you know?”

“Before he was murdered, my father sent me an e-mail.” At the moment the e-mail was sent, Blake had been in a debriefing meeting at the Pentagon. He didn’t read the message until two hours later. By then, it was too late. His father was dead.

“What did it say?”

Too much for him to explain right now. Blake cut to the pertinent facts. “My father received information that Dr. Prentice had implanted you with an embryo.”

“During the examination? While I was unconscious?” She dragged her fingers through her pale blond hair. “That’s sickening. Disgusting.”

When she grasped the key in the ignition, he stayed her hand. Gently, he said, “Maybe you should let me drive.”

She yanked away from him. “My car. I drive.”

“You don’t look so good,” he said.

“Thanks so much.”

“Not an insult.” He liked her looks. “I meant that you appear to be in shock. I don’t want you to pass out.”

“Oh, I’m way too angry to faint.” She started the car. “You want out?”

“No.” He couldn’t let her drive off by herself. In his e-mail, Dad had told Blake to take care of Eve Weathers. That last request could not be ignored.

She punched the accelerator and squealed away from the curb. Halfway down the street, she whipped a U-turn, barely missing a van parked at the curb.

His right foot pushed down on an invisible brake on the passenger-side floorboard. “If you let me drive, we can be at my father’s house in ten minutes.”

“That’s not where we’re going.”

At the corner, she made an aggressive merge into traffic. Her tension showed in her white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, but she wasn’t reckless. She checked her mirrors before changing lanes and stayed within the speed limit. With a sudden swerve, she drove into the parking lot outside a convenience store.

Without a word, she threw off her seat belt and left the car. He trailed behind her. Inside the store, he asked, “You mind telling me what we’re doing here?”

“Maybe I wanted a donut.”

Her sarcasm was preferable to the moment of shock when he’d mentioned pregnancy. He should have been more careful, should have expected her reaction, but he wasn’t operating at peak efficiency. Eve’s problems weren’t his primary concern.

His focus was on his father’s murder. The cops were satisfied with the lame explanation that a burglar did the crime. Like hell. This killing wasn’t a random act of violence. Blake was determined to find the son of a bitch who pulled the trigger and the men who sent him.

He stood behind Eve as she stared at shelves packed with an array of over-the-counter medicines. When she spied the pregnancy tests, she grabbed three of them. “Damn, I left my purse in the car.”

“I’ll pay,” he said.

At the counter, the clerk gave them a knowing smirk as he rang up the purchase.

Eve added a pack of gum. “And two jerky sticks and one of these pecan things.”

“There’s food at the house,” he said.

“I have a craving. Isn’t that what pregnant women do?”

When she plucked a magazine off the rack below the counter, she set down her car keys. He snatched them. “I’m driving. It’s easier than giving you directions.”

“Fine,” she growled. “You drive.”

Back in the car, he adjusted the driver’s seat for his long legs and headed toward his father’s house while Eve tore open the packaging on the pregnancy tests and read the instructions. “When we get to the house,” she said, “I’d appreciate being shown to the nearest bathroom.”

He nodded.

“I won’t make a scene,” she assured him. “I respect your father’s memory.”

Several other vehicles were already parked on the street outside the long ranch-style house that his mother had loved so much. When they had first moved here fifteen years ago, there had been few other houses in the area. Development had crept closer, but his father’s house still commanded an outstanding view. To the south, Pikes Peak was visible on a clear day like today.

No matter where in the world he was stationed, he treasured the memory of home—of translucent, Colorado skies and distant, snowcapped peaks. This vision was his solace and the basis for his daily meditation.

As they went up the sidewalk to the house, he pocketed her keys, not wanting her to have easy access to an escape until she calmed down.

Inside, he skirted the living room where people had gathered and escorted her down a long hallway that bisected the left half of the house. At the end of the hall, he opened the door to his dad’s office. Unlike the rest of this well-maintained residence, this room looked like the aftermath of a tornado. In addition to the papers and magazines, a fine coating of fingerprint dust from the police investigation covered many of the surfaces. The supposedly secret safe in the bookshelves hung open in its hinges. His father’s blood stained the Persian carpet behind the desk.

When he closed the door, Eve stood very still. “Is this where it happened?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t cleaned up.”

“Not yet.” Valuable information could be hidden somewhere in this room. He’d already searched, but he would search again and again and again, until he found the killer.

IN THE PRIVACY OF THE bathroom, Eve almost yielded to the overwhelming pressure of anger and fear. If ever there had been a time in her life when she wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, this was it. She didn’t want to be pregnant. Not now, possibly not ever. Having a baby wasn’t on her agenda.

She knew that she’d skipped her last period but hadn’t worried because Dr. Prentice told her she might be irregular after her testing. Prentice, that bastard. Why had she believed him? With good reason, damn it. She had twenty-five years of good faith; Prentice and Dr. Ray had been part of her life since birth.

Setting her purse on the counter, she took out the kits from the convenience store: three different brands. Two of the kits had two tests inside the box, and she set the extras aside.

She followed the simple instructions and arrayed the three test sticks on the counter beside the sink. Then, she waited, counting the seconds.

Each test had a different indicator. One showed a plus sign in the window to indicate a positive. Another showed a pink line. The third would turn blue.

Though counting didn’t make time go faster, reciting numerical progressions had always soothed her. As a child, she learned to count prime numbers all the way up to 3,571—the first five hundred primes. Five hundred unique numbers, divisible only by themselves and one.

The last time she had seen Dr. Ray over dinner, she’d talked about prime. He had suggested—in his kindly way—that she might want to pursue deeper interpersonal relationships. Make friends, join groups, go on dates, blah, blah, blah.

She had told him that she was happy just as she was. Some people needed others to make them complete, but she was unique. Like a prime number, she was divisible only by herself. Singular.

If she was pregnant, she’d never be alone again.

One of the tests required only one minute to show results. She could look down right now and see. But the others needed five minutes, and she didn’t want to peek until all the results were in and could be verified against each other.

But she couldn’t wait. She looked down. The first test showed a positive.

Could she trust a kit from a convenience store? It hardly seemed scientific in spite of the claim on the box of ninety-nine percent accuracy in detecting a pregnancy hormone, hCG, released into the body by the placenta.

The second test repeated the positive. And the third.

She was pregnant, pregnant and pregnant.

Tentatively, she touched her lower abdomen. Hello, in there. Can you hear me? An absurd question. At this point in development, the fetus wouldn’t have ears. But they shared the same body, the same blood. The food she ate nurtured the tiny being that grew within her. The miracle of life. Amazing. Infuriating.

Damn it, this couldn’t be happening! She dug into her purse and found her cell phone. Dr. Prentice’s private cell phone number was in the memory.

He answered after the fourth ring. “I’ve been expecting to hear from you, Eve.”

“How could you do this to me?”

“I assume you’re aware of—”

“I’m aware, damn you. I just took a pregnancy test.”

“You’re upset.”

A mild description of her outrage. “You might as well have raped me.”

“Not at all the same thing. Rape is an act of violence. You received the highest quality medical care. My intentions were for your own good. I could have hired a surrogate, you know.”

“A what?”

“A surrogate mother. Some women rent out their wombs like cheap motels.”

“I know what a surrogate is.”

Her voice was louder than she intended. Blake knocked on the bathroom door. “Eve? Are you all right?”

She didn’t want to deal with him. This wasn’t his problem. Lowering her voice, she demanded, “Why, Dr. Prentice? Why would you do this?”

“Ray’s research indicated the optimum condition for development comes when the biological mother carries the fetus and bonds with the infant.”

Biological mother? Bonding? None of what he’d just said made sense. “I ought to hire a lawyer and sue you.”

“Don’t bother. When you came for your examination, you signed a consent form.”

With a jolt, she remembered being handed several documents on a clipboard. “You told me it was a routine medical procedure.”

“If you like, I can fax you a copy.”

He knew her too well, knew that she wouldn’t bother to read the fine print. She had trusted him. “I have to know why.”

“To create the second generation.”

“Second generation of what?”

From outside the bathroom door, she heard Blake. “Who are you talking to, Eve?”

“I’m fine,” she told him.

“Unlock the damn door,” Blake said.

“In a minute.”

She moved to the farthest wall of the bathroom beside the toilet. A magazine stand held back issues of Psychology Today. Guest towels with a teal-blue border hung from a pewter rack. She spoke into the phone. “Signed consent form or not, this was wrong.”

“What’s done is done,” he said.

“I’m not ready to be a mother.” Everything in her life would have to change. She’d have to find a way to juggle work and child care. There was so much to learn, an overwhelming amount of research. How could she manage? “Maybe I should give the baby up for adoption.”

“That would be a mistake.”

“It’s not your call, Dr. Prentice.”

“Let me give you something else to consider. Do you remember five years ago when I had you on medication?”

The earlier scare about possible radiation poisoning. “Another lie?”

“I’m a scientist,” he said archly. “I don’t deal in ethics. Five years ago, the medication I gave you was actually a fertility drug that encouraged ovulation. You produced several eggs which I then harvested during your physical exam. I used those eggs to create embryos.”

“My egg?” The impact of this new information hit her hard. “You implanted me with my own egg?”

“The fetus you’re carrying is biologically your own.”

My baby. Her hand rested protectively on her stomach. She felt a deep, immediate connection. This is my baby.

“This entire process would have been far less complicated,” Dr. Prentice said, “if Ray had agreed to facilitate. He had a decent grasp on your psychological development and could have convinced you that having this baby was a good idea. Brilliant, in fact. You’re lucky to take part in—”

The room started to spin. Eve never fainted. But her knees went weak. I’m having a baby. She collapsed with a thud. The phone fell from her limp hand onto the tiled bathroom floor.