The Baby Thief (31 page)

Liz was disappointed. “Is six going to be enough? The survival rate is never a hundred percent.”

“That may be true in your clinic, but not in mine.” He put two tiny dissolvable stitches in the incisions. “Remember, the first
in vitro
baby was conceived with a single egg produced naturally without the aid of superovulatory hormones.”

“I know. It’s just that in the ARC, sometimes they retrieve ten to fifteen oocytes, and still the woman doesn’t always get pregnant.”

Carmichael wiped Jenna’s incisions with rubbing alcohol and put a sterile bandage on each. He leaned through the pass-bar and grinned at Liz.

“Have faith, I’m the best.”

She smiled thinly. “Why don’t you come in here and take over? The sooner we get them fertilized, the sooner we can do the transfer and get her out of here.”

“Are you sure you won’t let me be the father?”

“I can’t.”

“Then get me the daddy you picked out.”

Elizabeth had brought the frozen sperm in a cooler packed with dry ice. She had taken it out to thaw just before they began the egg retrieval. Carmichael wouldn’t let her see how troubled he was. He didn’t want to admit it to himself. He had to stop thinking about Jenna. Soon she would be gone from his life forever.

He worked quickly in the darkened lab, cleaning each egg and placing it in a drop of culture medium, then encapsulating each drop in mineral oil. The oil sealed the egg from the outside world and protected it against dust, temperature shifts, and the natural exchange of gases in the air. The six droplets were placed in a petri dish and slid into the incubator where they were kept at ninety-eight degrees.

Carmichael normally incubated oocytes for three hours before fertilizing them, but today he would leave them only for an hour. In fact, he planned to do the entire process as quickly as possible. Whether Liz got pregnant hardly mattered to him at this point. He had tried to give her the right baby, and his debt to her was paid. All he cared about was getting Jenna out of his church before the police found her. Two hours could make a world of difference.

He wheeled Jenna back into her room. He’d given her a large dose of ketamine combined with Versed to ensure that she didn’t come out too soon like last time. It was a dangerous combination. She might never wake up, which could be a blessing. Carmichael could hear Liz pacing nervously in the entry hall. He was worried about her. She seemed to have aged overnight and had pulsated with tension all afternoon.

Carmichael made a sudden decision. He closed and locked the door behind him.

Lifting the drape that covered Jenna’s body, he ran his hands over her breasts and between her legs. He had to unzip his pants and release his erection immediately. Carmichael found a plastic cup in the nightstand next to her bed and stroked himself vigorously, ejaculating in a few minutes. He couldn’t have Jenna, but he could be the father of her child.

He unlocked the door and peeked into the surgery area. Liz was still out in the hall, pacing. He could hear her muttering to herself. He moved quickly through the swinging doors into the embryo lab, spotting Elizabeth’s tube of donor sperm in a rack next to the incubator. Carmichael searched a supply cupboard for an identical one.

He pulled the sterilized wrap off the tube, squeezed the plastic cup to form a funnel and poured his semen into the new tube. He looked up to see Liz staring through the glass in the upper half of the hall doors.

Carmichael waved and smiled, praying she hadn’t caught on to what he was doing. Liz didn’t respond.

He turned his back to her and switched the tubes. The one she’d brought was still cool and damp from condensation. Carmichael set it in the stainless steel refrigerator, afraid that Liz would see it later if he tossed it in the waste basket. He turned back to the double swinging doors. Liz hadn’t moved. He motioned her to come in. She seemed not to notice. Carmichael worried about her state of mind. She obviously wasn’t handling the stress of the situation well at all.

It hadn’t been quite an hour yet, so he killed time by sanitizing his instruments from the retrieval surgery. Liz resumed pacing the hall. Carmichael decided not to wait any longer. He pulled the petri dish from the incubator and placed it under a warming light.

Using an eyedropper, he unleashed a million or so fresh spermatozoa on the unsuspecting oocytes, then slid the petri dish under a microscope. As he’d expected, his sperm were plentiful, active, and strong. In a few seconds, the first egg was under attack, surrounded by dozens of blind warriors. Carmichael loved this part, the penetration of the zona pellucida, followed by the submission of the female genetic material. It was the miracle of life. God, in his great wisdom, had masterminded this beautiful and loving conquest of the fragile female ovum. Carmichael had witnessed the miracle dozens of times, but this time was special. It was his seed becoming one with Jenna. It was the most glorious four minutes of his life.

He watched the six newly formed zygotes until his right eye ached with the strain, then placed the petri dish back in the incubator.

Now the wait began. It would be hours before the cells started to divide, displaying their viability or weaknesses. Then Carmichael would transfer the healthy zygotes to a culture of pig fetal tissue to accelerate growth. Then they would have to wait another ten to fifteen hours for the embryos to develop to an eight-cell blastocyst stage. At that point, they could remove two of the cells, expand the genetic material with PCR, and screen for sex differentiation. Like all the Sisters, Liz wanted a girl.

Chapter 37

Sunday, Nov. 5, 3:35 p.m.

Undaunted by his earlier collapse, Eric sat up that afternoon and buzzed for a nurse. A tall blond woman showed up about five minutes later. Eric thought that a person with a real emergency could have died in the meantime, but he kept it to himself.

“I’m starving. Do you think I could have something to eat?”

“Sure. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Be back in a bit.”

She brought him a tray with green Jell-O and a small dish of rice pudding. Eric was heartbroken. “Could I have some real food, please?”

“It’s too soon. If you vomit or choke you could pull out your stitches. Tomorrow you can have a sandwich, I promise.” She smiled, checked his IV line, and left him alone with the mush.

Eric hated rice pudding, but he was starving so he gulped it down without letting it touch his taste buds. As he was savoring the lime Jell-O, Joe waltzed in.

“Hey, you’re alive.”

“Damn lucky to be, so I hear.”

“You were right all along about the kidnapping.” Joe sat and scooted the chair in close to Eric. “I mean, why else would they try to kill you?”

“Exactly. The guy who stabbed me is an ex-con. Detective Jackson’s checking him out right now. What did you find out about the doctor?”

Joe scowled. “Nothing for sure, except that he’s not working at any hospitals or birth centers in Oregon, Washington, or California. Tomorrow when the DMV opens, I’ll be able to find out more.

“I’ve got to get out of here.” Eric hurt just thinking about moving. “I need you to bring me some clothes. You still have a key to my place, right?”

“Yeah.” Joe’s long brow was deeply furrowed. “Are you sure about this? You’re still looking rather pale and worthless.”

“I feel pale and worthless, but I have to finish this. I can’t lie here while you and Jackson put this story to bed. You know how it is.”

Joe nodded. “Shoes and everything, right?”

“Might as well. I don’t know what happened to the stuff I was wearing when I came in, and I’m afraid to ask.”

“I’ll bring your stuff tomorrow. Anything else you need?”

“No, tonight!”

Joe shook his head. “You can’t leave tonight. You were stabbed in the chest yesterday. You have to wait at least another day.”

“Fine, but bring the clothes tonight anyway. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“Promise you won’t leave tonight.”

“I promise.” Eric was relieved. His body wasn’t ready. “Thanks, Joe.”

“See you in a while.” The reporter headed for the door.

“Hey, bring me something to eat, would you?” Eric didn’t care what the nurse said. He needed to get his strength back. “All I got for dinner was some lousy Jell-O.”

“Whopper with cheese?”

“Make it two.”

At the moment, a little cholesterol was the least of his worries.

Chapter 38

Monday, Nov. 6, 8:07 a.m.

Elizabeth slid the glass dish under the microscope. Only four of the embryos had been viable. Two of them had never begun to divide. David claimed the oocytes had not been mature enough. But the remaining four were doing great. She’d been skeptical about the pig fetal tissue at first, but David had reassured her it would speed the process and he’d been right, as usual. The embryo under the microscope had already reached the six-cell stage. She decided to go ahead and test it.

David was in the next room taking a short nap. He’d been up all night checking the embryos every hour and would be irritated at her for proceeding without him. This was his lab and sex selection was his specialty. But slurping embryo cells for genetic testing was a newly acquired technique for Elizabeth. She’d recently done two pre-implantation diagnoses at the ARC and was anxious to repeat her success.

Elizabeth rotated her neck, trying to snap herself out of a mental fog. She’d gone up to David’s room after dinner and collapsed, sleeping straight through until morning, a very unusual occurrence for her. She could only assume it was her way of dealing with the stress of being cooped up in the compound without cigarettes. She’d left them at home after deciding to go cold turkey. The cutting-down program wasn’t working, and she had to quit. Pregnant women who smoked were weak and selfish.

David had bookshelves full of medical texts and a moderately well equipped lab, but neither held much interest for her. She hated the compound and nothing could calm her nerves. The lack of windows, the brick walls and threadbare rugs, the constant chill, even David’s little clinic, gave her the creeps.

On top of that, her stepfather’s voice had been slipping into her head, making snide little comments about her lack of maternal instinct. Elizabeth had never cared what Ralph thought about her. Why she would be tormented by him now was inconceivable. It was as though he was reaching out from the grave to destroy her one chance at happiness.

Now she was rushing the testing, doing it at six cells instead of eight, because she couldn’t wait to have the embryos transferred and get away from the compound.

Using the micro-manipulator, which David had spent almost half her inheritance on, she gently pushed a flame-polished holding pipette up against the embryo to immobilize it. With the other hand, she slid the sampling pipette through the hole she’d drilled in the zona pellucida and captured a single cell. Then she repeated the process with a second pipette, leaving the embryo with only four cells and a large hole in its protective membrane.

Elizabeth wasn’t worried. The hole would work to her advantage later by allowing the growing embryo to escape the shell, which had become toughened by exposure and handling. At the ARC, zona-drilled embryos had a greater pregnancy rate than those left on their own.

Elizabeth carefully transferred the cells to a tiny beaker and added a drop of specialized bacteria, which would make hundreds of thousands of copies of the genes within an hour.

Even an hour seemed like an eternity. Elizabeth stepped out into the hall and began to pace. Her entire body ached with the craving for nicotine. The pacing had been soothing to her yesterday while waiting for David to fertilize and separate the embryos. She’d thought about her early childhood when her mother was still alive and had experienced a long, dream-like trance while she walked.

Today she was more wound up and unable to focus on something pleasant. Elizabeth kept pacing, hoping for the best, but Ralph’s voice kept popping into her head. He was soon joined by John, her ex-husband, who told her she was unfit to be a mother, that her ovaries failed to produce eggs because she was cold and unfeeling. Terrified it could be true, Elizabeth yelled back, calling him a misogynist and a cheat.

The sound of her own shrill voice snapped her out of it. She heard footsteps pounding down the clinic stairs and hurried back into the lab. She sat down at the micro-manipulator, chest heaving, and pretended to be busy,

Rachel burst into the room. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Please leave me alone, this is delicate work.”

“I heard yelling. I thought–”

“I’m not interested in what you thought. Please leave.”

Rachel gave her an indignant look and left without comment.

The nurse would probably head straight to David’s room, wake him up, and tell him, Elizabeth thought bitterly. Rachel was like a well-trained pet dog, unconditionally loving, loyal, and stupid.

Working rapidly but carefully, Elizabeth applied a sex differentiation probe to the enhanced DNA. David did not come down. She soon discovered a Y chromosome. Fists clenched, she pushed back from the microscope and rushed to the incubator. She grabbed the petri-dish she’d marked and dumped the embryo in the trash.

Worthless male.

Chapter 39

Monday, Nov. 6, 9:16 a.m.

Sarah thanked the fat man and hopped out of his huge, white car. She waved as he drove off down a side street, then she turned back to the main road heading out of Springfield toward Blue River. She stuck out her thumb and started walking. Her next ride, hopefully, would take her all the way to Deercreek Drive. After that, she might have to walk the last fifteen miles. The roads to the compound weren’t well traveled, but that was fine. She’d gotten an early start, and the day was mostly sunny and not too cold. She’d be home in time for supper. The thought made her smile.

Sarah had wanted to leave yesterday, but she’d slept until almost noon after being up half the night at the hospital with Darcie. She’d called to make sure Darcie and the baby were all right, then decided it was too late to start out for the compound. Yesterday had been cold and the sky had looked like snow. Sarah had been afraid she wouldn’t reach the compound before dark. The idea of hitchhiking still frightened her, but she had no choice. She would trust the Lord to keep her safe. She had to get back. There were too many things nagging at her brain. Especially the woman in the clinic. Sarah worried about her more and more. If the Reverend was capable of injecting the Sisters with dangerous hormones and impregnating Darcie against her will, then…