Lister took a deep breath. “I’ll be hunting down the other disgruntled OBs. Cannon’s yours.” He paused. “You look tired, but I don’t advise sleep. Get on this ASAP. We don’t know how much time we have.”
“Roger.”
The meeting over, Luca stepped out of the SUV and watched Lister drive away.
Elizabeth Cannon…he’d check her out first thing in the morning. But he also wanted to check out this genomic competition that had so rattled the Sinclairs. He needed every edge he could get.
He headed for his office computer to look up some genetics.
16
MINEOLA, NY
DECEMBER 24
Romy watched Betsy adjust the IV running into Meerm’s arm. The air seemed close in the spare, windowless little procedure room. Patrick had walked out—the sim’s distress had been too much for him—leaving Romy alone with Betsy and Meerm.
Betsy looked up at her. “The contractions have subsided.”
“How long can this go on?” Romy asked, relieved the sim’s pain had finally eased.
Betsy shook her head. “Not too much longer. I was right in the middle of an ultrasound when she started having contractions. I’d love to give the baby another week but Meerm’s uterus won’t last that long.”
“Why baby hurt Meerm?” the sim said.
“As I told you, Meerm,” Betsy said softly, “the baby’s not trying to hurt you. It’s just that you’re too small and the baby’s too large.” She turned to Romy and lowered her voice. “I tried to give her an anatomy lesson earlier. I don’t know how much of it took.”
“On the new ultrasound,” Romy said, “did you see what sex it was?”
Betsy smiled. “Meerm wanted to know too. Isn’t that something? I didn’t think sims differentiated that much between sexes, but she was very curious. She wants a girl.”
“And?”
“Can’t say. The baby’s packed in too tight. If I had one of the higher resolution imagers I could tell, but not with this model. I’ll do another one tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Yes. It would be nice to be able to call the baby ‘he’ or ‘she’ instead of ‘it.’”
“Indeed it would. Oh, by the way, Zero called to see how the night went.”
“When will he be here?”
“He won’t. He thinks it’s safer for all concerned if I’m the only one seen coming and going from here.”
Romy hoped her disappointment didn’t show. She needed to talk to Zero—not on the phone, but face to face. Her emotions were still in wild turmoil, but she needed to know howhe felt, and whathe wanted. Once she knew that, she could begin to sort out her own feelings, make some decisions. She didn’t know what the future held, but she was keeping all options open for now.
Then Patrick stuck his head into the little room. “I think the house is being watched.”
Romy felt her shoulders tighten. “You’re sure?”
“I haven’t seen men with binoculars trained on us, but someone’s sitting in a car parked up the street facing this way, and he’s been there for a while.”
“Show me.”
He led her to the picture window in the living room. It was midday but the low gray sky shed little light into the room. Romy reached for a lamp, then thought better of it.
“Damn,” Patrick said. “It’s gone. But I tell you, it was sitting right over there for a good half hour.”
Romy scanned the street and saw a blue sedan parked against the curb at the other end.
“Was that there before?” she asked, pointing.
“No,” Patrick said. “I’m sure it wasn’t. And this one’s got—doesn’t that look like two men inside?”
“Yes, it does,” Betsy said, coming up behind them. “I’m calling the police.”
“Is that such a good idea?” Patrick said.
Romy smiled. “I think it’s a great idea. If theyknew something, they’d havedone something. Betsy left SimGen with a roar, so it’s no surprise they’re watching her. Probably watching a number of ex-Natal-Center people. But why should we let them have an easy time of it? Let’s make them explain to the local constabulary what they’re doing out there.”
17
“Here’s what we’ve got on her,” Lowery said, unfolding his notes behind the wheel of the surveillance car.
Luca stared at Dr. Cannon’s two-story colonial from the passenger seat. He’d wanted a personal look at the lay of the land, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Elizabeth Cannon, age forty-eight, never married, no kids, lives alone. In solo obstetrics-gynecology practice. Works out of a home office, on the staff of Nassau County Community Hospital.”
“Home office?” Luca said.
“Yeah. That extension on the left side there.”
“Where are her patients?”
“I called about that. Her answering service said she’d canceled her office hours from today through next week but would still be seeing her hospital patients and doing her deliveries.”
“Odd, don’t you think?”
Lowery shrugged. “Hey, it’s Christmas Eve. And she took Christmas week off. Do the same if I could.”
“We don’t find that sim,” he told Lowery, “you’ll have the longest Christmas vacation of your life.”
The scanner squawked—Lowery was tuned into the local cop frequency. Something about a fender bender on Maple Street.
“So far she’s been a good little girl. Made her hospital rounds this morning, then went grocery shopping.”
“Buy a lot?” Luca asked.
“Come to think of it, yeah. Watched her load six bags in the back of her wagon—a blue Volvo, by the way.”
Luca straightened in his seat. Interesting. “Six bags for one woman living alone?”
“Like I said, it’s Christmas. Maybe she’s planning a big family dinner.”
“Read your own notes—she’sgot no family.”
The more Luca thought about Dr. Elizabeth Cannon, the more he liked her as a real possibility. A loner with tons of experience delivering sims, she’d probably jump at the chance to shut down a place she thought of as a “slave factory.” Now here she was, stocking up on groceries—enough to feed a sim and the missing Cadman and Sullivan perhaps? Plus she had a home office, the perfect place to deliver a sim. Was that why she’d canceled her office hours? Wouldn’t do to have one of her patients spot a pregnant sim, would it.
He felt some of his fatigue lifting.
“All right,” Lowery said, “let’s just say this sim is in there. How—?”
“Sheis in there,” Luca said. “I feel it in my gut.”
“Okay. I’ll go with that, because my gut’s giving me the same message, but does your gut have any idea how we get her the fuck out of there? Look at this neighborhood, will you? It’sLeave It To Beaver -ville. There’s no room to operate.”
Luca had already noticed that. Neat, middle-size houses, most sporting Christmas decorations, nestled side by side and back to back on quarter-acre lots, with wide streets that nobody parked on. Sitting here like this, their car looked as alien as a flying saucer. Only a matter of time before—
Another squawk on the scanner, this one about a suspicious car parked on Cavendish Drive.
“Shit!” Lowery said. “That’s us.”
Luca slapped the dashboard. “Move. I don’t want any local heat seeing our faces.”
“So what do we do?” Lowery said as he put the car in gear.
“A raid. Oh-four-hundred tomorrow morning.”
“Are you kidding? On Christmas?”
“Can you think of a time it’ll be less expected? Six of us hit the place front and back wearing FBI jackets and full assault gear. If we find the sim we secure her, terminate everyone else, and take off. If we don’t find her, we apologize for raiding the wrong address, and disappear.”
“FBI?”
“Hey, it’s not like they never raid private homes and it’s not like they’ve never fucked up before either. Everybody still remembers Waco. It’ll take days, maybe weeks, before the feds convince the public they weren’t involved.”