Nancy Kress Read Online Free PDF

well. Even so, none of them like their new boss. He’s a son of a bitch to work for. But he’s apparently good at what he does. He gets hundreds of couples pregnant in vitro, some with the parents’ egg and sperm, some with donors. But no shady stuff… every time he uses a donor, the parents agree, and all the paperwork dots the legal i’s and crosses the legal t’s.”
    “A model citizen.”
    “Yep. Not only that, but by this time enough genes for hereditary diseases have been identified that Miller picks and chooses his embryos and everybody gets as healthy a kid as possible. No complaints filed with any officials, scores of glowing thank-you letters, money coming in hand over fist. And then, eighteen months later, Miller closes shop.”
    “Why?”
    “He never said. Not to anybody. He waves his hand to make the whole thing go away, and it does. Then Miller himself disappears. No tax returns, no credit cards, no e-mail address, nothing.”
    “Murdered?”
    “You watch too much TV, boss. No, he was alive, but he changed his name, moved to New Mexico, and worked under the table in a restaurant. For two years, the waiters and restaurant owner and busboys and customers say he’s the happiest person they ever met. The original sunshine kid. Then he’s killed by a drunk driver while crossing Main Street.”
    “Did you―”
    “Of course. It really was an accident. Fifteen-year-old redneck kid without a license, been arrested for it before, drunk out of his mind. He’s still doing time in juvie for vehicular manslaughter. But now hold on, boss. Here it comes.”
    Keith waited.
    “In the last three months, twenty of Miller’s test-tube babies have gone into trances like your niece’s. They’re starting to find each other. I have the names, and one of the parents is a doctor. He’s actually a stepparent who married the mother of a girl like Lillie years after the kid was born, and he’s not a, what do you call it, a geneticist, but he knows enough to know what he’s looking at. And he’s mad as hell. His name is Dr. Dennis Reeder, and here’s his address in Troy, New York. He wouldn’t say much to me, but he’s raring to talk to you. A physician no less. Doctor, lawyer … all you need is an Indian chief.”
    Keith didn’t hire Jamal for his sensitivity. He took the card Jamal handed him and wrote the investigator a large check, plus bonus.
    He was going to find out what had been done to Lillie, and why.
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    October 2012
    Barbara hung herself in the bathroom of her apartment the day before Halloween, three days after Bill Brown moved out. Lillie found her. She called 911, then the police, then Keith. By the time he tore over to the West Side, the cops and EMTs were there, filling up the messy space. Lillie had been sent to her room. She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap, and the stoic resignation on her young face broke his heart. “Uncle Keith, I …”
    He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder.
    “… I was too late to stop her. I stayed at the library too long.”
    All the anger at Barbara that he’d never expressed tsunamied over him. Barbara’s irresponsibility, her selfish throwing of all her problems onto other people whenever things got tough, her obstinate refusal to consider Lillie instead of making Lillie consider her … The strength of his anger frightened Keith. He fought to hold himself steady to Lillie’s need.
    “Honey, it isn’t your fault, not one little part of it is your fault. Your mother was mentally ill, she must have been to do this. Depressed. You aren’t to blame, Lillie.”
    “I should have come home earlier from the library. But it wasn’t … good here.” She closed her lips tightly together and Keith saw that this was all he was ever going to learn about living with Barbara during the last weeks.
    Damn her, damn her … God, his sister. Babs …
    He said shakily, “You’ll come live with me now, honey.