A new guard was standing outside the building behind FriskyLife HQ. Hispanic, he was short but solidly built, like a bull, and his belt held handcuffs, a baton, and a Taser, and probably some other gear I wouldn’t want to experience firsthand.
He was already on his phone as I walked up. They would have spotted me on security cameras after I’d parked and ignored the front entrance to walk around the main building.
“Help you find the front door, sir?” He pointed. “It’s that way.”
I wanted a drink of water for my dry throat. I’m not very tough, or brave, especially confronting a security guard with a Taser. I’d thought through my approach on the drive up, but in front of the building now, my mind went blank and I went back to my usual go-to strategy—the basic, direct approach. “I want to see Mrs. Haldane. She’s inside. She called me.”
He stared, his eyes thin and sharp. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Tom Jurgen. Lawrence Haldane knows me.”
The guard kept his eyes on me and tapped his phone without looking at it. “Yeah, Travis here in back. I’ve got a guy who says he wants into the facility, says he’s a friend of Haldane, and his wife called him. . . . I don’t know. . . . I don’t know. . . . Okay.”
He put his phone away. “Hang on. “
Could it be this easy? I shifted on my feet.
It wasn’t. The door didn’t open, but two more security guards emerged from the main building, a man and woman. They wore thick belts with the same gear as Travis, and both of them looked tough enough to smash me flat with one fist. Even the woman. Especially the woman.
“Okay, sir, it’s time to go.” The man spoke, but with the female guard and Travis they surrounded me, arms at their sides. Not overtly threatening me with violence—but it was there, hanging in the air like a hawk poised to dive on me and rip me to shreds.
I fumbled with my phone. “Hang on—hang on.” I punched buttons. “Let me just—” One buzz. Two. The female guard took a step forward, a hand on her belt. Kind of sexy, if you like the Amazon type—
“Haldane. Who is this?”
Speaker. “Mr. Haldane, this is Tom Jurgen. I’m here outside the building behind your HQ, surrounded by your guards, and your wife just called me to tell me she’s inside there and wants to get out. And there’s someone else inside. I think it’s Caroline Tillens. The girl who disappeared. Just like Adria Alcott.”
The female guard cocked her head, trying to follow my fast speech. She looked over my shoulder at the door of the building.
“What?” Haldane’s voice was low and tense. “Just a minute—”
A phone buzzed. Travis answered. “Yes? Yeah, Mr. Haldane, he’s right here. What should we do?”
He listened, then put his phone back. “Just a minute.”
I waited, nervous. The guards looked ready to take me down if I coughed. So I bit my lip and shifted on my feet, wishing I was anywhere else.
Three minutes later the HQ back door opened, and Haldane marched out, stalking down the walk toward us, his necktie loosened, his face red. He pushed through the three security guards. “What the hell?”
I held up my phone and played Elizabeth’s voice for him. His fingers curled into fists as he listened.
When the short conversation was finished I put the phone back in my pocket. “That’s probably enough for me to go to the police. Or the media. Take your pick.”
I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. Inside I was fighting the impulse to flee back to my Prius. But after a minute Haldane shook his head. “Okay. Come on in.”
My surge of relief was mixed with a fresh sense of dread. Once inside, he could make me disappear out of sight of any of his guards. “People know I’m here,” I said in a loud voice, looking at the female guard. “You’re all part of this now. Think about it before you follow his orders.”
The guard stared back, her face stony. I gave her a little wave, then turned to follow Haldane inside.
Bright light from fluorescents in the ceiling half-blinded me for a moment. We stood in a small room with white walls. Security monitors sat on a metal desk in the corner.
Haldane made sure the door was locked, then gestured to a hallway behind the desk. I followed him down a short corridor, more white walls on either side. I heard a humming sound down toward the end of the hallway, behind a half open door.
Haldane stopped with a frown and pointed. “In here.”
With a deep breath, I stepped through a doorway.
The room was large, almost the size of a high school gym. Beige partitions divided up half the square footage. Medical carts waited for action on the tiled floor. At the far end of the room, freezers stood in one corner. Computers glowed on lab tables, cables snaking everywhere. I saw equipment I didn’t recognize crammed into every available space.
Haldane tapped an impatient heel. “This is what you wanted to see.” He pointed toward a curtain.
I pulled it aside. Lying on a hospital bed with a tangled blue sheet around her legs, Elizabeth Haldane snored softly.
She was petite, with short blonde hair, a green gown tied around her shoulders, her feet in white ankle socks, IVs plugged into both arms, sensors stuck to her skin. Screens above the bed scrolled data that I couldn’t decipher. Her face was pale, and her breath was shallow.
I took a step to the bed. “Mrs. Haldane? Ma’am?”
Her eyelids fluttered. She stared up at me, confused.
“It’s Tom Jurgen. You called me.”
She nodded. “He’s—not that bad. Help him. Help her.” Then she closed her eyes again.
I turned back to Haldane. “Caroline Tillens?”
He sighed, looked down at his shoulders, then stepped back and pulled another curtain to one side.
A young woman in a blue gown lay on another bed, unconscious. She had tangled blond hair and pale skin, her eyes shut. Again, IVs were jammed into her veins. Her chest rose and fell steadily, but her fingers trembled as if she were having bad dreams.
A Black man appeared, wearing a gray lab coat and carrying an iPad. “Everything okay, Larry?”
“This is Tom Jurgen. He’s a private detective.” Haldane glanced at me. “She’s fine. Just asleep.”
“What’s going on?”
He motioned me to follow him. The other man stayed with Caroline, checking her data.
We passed two more empty beds, ready for patients—or victims?—and he took me to a large area with halogen lamps mounted in the ceiling over a trio of tanks filled with some kind of cloudy, viscous fluid.
I peered into one. Inside I could make out a vague shape floating in the liquid, rolling slowly around, tethered by a few thin strands snaking up from the bottom of the tank.
“My wife is dying,” Haldane said.
I turned to look at him. Up close, I could see his eyes were red and strained with worry.
“She needs—healthy tissues. Healthy organs. And I know how to do that.” He looked away, as if thinking of something. “It’s—I don’t have it perfect yet. I had to—test the process. I wanted to try it with someone who fit Liza’s genetic profile, so I looked for women, females, with some resemblance to her.”
Female, blonde, slender—”Like Adria? And Caroline?”
He nodded. “I thought maybe I could take a shortcut if it worked—”
“Wait.” I held up a hand, looked into the tank again, then stared at Haldane. “You’re cloning people?”
He nodded again. “It’s been done with animals, you know. The problem is making them grow faster. Fast enough. I can’t wait for the clone to catch up to Liza’s age or anywhere close enough for it to do her some good, so I accelerated the growth rate. The problem is . . .”
Haldane paused. I edged back to put some distance between us. This was sounding like a bad science fiction movie, mad scientist and all, and I had a feeling it was about to get worse.
“To speed up the development, I have to use growth hormones from the subject. It works fine on the clone, but so far, in every animal I’ve tried—the subject dies. The donor.”
He stared at me, into my eyes. “You have to understand, I’d do anything to save my wife. Anything.”
“You mean—” Oh my God. “You tried it with Adria—and it killed her?”
His eyes didn’t waver. “Y-yeah. The clone is fine. The new Adria. I returned her to her house—”
“So that’s why she doesn’t remember anything. Most things.”
“Some of it may have transferred, but yeah, she’s a blank slate. It’s the best I could do. Then Liza started getting worse, and I had to try again.”
“With Caroline.” After killing Adria.
I had to get out of here. I grabbed for my phone—
And an arm wrapped itself around my throat like an anaconda. I kicked, twisted, and tried to struggle, but before I could fight free something sharp jabbed my neck. I saw a syringe drop down, bounce off my chest, and land on the floor. I tried to yell, but my lips wouldn’t work. No sound came out of my throat. I managed a curse, and then my head drooped forward and everything went black.
I didn’t lose consciousness. I could hear them talking—not much, but enough for me to figure out that the other guy’s name was Reeves and he was pissed at Haldane for bringing me here. I felt them dragging me, lifting my body, then strapping me down onto a bed using canvas restraints over my arms and hands, my legs and feet. Reeves gagged me with medical tape. They didn’t have duct tape, I guess.
I lay there dazed for hours. Or maybe just a few minutes. I probably dozed off. When I opened my eyes again I pulled against the restraints and tried to yell through the medical tape, but I was too weak and groggy to accomplish anything.
I turned my head. I could see Caroline next to me, her bed three or four feet away, breathing slowly, still asleep. On the other side a curtain hung down, the one I’d seen around Elizabeth Haldane’s bed.
Rachel knows I’m here. I kept telling myself that over and over again. Rachel knew where I was. And as scared as I was, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Haldane’s shoes when she showed up. She can hit hard. I’ve got the bruises to prove it.
So I sat back, trying to think. It wasn’t easy. Whatever Reeves had shot me up with had left my head fuzzy and my heartbeats echoing in my skull.
Another mad scientist. It wasn’t even one craziest thing I’d ever encountered. Yeah, I’ve dealt with vampires, demons, and werewolves, but there was one guy who bred giant killer chickens, a scientist turning animals into humanoid freaks, another one working on cyborgs, and a guy who cultivated huge murderous plants. Cloning? That was new, and maybe someday a doctor with a better sense of ethics would figure it out and it would benefit the world.
For right now, though, he was killing Caroline Tillens. I had to get out of here. And bring bring with me. Somehow.
That was going to be a challenge, though. I tested the straps. Pulled at them. Twisted my arms. Tried kicking my legs. I thought about prayer—God owed me for all the demons I’ve had to fight, right?—but instead I laid back and rested before I got too tired.
What time was it? Rachel had class. She was signing up for a project. What if the project started right away? What if it was all night? What if some hot young college guy flirted with her? I tried not to think about any of that. I had to focus on not thinking about whether Haldane was going to kill me and harvest my organs to make zombies. Or something.
I managed to pat at my pockets, but my phone wasn’t there. I bent my neck and saw it sitting on a table near the bed. Close, but light years beyond reach for the moment.
I drifted off. A thud woke me up. I blinked and rolled my head toward Caroline. Haldane was detaching the IV tubes in her arms. She looked at me, her eyes open and terrified, her lips open silently, too weak to scream.
Haldane motioned to Reeves. “Put her in the van. I’ll start on Liz. Did you get the tank?”
“Yeah. Hooked up the power unit. Looks good.”
“It better stay working. We have a long drive.”
“It’ll be fine.” He stepped around Caroline’s bed and started pushing it.
I grunted through the tape over my mouth, but they ignored me. When they were out of sight, I started struggling again. The strap holding my left wrist was looser than the other one, and I focused on that, wiggling my hand frantically. Trying not to hyperventilate.
I heard them coming back, and I dropped my hand and froze, letting them think I was still out. I hoped. Haldane said, “My wife next. Detach the machines but keep the IVs. We can hook her back up at the site.”
“What about him?” Reeves sounded far away.
The answer seemed to take a long time. “We can’t take him. I’ll get something for him.”
Shit. Whatever Haldane had for me couldn’t be good. They were moving Caroline and Elizabeth somewhere, and they didn’t need a pesky P.I. for the trip. Rachel was definitely going to be mad at me.
I went back to pulling against my left strap. I could hear Haldane behind the curtain muttering to himself. His shadow moved methodically, reaching down, moving left and right. I didn’t know what he was doing with his wife, but at least he wasn’t paying attention to me. Yet.
I twisted my wrist. I read or heard somewhere that you could get out of handcuffs by dislocating your thumb, but I had no idea how to do that with one hand and I wasn’t sure I could manage it without passing out from the pain. The only thing I could do was pull and yank and twist—
Then a sharp crack rang through the air. A slap.
Haldane’s shadow jumped back. “What? Liz—”
I saw Elizabeth Haldane’s body rise up from her bed. Haldane stepped close, but she raised her arm and hit him again. Hard.
He staggered back against the curtain, pulling it aside. I saw Elizabeth slide from the side of her bed, tubes hanging from her arms, her hair messy, her eyes bright and angry.
Haldane stepped toward her. “Liz —it’s all right. I’m trying to help you—”
“Get away from me!” she screamed. She stumbled past him, through the curtain, and saw me. One foot slipped in her white sock, and she caught the edge of my bed, leaning over me.
I grunted through the tape, trying to point my jaw toward the loose strap on my wrist. She reached for the tape, pulling it off, and started yanking at the strap on my hand.
Haldane grabbed her shoulder. “Liza, don’t—”
“Don’t touch me!” Weak as she was, she pushed at his chest, and desperate as he was, Haldane couldn’t hit her back. She pulled my wrist free, and I lunged for the table with my phone on it.
Haldane tried to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her away. She screamed and punched at him as he tried to talk to her. Her legs gave out and she slipped out of his arms, tumbling to the tile, but she kept hitting him with her fists from the floor as he tried to pull her away from my bed.
“No! No!” she screamed. “Let go of me! Let me out of here!”
I had my phone. My fingers were numb, but I managed to tap my password and hit the emergency button.
Reeves appeared, confused. “Larry? What—”
“Stop him!” Haldane pointed at me while he tried to hold onto his wife. “Get that phone! Liz, let me help you! Stop fighting me! I’m only trying to help you!”
Reeves stepped around the bed toward me, but I was already talking. “Kidnapping—Caroline Tillens—FriskyLife, in Northbrook—Larry Haldane, some guy named Reeves—”
“Help!” Elizabeth screamed loud enough to reach the phone. “Help me!”
Reeves slapped the phone out of my hand. It went skittering across the tile, but he was too late. I kept shouting as I pulled at the strap on my other wrist.
He punched me in the face, then turned. “Larry? What do you want me to do? Should I—”
“Help me with her!” Haldane’s voice was hoarse. “Get her into the van!”
My head hurt, but my right hand was free. I couldn’t feel my fingers, but I managed to tug at the strap around my chest and get it loose. Reeves was grabbing for Elizabeth’s shoulders as Haldane clutched her arms while she fought him. My feet were still tied down, so I gripped the long strap in both hands, leaned over, and lashed it at Reeves’s back like a whip. He ignored it, struggling with Elizabeth, and I flung it again, this time like a lasso around his shoulders. He tried to bat it away, but I pulled back and tightened it around his neck.
“Ah!” Reeves grabbed at the strap. I pulled tighter. I didn’t want to strangle him, but I did want to stop him from getting his hands on Elizabeth.
Haldane toppled over, hitting the floor with a grunt. Elizabeth slammed a fist into her stomach, shrieking at him. Reeves collapsed, coughing, and I let go of the strap long enough to free up my feet.
I dropped from the bed, still wobbling from the drug they’d injected into me, along with cut off circulation in my arms and legs, but I managed to kick Reeves in the ribs before turning to find my phone. I heard him swear at me as I bent down to scoop it up. “Are you still there?”
“They’re on the way,” a calm voice assured me. “Are you all right?”
“Send an ambulance too.” I looked at Elizabeth Haldane. She was on her feet, holding the edge of the bed, her face pale and sweaty.
Haldane tried to grab her ankle. She kicked his hand away and looked at me. She nodded, breathing hard, and gazed down at Haldane. She shook her head at him.
“We’re—okay,” I said. “I have to make another call. Hurry.”
I hung up and found Rachel’s number. Then I hesitated. What if she was still in class? I took a breath and sent a text. She’d call to yell at me when she had time.
“So Adria’s . . . she’s not really my—my Adria?” Maureen Alcott’s eyes trembled with tears.
Rachel sat next to me in her living room. We’d talked this over half the night, after she got done yelling at me for almost getting killed.
I cleared my throat, nervous. “Genetically, she’s your Adria’s—twin. Haldane used some hormones from Adria to speed up the growth of the clone, but the process, uh . . .” I didn’t finish.
“What about—her?” Maureen glanced up, toward Adria’s room on the second floor.
“He extracted some genetic material for his wife. That didn’t hurt the—the second Adria. But it was temporary for his wife. When her health started to fail, he decided to, uh, do it again.”
“With Caroline Tillens.”
Caroline was safe and healthy. A little traumatized. Her parents had written me a check for reducing her, which was decent of them. I accepted it gratefully. Even with loans and scholarships, Rachel had to pay for books and other college expenses.
Haldane and Reeves were trying to negotiate bail while the authorities tried to figure out what to charge them with. The medical ethics charges would be complicated, but the kidnapping case was pretty clear cut.
If Haldane made bail, his wife wouldn’t be waiting at home for him. She was in Florida, with her family, but she’d talked to the police who showed up at length. “I didn’t know what he was doing to those girls,” she insisted. “I never—he kept me drugged. When I realized—when I saw that girl there—I had to get out. I just couldn’t do that.”
If Haldane somehow did get bail, Maureen had already gotten a lawyer to prevent him from moving back to the house next door.
Now I had to explain everything. I knew it sounded crazy. Human cloning was theoretical at best. Haldane’s attempt to save his wife went way beyond unethical—but I guess some people will do anything out of a misguided sense of love.
Then there was real love. The kind that breaks your heart.
Maureen cried for a while. She picked up a framed picture of Adria—from before her disappearance—and stared at it. Then she looked at her phone, at a picture from a few days before. Then she looked at Rachel and me.
“I just don’t know,” she said, helplessly. “What do I do? What do I tell her?”
Rachel put a hand on my shoulder before I could say anything. ”She’s still your daughter. Biologically, she’s everything the first Adria was.”
“Like a twin.” She wiped her eyes with a tissue. “But what do I tell her?”
Rachel and I looked at each other. “I think so,” Rachel said. “She has questions.”
“Tell me what?” It was Adria, at the bottom of the stairs.
They’d released her from the hospital that morning, with a fistful of prescriptions to take and a half-dozen followup appointments in the coming days, but she was on her feet and eating with a healthy appetite. I’d told her doctors what I could about Haldane’s experiments. They were skeptical, but the information had apparently helped.
Maureen glanced at us, nodded, then waved Adria over. “Come here, honey.”
They hugged. “What’s the matter?” Adria asked. “Are you okay? Is Caroline okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” Maureen kissed her cheek. “Tom and Rachel took care of everything.”
Adria smiled. “Thank you.” She hugged Rachel, and shook my hand. “I know—I saw some of it online. I’m just glad Caroline’s okay. And Mrs. Haldane.” She shuddered. “I hope he doesn’t come back.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Maureen said. “Let’s have a cup of tea or something.” She looked at Rachel and me.
We got the message. Rachel and I stood up. “We’ll let you two talk.”
We said good-bye, and they showed us to the door. Adria smiled. “It’s good to be home.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
Out in the car, Rachel turned to me. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I’ll make dinner for a week. I’ll drive you to class every day. I won’t bother you for sex while you’re studying.”
“Oh, there’s going to be sex.” She slugged my arm. Then she kissed my cheek. “Now hurry up. I’m going to be late for class.”
I started the car. Haldane’s house next door was dark and silent. I hoped Adria’s house was still full of love.
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