14

The phone rang. Christy checked the caller ID and saw Dawn's number.

Now what? As much as she loved her daughter and wanted to speak to her, she had a feeling this would not be pleasant. Not after the way they'd parted this afternoon. Not after the smirk on that man's face as he'd left earlier.

After hesitating for a few heartbeats, she picked up.

Dawn… screaming incoherently…

Christy's heart climbed into her throat. Had something happened? Had he done something to her?

"Dawnie-Dawnie-Dawnie! What is it? Are you hurt?"

"Hurt?" she screeched. "How can you ask that? I'm not hurt—I'm CRUSHED! My own mother! How could you DO that?"

"Do what? What are you talking about?"

"You know damn fucking well what I'm talking about!" The screech broke off in a wrenching sob. "How could you, Mom? How could you come on to Jerry like that? You of all people!"

What? Come on to that man? Never in a million years!

"I don't under—"

"He told me all about it!"

The bastard! The sneaky, lying bastard!

"Then he's lying. I didn't even let him in the house!"

"No!" The screech again. "YOU'RE lying! You took off your clothes right in front of him!"

"I did no such thing!"

"STOP LYING! He told me about the butterfly! How else could he know about the butterfly if you weren't stripped down in front of him!"

Butterfly? What was she—?

Her tattoo—she'd got it on a crazy whim at seventeen… high… at the beach… wearing a bikini… going to a tattoo parlor with her friends… they all got inked…

But how did that man know about it?

She'd worry about that later. Right now she had to break through Dawn's hysteria. Christy struggled to keep her voice calm, her tone rational.

"It's all lies, Dawn. He's trying to make you hate and mistrust me. I didn't do anything like that. I never would! You know me better than that."

"/ thought / did."

"You've known me for eighteen years and him for what—a few months? Who are you going to believe?"

"He knows about the butterfly; Mom! How else could he know about it?"

"I have no idea. Maybe he's been peeping on me or—"

"Stop it! You re crazy! STOP IT!"

And then the line went dead.

Christy tried to call back but Dawn wouldn't answer. She thought about going over there but decided against it. What would that accomplish? More screaming, more he-said, she-said, and Christy unable to explain how that man knew about her tattoo.

A chill ran over her skin. Had he been peeping on her?

But how? She never walked around undressed. The only time she was unclothed was for a shower, and her bathroom was on the second floor and she kept the blinds drawn, so even if he climbed a tree—

A camera… he knew computers and video games… had he installed some sort of minicam in her bathroom? She'd read where they could be hidden in something as simple as a box of tissues.

It sounded so paranoid, but look at what that man had done in so short a time: He'd stolen Dawnie and turned her against her. Tonight's lie proved that nothing was beneath him.

She'd have to search her bedroom and bathroom inch by inch. But first…

She grabbed her phone and dialed Jack's number. She no longer wanted him as an investigator. She prayed he'd hire out to do something else—something more direct, more… final.

15

"Carb loading again?" Jack said as he sat down.

He'd arrived at the diner and found Levy's car in the lot, but no Levy. He checked inside and found him chowing down at a table for two along an inner wall.

Levy looked up from his platter of latkes and applesauce. "These are fabulous."

"Have I got a friend for you."

Jack hid his annoyance. He'd wanted to meet outside, give him the hairbrush, and be off. Now there'd be chit-chat and exhortations to join in on the eating. Jack wasn't hungry and in less of a chit-chatty mood than usual, which meant approaching zero.

A waitress showed up, older and not as pretty or perky as the last one, and asked what Jack was having.

"The latkes," Levy said. "I'm not kidding. They're loaded with little bits of onion and fried to perfection. You've got to try them."

Jack looked at the oily lumps of potato and decided to pass. He ordered coffee.

He slipped the brush out of his pocket and, touching only the bristles, slid it toward Levy along the rear edge of the table.

"This belongs to Dawn."

Levy's mouth was too full for speech so he simply nodded and shoved it into a side pocket of his suit jacket.

"When can I expect results? I promised tomorrow."

He swallowed. "Promised? Who did you promise? I hope you didn't—"

"Don't worry. Didn't mention Creighton. But I needed Christy's help to get the sample. I implied I had an in with a commercial lab."

"Tomorrow might be pushing it. We have a queue for DNA analysis."

"So, pull rank."

"Already did that with the last sample. Too often might attract attention. I'd like to keep this to myself for the time being."

Jack watched him. "Planning a palace coup?"

"Not at all. But I don't want a certain camel sticking her nose into this particular tent. You know how that story goes."

Jack hadn't the vaguest.

"Enlighten me."

"It's an old Arabian tale about a desert traveler who beds down in his tent on a cold night. His camel asks if it can stick its nose in the tent to keep it warm. The guy says yes. Later the camel asks if it can put its head inside. The guy says yes. Then come the front legs, then the hind legs. Soon the Arab is out on the sand and the camel has the tent all to itself."

Jack had to smile. "Are you telling me Doctor Vecca's got a hump on her back?"

"No, but she's a camel nonetheless."

"What do you think you'll find, gene-wise?"

He shrugged. "We know Christy's chock full of oDNA. If Dawn's father had a fair amount, that could mean Dawn is loaded. If she is, and she mates with Bolton—also packed with oDNA—that baby could be off the map."

"If… could… you don't sound very sure."

Levy looked annoyed. "If I knew, I wouldn't have to run tests, would I? Look, if Dawn's father is a regular Joe like you or me, he probably didn't pass on much oDNA. That said, if he fertilized an ovum from Christy that carried very little of her oDN A—don't forget: Only half of a parent's genes wind up in any given ovum or spermatozoon—Dawn would be relatively oDNA free. And thus her child, even with Bolton as a father, could have no more oDNA than Bolton contributed."

"So these generations of barnyard breeding, as you called it, could be for nothing."

"Absolutely. It has a hit-or-miss aspect to it. Let's just hope we're dealing with a series of misses."

"Why?"

Jack knew why he didn't want Jonah Stevens's plan to succeed. Any scheme that involved the Otherness had to mean bad news for the world as he and Gia and Vicky knew it. But what did Levy care? He knew nothing of the Otherness, and Jack would have thought he'd be fascinated by the outcome.

Levy looked uncomfortable. "It's hard to say. Jonah Stevens… what could he have known of his genome? No one knew about oDNA thirty-odd years ago. So how could he know he carried something different?"

Jack shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just sensed he was 'special' and wanted to preserve his bloodline."

"Concentrate his bloodline is more like it. There's a certain primitiveness about this, a certain sense of cunning purpose that makes my skin crawl." A

fleeting smile. "INot very scientific sounding, is it. But this isn't a rational deduction. It's a gut reaction."