Emma left, stepping into the assault of the neighbor’s hip-hop music, hammering home the fact she had failed. The blue-white-orange flare of the welding torch blazed in her rearview mirror.
Was it over? Did it end here?
As she headed for the interstate, she glimpsed the dark sedan with dark windows behind her. It had departed Polly’s neighborhood at the same time from half a block away. Now it was several car lengths back on the freeway, but she dismissed any notion someone was following her when traffic picked up.
With each passing mile, worry gnawed at her. Blood pounded in her ears. She could not bear to think that the only thread of hope she had of finding Tyler had unraveled and snapped in Polly Larenski’s living room.
What now? she asked herself, as she reached her hotel, shifting her thoughts when she saw a dark sedan with dark windows creep by her.
Again, she dismissed it being anything sinister.
Must be a thousand cars just like that in Southern California.
Emma retreated to her room.
What do I do now?
She repeated that question over the next several hours as she lay on her hotel bed staring at the muted TV. She bit back tears and surfed through the channels, struggling to divine an answer from them until she drifted off. She did not know how long she’d been asleep before the hotel phone in her room woke her.
“Hello.”
“Emma Lane?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Polly. I apologize. I’m going through a rough time.”
“I understand.”
“Pills, whiskey, Brad and-” she exhaled “-everything, you know?”
“I know.”
“I called you that night about your baby.”
“Will you help me?”
“Yes, but it has to be confidential.”
“Okay.”
“Let me get myself and my files together. Can you come back tomorrow, say around ten in the morning?”
“Yes, but will you tell me one thing right now? Is my son alive?”
A long, tense moment passed.
“Yes, I think he is.”
“Why?”
“Because he was chosen.”
45
Los Angeles, California
“What do you mean, my son was chosen?” Emma asked Polly.
A strained silence passed over Emma’s hotel telephone line until it was broken by Polly’s sniffling.
“I’ve done something terribly, terribly wrong,” Polly said.
“What was Tyler chosen for?”
“I’m being punished for all the bad things I’ve done.”
“What bad things? Where’s my son? Who has my son?”
“It hurts so much. I have to sleep now.”
“Polly, please answer me!”
“I’ll tell you more when you come back tomorrow.”
“I’ll come tonight!”
“No.”
“Please let me come tonight!”
“No, tomorrow I’ll be better. I’ll find files for you.”
“Polly! Wait!”
Emma stood, squeezing the receiver as if it were a life-line.
She could not lose Polly again.
Emma’s heart was beating wildly. What if this was as close as she ever got to knowing what happened to Tyler that day on the highway near Big Cloud?
Emma wanted the truth.
She’d paid for it, suffered for it, bled for it. If she had to reach through Polly Larenski’s psychotic fog and into her tortured soul to get it, then that’s what she would do. Emma’s grip on the phone was so powerful she swore she heard the handset crack.
“Polly,” Emma softened her taut tone, “please, just talk to me. I need you to tell me what happened.”
Emma heard Polly’s measured breathing, heard her thinking.
“Polly, you are the only person who can help me. Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”
Emma heard the faint rattle of a pill bottle being uncapped, heard Polly swallow then exhale.
“I already told you that Brad’s gambling was out of control,” Polly said. “He owed a lot of money to a lot of bad people. I was using new credit cards to pay off old ones but it was not going to work forever. I had to do something, don’t you see?”
“Yes.”
“Some time ago, the company sent me to be its rep at a big international conference for lab technicians in Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
“Mexico City. When I was there, I overheard some delegates talking about rumors of new cutting-edge genetic research. It sounded interesting. Later, a woman from that group approached me privately in the lounge. She saw my delegate badge and that I was with Golden Dawn Fertility and asked for my card. Then she asked if I’d be interested in ‘confidentially contributing to an important study.’ She said I’d be well paid.”
“What sort of study?”
Polly coughed and Emma heard her light a cigarette then draw on it.
“She was vague, but something to do with genetics.”
“Who was she with?”
“I don’t know. I think it was a corporation on an island somewhere in the Indian Ocean or Caribbean. She took my card and told me to think it over.”
“Did you tell your bosses about this?”
“No. Because later I got a follow-up call from a stranger, who told me that if I confidentially supplied them information, I would be extremely well paid. We needed the money, so I agreed.”
“How much did they pay you?”
“Five thousand dollars for the first batch of data.”
“What was the data for?”
“They said it would lead to a cure for major diseases.”
“Why did they have to be so secretive?”
“They said other corporations were trying to duplicate their work. They said they didn’t have time to comply with international rules and regulations. They had to take steps now to protect their research.”
“What did you have to do?”
“At first I just provided generic information. You see, Golden Dawn collects DNA from all donors and all clients, to ensure quality and avoid the rare chance of well, inbreeding-you wouldn’t want to be using your long lost brother’s sperm, that sort of thing.”
Polly exhaled.
