Hush

want to get comfortable, Lake thought. She chose the blue chintz couch but perched just on the edge of it.

“I’ve been looking into fertility clinics,” Lake said. “I came across Kit Archer’s article and tracked him down. He told me about his producer’s discussion with you.”

“So you’re an investigator of some kind?”

“No, not that. I-”

“Are you writing a book or something?”

“No-not a book. It just happens that I have a reason to be researching the Advanced Fertility Center clinic. Mr. Archer told me you have some issues with them.”

A smile suddenly formed on Alexis’s face, a surprising move given her coldness so far. It was a tiny, wicked smile that suggested she was about to dish on a bad boy they’d both known in college. The composure had all been a front, Lake realized, just a thin, fragile coating for the woman’s fury.

“Not issues plural,” Alexis said. “Just one. They completely destroyed my life.”

“How?”

“Excuse me for seeming dense, but I’m still a little confused,” Alexis said. There was a real edge now to her voice, as if a screw had been tightened. “What’s your motive in all of this-and why do you expect me to cooperate?”

“Another person-someone familiar with the clinic-has raised concerns about them,” Lake said. “If they’re guilty of wrongdoing, they need to be exposed.”

“Aren’t we the concerned citizen,” Alexis said mockingly.

I’m losing ground, Lake thought anxiously. She had to try a different approach.

“Do you mind my asking what kind of procedure you underwent with Dr. Sherman? Was it in vitro?”

“Oh, we’d be here all night if I described everything,” Alexis said. She was forcing such a hard, fake smile it looked as if her cheeks would burst. “At first I did intrauterine insemination, sometimes fondly known as the turkey-baster method, except they really use a plastic catheter to shoot the sperm up inside you. Then there were the hormone cocktails I had to inject in my belly. And let’s not forget the progesterone suppositories. Lovely. Then we proceeded to IVF.”

“You’re so young. What was the problem?”

“I had cysts on my ovaries-which came as a complete and utter shock. Not only had there never been any symptoms, but I’d gotten pregnant easily several years before. As it turns out, my first pregnancy had pretty much defied the laws of probability-and the chances of it happening again naturally were next to nil.”

Instinctively Lake’s eyes flicked around the room, searching for a sign of the child. On top of a mahogany side table at the far end of the couch was a silver-framed photograph of a toddler, about fifteen months old. From where she sat Lake couldn’t make out the child’s features, but it was impossible to miss the halo of hair so blond it was nearly white.

“Yes,” Alexis said, catching the movement. “My daughter Charlotte.”

“And she’s about three now?” Lake said. But as she spoke the words, an eerie feeling enveloped her. There was no other evidence of the child anywhere.

“No,” Alexis said. “She died of meningitis when she was eighteen months old.”

The words hit Lake like a punch to the stomach.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said.

“Do you have children?”

“Two.”

Alexis stared at Lake, her eyes suddenly wide and blank. For a brief moment she looked like a character on a horror-movie poster, a mother whose children have been abducted by aliens or lured away forever by gremlins hiding in the cracks of the floorboards.

“Then you can at least imagine what it would be like,” Alexis said. “Honestly, a few people actually suggested that my grief must not be so bad because Charlotte wasn’t really a person yet.”

“How terrible,” Lake said. “I-I assume you were never successful in having another child?”

“Very good guess,” Alexis said, flashing the evil grin again. “Oh, Dr. Sherman insisted I would be. I had plenty of eggs-in his words, a virtual plethora of healthy eggs-and it was just a matter of time getting one of our test-tube embryos to implant in my uterus. After the fourth attempt I was ready to try another clinic but Sherman practically insisted we stay. He just knew it would happen. So I stupidly gave him one more chance-and then another. It was all an utter failure.”

“But why not try another clinic now? They each have different areas of expertise. Maybe you’d have luck at one of the bigger ones affiliated with a medical center.”

“I was going to start someplace else-at Cornell, as a matter of fact. But then my husband ran for the hills. He didn’t find fertility treatment all that fun, though it’s hard to imagine why. Stabbing a needle in my ass every night, watching me fatten up like Jabba the Hut on the drugs and then turn into a screaming maniac. What’s not to like?”

Lake almost winced.

“What about having a child without your husband?” Lake asked. “Did the clinic freeze any of your embryos?”

“There were extra embryos-plenty of them-but Brian wouldn’t give me permission to use them. He found someone else. So the last thing he wanted was a baby with me.”

Lake bit her lip, thinking. She needed to nail down Alexis’s specific complaint.

“When you told Archer’s office that the clinic was exploiting people, did you mean because they pushed you to have treatments that had little chance of working?”

Alexis eyed her guardedly. The wariness was back.

“Partly,” she answered.

“Was there anything else? Did they ever-um-overcharge you, for instance?”

Alexis stared at Lake quietly for a moment, her whole body still.

“I’ve shared an awful lot of information with you,” Alexis said finally. “And I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

Then she shot up from her chair, indicating that it was time for Lake to leave.

“But I want to help,” Lake said, rising too. “I really do.”

“You say you want to help, but you refuse to tell me your real agenda,” Alexis said, marching out of the living room with Lake in tow.

Lake started to protest, but she could see that it was hopeless. Alexis had said all she was going to say. When they reached the front door, Alexis swung it open.

“Have a nice evening,” Alexis said flatly as Lake stepped into the hall.

“Thank you for seeing me. I just wish I knew-”

Alexis flashed the tight fake smile again.

“As the French say, ‘Cherchez la femme.’”

And then she shut the door in Lake’s face.

17

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME.

Translation: Look for the woman. What had Alexis meant by that? In old detective novels the phrase was uttered to suggest that a woman was the root of the trouble, but Lake doubted Alexis had used the cliche literally. Rather, the remark seemed to be her cryptic way of saying there was something else, a secret she hadn’t been willing to divulge. As Lake rode down in the elevator, she let her body sag against one of the walls. She’d been within arm’s reach of that secret but Alexis hadn’t trusted her enough to share it. Lake would have to look at Alexis’s file for a clue.

It was nearly dusk when the cab let her off in front of her apartment building, the time of day she’d always