He hurriedly dressed in the dark. A black T-shirt and black warm-up pants pulled over his hundred and eighty pound frame.
A black ball cap. High-topped Converse—Larry Bird’s brand.
His own
brand since he’d been ten years old and running the roads and playground hardtop of South Boston.
There was a full moon shining outside. He scanned the tall pine trees, looking from left to right through the bedroom window.
He repeated the procedure until he was sure that no one was out there—watching, waiting for him to appear.
He opened the cabin door and slipped outside into the crispy, cool night air. He felt a little like Mulder in the
X-Files.
No, actually he felt a lot like Mulder—and Mulder was a fricking nutjob and a half.
Kit Harrison made his way back down the winding forest trail toward the animal hospital. He knew that Frances O’Neill had
a room there, and that she’d lived in the clinic since the death of her husband, David. He knew about Dr. David Mekin, too.
Actually, he knew more about David than about his wife. David Mekin had studied embryology at MIT in the eighties. Then he’d
worked in San Francisco. Kit had a dozen pages thick with notes on Dr. Mekin.
He did know a few things about Frannie. He’d done some homework. She had a veterinary degree (D.V.M.) from the Colorado State
Teaching Hospital at Fort Collins. CSU was also the national center for wildlife biology, and she had done a minor in wildlife.
The school had a good reputation, especially for surgery. She was the founder of a local “pet loss support group.” She’d had
a thriving veterinary practice until her husband’s death. She’d been the family breadwinner. Lately, she’d let the business
end of her practice slide.
It took him less than three minutes to get back to the animal hospital. The Inn-Patient, as she called it. This was where
it would really start for him.
There was a bright light burning on the front porch, and a shimmering, yellowish light in a window on one side of the house.
A Manx cat sat guard at one of the other windows, eyeballing him suspiciously, not moving a whisker.
He stopped to catch his breath, or maybe just to stop his heart from racing so much. He checked to see if anybody else was
out there with him.
He needed to forage around inside the animal hospital—but probably not tonight. He passed close behind a matching pair of
tall pines. He was less than ten feet from one of the brightly lit windows.
He jumped back suddenly.
Jesus! She had scared the hell out of him.
Frannie O’Neill was standing right there in the window, framed in soft light. She was naked as the day she was born. He sucked
in a quick breath. It was the last thing he’d expected to see. Like being poked in the eye.
She didn’t see him, thank God. She was busy drying her long brown hair with a fluffy white towel. Pretty hair. Pretty everything,
in fact.
She was a whole lot more attractive than she made herself out to be. Very pretty, very alive eyes. Slender, and in good shape.
Seriously good shape, actually. Her skin had a healthy glow. She was thirty-three, he remembered from his notes. Her husband,
Dr. David Mekin, had been thirty-eight when he died. When he was murdered.
Kit turned away. She was still up, so there was no way he could check out the house tonight. He didn’t want to spy on a naked
Dr. O’Neill from outside her bedroom window. It made him feel like a creepy little shit. No matter what else he might be,
he wasn’t a Peeping Tom.
He made his way back to the cabin—with the image of Frannie O’Neill still on his mind. Actually, she was
burned
into his optic nerve. Her eyes had a special glint that hinted at a sense of humor he hadn’t experienced during their initial
meeting. She was definitely prettier than he’d expected her to be.
And she might be a murderer.
T
UESDAY MORNING was finally here.
Anne Hutton had been waiting on pins and needles, but right now she felt fine, strangely relaxed and ready.
Actually, Annie Hutton had a high level of comfort and well-being whenever she visited the in vitro clinic at Boulder Community
Hospital. The staff at the clinic seemed to have thought of everything and its potential negative or positive effect on mothers-to-be.
They were just super and she was fortunate to be working with them.
The toney waiting room had warm yellow walls with bright white trim. There always seemed to be freshly cut flowers. And an
array of all the right magazines, current issues, too
:Mirabella, AD, Town & Country, Parents, Child.
Best of all was the “up,” positive, well-trained staff, and especially her doctor, John Brownhill. Dr. B. was talking to her
now, asking all the requisite questions during her eight-month checkup. He seemed so
interested
in how she was feeling. Was she experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions, anything unusual?
“No, everything is fine, knock on wood,” Annie said. She smiled positively, mirrored the confidence she felt from him and
the rest of the staff.
Dr. B. smiled back. Not too much, not condescending or anything like that, just right. “That’s great. Let’s run a few tests
and get you out of here in time for the ‘Rosie’ show.”
Annie knew that in spite of how relatively chipper she felt, she was still a high-risk patient. Dr. Brownhill told her she
had insufficient placenta. On this visit, Dr. Brownhill and his nurse, Jilly, were going to use a fetal heart monitor to check
the level of stress to the fetus during contractions. The idea of the FHM test made her a little nervous, but she tried to
be as upbeat as her doctor and nurse.
Jilly squeezed electro-conductor jelly onto Annie’s stomach. Annie noticed that the jelly had been pre-warmed for her comfort.
They thought of
everything
here. Jilly then placed two wide plastic strips around her abdomen.
Very
gently.
“Comfortable? Anything else we can do?” Dr. Brownhill asked.
“I’m fine, good. Jelly’s just the right temp.”
It happened so suddenly, almost as if it were a bad dream. “Baby’s heart rate is dropping,” Dr. Brownhill said. His voice
cracked. “One hundred, ninety-seven, ninety-five.” He turned to Jilly. “We have to crash her, stat. Hold on, Annie. Hold on
tight.”
Everything moved so quickly after that, and efficiently, under the tense, crisis circumstances. Everything was a blur for
Annie. Then she went out.
Less than forty minutes later, much sooner than expected, Dr. John Brownhill personally brought the newborn to the preemie
nursery. According to the Apgar scores from the delivery room, the boy was in excellent health, but every precaution was being
taken, anyway.
A clean tube was inserted into the infant’s windpipe, a pressurized hood was fitted around the tiny head. This ensured that
a continuous supply of low-pressure oxygen would be directed into the sacs of the slightly immature lungs.
A blood analysis was done from a plastic tube inserted into the umbilicus.
An electronic thermometer was taped to the infant’s skin.
A nasogastric feeding tube was inserted into the nose. Breast milk was fed through it, just in case the infant boy wasn’t
quite ready to suck.
A neonatal intensive-care specialist hovered over Annie Hutton’s precious little boy, checking everything, making sure he
was okay.
“He’s doing fine. A-okay. The boy’s in good shape, John,” one of the specialists told Dr. Brownhill. “Head’s forty-one centimeters,
by the way. Big head about himself.”
“As well he should.”
John Brownhill finally left the preemie nursery and climbed the two floors to where Annie Hutton was recovering from her C-section.
The twenty-four-year-old mother didn’t look nearly as well as her infant son. Her ash-blond hair was wet with perspiration,
plastered in tight curls. Her eyes were vacant and lost. She definitely looked like someone who had recently undergone an
unexpected C-section.
Dr. Brownhill came right up to her bed. He leaned in close and spoke in his usual soft, reassuring tone. He even took her
hand.
“Annie, I’m so sorry. We couldn’t save him,” he whispered. “We lost your baby boy.”
T
HE HUTTON BABY arrived at the School within hours of its delivery in the Boulder clinic. A team outfitted in what looked like
space suits rushed out to meet the Boulder Community ambulance. They hurried the infant inside. There was a high degree of
excitement in the air, exultation, almost glee.
The head doctor at the School was on premises for the exam and watched closely, supervising, lecturing at times.
Heart rate, respiration, skin color, muscle tone, reflex responses were checked. Baby Hutton scored a perfect 10.
The boy’s length and weight were checked. Tests were performed to check for cardiac murmur, heart engorgement, subcon-junctival
hemorrhage, jaundice, asexuality, hip dysplasia, clavicle fractures, skin mottling.
There was a nevus, a tiny birthmark on the right hip. It was noted as an “imperfection.”
Most of the testing involved the boy’s gross and fine motor coordination, and also his ability to manipulate the environment.
The head doctor remained in the lab for every test, commenting on each as it was completed.
“The head circumference is forty-one centimeters. That would be normal for about a four-month-old. That’s one reason the C-section
was necessary, of course. The heart is larger as well, and more efficient. His heartbeat is under a hundred. That’s simply
wonderful. What a little champ.
“But watch Baby Hutton. That’s the key. That’s where the real drama lies. He’s listening to us, and he’s
paying attention.
See that? Look at his eyes. Newborns don’t fix and follow—never. He’s actually tracking us from one to the other. Do you
understand what that means?
“Infants never remember objects after they disappear. He does. He’s definitely watching us. Look at his little eyes. He already
has memory. He’s just a
super
baby!”
I
WOKE UP trying to catch my breath, crying softly over a horrible, crushing dream about my husband, David. It was the way
I awoke almost every single morning these days.
I missed David so much and that hadn’t changed since the night a year and a half ago, when a crackhead shot him in a lonely
parking lot in Boulder.
David and I had been inseparable before his death. We skied all over Colorado and the rest of the West. Spent Sundays at a
health clinic for migrants in Pueblo. Read so many books that both our small houses could have doubled as lending libraries.
We had more friends than we knew what to do with sometimes. We loved and lived a full life just about every minute of the
day.
I had a thriving big- and small-animal practice. Early each morning, I went off to farms and ranches where I took care of
horses and other large animals. People from all over the county brought their smaller pets to me at the Inn-Patient. For what
it was worth, I was named “Veterinarian for the ’90s” by the
Denver Post.
Now, everything was changed, the arc of my life was dipping in the wrong direction, and it didn’t seem reversible. I thought
about David’s murder all the time. I bothered the police in Boulder until they asked me to stay away. I rarely went on house
calls anymore, although cases still came to me.
I flung myself out of bed. I threw on my old faithful blue plaid robe and stuck my feet into slippers I’d been given for Christmas
by a couple of cute kids whose coyote-mauled puppy I’d stitched up.
The slippers were made to look like cocker spaniel heads. Dopey eyes staring up, pink tongues lolling, floppy ears, the works.
I turned on the tape deck—Fiona Apple’s unmistakable, throaty moan; eighteen years old and full of piss and vinegar and creative
craziness. I liked that in a diva.
I opened the door from the “master suite” and entered the lab. I was greeted by my favorite poster for this month
:Fox hunting is the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable—Oscar Wilde.
First things first, I filled the coffeepot with hazelnut vanilla. Once the java started to perk, I began to look in on my
patients.
Frannie O’Neill, this is your life.
Ward One was a twelve-by-twelve room with a sink, a single window, two tiers of neat, clean cages. The bottom tier held three
boarders: two dogs and the roommate of one of them, a common leghorn chicken.
One of the dogs, a standard poodle, had ripped his catheter out again, despite the e-collar I had on him. I chewed him out
in all of the sixteen words I know in French so he’d understand me. Then I reinserted the tube in place. I ruffled his topknot
and forgave him.
“Je t’aime,”
I said.
Ward Two is a slightly smaller replica of Ward One, but without any windows on the world. Some of my “exotics” were caged
in this room: a bunny with pneumonia, not going to make it; a hamster that I received by way of UPS with no accompanying note.
And there was a swan named Frank that my sister, Carole, rescued from a pond out by the racetrack. Carole thinks she’s St.
Theresa of the wilds. At the moment, my sister was off camping in one of the state parks with her daughters. I almost went
with her.
My coffee was ready. I poured myself a steaming cup, added whole milk and sugar.
Mmm, mmm good.
Pip was at my heels. Pip’s a Jack Russell terrier, a funny little boy who’d been turned in as a stray but had probably been
abandoned. He did a little up-on-hind-legs dance that he knows I like. I kissed him, poured out a bowl of kibble, added in
the last of some Rice Chex.
“You like?”
“Wuff.”
“Glad to hear it.”
I strolled back out to the front of the house. That’s when I saw the triple-black, macho Jeep. L. L. Bean man. Kit Whatever.
The hunter was back in my yard again. He was standing beside the Jeep, rifle slung over his shoulder.
Then I got a glimpse of a slack form lying over the hood.