Gemini Rising (Mischievous Malamute Mystery Series, Book 1) Page 11

  “After all of that, there were only six offspring?” Leah asked, a perplexed expression of her face.

  Daniels sighed, scratching his head. “Well, that’s where things got a little fuzzy. A little grayer, perhaps. Each mother was actually implanted with two embryos. X said GenTech wanted to pad the odds, to ensure at least one made it to term. That was one of the reasons, anyway.”

  “Meaning if they did come to term, the mother would have had twins?” I asked.

  Daniels nodded. “It’s sketchy whether all came to term—even X wasn’t sure—but yes, had they all survived, there would have been twelve children. Six sets of twins. All girls.” We all took a moment to reflect on that tidbit.

  Leah broke the awkward silence. “You said ‘one of the reasons’ GenTech implanted two embryos—what was another?”

  His friendly demeanor immediately turned to one filled with disgust and distaste. “There were rumors—that not even X could fully substantiate—GenTech was also creating the twin as a means of providing ‘spare parts,’ for lack of better phrasing.”

  “Oh my,” I whispered as I looked to Leah, her eyes wide and mouth opened in shock.

  “There were other rumors, too, that painted darker pictures of their intentions.” Daniels shook his head, sickened. “I can’t even begin to bring myself to utter the words.”

  “Don’t,” Leah said gently. “What I don’t understand is how the mothers would knowingly subject themselves or their unborn children to that possibility?”

  “They didn’t know,” Daniels replied. “I’m not sure about Alcore, but prior to the cell extraction, GenTech required the mothers to sign an agreement relinquishing all rights to any child born as a result of their participation in the program. They used the awkward family dynamic you mentioned as their BS rationale. Of course, after considering the alternatives, the mothers quickly acquiesced. Plus, they were handsomely rewarded for their cooperation.

  “But GenTech didn’t stop there when it came to getting the mother’s consent. They also guaranteed the children would be adopted separately, to parents in different states. This limited the possibility the mother or any of her other non-program children would come into contact with the cloned child during their lifetimes. That time clock started the moment she gave birth.”

  Something clicked into place as Daniels spoke, but I wasn’t sure exactly what.

  “How come you never ran the story?” Leah asked, changing the subject.

  “By the time I was able to collect all of this,” he motioned toward the file box, “the benefactors had lost their footing—too many hands in the pot—and the Feds, as well other public and private sectors were rapidly closing in. As a result, their purse strings tightened, forcing GenTech to return their focus to the other—pre-cloning—projects and Alcore to close altogether.

  “Despite the shift, I continued tracking GenTech, but many of those involved in the project were quickly transitioned out. Others couldn’t or wouldn’t talk, or they conveniently disappeared. No one wanted that cat coming out of the bag, so keeping it quiet from that point forward wasn’t an issue.”

  “Unless you were a newspaperman,” Leah added.

  Daniels’ head bobbed in agreement. “Unless you were a newspaperman.”

  “So, out of curiosity, did the cloning program ever have a name?” I asked.

  He nodded, chuckling. “I could never decide if the GenTech scientists who named it did so out of total madness or pure genius. Anyway, in the early days of the project, they simply referred to it as Gemini.”

  The astrological sign of the twins.

  With all that I had heard today, my money was on the prior—madness.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Daniels looked at us intently, as if making a decision about something important. Finally, he spoke, “I’m hoping you will entertain a question in return?” At our nods he continued, “After all these years, why are you really interested in Alcore and GenTech?” I looked at Leah, and she bobbed her head in the affirmative—we could trust Daniels with the truth.

  “My interest lies with Martin Singer, a former scientist at GenTech and Alison Anders, a researcher at Alcore. I recently learned they were my birth parents,” I paused before Leah and I proceeded to give him the Reader’s Digest version of the past several weeks. When we were finished, he was unnervingly quiet for a long while.

  “Interesting. That definitely changes things.” He reached forward and dug through his file box, extracting a single photo. “I thought you looked oddly familiar.”

  He handed me an 8” x 10” photo of a group of roughly thirty men and women in stark white lab coats—the only splash of color provided by the orange and blue Alcore logo on the left breast pocket. Several individuals had crossed arms, with serious faces. This certainly wasn’t one of your school photos where someone makes a ridiculous face or forms rabbit ears with their fingers behind the teacher’s head. These people looked annoyed, as if posing for the photo had been an unnecessary distraction in their busy day—an impediment to the progression of their important work.

  “This was the team involved in Alcore’s cloning project,” Daniels offered, pointing to a single face in the group.

  Leah and I squinted at the woman he had indicated. “Whoa, that’s creepy,” Leah whispered as I sucked in a shallow breath. A mirror image of my own face stared back.

  My birth mother, Alison Anders.

  “I see the resemblance, but you recognized me from this?” I gestured toward the one inch orb that was Alison’s face. Daniels laughed heartily, a deep rumbling sound.

  “No dear, I had the honor of seeing her in person, plus the benefit of a photographic memory.” He tapped his temple. “I’ve got pictures from GenTech too, of Martin Singer, but you certainly favor your mother. I assume your sister did too?”

  I shuddered as I thought of the last time—the only time—I had ever seen Victoria in the flesh. I didn’t want to remember her that way, yet the vision was forever embedded in my memory. I forced it down, and thought back to the photos Ramirez had brought me of her twinkling eyes and smiling face. Finally, I nodded at Daniels.

  “I’m so sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to—” I put a hand up to stop him.

  “It’s ok. I’m trying to get my head around all of this.” I chuckled lightly, sadly. “Half the time I don’t know what to think or feel.” Leah rubbed my shoulder as Daniels looked at me, his eyes filled with compassion.

  “I was sorry to hear Martin and Alison had passed. I doubt anyone knew they were involved with one another. X certainly didn’t mention it,” he added, thoughtfully.

  “Given the sensitivity of the projects they were working on, not to mention the ongoing hostility between their companies, I’m sure they would have both been terminated had their affair come to light. Besides, it would have been a violation of both of their employment contracts.

  “No, I’m quite sure no one was wise to their liaison. And, the proximity of their deaths didn’t set off any alarms either. There was too much else going on at the time,” he paused, remembering the past.

  “Earlier, you said ‘that definitely changes things’—what did you mean?” Leah asked.

  “Please, don’t get me wrong. When we were talking before, I wasn’t leaving things out to purposely deceive you, I didn’t think they were relevant to your research at the time. Now that I know the whole story, they may be pertinent.

  “When the benefactors pulled their money, forcing the cloning projects to be terminated, and Alcore to close, it was rumored Martin Singer had gone into the GenTech lab and removed all the formulas and procedures required to develop the clones so they couldn’t be reproduced—or misused—in the future.

  “The same week, after Alcore had let everyone go, their cloning lab suddenly went up in flames. It was blamed on faulty wiring, but interestingly enough, it was the only area in the entire building that sustained any damage.”

  “Surely no one thought Martin had orchestra
ted that little mishap, too?” I queried.

  “Nothing could be substantiated, but X said there was speculation. Now that I know of the connection between Martin and Alison though—” Leah abruptly cut Daniels off, surprising the older man.

  “Come on—you are not seriously considering the notion Alison provided Martin with the means to sneak into enemy territory, undetected, so he could destroy the lab?” I tended to agree with her, the idea seemed rather outlandish. “Let’s not forget she died before the projects ended and Alcore closed.”

  Quickly overcoming his surprise at Leah’s outburst, Daniels chuckled. “Just thinking out loud, my dear, forgive an old, rambling mind.”

  I spared a look to Leah, neither of us was buying it. After divulging all that he had, why hold back now?

  “So, after Martin committed suicide, the formulas were never found?”

  “No, to this day, the formulas and procedures have never been found. Whatever secrets he held went with him. When he died, effectively, so did the project,” Daniels added, his face unreadable.

  “Convenient, don’t you think?” Leah commented.

  Convenient, I silently agreed, but for who?

  “Then why is there a killer still out there?” I asked of no one, in particular.

  It was Daniels who replied, “Now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Daniels waved goodbye to the girls as they pulled out of his driveway. Once they were safely out of sight, he pulled a disposable cell phone from his trousers and dialed the number he’d only used on two other occasions, nearly thirty years earlier.

  After all that time, the same crisp voice answered on the third ring. Always on the third ring.

  “How much did they know?” the voice inquired, emphasizing each word in an almost painful, unyielding way.

  “Enough,” Daniels replied, “they knew enough.”

  “He won’t be pleased,” the voice replied, the tone unchanged.

  “No, I expect he won’t,” Daniels said in return.

  This time, there was no reply, only a deafening silence on the other end of the connection.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  We were on the outskirts of Daniels’ neighborhood when Leah turned to me. “Super nice man—kind of lonely in a sweet way—but something was definitely up.”

  I nodded. “Do you think we should have held off telling him why we really wanted to talk to him?”

  “No way. Telling him got us that last little nugget on Martin. And these.” She shook the envelope containing photos of the former Alcore and GenTech employees Daniels had lent us. “Besides, he’s probably harmless.”

  She had a point, though I wasn’t sure I totally agreed with her on the last one. Honestly, I didn’t know why. Chalk it up to a gut thing. I momentarily put it on the back burner, electing to focus instead on our conversation with Daniels.

  “Pretty crazy stuff going on at Alcore and GenTech back in the day, huh? Can you believe they were actually replicating humans thirty years ago?”

  “I know. Can you imagine what those formulas could have morphed into if scientists had been improving upon them over the years?” She scrunched up her face.

  “I know. I wish I could simply look at the benefits associated with that project, but when Daniels mentioned the whole spare parts bit, I nearly barfed.” I blanched at the thought. “Certainly makes you stop and think twice, doesn’t it?”

  “This may be taking it to the extreme, but what if someone had developed an entire army of clones—the perfect soldiers—to serve as the ultimate war time killing machines? Yeesh, think of what could have happened had those formulas gotten into the wrong hands.”

  “Sounds like the plot of a campy sci-fi horror flick to me, and fortunately, that was not the case.”

  “Yeah, thanks to Martin, but what do you think happened to the children who came out of the Gemini project?”

  “Hard to say. If they truly were adopted, as Daniels suggested, then we can only hope they are leading happy, normal lives.” Leah looked at me, a bit sadly and nodded.

  “But his reference to the adoption agreements, you realize what that means, right?”

  I nodded, having already considered the idea. “We’ve got yet another thread to tie the Sterling Joy Agency to GenTech. Though he didn’t name them specifically, we already knew GenTech owned them, probably for that very purpose.” Ugh. It seemed so all-in-the-family. Double ugh—no pun intended.

  “Yeah, I noticed Daniels didn’t go into too many details on that particular subject.”

  “Me too. In thinking over the conversation, he was pretty careful—giving us bits he wanted us to know, leaving others out—but why? What would be his motivation? It wasn’t as though you were going to run away with his pet story after all these years and publish it yourself.” I snorted. I truly didn’t believe that was Daniels’ rationale.

  We were so deep into our conversation, we arrived at Leah’s office before we both knew it. Considering the amount of time we had spent with Daniels, we agreed it would be better if I dropped her off at work and then picked her up later. I watched her as she got out the Mini, collected her things and gave Nicoh a hug and some scratches.

  “Thanks, Leah,” I said earnestly. “I appreciate you contacting Rafferty. The interview with Daniels was definitely worth it.”

  “My pleasure, Ajax. I’d do anything for you.” She patted the side of the car. “I’ll give you a call when I’m ready to take off for the night. In the meantime, have fun perusing the Alcore/GenTech I’m-too-serious-to-be-sexy glamour shots.” She giggled and bounded off in the direction of her office building.

  I was still laughing when I pulled into my own driveway. That was until I realized I hadn’t called Abe and Elijah about Clark/Dolby yet. Crap. Any messages? Nope. Good. I tried their office, and when Anna picked up, she put me on hold while she called Abe’s cell, returning momentarily, once she has us all connected.

  Elijah called out, “How’re things in Phoenix, AJ?”

  “Interesting, to say the least,” I said, my tone serious as I proceeded to tell them about the tail the previous night, my suspicions it had been Clark/Dolby and finally, Ramirez’s confirmation this morning the car was registered to Dolby.

  I could hear one, if not both, of the guys start to comment, but I pressed on and told them of the morning Leah and I had spent with Mort Daniels, including our after-commentary and analysis. I wrapped up, letting them know the photos Daniels had given me were next on my agenda. Finally, I expelled a deep breath.

  Anna spoke first, “Um, AJ? I think you might have blown someone’s gasket. A couple gaskets, actually.”

  “Wh…what?” I stuttered, but before she could respond, the floodgates opened and two enraged brothers came tumbling out.

  For several minutes, they both read me the riot act. I won’t go into the back and forth dialogue, but it was certainly colorful and went along the lines of a classic Dick and Jane book. The basic plot of this particular story being stupid girl doesn’t think, stupid girl acts carelessly, stupid girl gets into trouble, stupid girl gets dead. Oh no, poor stupid girl. Redundant and annoying, isn’t it?

  After the riot act came the directive.

  “So, Ms. Jackson,” Abe seethed as I silently reflected on the fact we had gone back to using formal names. “Abe and I are currently en route to Phoenix. You are to stay put—that means in your house, with Nicoh nearby—until we arrive. We can discuss future logistics at that time, but under no circumstances are you to go anywhere, alone or otherwise, until we knock on your front door.”

  Perhaps I’d had too many Wheaties this morning. Usually I knew better than to open my pie-hole while the tiger was pacing. “But—” I started.

  “Shut it!” Abe growled, immediately cutting me off, though the angry temperature of his voice had reduced significantly since the aforementioned butt-chewing.

  I’d never had older brothers, but I was
guessing this was what it must be like. What a treat. My deepest sympathies go out to all the little sisters in the world.

  “So, are we all on the same page?” Elijah asked once his brother had finished, though he wasn’t really asking. “You will remain where you are until you see our beady little eyes staring back through your peephole. Is that clear?”

  I mumbled a curt “yes,” hoping when they arrived six hours later, I would finally be allowed to come out of the corner and take my dunce hat off.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  After my illuminating call with the Stanton brothers, I powered my cell phone off. I needed time to think. Good thing I had at least six hours on my hands.

  Did I take Abe and Elijah seriously? You betcha. Don’t get me wrong, despite their good looks, those boys could be pretty darn intimidating. They did have some valid points—I hadn’t been particularly careful the past few days—and besides, it wasn’t going to kill me to cool my jets for a while.

  I settled on the couch and proceeded to sift through the photos Daniels had supplied while Nicoh placed his large head on my feet. I opted to look through the Alcore photos first, which included many of the same people as the one he had shown us earlier, in similar poses. Perhaps it had been an attempt at a public relations photo-op?

  I had hoped for a more detailed shot of Alison Anders, but the angle and distance were consistent from one photo to the next. Still, I was drawn to her face. It was like looking at a time-warped version of myself. Although her mouth was serious, her eyes were warm, the same shade of blue, with a hint of violet. Her soft reddish-brown hair, though styled more simply than was typical for the era—it was the 1980s, after all—cascaded over her shoulder in a long ponytail. No-nonsense bangs framed her heart-shaped face. I shuddered, the resemblance was downright eerie.

  My thoughts drifted to the woman I’d known to be my mother, who had raised and nurtured me, given me unconditional love. While there had been several similarities—it was the woman in the photo who had given me life.