“Flip it over and read what’s on the back.”
Gingerly I grasped the object by the edges and turned it. This side was printed with instructions in the same blue ink. “Hold for five seconds in urine stream,” read the first line. “Urine stream?” I asked.
“It’s a pregnancy test, dummy.”
A small illustration on the back depicted the two small cutout windows, complete with the colored lines I’d seen on the other side. The caption beside this illustration explained what the pair of lines meant.
The lines meant my life had just turned upside down. Unless someone else had taken the test, Isabella was pregnant.
CHAPTER 13
“Jesus,” said Miranda, “She’s on the lam and she’s knocked up to boot?” It was the morning after I’d seen the pregnancy-test kit in Art’s lab, and I’d dropped by the bone lab when I first arrived on campus. I’d had a bad night of it, so I was eager to get out of bed and onto campus, and I’d been relieved to see Miranda’s car parked beside the stadium when I arrived. When I walked into the lab, she was checking her Facebook page on the computer, but now — when I told her of Isabella’s pregnancy — she closed the window on the screen and gave me full attention. Suddenly her eyes widened and she clapped a hand to her mouth. “Holy crap, Dr. B. Oh, my God. It’s your baby, isn’t it? Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
I shrugged miserably. “I don’t know. It seems so far-fetched in so many ways, but then again, she doesn’t — didn’t? — seem like the sort to sleep around.” I shook my head. “Then again, what the hell do I know about what sort she is? She killed a man to avenge the bombing of Nagasaki; clearly she’s a bit unhinged. For all I know, she might’ve slept with a dozen other men in the past few months.” But even as I was saying it, I knew it wasn’t true.
“When you say ‘other men,’ I assume you mean besides you. I knew you were sleeping with her,” she said, with what sounded like a mix of vindication and disapproval.
“Slept,” I corrected miserably. “Just once.”
“And am I right in thinking that maybe, just possibly, the topic of protection did not…um, arise, before or during the doing of the deed?”
“Alas, you are correct,” I said. “Things happened pretty quick that night. I think we both got swept away.”
“Swept away? Swept away? What are you, sixteen years old? Jesus, Dr. B., this isn’t the Age of Aquarius, it’s the Age of HIV. And herpes, not to mention—duh—unplanned pregnancy.”
“You’re right, of course. But you know what, Miranda? It’s easy to be right in hindsight. Haven’t you ever been wrong — wrong and headlong — in the heat of the moment?”
“Not since undergraduate—” She stopped midsentence, and her cheeks reddened. “Okay, okay, I see your point. But fuck, Dr. B.” She snorted. “Oh, wait, you already did that, didn’t you?” I was not amused, and she could tell. “Sorry. I don’t mean to make light of your distress. But fuck, Dr. B. — you had sex with a murderer.”
“I know that now,” I protested, “but I didn’t know it then. I mean, I knew I was having sex with her. But I didn’t know she was a murderer. Murderess. Whichever.”
“I prefer the term ‘crazed killer,’ actually,” she said. “But don’t let me sway you one way or another.” She studied me, her face suddenly serious. “So if Isabella got pregnant after being exposed to gamma radiation, does that complicate things medically? Isn’t there a big risk of birth defects?”
I shook my head. “I looked that up yesterday, and I don’t think so. Handling the source burned her fingers — just like it singed your fingertips and cooked Eddie’s hands — but apparently it wouldn’t endanger a baby who was conceived a week or two later.”
“Well, thank heaven for small favors,” Miranda responded. “Still, if it’s your baby, that’s pretty heavy stuff. How are you doing with that?”
“I don’t honestly know,” I said. “I can’t even imagine it. There might be a baby on the way that I’ve fathered, with a woman who’s wanted by the police and the FBI? I have a grown son, Miranda. I have two grandsons. I don’t know this woman. I don’t even know where she is. And if I did, I’d have to turn her in.”
“Wow. Makes worrying about a dissertation topic seem like small potatoes.”
“What do I do about this, Miranda?”
She shrugged. “What can you do? She’s a fugitive. It’s not like you can get together and discuss the situation over coffee at Starbucks. I mean, if the FBI can’t find her, you probably won’t be able to. So unless she surfaces, I don’t see how you can do anything except wait.”
“But she’s in trouble — deep trouble — and she needs medical care for her hands, and she needs prenatal care for the baby. For my baby. Jesus. What a mess.”
“It is a mess,” she agreed. She paused, looking uncomfortable, then added, “So…um, Dr. B.? Is there somebody else you can talk to about this? Because I’m probably not the best person. A therapist, maybe? Or your son?”
I didn’t tell her that I was already talking to a therapist. She was right, of course, to feel uncomfortable about the conversation. It had been inappropriate to unburden myself to one of my students, even one with whom I’d worked for years, almost as an equal. “I’m sorry, Miranda. That was inconsiderate of me. You’re right. I’ll talk to Jeff.”
Leaving the bone lab, I avoided the stairs that led up one flight to the departmental office. Instead I took a right, out the door at the bottom of the stairwell, and then skirted the base of the stadium on the one-lane service road that threaded between the girders and the columns. The day was chilly, and the cold felt good on my face for the two-minute walk to the north end zone. There I closed my door and dialed a call.
But it was not my son I called — it was the Oak Ridge Police Department, and I was pretty sure the call wasn’t going to make me feel better.
* * *
“And you don’t want to tell me what this is about before I call the feds?” Jim Emert sounded both intrigued and unhappy.
“Not really,” I said. “I’d rather tell you and Thornton at the same time.” Thornton — Special Agent Charles “Chip” Thornton — was assigned to the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. When Novak had been killed by a radiation source, the Bureau feared that it was the work of terrorists. Thornton had been sent down to Tennessee to head the investigation.
Emert sighed. “Dr. Bill Brockton, man of mystery. Hang on a second. I’m putting you on hold while I conference Thornton in. If I lose you, I’ll call you right back.” I heard a click, then silence. A minute passed, then a couple more. I’d just about decided I’d been disconnected when the phone clicked again. “Doc, are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Special Agent Thornton?”
“Yeah, Chip here. Hello, Doc.”
“Hi, Chip. How’s life in our nation’s capital?”
“I miss Tennessee. I got spoiled down there.”
“You know where to find us.” I hesitated, unsure how to begin the discussion that I’d requested. “You guys still beating the bushes for Isabella?”
“We are. Nothing but leaves and branches so far, unfortunately. We’d thought she might turn up in Baton Rouge or Shreveport, since she grew up in Louisiana, but no trace of her there so far. Emert says they found a room in the Oak Ridge storm-sewer system where she holed up for at least a few days.”
“Incredible,” I said. “She must have stashed the food and stuff there before she killed Novak, in case she needed to lie low.” I was stalling, I realized. “Did Jim tell you there were bloody bandages in the trash they found in the room?”
“He did,” said Thornton. “He sent me an inventory of everything the forensic techs recovered from the scene.”
I couldn’t stall any longer. “Then you know she’s pregnant. Or probably is. Or was.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Puts an interesting twist on things, doesn’t it?”
The line went quiet. T
hey were both waiting for me, the one who’d requested the conference call, to continue. “So,” I began, “about that interesting twist…” I foundered, but neither one seemed inclined to help me out. “I need to tell you guys that I slept with Isabella. I’m probably the one who got her pregnant.”
“Damn, Doc,” said Emert.
“Go on,” prompted Thornton.