A Woman With A Mystery Part 20

"Who delivered your baby?" Slade asked.

She shook her head. "They had on masks. Lorraine said it was better that way, then I couldn't get in no trouble." She looked up at Slade. "I can't give the money back. I ain't got it no more."

"How much did they pay you?" he asked.

"Two thousand dollars." There was awe in her voice.

"You don't have to give the money back," he a.s.sured her. "What were you doing down here today?"

"Sometimes I just come down here. I can't go to the cemetery. So I just come down here."

THE WIND howled on the outskirts of town, rocking the pickup and blowing snow into deep drifts. After her son's confession and suicide, Lorraine Vogel had moved from Slade's old neighborhood to a rundown stretch of windblown, low-rent s.p.a.ce behind an old motel and gas station on the edge of town.

"This is where she lives?" Holly asked in surprise as she stared through the blowing snow. is where she lives?" Holly asked in surprise as she stared through the blowing snow.

According to the address in the phone book-and the rusted, dented mailbox-Lorraine lived in an ancient small trailer at the back, with old tires holding down the roof to keep it from blowing off.

Slade pulled behind the abandoned motel and they got out, fighting the wind and the airborne snow as they waded out to the trailer. He pounded on the rusted metal, the wind whistling through the tread-bare tires on the roof, the air thick with snow.

Lorraine Vogel opened the door, a gray sweater wrapped around her boney shoulders. She didn't seem surprised to see him.

"I'm Slade Rawlins-"

"I know who you are." Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, her body was small and thin. She looked eighty but would have been closer to sixty by his estimation. He could see her in a Halloween monster mask at the foot of Holly's bed. As frightening as the other two monsters even for her age and frailty.

"I'm here about Gwen Monroe," he said and realized she must have known that as well.

She nodded, unhappiness stamped in a lifetime of lines on her face. He wondered if the woman had ever known peace. He'd heard that Roy's father had taken off on her long before the boy was born, long before her real problems with Roy had begun.

She stepped aside to let them in. "What other reason would you have for being here?" she asked, sounding a little drunk.

The trailer was dark and cold, a woodstove working futilely in one corner. Slade spotted an almost-empty bottle of cheap bourbon sitting on the kitchen counter with an empty gla.s.s next to it.

"This is Holly Barrows," he said.

Lorraine gave her the once-over and dismissed her. If the name rang any bells, Lorraine's expression didn't give it away. But maybe the older woman had already recognized her.

Lorraine motioned to the couch, a lumpy, discolored blob slumped against the wall of the living room. He and Holly chose to stand as Lorraine took the chair in front of the woodstove, her thin form molded into the cushions of the chair from the long hours she must spend in it in front of the fire.

"Gwen told us about the deal you got her for her baby," Slade said, wasting no time.

Lorraine made no sign that she'd heard him. She seemed to be watching the fire through the cracks in the old cast-iron woodstove as if lost in thoughts of her own.

"I need to know about the other baby, the one Holly gave birth to," he continued. "Whoever else helped you deliver those babies, I think they're the same people who killed my mother. I believe they killed your son too. But you probably know more about that than I do."

Still she didn't move, didn't respond, as if she'd lost interest years ago in her son's guilt or innocence or her own.

"Dammit, Lorraine, these people have Holly's baby. My baby."

Her head turned slowly, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him. "Your baby?" She seemed confused and he saw that she was drunker than he'd first thought.

"Please, help us, Mrs. Vogel," Holly pleaded. "I was told I had given birth to Gwen Monroe's stillborn-but you know I had a baby girl. What happened to her?" Holly's voice broke, and Slade could see her fighting tears. "Please, we don't care about anything but getting our baby back."

Lorraine was staring at Holly, her eyes rheumy and moist in the firelight. "I never know where the babies go."

"Who does?" Slade asked.

She wagged her head, her neck seeming too weak to hold it anymore.

"Lorraine, I don't want to have to call the police-"

Her look was pitying. "As if anyone can keep history from repeating itself. I was there the night you and your sister were born. That's when he got the idea."

"Wellington?" Slade guessed.

She nodded, and tears filled her eyes and splashed down her cheeks seemingly without her notice.

"I know you and my mother were part of a special project at Evergreen Inst.i.tute, Genesis," Slade prodded. "What is it?"

"Through Genesis he will live forever," she said and smiled. "You probably thought Allan was dead."

Slade was trying to decide if Lorraine was drunk. Or nuts.

Holly knelt at the old woman's feet and took Lorraine's hands in her own. "Tell me about my baby, please."

Lorraine shook her head; it wobbled, then drooped to her chest.

"Slade, I think she's taken something!" Holly was on her feet, moving to the liquor bottle. He heard the rattle of an almost-empty pill bottle as he moved to Lorraine's side.

The older woman seemed to rally for a moment. He could hear Holly on the phone calling 911, but he doubted the paramedics would be able to get here in time.

"Lorraine, for G.o.d's sake tell me how I can find my baby," he said, not sure she could even still hear him.

Her eyes glazed over, opaque as cataracts, her mouth opened, the words that fell out almost undistinguishable. But he heard enough to make him lurch back in shocked horror.

He stared at the woman, wanting to cry out his frustration. His rage. But it would have been a waste of words. Lorraine Vogel was gone.

"The paramedics are on their way," Holly said. "Rawlins, this prescription is today's date. I think she took almost the entire bottle."

He felt for a pulse and shook his head.

"My G.o.d, no!" Holly cried. "She was our last hope."

"No," he said, refusing to believe that as he rose. He was still shaking from what Lorraine had told him. It was worse than he'd first expected. So much worse.

"Why would she kill herself? She couldn't have known we were coming here," Holly said.

"Maybe Dr. Delaney warned her. Or Carolyn Gray. Or maybe she knew Carolyn would be coming after her."

He could feel Holly's gaze on him. "What did she tell you? Please, you have to tell me."

He tried to find the words. "She told me my mother was infertile and that my life, my sister's and my children's lives would always be in danger because of my genes." He swallowed, his mouth tasting of bile.

"Your genes?" Holly said.

"It seems Allan was fathering babies at Evergreen Inst.i.tute by using artificial insemination and mind control on unsuspecting women who believed they were infertile."

"Rawlins, what are you saying?"

"The program didn't end with his death."

Her eyes widened in obvious confusion and shock.

"He froze his own sperm and whoever took over his 'master plan' took over the baby-making and the baby elimination."

"But not our baby," she whispered, fear making her look like a deer caught in headlights. "Our baby had a dimple. Tell me between that and the birthmark there is no way-"

"There is no way," he said. "But at first I thought, if my mother was part of the Genesis Project-"

"But then you remembered the Rawlins' dimples," she said.

"Yeah. Joe Rawlins was my father, and I'm the father of your baby." So what did the Genesis Project have to do with him? And his and Holly's baby? It all came back to his mother. If she really was infertile...What bothered him was that he couldn't remember any photos of his mother pregnant. He'd looked at all the alb.u.ms last night and right now, he couldn't remember even one of his mother pregnant with him and Sh.e.l.ley.

He shook his head, trying to shake off the horror of what the old woman had told him. "Lorraine said my mother was too smart for her own good."

"You think she figured out what Allan was doing?" Holly asked in a hushed whisper.

"Maybe. I don't believe she wanted more children. But she might have pretended she did if she'd discovered something odd going on up at Evergreen."

"But why wouldn't she tell your father?"

He shook his head. "Maybe because she knew he'd try to stop her."

He glanced around the trailer. They had to search it before the paramedics arrived, because he and Holly had to be gone by then. He began going through drawers, while Holly dumped out the contents of Lorraine's purse on the couch and started sifting through them.

He found the photograph of Roy Vogel first. It was a shot of the boy at about five. He was standing beside his mother, both Roy and Lorraine were smiling into the camera, although even then Roy looked too intent.

There was another photograph in the drawer; this one rubber-banded to a worn bank book.

Carefully, Slade slipped the photo from beneath the rubberband, his fingers shaking with revulsion. It was a photograph of Roy, again at about age five. The boy was sitting on a man's lap, the man holding him the way a man would hold his son. The man in the photo was Dr. Allan Wellington. "Sweet heaven."

"Slade?" Holly said behind him. She held up a mask, exactly like the third one from her painting. "She was there."

The three monsters. Dr. Delaney. Carolyn Gray. Lorraine Vogel. And now two of them were dead. He thought he should feel something. Relief. Something. He just felt sick.

He handed her the photo without a word and opened the bank book, shocked by the amount. Lorraine Vogel was a rich woman, and Slade had a pretty good idea how she'd come by most of the money.

He turned to look at Holly. She had paled, her hand trembling as it held the picture. She glanced at the bank book. "Why would she live like this if she had all that money?"

Slade shook his head. He could hear the whine of an ambulance in the distance. Hurriedly, he stuffed the photos and the bank book into his coat pocket.

"I found these." Holly held up a large ring of keys. "She still works at Evergreen. Wanna bet there's a key on here?"

He took the key ring from her, his gaze meeting hers.

"Don't even think about trying to talk me out of it, Rawlins," Holly said. "I'm going with you to Evergreen. These people drugged me, made me think I was losing my mind, they stole my memory and they stole my baby before I even got to hold her-" Holly's voice broke, but a steely resolve honed among the tears in her eyes. "No matter how this ends, I plan to be there. That is where Carolyn Gray has to be-where the Genesis Project began."

One look at her and he knew arguing would be a waste of time. "We have to make one stop on the way."

As they left he glanced at Lorraine. He hoped she was with Dr. Allan Wellington again, someplace real hot.

Chapter Sixteen.

Slade drove past Chief L. T. Curtis's home, not surprised to see that the cop's car wasn't there. He parked down the street and looked over at Holly.

"Rawlins?" Holly asked, sounding worried. "You aren't thinking you're going to leave me here, are you?"

His gaze met hers, all their hopes and dreams captured in that one look. He had thought about having the chief lock her up. That's the only way Slade knew he wouldn't worry about her. The truth was, however, he feared Curtis would put them both behind bars. For leaving the scene of a murder, if nothing else. By now the chief would have been out to Dr. Delaney's.

That was one reason Slade had no intention of going near the police station. If there hadn't been a warrant out for his arrest earlier, he was pretty sure there would be now, if he knew the chief.

"With Carolyn Gray still on the loose, I'm not about to go out to Evergreen Inst.i.tute without some sort of backup," he a.s.sured her. "We'll tell Norma. She can contact the chief after we've left."

"Our baby girl's alive," Holly said. "There has to be something at Evergreen, some record of where we can find her. I feel it." She placed her hand over her heart, her eyes shining.

He nodded. He couldn't argue with a woman's heart-even if he'd wanted to.

"YOU JUST MISSED L.T.," Norma said when she opened the door, obviously surprised to see them. "He's worried to death about the two of you."

"I figured as much," Slade said. "You remember Holly?" Norma nodded and smiled, holding out her hand. "We met last year."

"Yes, I remember," Holly said.

Norma ushered them into the living room. "Can I get you something to drink? I still have a few of those sugar cookies left, Slade."