“The psychologist they have on staff? No. I guess they only use him for the women they feel haven’t gone completely off the deep end yet and they can still milk for procedures.”
“Is there any way of getting a DNA test?”
“Not that I’ve found so far. Believe it or not, in these cases, the law protects the custodial parent—which is despicable. That’s my baby and she’s supposed to be with me.”
Lake glanced down at the photos again. It was uncanny how alike the two little girls looked. If Alexis was right and the clinic had done this to improve Melanie’s chances of conceiving, it likely wasn’t the first time—or the last.
“Do you think this woman, Melanie, has any suspicions that the child may not be hers?”
“I doubt it,” Alexis said. “If you’ve been desperate for a baby, you don’t allow yourself to question these things. And whether it was intentional or not, Sherman did a brilliant job of matching the coloring. This Melanie woman has light coloring like mine. And her husband’s probably fair as well. His name is Turnbull, a snooty English name.”
Lake felt her skin turn cold. Melanie Turnbull. She’d heard that name before—and recently.
And then she remembered. It was the name written on the scrap of paper she’d seen in the black bowl in Keaton’s loft.
20
“DO YOU KNOW her?” Alexis asked. She was studying Lake intensely and had seen the flicker of discomposure.
“No—of course not. I’m just trying to absorb everything.”
“So what are you going to do to help me?”
“What?” Lake asked distractedly. She could barely concentrate. In her mind she kept seeing the slip of paper in the bowl. Why did Keaton have Melanie Turnbull’s name? Had he stumbled onto something suspicious about her pregnancy? Maybe this was the reason he’d decided not to join the clinic. And maybe this was the reason he’d been murdered.
“You wanted the truth and I told you,” Alexis said fiercely. “Are—?”
“Let me ask you one more question,” Lake said, trying to find her footing again. “The day you spoke to Sherman—you didn’t talk to another doctor there, did you? Mark Keaton?”
“No,” Alexis said, annoyed, it seemed, at having been driven off topic. “I’ve never even heard of him. So are you going to be able to get into the lab or not?”
“I definitely want to help, but what would getting into the lab do? I’m not sure what I’d be able to discover.”
“You could see what the people there are up to,” Alexis said. “You might overhear something important.”
“I seriously doubt they’d say anything incriminating in front of me, even if I did manage to spend any time in there. But look, I do have access to the charts—I actually looked at yours before. Now that I know about the Turnbulls, I can see if there’s anything in their chart linking the two of you.”
“Like what?”
“Well, they must have made some kind of notation in Melanie’s file indicating who they got the embryos from. With both files in front of me, I may be able to spot it.”
Alexis eyed her skeptically. “Maybe,” she said. She glanced away, thinking.
“There’s something you should be aware of,” Lake said. “Your chart indicated that you had only two embryos left. You told me there was a good amount.”
Alexis shook her head back and forth angrily.
“Those bastards,” she said. “So if Brian ever relents, they’ll just say I had fewer than I thought—or that some deteriorated.”
Unexpectedly, tears welled in Alexis’s eyes. It was the first time Lake had seen her look truly vulnerable.
“I’m going to do my best to help,” Lake said. “I’m headed to the clinic later today and will try to see the files. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
As Alexis walked Lake to the door, she grasped her arm so hard it hurt.
“I have to get my baby back,” Alexis said. “There has to be a judge who will give her to me, if you can prove what Sherman did.”
When Lake hurried out of the building minutes later, she saw the doorman study her curiously and she realized how rattled she must look. Halfway down the block toward Fifth Avenue she sank onto a stoop. Could Alexis’s story really be true? she wondered. It seemed so farfetched. And yet it couldn’t be a coincidence that Keaton had Melanie’s name.
If doctors at the clinic really were stealing embryos, they weren’t doing so just to make their patients wild with joy. It was obviously to improve their success rates and