Truth and Justice - Fern Michaels Page 0,39

hands in the air—“that doesn’t count Avery Snowden and all his manpower. What’s wrong with this picture?” she screeched. Annie’s tirade was unlike anything the Sisters had ever seen. They stopped whatever they were doing and stopped speaking, not knowing what to do.

Myra flinched. She hated when Annie got like this. The only thing that would appease her was something positive in the way of news. And good news of any kind was the one thing they did not have. She looked around at the glum faces of the Sisters seated at the table. “Let’s do a recap of what we’ve done in the last four days. We might have missed something the first time around. By the way, Bella called this morning before you all got here. She was, as she put it, wondering why she hadn’t heard from any of us. She more or less implied that she was disappointed in us. Us as in the Vigilantes. I think she was expecting instant gratification. I could hear the disappointment in her voice. I told her Rome wasn’t built in a day, and these things take time and planning, and a healthy dose of luck doesn’t hurt. She didn’t sound to me like she was buying what I had to sell.”

“It is what it is,” Yoko said philosophically.

Nikki held up the coffee carafe. Everyone nodded that they wanted a refill. Nikki poured, as Annie finally stopped her frantic pacing. She sat down at the table, held up her cup, and waited.

“Who wants to go first?” Myra asked.

“Me and Yoko,” Kathryn said, raising her hand as though she was in a third-grade classroom. “There wasn’t one likable person in the bunch that we talked to at the clinic. Maintaining and running a fertility clinic like that must be stressful. Everyone seemed antsy and jittery. I didn’t see a smile on anyone. Yoko and I both agreed they’re a bunch of snooty women. But Dr. Peabody had a high snoot factor, too, and he’s a guy. As far as we could tell, he is the only male doctor, but there is one male nurse. The good doctors Donaldson, Petre, and Peabody are just what they are. The only thing we could tell that they’re guilty of is not checking more thoroughly when Major Nolan’s sister showed up. They showed us many requests that were on the books of women who transferred their eggs to another fertility clinic for a variety of reasons; relocation seemed to be the main one.

“Dr. Peabody said there is a procedure that has to be adhered to. One minute, they were there, then they were gone, all properly signed off on. As far as they were concerned, that was the end of the story. Until now. They are petrified of a lawsuit. It was written all over their faces. It would be a hot mess if it ever got to court. I can tell you that, and I’m not even a lawyer,” Kathryn said.

Yoko looked around at the faces of the other Sisters. “Kathryn and I opted to go in as ourselves. We simply said we represented Bella and hoped to resolve the case and absolve the clinic. I thought they were as forthright as they could be under the circumstances. All of them, in our opinion, realized they are looking down the wrong end of a lawsuit, and ignorance or negligence is no defense. They must have talked to their lawyers and been told that.”

“They are now aware of Major Nolan’s sperm donations but were not at the time when the sister did the transfer. It is not known for certain if the sister even knew about those donations. Dr. Peabody gave us the name of the clinic to which the eggs were transferred. It’s in Bethesda, Maryland. Yoko and I went there. Of course, we didn’t learn a thing—the privacy act and all that.”

“We waited outside at lunchtime and nailed the first person we could who looked bribable, and offered five hundred dollars if she could tell us about the major’s sister. She agreed; then we met up two hours later on her break. She said more than a dozen new clients made deposits during the time period in question. No one with the name Nolan, or Conover, or Windsor is on file. That doesn’t mean the sister used her real name, she could have used an alias, which I would be willing to bet is just what she did. It is certainly what I