Sins of the Father (21 page)

“Hello,” he said into the phone.

There was a clipped, official-sounding voice on the other end. Male, and no-nonsense.

“May I please speak to Elizabeth Bishop?”

“She’s sleeping,” Peter said. “This is her son.”

“It’s an emergency,” the voice replied. “You need to wake her up.”

Peter felt a cold twist in his belly.

“Is it my father?” he asked. “Did something happen to my dad?”

“Please, son,” the voice said, a little less officious now. “Go get your mother.”

Peter held the handset away from his ear and eyed it warily, as if it might bite him. Then he turned and ran into the living room.

“Mom!” he said, shaking her by the shoulder. “Mom, wake up!”

“What’s your problem?” Her voice was thick and slurred, and she swatted at his fingers as if they were flies. “God! Can’t you see I’m resting?”

“Mom, it’s an emergency,” he said, holding out the phone. “Something’s happened to Dad!”

She opened her bleary, bloodshot eyes and frowned at him as if he wasn’t speaking English, then looked down at the phone as if she had no idea what it was for.

“What?” she said.

Aching with frustration, he grabbed her hand and put the phone into it.

“Phone!” he said. “Emergency!”

She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, and then slowly raised the handset to her ear.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, this is she.” She paused, eyes squinting down to narrow slits. “What kind of accident? Fatality? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Peter’s heart was racing. He wanted to rip the phone out of his mother’s grip and demand answers for himself. She was in no shape to handle anything right now, and he was deeply ashamed by the thought that whoever was on the other end would realize she was drunk.

“I see,” she said, and then she hit the “off” button.

The handset chirped.

For a second she just sat there. Her face was blotchy and red, and tears were gathering in her bloodshot eyes.

“Mom,” Peter said. “What the hell is going on?”

She let out a little noise that was maybe supposed to be a laugh, but sounded more like the hissing of an angry cat.

“Well, your father finally had his nervous breakdown,” she said. “There was a fire in the lab, and some woman died. Now I’ve gotta go sign him into the loony bin or something, I don’t know.”

“Some woman?” Peter grabbed her arm. “A student? Was it Carla?”

“How should I know?” she asked. “He doesn’t tell me anything anymore.”

She shook off his grip, lurched up off the couch, and started searching for her purse. She stumbled and swore and finally Peter just went to the table by the door and got the purse, handing it to her.

She opened it and started pawing through the contents until she found a pack of cigarettes. Peter frowned as she took one out and lit it.

“I thought you quit smoking,” he said.

“You know,” she said, taking a deep drag of the cigarette and pointing at him with the glowing end, “I wish I could have a nervous breakdown. But no. I have to deal with everything, all by myself. I have to
do everything
!”

That was more than he could handle.

“You don’t handle anything!” Peter snapped. “All you do is drink and sleep.”

She paused, cigarette halfway to her mouth, and looked at him. The expression on her face was stricken, as if he’d slapped her. Then she burst into tears.

“I never wanted this,” she said, dropping her face into her shaking hands. “I told him it was wrong to take you, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Mom, you’re not making any sense,” he said, turning away and shutting her out the way he always did when she was like this.

“Fine,” she said, storming off toward the door and jerking it open. “Fine I’ll just
handle it
!” She stumbled out, slamming it behind her, and moments later Peter heard the car start in the driveway. He knew she shouldn’t be driving in her condition, and he suddenly had an awful vision of her crashing her car and killing herself. If his father was in a psych ward, and his mother was dead, what would happen to him?

So he ran to the door and flung it open, just in time to see her peel out of the driveway and take off down the street, away from the house.

Leaving Peter alone.

He paused for a moment, there in the doorway, pressing the back of his hand to his lips. She’d left him.

His father had left him, gone crazy or worse for who knew how long. The fear and anger over this latest in a long string of abandonments flared up bright inside him.

And then faded.

Because wasn’t he alone anyway? Hadn’t he
always
been alone?

He closed the door and went back into the house.

NEAR HARTFORD, CT 2008

It had been touch and go for a while there.

For one thing, she was working in a small, stripped-down lab without some of the heavier, more expensive equipment she normally relied upon. For another, the mysterious protein coating surrounding Peter’s DNA was much thinner, more delicate than it had been the last time she’d examined a sample of it.

That degradation was probably due to the passage of time. Most likely, if a person regularly traveled back and forth between the parallel universes, exposing themselves to whatever unknowable forces existed within the wormhole through which they passed, then the residue would remain thick and easy to collect.

But, like the fingers of a guitar player who is out of practice, which will soften and lose their calluses, the DNA of a person who hadn’t been through a wormhole in many years would no longer need that protective coating. From what she could see, it would become thin and patchy and start to slough away. That looked to be what had happened with Peter.

She was infinitely grateful that she’d thought ahead, and managed to bring her designer virus to the point where it was ready to be fused with his DNA. And that she had located him before any more time had passed. Because in just another year or two, the organic coating she needed might have degraded to the point of being useless.

She supposed she owed a debt of gratitude to the Englishman, as well, since she couldn’t have made this happen without his help.

Too bad for him.

Collecting everything she needed for her transition and pulling some directions out of the printer, she carefully slipped the newly enhanced virus into a padded inner pocket inside her purse, and crept up the stairs.

Outside, dawn was breaking and casting a pale watery-blue light through the eastern windows. When she peered in at Peter, she saw that he was still asleep on his back with one arm thrown wide across the bed. Clearly, the action opera she’d composed for him had worn him out. She felt a kind of strange fondness toward him in that moment, knowing that she couldn’t have accomplished any of this without him.

Then she turned on her heel and headed away from the house.

Out in the driveway, she was about to get into their stolen car when she heard a distinctive, sardonic voice, bearing an all-too-familiar accent.

“Clever girl,” McCoy said.

She spun to face him, tightly gripping her purse.

He was wearing a brand new plaid shirt and a broke-brim trucker hat over his thinning salt-and-pepper hair in a laughably unsuccessful attempt to look more American.

At his elbow stood the blond thug who’d participated in the previous day’s orchestrated chase scene. He’d been following orders then, to make sure that she wasn’t really hurt during the charade, but he didn’t look as if he had any such instructions this morning.

“Planning a little trip, are we?” the Englishman asked, snatching the printed directions out of her hand. “Reiden Lake? You have good taste, my dear. I hear it’s lovely this time of year.” He crumpled the printout and dropped it at her feet, glancing toward the thug. “Get the purse.”

“
No!
” she cried, clutching it to her chest as the thug’s big hairy fist came down on her like a cartoon anvil.

* * *

When Peter woke up, he thought he heard voices out in the driveway, but he felt too lazy to go investigate. Then he heard Julia’s distressed voice yell out, and he scrambled to his feet.

It took him precious seconds to remember first what had happened to his clothes, and then where the dryer was in this unfamiliar house. Once he remembered, he had to extract his pants from the tangle of other clothes and put them on while half running, half hopping toward the front door.

When he flung it open, he saw Julia lying in the driveway, groaning softly and struggling to roll onto her side. She was hurt, but not unconscious. Her spilled purse lay about six feet away, its contents scattered down the drive. The car door was open, and by the front left tire was a crumpled piece of paper.

He ran to her side.

“Julia?” he said. “Julia, what happened?”

“Peter?” She looked up at him, eyes swollen and wet with tears. “Peter, they got the virus!”

McCoy’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He let it ring a few times before thumbing the button on his Bluetooth headset to answer the call. He might be a marionette, but he was damned if he was going to accept being on short strings.

“You have it?” Jones said on the other end of the phone.

“You know I do,” McCoy replied. He and the blond thug had parted ways, and McCoy was just now getting to his rented SUV. He had set up a Wi-Fi camera across the street so that Jones could see their little drama play out with Julia. He’d been tempted to flash the camera the finger, but knew that there was no point in antagonizing the man.

Normally he wouldn’t care. This wasn’t just his job, after all—it was his purpose. This was the sort of thing he was designed for. Not for the first time he wondered if he was beginning to pick up the habits of the people whose forms he had taken. It was an absurd thought, but there it was. He hoped not, though.

It would be damn inconvenient.

“And Doctor Lachaux’s lab?”

“Prepped and waiting for her. It’s a shambles, but we left her notes and enough equipment intact for her to get the job done. Provided she does what you think she’ll do.”

“She will,” Jones said. “She’s rather predictable that way.”