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I politely kicked Lucas out of my room and then I sat down on the bed and thought. Why hadn’t I just automatically told him no? It was an insane idea. But some small part of me wondered what my genes would be like in a different generation. Would it be a girl? Would she be blonde or brunette? Would she be a badass?
I tried to push that thought away. We were on a case. I had important things to think about. Real things to think about. Durant was dead. Where was our killer going next? Who else had wronged them? Their mother.
But their mom was spending a long time in prison, so she wasn’t a viable target. Who else? I didn’t know and thoughts of not being a parent while passing along my genes crept back into my brain. I struggled to push them away again.
At four in the morning, I was outside on my balcony again, chain smoking and texting my own mom. She knew about this. She had to know about it, if Trevor and Lucas had talked to her about what it was like to have a psychopathic child.
She texted me back and I called her, deciding text wasn’t personal enough for this conversation. We talked for about thirty minutes. When we hung up, I could tell my mom was okay with the idea. She hadn’t come right out and told me I should do it, but she hadn’t told me not to do it either. Of course, she was not a neutral and uninterested party. Trevor and Lucas lived across the street from us and Lucas was an orphan. I had no doubt my mom would get to play grandmother to their child. I was positive she had drawn the same conclusion and my mom did enjoy being a grandmother.
Their maternal grandparents were dead, but were their paternal grandparents also dead? I didn’t know. I texted Gabriel and Kimberly with the question despite the ungodly hour. If not, I felt that could be their next target.
It took about three minutes for Gabriel to come outside after the text. He leaned over the balcony and looked at me. He sighed and I heard a lighter click.
“Why aren’t you asleep? Why are you thinking of grandparents at this time of the morning?”
“It’s,” I stopped myself. “I hate complications.”
“Ditto.” Gabriel answered.
“Did you convince Lucas he was being a selfish jerk about the NSA job?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Maybe they can get back to normal.”
“Maybe.” I agreed.
“Well that was a strange sounding agreement. What’s on your mind?”
“They want me to donate my eggs to them.”
“Whoa.”
“Exactly. They have a surrogate to carry it.”
“Regardless of what you decide, you should feel honored.”
“I feel confused.”
“Yeah.” Gabriel’s hand suddenly appeared on my railing.
“You better have a room key with you.” The hand disappeared.
“That got you thinking about your mom being a grandparent to a kid that technically she wouldn’t be a grandparent to.”
“Yep, which made me wonder where our killer’s grandparents are. I mean I know her maternal grandparents are dead, that’s why the family has so much money. Why’d they go live with a maternal aunt instead of their father’s parents or their father’s siblings. It would seem likely that the paternal side is less crazy. If anyone is still alive on their father’s side, I could see that person being blamed for not rescuing them.”
“You have a point.” Gabriel responded. Both our phones dinged. It was an unknown number to me. There was just an address.
“We should either go ourselves or send someone over to guard them.”
“I’m probably not going to be able to sleep tonight.”
“I’ll send someone, you should try to get a few hours at the very least. It could be a busy day. Are you leaning more towards yes or no with the Lucas thing?”
“My instincts are telling me no. The selfish part of my brain keeps saying it would be fine and they would probably want my mom in their kid’s life, which would be nice for my mom.”
“Yeah, Lucas doesn’t have a mom to spoil the kid, youryour mom would be a nice stand in.”
“Yeah, I have to stop thinking about it.” I said.
“Yeah, I need you to be able to concentrate.” Gabriel said. “If you tell them no, they’ll understand.”
“I know. But I’m not sure I want to tell them no. I mean it took a lot for Lucas to ask and I think it would make them happy.”
“Would it affect you at all? That is the real question. I mean what happens in ten years when the kid starts asking where they came from, because obviously Lucas and Trevor are not the sole biological donors in that situation. Are you three going to tell them the truth and admit that you are the female donor?”
“Ugh.”
“Yep.”
“Those kinds of thoughts won’t help me sleep.”
“Me either. Let’s go sit on the address. We’ll send a car to pick up the others after they wake up.”
“Okay.” I dressed and met Gabriel in the hallway. We snuck out.
All the lights were off when we pulled up the address, which was an apartment style community on a golf course. Gabriel and I tried to do some sneaking around and were caught by a security guard who wasn’t happy when we showed him our badges.
It was an independent living community. There was a large swimming pool. A golf course. A game room. A cafeteria style dining hall. A nurse’s station tucked into a corner of the building, away from the hustle and bustle, as well as security guards. If I lived to retirement age, I wanted to live somewhere like this.
Once we explained to the guards who we were and why we were sneaking around the place, they told us they were familiar with the situation to some degree. It was their paternal aunt and her husband living in the place. Apparently, their father had been significantly older than his wife, their mother. This aunt was on her third marriage and had been the oldest of the two siblings, she was nearly 70 years old. Ten years ago, she would have been nearly 60. Taking on a teen with problems would have been a challenge for anyone, but especially for someone that old.
We were also told the aunt had lived in the community for nearly twenty years. She’d been fifty when she had her first stroke and followed it with a second the very next year. She’d been living here since the second. Neither stroke had left her paralyzed or anything, but it had caused her to go blind in one eye and she talked slow. She had been in no condition to take over raising her niece. Although, when the niece was younger, she came over to visit every week. The visits had stopped when the aunt’s second husband had passed away five years earlier. The niece, didn’t like the new husband and accused him of being a gold digger, which was the consensus of the staff as well. He was older than the aunt by six months and had seven kids, none of whom he had raised or supported. He’d been a bit shady in his younger days and the security guard called him a conman more than once.
The guard offered us coffee and to let us stay until she awoke and we could talk to her ourselves. We accepted the invitation to stay and Gabriel accepted coffee. The last thing I wanted was time to think, but I had plenty of it.
After the sun came up, Gabriel texted the other three to let them know where we were. Lucas agreed it was a good idea. The aunt was a late riser it turned out. We were told she was awake around 9:30 in the morning. We went to talk to her to see if she had any insight she could share.
