Mimi’s journalistic radar began to beep when Rachael started talking about having been a part of a harem of professional women who had used some guy for their sexual pleasure. Rachael went on to share how all the women had become pregnant even though they’d all been on birth control, and the man had supposedly had a vasectomy. But that wasn’t half of the strangeness. She had gone on to report that she and her preggie friends had all been hauled into a research lab in North Carolina where they’d been forced to have their babies under close medical supervision.
Mimi’s radar had almost broken into a hundred small pieces when Rachael claimed that her pregnancy had only lasted nine weeks! In fact, all the pregnancies had delivered at virtually the same time. Of course, by this time both Rachael and Mimi were on their fourth or fifth drink, or had it been their sixth or seventh? Anyway, they were both feeling no pain so the details had become blurred.
Mimi wasn’t even too sure how she’d gotten herself home, but she’d made it a point to pull out her latest journal and enter as much as she could remember just in case. It was a habit she’d developed as a teenager back in Foster Flat, North Carolina, where she’d grown up with her alcoholic dad. Journaling helped her sort out her life as well as becoming a reservoir for the many weird tales she’d heard about and even witnessed a few times. But none were any weirder than the tale she’d heard that night so, as she sipped on her second cup of black coffee, she wrote down what she could remember. She then thought little about it until two days later when she’d gotten a call from Rachael.
How did she get my number, Mimi wondered? She then remembered she’d given her card to the woman as the two stood in front of the bar waiting for their respective cabs.
Mimi continued to watch the young girl as she strolled off the porch and over to the stack of wood. She gathered several pieces in her arms before heading back to the cabin. Evidently, the inside of the cabin was as rustic as the outside, Mimi thought. The West Virginia mountain air was cool for mid-June but not so cool as to warrant the need for a fire, in Mimi’s opinion, so it was likely that it was needed for cooking. Was this young girl the one she was looking for, Mimi wondered? She looked to be about the right age, and while it was a little hard to tell from this distance, she thought she could see a reddish color to her hair. Another redhead, Mimi thought. Counting her, that made three. Rachael, the reason she was on this assignment had the reddest hair of all.
Rachael had called to invite her to dinner that evening. The Polaris restaurant had recently re-opened on the 25th floor of the historic Hyatt Regency after over a decade of having been closed. Rumor around town said it was well worth checking out but not on a junior reporter’s salary at one of the lowliest of newspapers. So, even if Rachael’s story had been boring and uninteresting, Mimi would have accepted the invitation. But to get a good meal at a fancy restaurant while listening to an interesting story that might, just might, one day turn into an article for her paper; well, life didn’t get much better than that.
So, she graciously accepted the invitation to meet Rachael at 7:30 that evening. In its early days, the restaurant’s blue domed roof had been an integral part of Atlanta’s skyline. After all, it was on the tallest building of the city in the late sixties. Over the decades, Atlanta’s skyline had grown with ever taller buildings; to the point that the Polaris had been increasingly less remarkable until, finally, the owners had closed it. Thanks, in large part, to Rachael’s advertising firm, it was once again becoming the place to be seen in Atlanta.
Mimi glanced around the slowly rotating circular restaurant with a central kitchen area. With just a turn of their head, the patrons could enjoy either watching their meal being prepared or the breathtaking view of the city.
The two redheads found each other at the same time. Rachael rose from her chair at the bar, said a final word to the man sitting next to her, and strolled over to Mimi. The maître d’ magically appeared next to the two and showed them to a table where a bottle of already opened champagne rested in its bucket of ice.
“I hope you don’t mind that I ordered us a bottle of champagne. I got thirsty so went ahead and opened it,” Rachael said as she pointed Mimi to the chair across from her.
“Oh no, champagne is fine,” Mimi replied, feeling suddenly awkward. Glancing around, it was obvious her black slacks and matching spaghetti strapped blouse was way too casual even for a Monday night at the Polaris. But it was the nicest outfit she owned, so it would just have to do.
She watched as Rachael waved away the approaching waiter and poured a glass for Mimi before refilling her own.
“I think you’ll find the cuisine here more than adequate for even the most finicky taste buds. The chef is a personal friend of mine. In fact, he owes me his job so if there’s anything not to your liking, just let me know. I’ll have his head on a platter.” And then she chuckled with an edge that sent a chill through Mimi’s spine. Rachael motioned to the waiter as she opened her menu.
It took Mimi only a minute to find what she wanted. She’d spied a delectable looking steak on one of the tables she’d walked by. She didn’t eat red meat that often, partly because it didn’t agree with her digestive system all that well. Besides, it wasn’t easy finding a decent cut of meat that she could afford on her baked bean budget. So, why not splurge this evening on her new friend’s tab?
“I’ll have the same. Make my ribeye rare and no sour cream on the potato,” Rachael said as she closed her menu. “Oh, and bring us another bottle of Dom and a couple shrimp cocktails, dear.”
“Quite a view,” Mimi said after the waiter left. The night was setting and the skyline of Atlanta lay before them, the lights winking on all around.
“Yes, it is,” Rachael replied. “And by the time we finish our meal, we’ll have made a complete circuit around, or close to it. But of course, that’s not why I asked you here, as I’m sure you know.”
“Why are we meeting again?” Mimi asked as she took a sip of champagne and felt the little bubbles tickle her button nose.
“You will recall from our previous conversation that I had a baby a few years ago that I then abandoned to the research lab.”
“Yes,” Mimi replied, leaning forward to show her interest but keeping a blank expression so Rachael wouldn’t think she was being judged.
“Well, I think I also mentioned that I was in the bar because it had been a particularly hellish week, and I needed to blow off a little steam.”
“Yes, I do recall something like that.”
“What I didn’t tell you was that the culmination of that hellish week was that I’d received a phone call. It was from my daughter, or at least someone who claims to be my daughter, and I suspect it was. She said she was in trouble and needed help.”
“Wow,” Mimi said. She started to reach for her glass, then stopped herself. Something told her that she was no longer on a social outing.
“But wait a minute. Didn’t you say you had your daughter about three years ago?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“That’s pretty young for someone to be calling on their own, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, maybe, though these days kids and technology seems to go hand-in-hand, but there’s something you’re forgetting or maybe you simply don’t understand. Remember, my pregnancy…all of our pregnancies were extraordinarily sped up. We delivered in a matter of weeks, not months. That rapid growth continued after the delivery. While my daughter is only three chronologically, the girl who called me sounded much older and more mature.”
“Okay,” Mimi answered. “And why are you telling me this?”
Rachael picked up the bottle of champagne and filled Mimi’s glass and then her own. “Because I need for you to find my daughter and bring her home to me.”
Fetch
“Why is it always my turn to fetch the firewood?” Kristin asked in a whining voice that had become her morning modus operandi which only seemed to worsen the farther along she came in her pregnancy.
“You’re not the only one carrying a baby.” This last comment was directed to her sister, Tabitha, who had given her the order.
“I’ve told you before. Mel thinks I’m a much better cook than you are so he wants me to cook and you to fetch. Now get on with it. He’ll be awake soon and will expect his breakfast to be ready. One guess who he’ll blame if it isn’t on the table.”
“Well, it sure won’t be Miss Goody-Two-Shoes,” Kristin mumbled as she headed towards the door. She really didn’t mind fetching the wood. It gave her a chance to be outside and away from her two companions. Ever since Tabitha had learned that she hadn’t been the only one that Mel had slept with on their first night at his old homestead, she’d become increasingly difficult to live with.
Try as she might, Kristin had been unable to convince her sister that Mel had forced himself on her. “You’ve had your eye on him from the very beginning. Don’t deny it. Well, you can just forget it. He’s mine, and if I so much as see you glance his way, I’ll cut your heart out,” Tabitha had screamed at her just a few nights ago. Kristin was just about to retaliate with her own threats, when Mel had intervened.
“Now, now, girls, settle down,” Mel had said in the syrupy smooth voice he used, like he was talking to two small kids, rather than young women who were almost exactly his same age. “We’re a family, and families have to get along.”
Yeah, like he knew anything about that. Hadn’t he bragged about the burned spot on the cabin’s living room floor where he’d used one of his special powers to kill his own mother? Still, what Tabitha had said wasn’t far off. She had had her eye on Mel. He was a good looking guy despite the burn scar on the side of his face. And he had a certain animal magnetism that was undeniable even if he was technically their half-brother.
“But I wasn’t ready to have his baby!” Kristin shouted to the great outdoors, but of course no one was listening. They were miles away from the next closest house which was probably vacant this time of the year anyway. She took the last few steps to the woodpile and started filling her arms with the chunks of wood of assorted sizes. At least she’d learned how to build a decent fire in the old wood stove they used for cooking. You had to start with just a little crumbled up newspaper, then layer upon that a few small twigs, slowly increasing the size and thickness. Of course, she’d also learned to cheat just a little by including a layer of pine needles. Boy, did they burn well! But, often times, she found she could just stir the hot coals from the night before and then add fresh wood.
As she slowly straightened up with a full load of firewood, she thought she saw a momentary glare off to her right a few hundred feet up towards the top of the ridge. She paused for a moment, then caught it again. It was like the morning sun glinting off a piece of glass or mirror. But there wasn’t anything over in that direction, at least not for several miles. She bent down again to pick up one last piece of wood, though in truth she had more than she needed already. As she stood up she glanced nonchalantly in the direction of the sparkle. Close to the top of the ridge was a line of pine trees and shrubs, but that wasn’t all. There was someone lying there, just barely visible behind the natural cover.
Kristin turned around and headed towards the house, fighting to keep her pace as natural as possible even though she felt like running and screaming that they’d been discovered. But she maintained her calm at least until she felt the door close behind her, then she leaned against it and took a deep breath.
“Well, don’t just stand there. Get the fire…” Tabitha stopped in mid-sentence as she noticed the astonished look on her sister’s face. “What is it?”
Kristin took a deep gulp of air. “There’s someone out there, on the ridge.”
“You sure?” Tabitha said as she walked over and relieved her sister of some of the wood.
“Yeah, well, pretty sure,” Kristin replied. She recounted what she’d seen.
“Could you tell how many there were?”
“I only saw one but there could be more.”
“Okay, go ahead and start the fire. We don’t want to alert them that we know they’re there. You didn’t…”
“Of course not. I just walked calmly back here. I’m not as big an idiot as you must think I am.”
“No, of course you’re not,” Tabitha replied. “No one could be that stupid.”
There she goes with her back-handed compliments that were really insults. Kristin was about to retaliate but before she could think of a good comeback, Tabitha was on to something else.
“Start cooking the breakfast. I’ll wake Mel. He’ll know what to do.”
Tabitha started towards the door to the one other room of the small cabin, then stopped, her hand on the knob. “Good job, Kristin. I don’t really think you’re stupid. You may have just saved our bacon.”
Mimi turned over on her back so she could take an inventory of the pockets of her cargo pants. She preferred the darker green pants over the beige. They showed dirt and stains less, making it possible to get an extra couple days of wear out of each pair. They were her working uniform because the extra pockets allowed her to carry the tools of her trade without the need for a pocketbook. She hated pocketbooks. They were the scourge of the female gender in her estimation.
From one of the front pockets, she removed her digital recorder and checked to be sure it was working and well charged. Early in her career, dating back to her days as editor of her high school newspaper, she found it valuable to have a dependable recording device that could be turned on at any time without anyone else being aware. Sure, such recorders were unethical and technically not permitted in a court of law but then again, she was a journalist, not a lawyer. Once again, her Uncle Bo had come through, purchasing a top of the line recorder and helping her build a belt buckle with a bluetooth microphone. A tap on the side of the buckle and she was instantly capturing the sounds of her surroundings.
So, why hadn’t she used it that first night in the bar? She could only blame it on the shots of tequila. But she’d learned her lesson. Even though she felt underdressed at the Polaris restaurant that night, she still wore the belt with the mic and kept the recorder in the side pocket of her black slacks.
She’d listened to that conversation a number of times on her trip to West Virginia. She still remembered the long pregnant pause that had come after Rachael had asked her to go find her missing daughter.
“Well, huh, that’s really not what I do,” Mimi finally replied. “I’m a reporter, not a private investigator; but I can put you in touch with a couple good P.I.s. I’m sure they’ll be happy…”
“I don’t want a P.I.” Rachael interrupted. “I want you.”
Mimi took a long swallow of champagne before replying. “Why me?”
“Because I think I can trust you to be discreet and well, I think you might relate to my daughter better than some private dick.”
“But I investigate stories, not people,” Mimi replied.
“And that’s the other reason,” retorted Rachael. “I want those bastards at Bio Vita Tech to pay for what they’ve done, but I can’t come right out and blow the whistle on them, but you can. I’m offering you an exclusive on the story of the year, maybe of the decade. Breaking this story could make your career.”
Mimi felt her reporter’s salivary glands turn on. She knew Rachael was right. If even twenty percent of what Rachael had told her turned out to be true, it would be a story worth telling. It would at least get her a promotion and a raise at Global Inquiry, maybe even a job at one of the more prestigious rags.
“Oh, and one last thing,” Rachael added as she emptied the first bottle of champagne into Mimi’s half empty glass and motioned for the waiter to open the second one. “I’ll cover all your expenses during the investigation and ten thousand dollars to find the girl who made the call and bring her to me. I’ll sort out whether she’s my daughter or not.”
That pretty much sealed the deal, Mimi thought as she remembered the late notice that her landlord had sl
id under her door over the weekend.
“Well, I might need an advance to cover some expenses in prep for such an assignment,” Mimi finally said.
“No problem,” Rachael replied as she pulled a leather checkbook with her initials monogrammed in gold thread out of her purse. “How about half of your payment and another thousand for expenses? Will that handle it?”
And now, here she was lying on her back on a hillside in West Virginia spying on a young girl who might be Rachael’s missing daughter. Of course, it hadn’t been a straight shot here. All Rachael really had to go on was the phone number from where her daughter had called. Mimi had done a reverse lookup to find the call had been placed from the ski resort in Snowshoe West Virginia, but she needed more to go on than that. On the way north she decided to stop at the Research Triangle Park near Raleigh, North Carolina to and see what she could learn from the folks at Bio Vita Tech.
She knew better than to present her Global Inquiry reporter credentials there, but she figured she still looked young enough to pass herself off as a student at one of the local universities doing a research paper on the newest innovations in genetic engineering. After all, most scientists loved to talk about themselves and what they always considered cutting edge research. Unfortunately, that was not the case at Bio Vita, where she’d been stonewalled. She couldn’t even get any of the lay staff to open up. The entire staff had been well-schooled on what not to say, at least to the public at large, but how about others in the area? Mimi found her stool pigeon in one of the secretaries in the building next to Bio Vita Tech who regularly had lunch with a Mrs. Petty, the executive secretary of the head of Bio Vita Tech.
It was from that secretary that she’d learned that much of Rachael’s story was true. There had been a number of professional women that had been housed at the Bio Vita Tech facilities for months a few years ago. It had all come to a head a few weeks ago when a fire broke out in the building across from Bio Vita. Despite a comprehensive investigation, the cause of the fire had yet to be released. When Mimi asked her source about West Virginia, the woman had paused for a moment to think about the question. She thought she remember hearing that one of the scientists had accompanied the FDA agent assigned to the case on a trip to West Virginia in an effort to find a Madame Sarrah who was reportedly involved in the case in some way.
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