8
Jack sat in his car near the lake and waited. Christy had wanted to drive him over to her house to retrieve the brush but Jack had nixed that for the same reason he'd met her here today.
While waiting, he'd called Levy and told him Dawn's father was a no go but he'd have the girl's hair soon. Jack had expected an argument, with Levy wanting to put him off till tomorrow, but he'd jumped on Jack's suggestion to meet again at the Argonaut.
Levy seemed really into this possibility of a super-oDNA kid.
Jack closed his eyes and untethered his thoughts, letting them take random bounces.
Christy's panic attack… what had triggered it? His mention of the abortionist assassinations? Or something else?
She'd said she'd been "connected" to the two dead docs? What did that mean?
He let it all hang out and cooked up the wildest scenario he could imagine: Had they performed abortions on her and left her so wracked with guilt that she'd killed them?
No. He'd learned the hard way to judge character, and he just couldn't see Christy as a cold-blooded killer.
Then again, Levy said Thompson had told him Bolton was framed. What if it was true? What if Christy had been involved in the frame and now he was getting back at her?
But the cops and probably the feds as well had investigated her and cleared her. And, for whatever it was worth, she couldn't have known Bolton—he'd changed since going to the lockup, but not so much that she wouldn't recognize him as Jerry Bethlehem, beard or no.
He shook his head, baffled. This was making him crazy.
And making him even crazier was this idea of a super-oDNA kid. Clearly someone had designed this situation, but to what end?
And who? The mysterious Jonah Stevens? Who was Jonah Stevens? He pops up out of nowhere, does a Johnny Appleseed thing with his sperm, and dies—supposedly.
But did he die? With no body to exhume, who could be sure he was really dead, or even who he'd said he was?
He could have been Rasalom.
Jack shifted in his seat. Now there was a discomfiting thought: the Other-ness's agent on Earth spreading some sort of toxic seed in the hope of creating a child to—what? Wake up everyone's oDNA and start Armageddon?
Was that the Plan? Was that what Bolton had meant by the comin of the Key to the future … a new world?
By "new" did he mean Otherness dominated?
Rasalom had been mounting attacks on multiple fronts to bring the Otherness to this sphere. Was the super-oDNA kid one of those fronts?
Up ahead he saw Christy's car approaching. She stopped next to him, driver to driver, and rolled down her window.
"Got it."
She handed him the brush. He checked it and saw plenty of hair wound in the bristles.
"I only need ten or so strands."
Christy shrugged. "Take the whole thing. It's old."
He looked at her. "Feeling better?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I think so. When do you think you'll have the results?"
"I'm going to get this rolling tonight. If all goes well I'll have some ammunition for you by tomorrow."
Her eyebrows rose. "Tomorrow? I've heard it takes weeks. Who do you know?"
He gave her what he hoped was a sly smile. "Low friends in high places."