“No.” His insistence startles me. “I told you. I didn’t plan for her. When she started working with us, she demanded to go through the process herself. Said she needed to be able to tell other women it was safe. And it was safe. We didn’t flood their systems with drugs like other donor-program companies. We paid them well. No one was victimized here.”
“A lot of people were victimized here.” I do the math in my head. Gabe sees between one and two hundred women a year. Not all of them would have been implanted with a donor embryo. What if a third, possibly half, were? Bethany’s daughter is five now. If he’s been doing this for five years, that could be as many as five hundred babies born as lies. “How many? How many times did you do this?”
“It’s not like I kept count.” His eyes flit back and forth as he tries to calculate the number of times he betrayed his clients. Whatever approximation he comes up with, he doesn’t want to divulge it to me. It doesn’t matter if it was twenty babies or a thousand. Any number is too many.
“How’d you connect with Regina?”
“She answered an ad on Craigslist.”
“You put up an ad for an egg recruiter on Craigslist?”
“It was for a tutor. At the start, when it was just a patient here and there, I’d put up an ad on Craigslist for a tutor and interview until I found a good match. Regina wasn’t a fit, but there was something about her. From the second I met her, I knew I could trust her.”
His words hit me hard, burning across my incision as I shift, the binder digging into the loose flesh across my abdomen. For some reason, this betrayal feels the worst of all.
“She saw how to make it all work: the office, the legitimate second business, separate staffs at each clinic. The casting calls. The system of running the eggs across the street to Aram. All Regina.”
His words stun me, how easily he deflects blame. How unwilling he is to be introspective, even now.
“So, who killed them? Who’s threatening us?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the break-in before Regina died?” We both know the other break-in, yesterday, was me. Barb.
Barb. Could Jasper really belong to her? Would she ever try to take him from me?
“Pretty sure that was paparazzi. They’re always lurking.” He says this with such disgust, such arrogance, still superior.
“You think the paparazzi killed Regina and Aram? That makes no sense. What about the restraining order? Was that really for Judy?”
He shakes his head no. I want to lash out at him for vilifying Judy, but I’d believed him. I was willing to assume she was unhinged just because she’s lonely. Nosy.
“Who was it for?”
“Just this dad who thought I should reimburse him when his wife couldn’t get pregnant. It wouldn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Why? His wife didn’t get the special Gabe Irons treatment?”
Gabe frowns like I’m being unnecessarily cruel and trying to hurt him. Only, it isn’t cruel.Cruelis just another word we use to demeanwomen who don’t back down and submit to the niceties expected of them. To my surprise, I’m good at being honest. It’s cathartic, saying what I think without regard for how it might make him feel.
“He had a low sperm count and didn’t want to deal with it.”
“You need to go to the police.”
“I’ll lose my medical license.”
“You should have thought of that before.”
Gabe kneels beside my bed. “Let me fix this.”
“There is no fixing this.” My voice is too loud. It wakes Opal, who whines, then wails. Gabe lifts her from the bassinet like a fragile package. He holds her. Smells her. Pats her back, and her cries become coos as she’s comforted by him. Men get away with so much by being good fathers. But not this. Never this.
Gabe brings Opal to me. Her lips are sucking before I’ve even untied my gown. I unswaddle her, exposing her to the cold, harsh reality of this world.
“I’ll go to the police. I will. Give me a few days to get everything in order.” He isn’t asking. He’s cutting a deal, a confession on his terms. If Gabe goes to the police, Officer Gonzales will listen. After being doubted and dismissed, I find it difficult to conceive of being believed. It’s not me he’ll believe. It’s Gabe. And if Gabe speaks to him alone, without me, he can wield a tale that absolves him. I need to be present for his confession, which won’t be possible with a newborn and a raw incision across my abdomen.
“A few days. You need to stop. Now.”
