Page 22 of Tear Me Apart

“You’re crazy.”

She laughs. “Hey, listen. I actually called to ask a favor. It’s a bit of a delicate situation.”

“Shoot.”

“You ran some DNA on a case I’m...involved with.”

“You know I can’t discuss our cases, Juliet.”

“I do know that, but the DNA you ran was mine, so I’m giving you permission to look at the results and talk to me about them.”

“Ah. Juliet, darling, I don’t know that I can do it. Especially since I know you, it’s a total conflict of interest, and—”

“It’s life and death, Cam. My niece has cancer. You tested us all for a match to do a stem cell transplant. I’ve already seen the results. Something is wrong, and I’m trying to help you save your lab because if it gets out you’re making mistakes, it will sink you, and fast.”

His voice cools. “That sounds suspiciously like a threat, madam.”

“It’s not, but, Cameron, seriously, someone in your lab screwed up. Pull the case. Look at it yourself. Run the test again. You don’t want to look bad. This is enough of a high-profile situation without an error muddying the waters.”

“Your niece—you’re talking about Mindy Wright, the skier?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t normally ask, but as I said, the test had an obvious issue, so you’re going to want to run it again and get it right. Something might have been contaminated in the process, who knows. But there’s a problem.”

“Well, if you tell me, it might give me a leg up.”

“According to the DNA results I saw, I’m not related to her, and neither is her mother. Which would be a miracle of epic proportions, as I met the child before and after she came into the world.”

“Oh,” he says, a new tone in his voice. “Yes, that might be an issue. It won’t be under your names, though, you know we double-blind everything. What’s that case number?”

She lists it off, thankful as always for her facility with numbers.

“I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.”

“Thanks, Cameron. I owe you one.”

Juliet buys herself some dinner, scarfs it down, and sits for a while in the cafeteria, thinking.

Surely there is a mistake. It happens more than people know. Even the best labs have issues.

She should be ashamed of herself, snooping like that, but thank heavens she did. She is going to save her friend’s reputation, and they’ll find a match for Mindy on the second round, and all will be well.

11

Juliet’s phone rings a little past six in the morning, waking her from a deep but uncomfortable sleep in which she is dreaming about squirrels taking over her yard after eating mutant superhero-inducing black-oil sunflower seeds. Two of them have just roared and dumped out the biggest feeder when the chirping begins. It sounds like a cricket, so she rolls with it as part of the dream, but finally drags herself to the surface.

Chair. Legs under a coat. Hospital.

That’s right. She opted to stay at the hospital with everyone, instead of trying to make her way to the house. The storm was terrible when she’d curled up in here, but she can tell it has stopped; the room is quiet and light gray, the dawn beginning.

She stretches and answers the call with a groggy hello.

“It’s Cameron. And you, my friend, are a bitch. I’ve been up all night trying to prove your theory.”

Juliet unfolds herself from the chair.

“Yeah, well I slept in a chair and dreamed of mutant squirrels. What’s up?”

“The tests are correct. I ran a clean sample from scratch myself. There’s not a genetic match between you and your sister and your niece. Nor her dad, by the way. I’m sorry.”