Amazingly to Dr. Kane, the vet left the door to her animal hospital unlocked. There was a note taped to it: handwritten instructions to someone named Jessie.
Ethan Kane proceeded inside the small house, preferring to use a flashlight rather than turn on the lamp in the foyer.
He found his way to a small office, then into some kind of operating suite, which seemed to double as a pharmacy.
The animals at the clinic already knew he was there. Dogs, cats, and Lord knew what else began to bark, howl, hiss, and chirp. “Shut up, you imbeciles,” Kane said through gritted teeth. He hated pets and, even more, those who kept them. Did no one understand natural selection nowadays?
He returned to the office and started a search for Dr. O’Neill’s notes on Max. They had to be somewhere in the files—and they were. He located two manila folders thick with scribbly handwriting. No computer nonsense for our Dr. O’Neill, no sirreee!
Dr. Kane began to make mental notes from the examination findings. …
Max is a human who had been “improved” by genetic engineering, Dr. O’Neill had written.
Injected with avian DNA as an embryo …
Examination specs:
Massive chest, fully three times deeper than that of a human … needs the extra musculature to support her wings.
Overlapping ribs and a protruding breastbone or “heel” that runs the length of her rib cage.
No breasts or nipples … Max will not deliver live young.
Exceptionally long tirades or windpipe … thirty inches … folded accordion-style … fills with air during long flights.
Bones are hollow to keep her body light for flight.
Then Dr. Kane heard a faint noise on the front porch. He too had exceptional hearing. Plus, he was paranoid. Now who? he wondered.
“Frannie? … Are you in there, sweetie? … Fran? It’s Jessie … I thought you—”
A very large woman was at the door that led into the office. Jessie from the note on the door. She must have weighed 250, and not even soaking wet.
She saw him.
“Hello, Jessie,” he said. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that I’m rifling through Dr. O’Neill’s notes on Max. And that it’s vitally important for mankind. I’m sure you won’t tell.”
Kane then pulled a handgun from his jacket pocket and shot the large woman twice. That was nothing. Not a problem. But getting rid of Jessie’s body, making it disappear, that took some real thought and effort.
But in the end, Jessie disappeared as if she had never been.
That was the genius of Dr. Ethan Kane.
THE CUSTODY HEARING began again at nine sharp the next morning. This was the big day, had to be. Catherine Fitzgibbons shot to her feet and called Oz’s mother to the stand first thing. I thought I knew why, and it troubled me. The story that Anthea Taranto would tell now was sad and affecting. It might even win the case for their side.
Anthea was a pretty, graying woman of forty-nine. She wore a lavender silk skirt, white blouse, and a navy blue blazer. She was recently widowed, her husband, Mike, having died of cancer the previous year. Ozymandias was her only child, and her only living relative.
Mrs. Taranto spoke haltingly, but she told her story with heart-wrenching simplicity and tact. She and Mike had tried for years to have children. They had gone to a well-known, highly regarded in vitro fertilization clinic in Boulder . There had been false starts, but finally Anthea Taranto had conceived.
“I went in for a routine checkup at eight months,” she told the hushed room. “I remember how happy Mike and I were that day. Dr. Brownhill told us that it was all routine, then as he examined me, he became concerned. He told me that the fetus was in trouble and would have to be delivered right away. I had an emergency C-section on the spot. I was told that my baby had died. Can you imagine how I felt that day?”
Mrs. Taranto touched her stomach unconsciously, and seemed to drift out of the courtroom and into her memory before she resumed her tragic story.
“When I found out my son was alive, not dead, it changed everything for me. Oz is the most important person in my life. He is my reason for living. I would do anything for him. Just give me a chance, Oz. Please let me be your mother, my angel.”
Then Anthea Taranto looked directly at Kit and me. She fired the next few breathtaking words at us.
“It doesn’t matter that these children are different or that it is a challenge to parent them,” said Mrs. Taranto. “They are our children. No one should be allowed to take them from us again. Please don’t take my baby away again! I am Oz’s mother. That has to mean something, even in this brave new world we’re living in.”