Frameshift

The Shania Twain CD had stopped playing. Pierre got up, made his way slowly over to the stereo, ejected the disc, fumbled to get it back in its jewel case, and turned the power off. He was trying desperately to think. It was a crazy idea — crazy. Sure, Amanda had a speech disorder. So what?

Lots of kids dealt with things that were much more severe. He thought of little Erik Lagerkvist, who was infinitely worse off than Amanda. He put the CD back in the rack and made his way over to the couch. “I do love her,” he said as he sat down. He took his wife’s hand in his. “She’s our daughter.”

Molly nodded, relieved. But after a long moment she said, “Still, we need to know. It affects so much — her schooling, maybe even her susceptibility to disease.”

Pierre looked at the clock on the mantel. It was just after 9:00 p.m. “I’m going to the lab.”

“What for?”

“Most everyone will have gone home by now. I’m going to steal a sample of Hapless Hannah’s DNA.”

Chapter 32

Pierre used his card key to get into the Human Genome Center offices.

Hapless Hannah’s bones were normally kept at the Institute of Human Origins, and Pierre had no doubt that at least some copies of her DNA were kept there, too. The material was too precious to have it stored in only one facility.

There had to be an emergency set of keys somewhere. He went over to the desk that used to be Joan Dawson’s. The top drawer was unlocked. In it was a key ring with perhaps two dozen different keys on it. Pierre picked it up and headed down the corridor.

He looked at the keyhole in Klimus’s doorknob, but nothing gave away which key might fit it. He began trying keys one after another, and, in the process, vainly attempted to keep the jostling of the keys from making too much noise. Pierre felt nervous as hell, and—$

“Can I help you?” said an accented voice.

Pierre’s heart did a flip-flop. He looked up. “Carlos!” he said, seeing the head janitor. “You startled me.”

“Sorry, Dr. Tardivel. I didn’t realize it was you. You need to get into Dr. Klimus’s office?”

“Umm, yes. Yes, I need a reference book he’s got.”

Carlos reached for his own key ring, which was attached to his belt by a device that let out cord if he pulled on it but wound it back in when he let go. He leaned over and unlocked the door. Then he stepped inside and flicked on the lights, the overhead panels sputtering a bit as they came to life; glare from them reflected off the sheets of glass covering the framed astronomical photos. Carlos motioned for Pierre to follow him in. Pierre made a show of going over to one of the floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases.

“See what you need?” asked Carlos.

“No — they’re not in alphabetical order. It’ll take me a while to find it.”

“Well, you go ahead and look. But be sure to lock up when you’re through. We’ve had some trouble lately with break-ins.”

“I will,” said Pierre. “Thanks.”

Carlos left. Pierre listened as the caretaker’s footfalls receded into the distance. He went over to the second door. It was locked. He tried all twenty keys; none of them opened it. He walked over to Klimus’s desk, opening the top drawer, hoping there’d be another set of keys in there.

Nothing. He closed the door and turned around. His arm moved unexpectedly, hitting the Mars globe on the credenza. For one horrible moment, Pierre thought he was going to knock it to the floor, but the red planet just spun on its axis a couple of times, then came to rest.

Pierre took out his wallet, fished out his Macy’s card, and tried to jiggle it into the gap between the door and the jamb, just as he’d seen on countless TV shows. Time passed. He was terrified that Carlos would return. But eventually he got the little bolt to slide aside. He opened the door, stepped in, and fumbled for the light switch.

There was a small refrigerator in there, sitting on what looked like a stand for a microwave oven. Taped to the fridge door was a laser-printed sign that said, “Biological specimens. Highly perishable. Do not turn off or unplug this unit.”

Pierre opened the refrigerator door. There were three wire shelves inside, each holding sealed glass containers. In the door of the fridge were cans of Dr Pepper. The glass containers were all labeled, and it took Pierre only a few minutes to find the one he wanted. A handwritten sticker on it said, simply, “Hannah.”

Pierre took the vial, closed the fridge door, turned off the light in the small room, turned off Klimus’s office light, and closed, but did not lock, the main door. He walked down to his own lab, used restriction enzymes to snip out some test fragments of the DNA, then set them up to undergo the polymerase chain reaction to make more duplicates. By the time he returned tomorrow, he’d have millions of copies of the test fragments.

He headed back to Klimus’s office, returned the sample container to the fridge, closed the door, locked up the office, and went home, adrenaline flowing.