Altar Of Eden
“I told you not to come,” Lorna said. “The hunt’s already over. You came all the way back here for nothing.”
“Then where are you two going?” Kyle stood a step below, blocking the way.
“Over to ACRES.”
“Both of you?”
Lorna glanced to Jack. “No. He was just taking me over to fetch the Bronco. It’s over by the dock near the zoo.”
Jack cleared his throat. “Or I could take you directly to your lab. Be faster, and I wouldn’t mind hearing firsthand what your colleagues have figured out about those animals. Might be important to the investigation.”
Lorna nodded. “I’d like… I mean, that would be fine.”
Kyle narrowed one eye and studied him. “You’re Jack Menard, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
Kyle turned back to his sister. “Then I’m going with you.”
“Don’t be stupid. Get some sleep.”
“If he’s going”-Kyle stabbed a finger at Jack-“then I’m going. Someone needs to chaperone this date.”
“It’s not a date.” Lorna’s face flushed, more angry than embarrassed. “I can damn well take care of myself.”
“What? Like the last time you took off with one of the Menard brothers?”
Lorna’s eyes widened, shocked by his words, struck dumb. Jack had to restrain an urge to slam a fist in the kid’s face.
Kyle seemed to recognize he’d overstepped himself and back-pedaled. “Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
He hurriedly climbed the last step and joined his sister, as if shortening the distance could temper his words. He touched her arm, but she turned away. He followed, matching her step for step.
“After what those Menards put you through,” Kyle said more softly as his anger bled away to raw concern. “I don’t want you hurt again. That’s all I was saying. I’d cut off my right arm to protect you. You know that.”
She sagged under his assault. “Of course I know that, Kyle. But in this case, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She glanced over at Jack. “I trust him.”
Something in her face more than her words steeled through Jack. He found himself standing a bit straighter. At the same time he remembered her fingers on his skin, warm and soft.
Kyle looked between the two of them, then shook his head. “I’d still like to go with you. I won’t get any sleep till you’re home anyway.” His tone was more conciliatory and plainly worked better on Lorna. “And I promise I won’t cause any trouble.”
“Fine. But we’re leaving right now.”
“That’s okay by me.”
He stepped aside, and Lorna led the way back to the street. Kyle kept pace next to Jack. Though the kid had taken a more mollifying tone with his older sister, Jack read the continuing suspicion in his glance as they headed out. Kyle was clearly keeping his guard up-and Jack respected that. Lorna’s brother only wanted to protect her and didn’t care whose feathers he ruffled.
They all piled into the service truck and headed out. Jack placed a quick call to his own brother about the change in plans. Randy still had Burt and had been waiting at the station for them to head back home together.
“Then I’ll just meet you at that zoo place,” Randy said and hung up before Jack could argue.
Lowering the phone, Jack glanced sidelong at his passenger. Lorna shared the front seat with him. He could tell she was lost elsewhere. Her eyes had crinkled at the corners, her mind already working on the mysteries surrounding this case, the woman becoming the doctor again.
Kyle leaned forward, intruding between them. “So what’s up with these damned animals anyway? What’s so special about them?”
Lorna muttered, still lost to the moment, “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Chapter 25
An hour later, Lorna sat before a thirty-inch wide-screen LCD computer monitor in the genetics suite. Multiple windows were open on the screen, but she studied the one in the center. A three-dimensional image of an avian brain rotated on the screen, compiled from the Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan done on the African Grey parrot named Igor. A neighboring window showed a photo of the reptilian-looking featherless bird.
“What are we looking at?” Jack asked behind her.
Zoë Trent answered him, standing on her other side. “Something remarkable.”
The neurobiologist shared the small conference room with them off the main lab. Her husband, Paul, was still out there reviewing the DNA analysis on the aberrant chromosome.
“What’s wrong with this bird?” Kyle asked.
Her brother sat on a stool beside the small birdcage that held Igor. The parrot sat sullenly, hunched low to the perch. The bird was nothing like the bright and attentive fellow he had been earlier. Also watery droppings covered the bottom of his cage.
Diarrhea due to stress.
A knot of annoyance burned in Lorna’s gut. Her colleagues should have waited until she returned to perform those extra tests. The health and well-being of the facility’s animals were her responsibility. And that duty extended to the animals rescued from the trawler. The creatures had already been through enough. They didn’t deserve to be treated like guinea pigs here, too.
“How come this ugly guy doesn’t have any feathers?” her brother asked.
Lorna answered without taking her eyes off the screen. “First, he’s not ugly. Second, we think it’s a genetic throwback, a lost trait that’s surfaced again.”
“Weird.”
She didn’t argue with that. It was weird. Everything about this was strange. “Just keep him company. He’s spooked. Talk to him.”
Parrots were social creatures and found solace in companionship.
Kyle shrugged and leaned closer to the cage. Her brother lowered his voice to a gentle coo. “So who’s an ugly bird? Not you.”
Igor cocked an eye quizzically at Kyle and responded with a soft clucking, the avian equivalent of a chuckle.
Like Lorna, her brother always had a way with animals. And despite his quick temper, he had a big heart, which might explain his volatility. He felt things deeply, and she knew how much he loved her, sought to protect her. With their father passing away when they were children, he had always taken on the role of the man of the house-and even more so after their mother had died. She both loved him for this effort and bristled against it, but in the machismo world of the South, it was an all-too-common family dynamic.