Page 29 of Collin: Episodes 13-15
“No, I’m doing it on my way out.”
Thursday, Collin got out of bed with groan. Mr. Moreau chuckled and squeezed Collin’s rear as he passed him.
“Sir!” Collin glared after his smirking dom.
“Feeling it, boy?”
“Yes, sir. Why am I tighter today than I was yesterday?”
“I think you know the answer.”
Collin whimpered. “Maybe. I think his name is Nihal. Or possibly Émeric Moreau.”
Mr. Reevesworth came out of the closet grinning. “I could add a name to that list, boy.”
“Nope.” Collin hurried toward the bathroom. “No, sir! Not when Zhou Laoshi is going to melt my brain with Chinese in less than an hour.”
“See how well we look after our boy,” Mr. Moreau said to his husband. “Think we’ve hit on just the right amount of complaining?”
“Almost.”
There were sounds of kissing, but Collin jumped into the shower so he couldn’t hear the rest.
In Mr. Reevesworth’s office right before lunch, Damian was on his phone again. Collin and Mr. Reevesworth were on his computer, searching for a missing file.
Damian turned the screen of his phone off. “Sir.”
Mr. Reevesworth and Collin looked up together.
“It’s confirmed. Dana Reevesworth was conceived posthumously. She is the genetic direct child of your uncle, but he could not have had a hand in conceiving her directly.”
“Well,” Mr. Reevesworth leaned back in this chair and pressed the ends of his fingers together, “he didn’t have any will and testament or posthumous order asking for a child, and his heir and attorneys and executors didn’t give permission. So, she’s either a clone or his sperm was taken against his will. He didn’t give his body to science.”
Damian grimaced. “Pearson’s team is going through anyone who is recorded as being near the body or his person at the end of life. And Dana is not a clone.”
“Who’s Dana’s mother again?”
“Priscilla Kennington. British national. Late thirties.”
Mr. Reevesworth frowned. “Did she ever go by a different name? What’s her middle name? Do you have a picture?”
“Nothing recent.” Damian pulled out his tablet and started opening files and subfiles. “This is the most recent we have. Her driver’s license six years ago. She doesn’t have social media. Paulsen hasn’t been to find her. She hasn’t lived at her voting address in at least six months.”
Mr. Reevesworth took Damian’s tablet and gazed at the photo. “Any previous names?”
Damian took the tablet back and tapped away for a moment. “Yes, a few different names. Paulsen found a social media post from twenty years ago referring to her by the nickname Bunny. Her maiden name was Chase. Her father was Jonathan Chase and her mother was born Nancy St. Charles. We have records that both Priscilla and her mother spent periods of time in the States. Jonathan and Nancy’s marriage wasn’t a happy one, but they died married. Well, Jonathan died first. Nancy died ten years ago.”
“Maybe a trigger?” Collin tilted his head. “That means Dana was born the following year. How do the dates stack up?”
Damian ran his finger down his screen. “Dana was born twelve months and ten days after her grandmother died.”
“Why would Priscilla want to get pregnant by a dead man’s sperm right after her mother died?”
“Money?” Damian shrugged. “It’s possible Priscilla had nothing to do with getting the sperm and only agreed to carry a child for someone.”
“Or she was lonely.” Collin crossed his arms. “What about something else? Who near Bernstein was near your uncle?”
Damian groaned. “That’s a much longer list. But what we can’t figure out is why someone with Bernstein’s resources wouldn’t have used it sooner and challenged sooner. The sooner they challenged, the more weight it would have had. For example, if the child had been born within nine months of his death.”
