“That’s why all the medical equipment? The IVs and everything else?”
“Yes.” She swallows hard. “I have a PhD in immunology and microbial pathogenesis, and my postdoctoral training is in stem cell biology. I’ve been studying Eden’s blood, hoping to find the answers to curing her.”
Now it’s his turn to pause. “It’s a good story,” he says at last. But his next words are a blow. “But I’m not convinced it’s true. Or at least not all of the truth.”
“Excuse me?” Holly’s gotten her voice under control. She’s cool and crisp, the way she would talk to an assistant, especially one she’s about to fire. There’s absolutely no reason at all for him to doubt her.
“Do you know what they call your daughter? Those women who cared for her?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for a reply. “They call her anghel ng mga himala—the angel of miracles.”
“What?”
“The angel of miracles,” he repeats. “They think her blood will heal them—heal almost anyone—no matter what’s wrong with them.”
Holly’s gripping the phone so tightly her fingers are numb. “That’s ridiculous,” she scoffs, putting as much scorn into her voice as she can without letting it shake. “You must have misunderstood. English isn’t their first language. I’ll talk to them myself and clear this up.”
“Funny, they thought you’d say that. So they decided to head home, back to the Philippines. All of them,” he says. “They made me promise not to talk to you until they’d already left. Now why would they worry about a thing like that?”
She pictures it. A drop of blood falling onto a nurse with a cut or a scar. She’d insisted they wear gloves, be fully gowned, every time they came in contact with Eden, but someone must have been sloppy. She can see the blood, ruby red, a single drop suspended when they cleaned around the port or gathered up the vials.
One drop would be all it took.
Her stomach churns. If they’d discovered Eden’s secret, would they have taken her? And the missing bags of blood . . . Perhaps Peter was never involved. But no. Maria’s grief and concern had been real. That feather Holly had found the day she went to Grace House had been real too. It was Peter. It had to be.
Christopher has said something, but she’s missed it.
“What?”
“I said, they even suggested I try it, when we find her. On my stump.” He sounds amused. “They actually thought it might work.”
He doesn’t believe them. Of course he doesn’t believe them. It’s too crazy-sounding to be true.
“Holly? You still there?”
She pulls herself together. “This isn’t funny,” she snaps. “My daughter is out there somewhere and you—”
“I never said it was.”
“You let them leave.”
“They were terrified after talking to me. Apparently you had some hell of a nondisclosure agreement in place. But I’ll tell you this: they broke it because they truly want to help. They’re worried because more people—like the police—aren’t looking for her. And they don’t have your daughter.”
“How can you be so sure?” she cries, as much to herself as to him. She can’t tell him about the missing blood, not now.
“I just am. I have a knack for these things,” he says, and his voice has lost that amused tone. Instead she hears something else. Compassion. It tugs her back from the brink like a lifeline. “They love your kid, especially Maria. They’re genuinely worried about her.” He pauses. “Also, I had them followed. Your kid isn’t with them.”
More proof he’s not as easily put off as she once thought. “I assume I’m paying for that, even though I didn’t authorize it?”
“You are,” he says cheerfully. “It will be in my next bill.”
“Well, what’s your next step?”
“Figuring out what else you’re lying about,” he says without hesitation. “I’ll be in touch.”
He hangs up.
Holly stares at the phone. She should have listened to Barry—she never should have hired Christopher Cooke. He’s too independent, too hard to control. The best she can hope for now is that he doesn’t find anything else he can use against her. She thanks god that there are no old pictures of Jack immediately after the crash, that she’d managed to keep the paparazzi away from the hospital and his rehab. If Christopher saw those and started putting two and two together . . .