THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

speakerphone, she continued: “Why are they crying? Dammit, what have you done to them?”
    “Ah, yes, they are making a bit of a racket, aren’t they?” Janecek’s voice was easy, relaxed, charming. “Can’t say I blame them, though. I just explained how long it’s been since you had a child underfoot, Delano, and how I thought I’d remedy that right here and now.”
    Acid surged in his stomach again, as the import of Janecek’s words sank in. “Don’t do it!” He leapt to his feet, gripping the table’s edge so hard that his nail beds screamed. “I’m begging you, Radak. If you have a shred of humanity left, you won’t do this.”
    “Fuck you, Delano. This is what you get for screwing with me.”
    Screams erupted over the speaker, drawing an echoing cry from Ainsley.
    That bastard. Evil, black, soul-dead spawn of Satan!
    Another piercing shriek, this time unmistakably the child’s. Delano shoved his chair back, intent on stopping the obscenity Janecek planned to perpetrate.
    “No!” Ainsley clutched at him.
    Eli had the good sense to hit the mute button just then.
    “Let go!” He pried her hand off his wrist. “Goddammit, Ainsley, he plans to turn that child. I can’t let him do it. I can’t. You just don’t know—”
    “No, you don’t know.” She clung to his arm fiercer than ever. “Devon is my daughter, Delano. Mine. You know what that means.”
     
    Ainsley felt like her face was on fire. Her lips, her cheeks, her ears — everything burned. And in the background, the screaming…
    Delano stared at her, his impossibly dark eyes gone blank. “What did you say?”
    “Devon is my daughter.” She held his gaze, willing him to grasp the truth. “If your research is correct, if what you’ve told me is the truth, then Janecek can’t possibly turn her. But if he does this, maybe she can turn him .” Her eyes begged him to understand. “It’s our only chance.”
    He reeled backward. “Devon is your daughter? Not Lucy’s?”
    “Yes.”
    Devon shrieked again, a high-pitched, terror-stricken animal sound. Lucy screamed.
    Ainsley clapped her hands over her ears. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!
    “Yes, she’s my daughter, but I gave her away. It was just like you said about the other Merzetti women. I was driven to get pregnant, despite my normally good judgment, and then I felt equally driven to have the baby and give it away. Except Lucy wanted her. Lucy was a product of the foster system, like me, and she campaigned to claim my baby as her own from my first missed period. And God help me, I let her.”
    “Sweet Christ on the cross.”
    “I know, I know. I should have told you about this, but as you’ve pointed out, it’s encoded in my genes to protect her by denying her.”
    Delano sat down again, heavily, obviously conceding the truth of her argument. An argument that would force him to stand by impotently while a child was hideously traumatized.
    The screaming had stopped, replaced by Lucy’s sobbing. Ainsley shuddered, feeling her friend’s grief. She clasped her hands around her midriff, rocking back and forth in an effort to contain her own agony.
    Then the sound of the idling copter surged, then faded, followed by another soul-ripping wail from Lucy.
    “There you go, Delano. Come and get her. Maybe you’ll have better luck with a daughter.”
    Delano leapt up, but Eli restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll extract her. If you go out there, he’s apt to shoot you.”
    “No he won’t.” Delano’s mouth was a grim slash. “He’ll want me to suffer longer than that. He’ll want me to think about the role I played in creating yet another abomination.”
    “Then he won’t interfere with my evacuating her.”
    “Thank you for the offer, but—”
    “He’s right, Del.” Ainsley closed her hand around his wrist for the second time in as many minutes. “If you go out there now, his anger is likely to get the better of him. Or he might just decide that time is of the essence, and he can’t afford to make you suffer as long as he’d like. After all, the night is wearing on. He won’t want to be caught here come sunup. And he knows once you’re out of the way, I’ll trade myself to try to save Lucy.”
    “You’re outvoted.” Eli tugged on his flak jacket and headed for the roof.
    Delano snatched a radio from the table and depressed the button. “This is Dr. Bowen. Grayson is headed to the roof to retrieve the child. Can you give