Reborn

WORLD-RENOWNED SCIENTIST LEAVES ESTATE TO SELF!

Oh, my God, it can't be!

She dropped everything on the counter and snatched up the tabloid, praying it was just an awful coincidence, just another crackpot tale to go along with The Light's usual UFO, eye-injury, and freak-show contents.

"Story on page three" read the small print in the lower right corner. Her hands trembled as she opened the paper.

Please don't let it be!

But her prayer went unanswered. She almost screamed when she saw the byline, "by Gerald Becker."

"Everybody's reading that," said the redheaded, gum-cracking lady behind the counter. "Wished I had twice as many, the way they're selling."

Carol barely heard her. She saw the name Hanley in the first line and the word clone in the second, and then she was crushing the paper against her chest as her feet carried her toward the door.

"Hey!" said the woman. "Y'forgot—!"

Carol managed to say, "Keep the change!" and then she was out the door and running for the car. She had to get home, had to get to Jim with this before someone else did.

As she raced through downtown Monroe, one word kept echoing in her head.

How? How had Becker found out? How?

After pulling into the driveway she ran around to the other side of the house and pushed the rhodos aside. The access cover to the crawl space was still closed. She pulled it open and stared in horror at the sandy emptiness. There was a flattened spot on the sand where she had left the journals, but the journals were gone!

She rushed inside and found Jim sitting in the easy chair. His pale face and stricken expression were like a knife ripping into her chest.

"Somebody left this on the front step," he said, holding up a copy of The Light.

"Oh, Jim—"

"How, Carol?" he said, looking at her with eyes that were so full of hurt she wanted to cry.

"Jim, I didn't!"

"Then how did Becker get hold of this stuff? He's got passages in his article that are practically word for word out of Hanley's letter to me. How could that be if the journals were incinerated as you said?"

The phone rang, startling her. It sat at Jim's elbow but he ignored it. As she started toward it he said, "Leave it. It's just some reporter from one of the New York dailies wanting to know if the story is true."

"Oh." This was awful and getting worse.

"You haven't answered my question, Carol. How?"

"Because I didn't really throw them away!"

Jim rose slowly from the chair.

"What?"

"I—I only told you that so you wouldn't go looking for them. Actually I hid them in the crawl space until—"

He took two steps toward her. "You mean, you lied to me about throwing them out?"

"Yes. You see—"

He came closer, his eyes angry now, almost wild. And that damn phone kept ringing and ringing.

"You lied then, but you're telling the truth now?"

"Yes."

His expression had become so fierce it frightened her.

"How do I know you're not lying now?"

"Because I wouldn't!"

"But you already did!" He thrust the headlines of The Light to within inches of her nose and shouted, "Will the real Carol Nevins Stevens please stand up and tell me why she did this to me?"

Carol couldn't hold it in any longer. She began to cry.

"But I didn't, Jim! This isn't fair!"

The phone stopped ringing.

"Well, we agree on that, at least," he said in a softer voice. He pointed to the paper. "I know you didn't intend this, but you've got a hell of a lot of explaining to do."

She told him everything—from reading the journals to hiding them in the crawl space to confronting him the next morning with her fabricated story.

"I wish now they had been burned."

"So do I! Oh, you don't know how I wish that! But they were yours. It just didn't seem right."

"Yeah. Mine." He sighed. "I think I'll go over to the mansion for a while."

"No!" she cried as he turned and headed for the door. "Don't run away from this. We can handle it together!"

"I'm sure we can. I'm not running away from anything. I've just got to be alone for a while. Just a few hours. I've got to figure out how I'm going to handle this"—he tapped his forehead—"up here. Then we'll face the world together—if you're still with me."

"You know I am."

His face was a tight mask. "Okay. I'll see you later."

And then he was out and moving down the front walk. As she watched him go, Carol felt as if a noose were tightening around her throat.

This was all her fault. God, how had she gotten them into this? And how were they ever going to get out?

Behind her, the phone began ringing again.