She Was at Risk

by P. D. Workman

  “I never heard of that.”

  “It isn’t always diagnosed right away, because it is so rare. But in families that have seen multiple cases of Huntington’s across every generation, it pops up. These ‘super’ repeats that cause Huntington’s to show up early in life.”

  “That’s really scary. So Br—my couple could have a child that develops Huntington’s Disease as a child, not as a fifty- or seventy-year-old.”

  “If they are one of the few that ends up with this super-expanded gene, yes.”

  “Sheesh.”

  “Now, this is where it gets interesting.”

  Zachary waited.

  “You know what happens when they have twenty-six or fewer repeats, and what happens when it is forty or more repeats, but what happens if it is intermediate.”

  “Well… I would guess that you end up with someone who might develop Huntington’s, and might not.”

  “Yes. Exactly. If they have thirty-six to thirty-nine repeats, they have only partial penetrance, and they may or may not develop Huntington’s Disease. And there is one final possibility.”

  Zachary felt an itch, like when he had a word on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t quite reach it. He could almost predict what Kenzie was going to say. Another minute or two to think about it, and he might come up with it.

  Kenzie told him. “If you have twenty-seven to thirty-five repeats, you have an intermediate allele. You may end up with a case where the parent will not develop Huntington’s Disease, but the child will.”

  “How does the child get it, if the parent doesn’t?”

  “Because the fertilization and division processes are not perfect. The cells may ‘mistranscribe’ thirty-five CAG repeats as forty CAG repeats. So the parent was too low to get Huntington’s Disease, but the child is high enough that they do.”

  “What are the chances of that? How common is this ‘intermediate’ gene?”

  “A lot more common than you would think. It is rare for it to result in the expanded form in the offspring. That’s why it is often left out of the conversation.”

  “Huh. So it is possible. My couple could both be below the range where they will get Huntington’s, but still have children who will get it.”

  “Possible, yes. Not likely, but… possible. I would still pursue the fertility clinic angle as the more likely explanation.”

  “That’s what I’m doing right now. So I’ll continue to push in that direction.”

  “And you should know that sometimes people with this intermediate allele do show some of the Huntington’s behaviors. Even though they don’t have what would be diagnosed as full-blown Huntington’s, they may have some of the behavioral characteristics, movements, and so on. It’s like… mild Huntington’s. But not diagnosable as Huntington’s.”

  Zachary leaned back, rubbing the center of his forehead. “So there may still be some of these behaviors in the family even if they don’t have a family history of Huntington’s Disease.”

  “Yes. Possible.”

  “So I should watch for some of those behaviors in the doctors I’m doing background on.”

  “I would. Are your background checks going to be that detailed?”

  “Not at first. But I’ll delve deeper into the ones that seem suspicious. And sometimes, things are reported in the news or social columns about eccentric family members. Or people act erratically on social media.”

  Kenzie laughed. “How can you tell?”

  “You have a point.”

  “Yeah. I’d better get back to work, but I thought I’d give you those details while they were still fresh in my mind.”

  “Thanks! I appreciate it. I’ll put them to good use.”

  18

  Zachary decided to meet with Heather face-to-face to collate their research and see where they needed to do more. He enjoyed highway driving, so he went to her house. He sat in the car outside the house for a moment, just looking at the house and remembering the various times he had been there while investigating her cold case. It had been an emotional time and had stirred up a lot of bad memories for both of them.

  But that was in the past now. He had helped her to figure out who her attacker had been, and the man was now in jail awaiting trial. For the first time, Heather had been able to shed her fear of running into him again. She started thinking about herself and what she wanted to do with her life. It might seem like it wasn’t worth it for a woman her age to just be starting out in a new direction, but how could it ever be too late to start living? She had blossomed since she had freed herself from the chains of the past. She was a new person. Not different from her old self, but better. It was hard to find the words.

  The front door opened and Heather stood there looking at him. Zachary pulled the charging cable out of his phone and opened his door. He remembered to grab his messenger bag before getting out. He got his feet a little tangled trying to get out of the car, flustered by her watching him and trying to get out quickly so he wouldn’t look so awkward. But he managed to get out without falling on his face. He pressed the switch to lock the doors and slammed his door shut. He tried the handle and it was locked. He looked at it through the window to make sure, and tried the handle of the back door. He pressed the lock button on his key fob a couple of times to make sure that the security system was set, then pressed it once more for good measure. He stood looking at the car.

  “Come on, Zachy,” Heather invited. “I’m waiting for you.”

  Zachary turned away from his car and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. “Sorry. Just had one thing to do…”

  “Come on in. Let’s get right to it.”

  He was glad that she didn’t make a big deal of his delays. He followed her into the house. He could smell fresh coffee and something gingery. He glanced toward the kitchen as they passed the doorway. But Heather led him directly to the dining room table where her laptop sat, surrounded by piles of paper and folders. She had already set out coffee for both of them, and a small plate between the two settings with a circle of ginger snap cookies.

  “Those smell good.”

  Heather nodded. “Help yourself. When my son was on meds for ADHD when he was still at school, I had a terrible time getting him to eat enough. But something like these cookies, they helped. They just smell so good that he wanted them even if he didn’t have much appetite.”

  Zachary sat down and took one from the plate. “I didn’t know your son had ADHD. I don’t think you mentioned it before.”

  “They both did. Or do, I guess. But as adults, they’re better at managing it. It’s so hard when they’re in school, supposed to be sitting still in the middle of a whole class full of distractions. It’s easier now that they’re in the workplace and can adapt their environment. Change things around to make it easier to work. Go for a walk. Take stuff home.”

  Zachary nodded. It had been a big relief for him to get out of classrooms. Even though he had known that he was jumping into the adult world with no supports, it had been so good to get away from classrooms, from teachers and foster parents or supervisors who thought that he should just be able to turn his attention on and off like a switch.

  Even with all of the training that was out there on dealing with students or children with ADHD, they never seemed to have much sympathy or workable solutions. They should have been able to help him with accommodations, but what they offered was always minimal. Or nonexistent. Once he was over fifteen, they thought he should have his brain whipped into shape and be able to do everything that everyone else could.

  Even if Zachary had been able to beat the ADHD, to find that miracle pill that would fix his brain or the therapy that would allow him to access that on/off switch that must exist somewhere in his head, he had other learning disabilities on top of it. And PTSD and other mental health issues.

  School had been pretty hopeless. It had been good to get out.

  Zachary refocused on Heather and looked at the table at the various folders. He del
ved into his bag to pull out his papers as well.

  “Let’s get to it, then,” he said, knowing that Heather wouldn’t mind him skipping over the small talk. They could chat on the phone anytime. He was there to do a job and, if he wasted a lot of time talking, they wouldn’t have time to get everything done. “Should we start with… the list, I guess? This will be our master list.”

  He flipped through his papers, looking for the list of doctors and other staff he had assembled from the brochures and the clinic’s website. He probably should have alphabetized it, but he hadn’t. He’d just gone with the order he had found them in.

  Heather gave a quick nod. “So you want Dr. Weaver first?”

  Zachary nodded. Dr. Weaver was one of his names, so he went through the stack again until he found Weaver’s various reports, all clipped together with a handwritten cover page summarizing what he had been able to find.

  “Looks like Dr. Weaver is one of the owners of the clinic. He was one of the original partners that set it up, so he has been there from the beginning.”

  “Is he still doing procedures?” Heather asked with a frown.

  “No. He’s semi-retired, from what I can tell. A figurehead.”

  “I was going to say; I don’t know if I would want an octogenarian doing my procedures. Some people are still razor-sharp at that age, but…”

  Zachary nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that. He’s also old enough that if he had Huntington’s Disease, he should be showing symptoms by now. So I think we can probably eliminate him. If he’s been there for twenty years and they’ve never had a lawsuit over the wrong sperm being used, then it isn’t him. And it doesn’t look like he has Huntington’s, even a mild form.”

  “Okay. So we can start a pile for ‘no’ or ‘unlikely’?” Heather picked up the sheaf of pages and moved it toward the middle of the desk to start a pile.

  Zachary nodded his agreement. He looked back at the master list. He put a checkmark beside Weaver’s name. One down.

  “Dr. Carrie Ryder is next.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Man. Not one of the original partners, but he has been at the clinic almost from the start.”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t find very much online for him. He’s an older guy. Not an octogenarian, but I don’t think he’s much into social media or anything to do with computers.”

  “Any red flags? Anything suspicious?”

  “No. And like Weaver, he’s been there for a lot of years. If there was a problem, I think it would have shown up before now.”

  “More than likely. No recent changes in his credit score? Or other changes in behavior?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nothing to indicate that he’s had any problem behaviors? Fights with neighbors or the clinic?”

  “He seems like a pretty quiet guy. Nothing that makes me think he’s been in any trouble.”

  “Lawsuits?”

  “One a few years ago over some kind of property dispute. Nothing professionally.”

  “I think we can probably put him in the ‘no’ pile.”

  Heather agreed. She put her folder on top of the reports on Dr. Weaver.

  The first few were easy, but Zachary knew they were going to get harder. The doctors who were listed the most prominently on the website were the ones who had been there the longest, and they were unlikely to be the culprits in any intentional contamination of DNA specimens. If they had been the type to do that, they would likely have started much earlier and it would already have come to light.

  He put a checkmark beside Carrie Ryder and they went on to the next person.

  19

  It was tedious work, but they ended up with most of the files in the ‘unlikely’ pile, and a handful of names to do further research on.

  “So how deep do you want to go?” Heather asked. “Are we just looking for doctors who have been sued or accused of unethical behavior, or are we looking for anything negative? Deep background? Family relationships? Early history?”

  “Everything we can get. If there are lawsuits, that’s a big red flag. But also things like a change in behavior in the last year or two, someone who is known for unpredictable or inappropriate behavior. And then, whether they have family members who are. I want obituaries wherever we can get them. Start putting together a family tree and marking whether there have been any relatives that might have had Huntington’s Disease. Does anyone in the family participate in Huntington’s research or post on bulletin boards or discussion groups about it? Are there any legacies or ‘please send donations to’ Huntington’s Disease researchers in the obituaries?”

  Heather nodded, scribbling down some notes for herself. “Genealogy sites, obituaries, Huntington’s sites. Any runs or sports fundraisers for Huntington’s Disease. Any mentions in social media…”

  “Someone with Huntington’s might also have some strange or erratic social media posts. Overemotional, forgetful or confused, angry, posts showing wide mood swings.”

  Heather added details to her list. “Marriages? See what behavior has been mentioned in divorce documents?”

  “Good idea. Yes.”

  “What about police files? Can we find out whether any of these people have had assault charges? Or has been the subject of a missing persons report, even for just a short time?”

  “Yeah. I’ll see what I can get on that front. Mario might be able to do some preliminary searches and point me in the right direction.”

  They looked at the small pile of files and clipped papers. Heather teased one out of the pile. “I like this guy for it. Forest McLachlan.”

  Zachary raised his brows. “Why?”

  She hadn’t known a lot about him when they had done their first run-through of the files.

  “I’m not sure I can put my finger on one thing in particular. He hasn’t been there for very long, just over a year. Usually, when I am doing a preliminary search, previous employment comes up. Usually, you can trace at least the last three jobs. But there wasn’t anything earlier than Westlake Clinic on his LinkedIn profile, or in his social media profiles. Some people just don’t have any online media presence.” She flicked a finger over to the bottom files in the ‘no’ pile to indicate the older doctors. “You know, they don’t have anything on any of their profiles, if they have a profile in the first place. But Forest has social media profiles. He’s filled in things like hobbies, religion, and political affiliations. But he’s silent on previous jobs. So, where did he come from? What was he doing before he went to Westlake?”

  Zachary took the file from her and looked through what she had already collected on him. “Did he move here from out of state?”

  “Yeah. I think I read somewhere he’d been in Minnesota before? Something like that. But no listing of what he did there.”

  “Okay. Double-check the state, and start getting some searches done. Courthouses especially. Look for a name change, not just lawsuits. See if he’s got an ex-wife there who might talk about him. Kids, maybe. Let’s do him first. If you’ve got an instinct about him, let’s make sure we do a really good job on him.”

  “I could be wrong.”

  “Yeah. But if you have a feeling about him, then there’s probably a reason for that, whether he’s our guy or not.”

  Heather shrugged.

  “Maybe we’ll get him for something else,” Zachary said. “I’ve had it happen more than once. Start doing deep background on someone and realize that it’s not the guy, but he’s guilty of some other crime. Sometimes worse than what you were initially looking for.”

  “Yeah?”

  Zachary nodded. He grabbed another ginger snap and washed down a bite with coffee that was past being lukewarm.

  “Do you want me to get you another coffee?” Heather asked grimacing.

  “No. I should be getting back home. Don’t want to keep Kenzie waiting. Let’s just divide these up…” He went through the ‘maybe’ pile, handing Heather the files she had already started and balancing them
against the ones that he had worked on, taking a couple of her files himself so that she wasn’t overloaded. “There we go. Start on McLachlan. Let me know what you find. We’ll keep each other apprised.”

  “Are you going to work on it tonight?”

  Zachary hesitated. He tried to make time for Kenzie during the evening, but he was eager to get started on the deeper background on their suspects. If the man who had impregnated Bridget was in that pile, Zachary wanted to find him. He didn’t want to wait another day to get started.

  “I might do a little tonight,” he admitted. “You?”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “Grant doesn’t mind. I do work while I watch TV with him all the time. I won’t spend all night on it, but…” She shrugged again. “Some of it.”

  “You’re sure he doesn’t mind?”

  “He says he likes seeing me working. Engaged in something instead of just… sleeping or vegging in front of the TV.”

  Zachary nodded. She had a life to catch up on. She had spent too many years inside herself, afraid to move forward. He was glad that Grant understood that on some level too.

  “I’m going to be down to Mr. Peterson’s on the weekend.” He watched for Heather’s reaction, still wondering whether they were planning another reunion for him. Mr. Peterson had said it was to meet Pat’s mother and sister, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a second meeting up their sleeves. He wouldn’t put it past them. “You’re not going to be there, are you?”

  “No, not this time. Are you doing something special?”

  He watched her eyes, but she seemed to be telling him the truth.

  “Pat is having his mom and sister over. I just wondered… whether anything else was going on.”

  “Nothing I know about, sorry. I’m not a part of any plans.”

  “Okay. Just… checking.”

  20

  Maybe Grant didn’t mind Heather doing work in front of the TV as they passed their evening together, but Kenzie definitely noticed Zachary’s distraction and commented on it.