Read Fertile Ground for Free Online Page B

demanded, blinking at the barrage of flashes. Pinpoints of light danced in her eyes.
    “That’s what / want to know!” yelled a woman Lisa didn’t recognize. “Where’s Dr. Gordon? Why isn’t he here to answer our questions?”
    A chorus of “Yeah, where is he?” assaulted Lisa.
    “Would you care to comment on the allegations made against the clinic?” another woman asked.
    A reporter, not a patient. Behind her, a jeans-clad, ponytailed man was balancing a minicam on his shoulder. Wonderful, Lisa thought. I’ll be on the eleven o’clock news, and I don’t even know why. “I can’t comment about an allegation I know nothing about,” she said, forcing herself to sound calm.
    The people around her weren’t calm. Their voices were a rising cacophony of agitation and hysteria. Lisa scanned the hall for help, but neither Matthew nor any of the other doctors or staff were in sight.
    “This is my baby, isn’t it. Dr. Brockman?” demanded another patient. Her hands rested on her swollen midriff.
    What had Matthew said? One whiff of suspicion… and we can close the doors. Was this what he’d feared? Lisa felt her stomach muscles knotting but made her voice sound reassuring. “Of course the baby you’re carrying is yours, Cheryl.”
    “Can you be certain. Dr. Brockman?” a male reporter asked. “According to reliable sources, this clinic has been
    switching embryos and committing other related violations.”
    “That’s ridiculous!” It was ridiculous. There were too many safeguards. She craned her neck and looked around. Where was Matthew? He should be here to deal with the patients, with the media. Where was Sam Davidson? Or Ted Cantrell? And where was Selena?
    “Is it ridiculous. Dr. Brockman? Then where is Dr. Gordon? Somewhere south of the border?”
    Lisa glared at the reporter. “That’s an insulting and totally unwarranted insinuation.”
    He was referring to two doctors who had left the country when their Irvine, California, fertility clinic had come under investigation. The clinic had ultimately been shut, and the scandal had reverberated, placing the entire community of infertility specialists under scrutiny.
    “I knew they gave my eggs to someone else!” another woman cried. “I knew it!” She grabbed Lisa’s arm.
    “Mrs. Alien, calm down,” Lisa said firmly yet gently, loosening the woman’s tourniquet like grip. She spotted the tall, black-haired office manager at the far end of the hall and had to yell, “Selena!” several times before the woman heard her and hurried to her side.
    Selena was breathless. Her chest was heaving beneath her pale blue cotton sweater, and her round face was flushed. “Dr. Gordon phoned Grace early this morning and told her he’d be late,” she whispered to Lisa. “She’s paged him several times, but he hasn’t phoned back. Dr. Cantrell was here earlier, but he’s doing surgery at another hospital. And Dr. Davidson—”
    “I want my babies!” Cora Alien pulled at Lisa’s arm.
    “Someone stole your babies?” the same reporter asked the woman. Behind him, the minicam motor whirred.
    Putting her arm around the woman. Lisa piloted her away from the reporter and the cameraman. “Cora, I don’t blame you for being upset. Selena will take you to a room where you can relax. I’ll be in to talk to you soon.”
    The woman jerked away from Lisa. “I don’t need to relax. I need my babies’. I want to know who has them!”
    Her face was streaked with tears and mascara tracks.
    Selena put her arm around the woman. “Please come with me, Mrs. AlLen,” she said in her softly accented voice. “Everything will be fine.” Murmuring soothingly, she led her away.
    “We want to speak to Dr. Gordon!” Hank Clerman yelled. “We have a right to know what’s going on!” Angry red blotches had molded his face, which was beaded with perspiration.
    The clinic’s air-conditioning couldn’t accommodate the crush of people in the narrow hall, now stuffy