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life he once had, this is what mattered now.
    7.
    New York City, early evening
    Donna Mallory left Barnes and Noble where she’d just had a book signing for her most recent thriller, The Identity of Clara. The gorgeous brunette with chocolate eyes hailed a cab to the airport to meet Gloria Hanes.  It was only a half hour flight on the Delta shuttle to Logan so she could make it by six if there weren’t any delays.
    From the phone conversations they’d shared, Gloria relayed the same experience as Donna ’s own: an uneventful pregnancy followed by the insistence of an amniocentesis by a young doctor she’d only met a couple of times, and then an emergency D&E even though she insisted her baby was alive. She hadn’t had the courage to ask for an ultrasound as Gloria had but she knew. And since her fetus too was removed while she was anesthetized, she never got closure either. No body to see. No burial even though the age exceeded the legal limit and should have been reported as a stillbirth.
    After the feature on Kelli’s TV show, many women contacted her about what she’d had to say, but two in particular startled her. Two women from foreign countries came forward with the exact history. Each woman’s episode within a few months of her and Gloria’s miscarriages. Both exceptionally pretty, college-educated women. And all served by Donna’s doctor, Tad Boucher. Different hospitals, different countries, but the same man! Coincidence? Four women whose babies were stolen alive, all by the same doctor. Something sinister had happened, and mostly likely continued. This wasn’t in their combined imaginations. They weren’t having a shared hallucination or delusion. They needed to get the police and media involved.
    But first, she needed to tell Gloria—
    A sudden sharp pain jabbed her throat. She moved her hand to her Burberry scarf. Warm liquid tricked down red-smeared fingers. Blood. Red drips hit the snow-covered ground. I’ve been shot.
     

Chapter Two
     
    1.
    Suburban neighborhood, Massachusetts, late morning
     
    Gloria clutched a stuffed Eeyore as she carefully maneuvered down the icy walkway of Alison Gander’s home. She’d fluffed her hair for a half hour this morning and gotten her makeup just right. She wanted Alison’s first impression to be of a gorgeous, classy woman in high-heeled boots and a long leather coat but now she hesitated. Too Matrix? Well, too late now.  Maybe it was stupid trying to impress a five-year-old girl, but so what? She couldn’t have her own kids, but in a way she had given this child life; or at least a second chance at it.
    Since her outburst that day in the hospital, she had renounced her suspicions. Tommy had convinced her, once again, that her wishful thinking bordered on self-delusion and paranoia. And Donna . . . poor Donna, had been shot and killed by someone in New York on her way to the airport. A random gang shooting, the police surmised. Tragic. Gloria had never gotten to speak to her. She was saddened by the tragic death of such a good person and talented actress, but she admitted relief that whatever concerns Donna had wanted to discuss with Gloria, they’d died with her. Gloria needed to be at peace, and to that end, she had convinced herself that she could indeed put all her doubts behind her.
    A few days after her hospital visit, Gloria had undergone the bone marrow donation and the still little faceless Alison had gotten the transplant.
    Gloria would have walked away then and resumed her life knowing she had helped a child. But then she got the unexpected call from Mrs. Gander, the child’s mother.
    “Please come meet Alison,” the woman had said. “It would mean a lot to her. We’re so grateful.” Gloria had been surprised , knowing donor/patient contact was classified and impossible, but jumped at the chance. She took the two-hour drive to western Massachusetts on slick roads.
    When she arrived, Gloria knocked on the door of the small blue weathered