The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [128]
“Even if the herbal stuff is the miracle you think it is, I’m still bothered by the way you used Janine,” Joe said. “I realize that you’re not above using anyone if it means advancing your research, or whatever. But you played with her emotions in order to get Sophie into your study.”
“No,” Lucas said. “I fell in love with Janine. For real.”
Joe rubbed his chin with his hand. He wasn’t sure whether to believe Lucas on that point or not. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted it to be the truth. “And how do you explain the porn you had in your recycling?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you could be talking about,” Lucas said. “I just had old mail and newspapers in the recycling. Oh!” He looked as though he remembered something. “Medical journals, maybe? There might have been medical journals in there. Pediatric journals. Could that be what you saw?”
Yes, it certainly could have been. Instantly, the image of the nude child returned to him, and only then did Joe recall that the photograph had been in black and white and rather clinical in its pose.
“I don’t know,” he said, unwilling to give up his anger toward Lucas so easily.
“Your skepticism is completely understandable, Joe,” Lucas said. “I was never playing with a full deck.”
Joe looked at him. “My mother,” he said. “I’d like to hear more about her.”
Lucas smiled. “She’d like to hear more about you, too,” he said. “She—”
“Joe?”
Both men turned toward the door at the sound of Janine’s voice. Joe stood up.
“Hi, Janine,” he said, getting to his feet. “I just stopped in to thank Lucas for helping us search for Sophie.”
“Oh,” she said, but she wore a suspicious expression on her face, and he was certain she didn’t believe him. Then she looked at Lucas, and Joe saw the concern in her eyes, the affection, the sort of loving gaze that she’d never had for him.
He started toward the hallway, touching her arm as he passed her. In the doorway, he turned around to look at them. Janine was standing next to Lucas’s chair, and she waved, but it wasn’t Janine he’d turned around to see. He’d just needed to take one more look at the man who claimed to be his brother.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“You’re so quiet today,” Paula said. “And you’ve barely touched your dinner.”
Joe was at her town house, sitting next to her on the sofa, watching the six o’clock news in the hope that it would cover Schaefer’s press conference. He looked guiltily at the TV tray in front of him, at the steak Paula had grilled especially for him; she would never eat red meat, herself. But he had no appetite, no interest in food. And no ability to think about anything but his conversation with Lucas that afternoon.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not very hungry right now.”
“Do you want to try a different channel?” Paula asked.
“No,” he said. “This is fine.” He cut a chunk from the steak. It was perfectly cooked, medium rare, and he raised it to his mouth only to stop it halfway, as the newscaster began to speak again.
“And there’s hope on the horizon for children with kidney failure,” the man said, a lilt in his voice, as though he actually cared. “That story next.”
Joe rested his fork on the side of his plate and reached for the remote to turn up the volume. He’d told Paula that Schaefer was going to have a press conference this afternoon, but he’d said nothing about his conversation with Lucas. He had to sit with that news himself awhile before he could talk about it with anyone else. That secret conversation still felt as though he’d dreamed it.
“What do you think he’s going to say?” Paula asked.
“I’m not sure,” Joe said. “And with Sophie gone, I’m not even sure what to hope for.”
Footage began of the press conference, which had been held at Children’s Hospital. Schaefer was at the podium, with several men and one woman sitting at long tables on either side of him.
Schaefer spoke in his vaguely Boston accent as he described the study. A film was shown of several of his young patients receiving Herbalina—which he called by the more scientific name Joe had heard Lucas use that afternoon: