I'll Be Seeing You by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

Nader.
    It was Nader who spoke. “Meghan, we’re in touch with the FBI. If there’s been any report of a missing woman who fits the description of Thursday night’s stabbing victim, we’ll have it soon. Maybe a lot of answers are tied up together.”
15
    H elene Petrovic loved her job as embryologist in charge of the laboratory of the Manning Clinic. Widowed at twenty-seven, she had emigrated to the United States from Rumania, gratefully accepted the largess of a family friend, worked for her as a cosmetician and begun to go to school at night.
    Now forty-eight, she was a slender, handsome womanwhose eyes never smiled. During the week, Helene lived in New Milford, Connecticut, five miles from the clinic, in the furnished condo she rented. Weekends were spent in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, in the pleasant colonial-style house she owned. The study off her bedroom there was filled with pictures of the children she had helped bring into life.
    Helene thought of herself as the chief pediatrician of a nursery for newborns on the maternity ward of a fine hospital. The difference was that the embryos in her care were more vulnerable than the frailest preemie. She took her responsibility with fierce seriousness.
    Helene would look at the tiny vials in the laboratory, and, knowing the parents and sometimes the siblings, in her mind’s eye she saw the children who might someday be born. She loved them all, but there was one child she loved the best, the beautiful towhead whose sweet smile reminded her of the husband she had lost as a young woman.

    The arraignment of the stockbroker Baxter on inside trader charges took place in the courthouse on Centre Street. Flanked by his two attorneys, the impeccably dressed defendant pleaded not guilty, his firm voice suggesting the authority of the boardroom. Steve was Meg’s cameraman again. “What a con artist. I’d almost rather be back in Connecticut with the Munchkins.”
    â€œI wrote up a memo and left it for Tom—about doing a feature on that clinic. This afternoon I’m going to pitch it to him,” Meghan said.
    Steve winked. “If I ever have kids, I hope I have them the old-fashioned way, if you know what I mean.”
    She smiled briefly. “I know what you mean.”

    At four o’clock, Meghan was again in Tom’s office. “Meghan, let me get this straight. You mean this womanis about to give birth to the identical twin of her three-year-old?”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I mean. That kind of divided birth has been done in England, but it’s news here. Plus the mother in this case is quite interesting. Dina Anderson is a bank vice president, very attractive and well spoken, and obviously a terrific mother. And the three-year-old is a doll.
    â€œAnother point is that so many studies have shown that identical twins, even when separated at birth, grow up with identical tastes. It can be eerie. They may marry people with the same name, call their children by the same names, decorate their houses in the same colors, wear the same hairstyle, choose the same clothes. It would be interesting to know how the relationship would change if one twin is significantly older than the other.
    â€œThink about it,” she concluded. “It’s only fifteen years since the miracle of the first test tube baby, and now there are thousands of them. There are more new breakthroughs in assisted reproduction methods every day. I think ongoing segments on the new methods—and updates on the Anderson twins—could be terrific.”
    She spoke eagerly, warming to her argument. Tom Weicker was not an easy sell.
    â€œHow sure is Mrs. Anderson that she’s having the identical twin?”
    â€œAbsolutely positive. The cryopreserved embryos are in individual tubes, marked with the mother’s name, Social Security number and date of her birth. And each tube is given its own number. After Jonathan’s embryo