Tuesday Tales: From the Word SCOUT

Welcome to this week’s edition of Tuesday Tales, the blog where a small group of authors share their work in progress with you. Each week we write to a selected prompt. This week, out prompt is the word SCOUT. While I have three books on the go, I’m continuing here with The White Dahlia, the fourth book of The Harvester Files.

“By the way, did you know Rachel’s blood type?” Al asked.

“Yeah. She was a universal donor. She used to joke about wasting a valuable commodity every time she cut herself.”

Al swallowed. How right she was.

“Just after we started dating,” Ted continued, “there was a study going on at Columbia, sponsored by some drug company. They were testing a potential cold vaccine, so we volunteered for it. They were offering $1200.00 to qualifying people. The only criteria was that you’d had a cold within the last six months. They ran blood tests on us. I was B positive and she was O negative. Neither one of us had the cold antibodies in our blood they were looking for, but they gave us a hundred bucks for our trouble. We splurged on dinner.”

Al tried to temper his excitement. Was that how they scouted out potential victims?

“Do you remember the name of the clinic?”

“No. It was on 56^th Street, about half a block from Fifth Avenue. If it helps, someone at the hospital mentioned it to us.”

“Which hospital?”

“Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. Rachel had fallen rollerblading and I was afraid she’d broken her ankle. What’s her blood type have to do with this?”

“We’re not sure. I have one more question for you. Was Rachel ever pregnant?”

“Why the hell do you want to know that? If you want answers, I want some, too. And the first one is what’s going on?”

Al sighed. He understood Ted’s frustration all too well.

“Ted, I can’t tell you a lot because I don’t know a lot. When we found Rachel, her body was badly decomposed.” He heard the man at the other end of the line gag. “The medical examiner did a full autopsy and evidence revealed that she’d given birth at some point. Obviously, if there’s a child involved—”

“It won’t be mine,” Ted ground out, his voice now filled with pain and fury. “Rachel and I had a healthy sex life, but she didn’t want children, terrified she would have twins. She never wanted another human being to go through what she did when Sally died. She never felt whole from that day on. I’m sorry. This news has been unsettling.” He cleared his throat. “Have you contacted her Aunt Mae? She would want to her buried in Wichita with the rest of the family.”

That’s it. Stay safe and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales