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"Have you found any important pieces of this jigsaw puzzle?" Cassidy asked.
"Am I supposed to trust you if I have?"
"Perhaps." Her smile slipped into something sly-looking. "We are family."
"Are we?"
The smile faded, as if she realized that she had gone too far. "Perhaps. Jared
is drumming a different dance, so it's possible. Come on, trust me. Jared will
tell me anyhow. Besides, maybe I can help."
"Well, you can tell me how to get to the Tamastslikt. The woman at the bead
shop said Alicia asked about information on the tribes. Something to do with
my past."
Cassidy worked her jaw, thinking. "So, this Alicia, she knew you?"
"Yes. We're friends."
Cassidy hitched her chin. "Get in. I'll take you out to the institute. I want
to show you something there."
Ukiah peered into the truck's crowded cabin. "There's no room for me."
Cassidy slid back the window behind her, opening it up to the back. "In the
back, Elvis. Back." The dog scrambled into the back. "Zoey, move over." The
girl slid over, making room on the passenger side for
Ukiah. "Come on."
Ukiah went around to the other side of the truck and got in. The cabin was
thick with the smell of cut cedar and white flakes of sawdust whirled about
the floor like snow.
"This is my little sister, Zoey." Cassidy concentrated on merging with the
oncoming traffic. "She's the baby of the family."
Zoey used Cassidy's distraction to turn to him, press a finger to her lips and
plead for his silence with her eyes.
Don't say what?
he tried to communicate silently back, unsure what he wasn't supposed to say.
Surely she didn't think he would say anything about the stolen vials of blood.
Her dark eyes went round, growing bigger, and she repeatedly stabbed the
finger to her mouth, so he took it to mean
Anything!
But she was looking ahead, innocently, when Cassidy glanced over at him,
apparently suspicious of the silence.
"Hi!" he tried.
Zoey rewarded him with a bright smile. "Howdy! I've counted. I'm your
great-great-great-great-great..." Zoey paused, squinting and checking on her
fingers. "...
great-great-great-grand-niece."
My brother or sister's grandchild.
The thought stunned him for a moment. "I-I'm pleased to meet you, Zoey. You
can call me Ukiah. It's what my adopted mothers named me."
What had his real mother named him?
Zoey pressed fingers to his arm. "You feel just like a real person."
"He is a real person," Cassidy murmured.
"Grandpa said that all of him was alive, and that if you took any one piece
away, It'd be alive too.
Every drop of his blood, Grandpa says, can be something else."
Cassidy clearly wasn't as startled as he was by this statement. She looked at
him with mild curiosity, and then said, "Well?"
"Well, yes," Ukiah reluctantly admitted. "That's basically right. That's where
the mice come in."
Zoey dug into her pocket and produced a small box. She opened it up and took
out a rectangle of glass. "Here. Show me."
"What is that?" Cassidy asked.
"A glass slide. It came with my microscope." Seeing Ukiah's confusion, Zoey
explained. "I'm going to be doctor some day, so I asked for a high-quality
microscope for my birthday. I told Grandpa about blood typing and he said that
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you couldn't type Uncle's blood because all of him was alive. That as soon as
he bled, it became something else." She pleaded with her eyes. "Can I see?"
Cassidy threw him a curious look too but said nothing.
"You can't tell other people about it," Ukiah said cautiously.
"Of course not. It's a family secret," Zoey said. "Look, I even got a lancet
from a diabetes kit, and gloves." They were the pale latex gloves they used in
the hospital. "One should always take precautions when handling blood. Please?
It would only pinch for a minute."
"Do you practice that line?" Cassidy asked.
"Of course," Zoey said. "Cough. Breath deeply. Say 'ah.'" Zoey caught his hand
and squeezed it.
"Please?"
"Okay."
"Hold on a minute." Cassidy guided the car to the berm. They were out of town,
on the interstate.
Shorn wheat fields extended off on either side to the horizon. "I want to see
too."
Zoey donned the gloves and lanced his finger with a thin sharp pain. She
milked the blood out of his finger onto the glass slide. The flow stopped, the
wound healing shut despite the pressure, before Zoey could fumble open a
bandage while wearing the gloves. Cassidy had held the slide, and once it was
covered with blood, leaned back, as if she wanted it out of his sphere of
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