The Gender Experiment: (A Thriller) Read Free Page B

it simple was her motto. Inside the safe was her birth certificate, high school diploma, social security card, pearl earrings that had belonged to her mother, and a hundred dollars she kept for emergencies.
    Taylor scanned the birth certificate, not finding the doctor’s name. She looked again more slowly. There it was, near the bottom, in the middle box. But what the heck did it say? The first two letters of the first name were CH, and the rest was a squiggle. Charles? Chuck? There weren’t many options. The last name started with an M, then the signature shot out in a dramatic line. No help at all.
Damn.
    Maybe she would skip her morning classes and drive down to Fort Carson tomorrow and talk to the receptionist in person. Show the woman the birth certificate and see if she recognized the obstetrician’s name—then find the doctor and talk to him. What if he was retired now? That would make it more challenging, but she’d try anyway. She also needed to track down Logan and Adrian’s birth certificates. But how? From their parents?
    The thought made her cringe. This was really out of her comfort zone. But talking to grieving people would be a big part of her internship, so she had to get used to it. She closed the safe, keeping the birth certificate in hand, and pushed the plastic tub back into the closet. “Later, Mom,” she whispered, closing the door. Respect for the dead was a military motto, and she’d learned it young. Now that she worked with corpses all day, it was ingrained. Or maybe her acceptance of death had compelled her into the morgue as an intern.
Whatever.
She had to start a load of laundry, eat some protein, and write a paper for her sociology class.
    By ten o’clock, her eyes hurt and she was exhausted. Taylor grabbed her laptop and phone from beside her on the couch and heard the familiar ping of a text. Probably Justin again. He usually texted late, after he’d had a beer or two. He’d been bugging her to hang out with him, but she only liked him as a friend. If her body were normal, she would have hooked up with him just for the experience, but she was a freak and didn’t plan to get naked with anyone she would ever see again. At least not yet.
    She tapped the message icon, not recognizing the number of the text, but the sender was obvious:
Your call stirred up a lot of old memories. I looked back through the files and found a list. Give me your email address and I’ll send it to you.
    A list! Taylor sucked in her breath. That meant there were more dual-gender babies born through the clinic. She quickly texted:
Thnx! [email protected]
    After a short wait, she checked her email, but a new message hadn’t come yet. She texted the receptionist again:
Why so many intersex babies? What happened at the clinic?
    Her phone stayed silent. Taylor walked over to the fish tank, knowing it would help her keep calm. The biggest clown fish swam by, and she watched it dart through the rocks. The old woman’s contact had surprised her. Taylor certainly hadn’t expected to get a text from her. She didn’t seem the type. Where had the receptionist gotten her number? From her earlier incoming call?
    A beep in her hand made Taylor jump. She looked at the phone. An email this time. No message, just an attachment. Taylor left the file unopened and hurried to her laptop on the couch. She wanted to open the list on the big screen where she could scroll, save, and print it.
    The email was from an anonymous Hotmail account. The receptionist was being careful to mask her identity. Or was the woman trying to hide the communication from someone else? Fingers trembling, Taylor opened the attachment, a plain-text file with a long list of names and birth dates. A fast count tallied thirty-three. Four had checkmarks by their names. Her chest tightened. Logan Hurtz and Adrian Warsaw were both marked. So were two others: Zion Tumara and Seth Wozac. Were they also dead? Or targeted for death?
    After a second run through,