Conceptus: A Laura Drummond Mystery

14-year-old LAURA DRUMMOND survives an assault that leaves her in a coma for a year.  Twenty-four years later, Laura is a homicide detective in Columbus, Ohio. Commitment phobic, she moves from one meaningless relationship to another, but a woman named Sharon may just change that.

Co-ed CINDY MULGRAVE walks across Ohio State’s campus. A security camera watches a man shrouded in the cover of the deep woods nearby. Later, Cindy’s lifeless body is discovered.

Laura hears from the coroner.  Six stab wounds and a slash – like a C-section. Cindy was sexually assaulted, but no DNA is discovered, and no trace evidence at all except the surveillance video of a man in a gray hoodie.

Laura and Sharon’s relationship intensifies. Laura tells her about the attack she survived and the eerie similarities to the case she’s working on now.

The killer’s second victim, MARIA CANAZALES, 49, was a dental tech. She was sexually assaulted, stabbed six times, and slashed low across her stomach. Laura discovers that Maria had been a nurse in the maternity ward at the Catholic hospital.  They catch a break, DNA taken at the Canazales crime matches RORY CALLAHAN, 24.

Rory is arrested and interrogated Rory. Laura learns that Rory was born at the same time that she was in the hospital 24 years prior. She finds that Rory was adopted through Catholic Services.

The third victim is a priest named Father O’Hara. O’Hara had been sodomized and stabbed six times, and there is another slash low across his abdomen.  Forensics come back, and there’s an issue. The DNA matches Rory, and he’s in prison. Taking a big risk, they have a police sketch artist make a poster of Rory. It isn’t long before a pedestrian spots a man that matches the drawing and calls the tip line.

The police descend on Larry Katz, and he is the spitting image of Rory. Laura finds that Rory and Larry were born on the same day; that was about the time she was in the hospital giving birth. She has to face the possibility that she’s these twin boy’s mother.

Laura interviews a retired nun who was in charge of the Catholic Charities Adoption Agency at the time she gave birth.

Laura learns an astounding truth that will rock her world and put the woman she loves in jeopardy.