The Common Lawyer (41 page)

"Will there be enough stem cells for everyone?"

"No."

"Who will decide who lives or dies? You?"

"Yes."

"And what happens to her when all this becomes public?"

"It won't. It will all be anonymous. I guarantee it."

Frankie shook her head.

"No one can keep that kind of secret. It'll get out. And when it does, the media will descend on her. She'll be turned into a freak show. She'll never live a normal life. She'll never go to college or get married or have children. She'll always be a freak."

"Mrs. Doyle, I'll be the only person at the hospital who knows her real name. I'll admit her as 'Baby X.' Her name will not be on any hospital record or in the computer. I can keep a secret."

"And you won't want to tell the world? Write about your great discovery? Of course you will. You'll want to share it with the world. You'll want the credit. The glory."

A faint smile. "I've already thought about that. I'll write up the research as if you're the patient. Patient X, not Baby X. Twenty-five to thirty-five-year-old woman. No one will know the patient is really a child."

"They'll know you're the author."

"I'll write the research anonymously."

"They'll find you. And when they find you, they find her."

"We can pay."

Frankie looked up from the fire.

"So we did it."

"Why?"

"We owed thirty thousand to the IRS—Mickey played games with the shop's taxes. They were threatening to take our home and Mickey's shop."

"How much did Falco pay you?"

"Fifty thousand. To start."

"That's a lot of money."

"Not with Mickey spending it. We paid off the taxes, Mickey gambled the rest away. Drinking, gambling, fighting—you marry the wrong man, it's like a bad dream you never wake up from."

"So you took her to the hospital?"

She nodded. "In Ithaca. She was so scared. I knew it was wrong. Mickey went back home, I stayed with her. They ran tests on her every day, confirmed that she was 'the cure.' That's what they called her. They wanted us to move, live there so they could study her the rest of her life. She'd be like an animal in a zoo. I said, What about school? They said, No, she can't go back to school. She's too important to take that risk. The world needed her. They'd have tutors for her at the hospital. Scientists from all over the world would come there to study her. Baby X."

Andy looked over at Jessie.

"She cried every day, begged me to stop the tests. She wanted to go home. Mickey wanted the money."

"What'd you do?"

"I knew it would never end as long as they were paying Mickey. They said there would be lots of money for us once we moved there—a house, cars, everything we needed or wanted. Of course, Mickey, he was all for it. Said it was like she had won
American Idol
. So I had to get Mickey out of her life. I went home and when Mickey got drunk, I taunted him until he hit me. He beat me up pretty good. I called the cops and pressed charges, filed for divorce. He'd been convicted twice before for assault, bar fights, so this time he would go to prison. Three strikes. To stay out of prison, he agreed to give up his parental rights. Then I took her from the hospital and we vanished."

"Why couldn't you just check her out of the hospital? She's your kid."

"We signed something, they paid us. They wouldn't just let her walk out the door. She was too important. They knew about her, and others would, too. I knew we had to escape and change our identities. That was the only way she'd be safe."

"What've you been living on?"

"The second payment. Another fifty thousand. I kept it from Mickey."

"Smart. How'd you learn to change your identity?"

"The Internet. At libraries."

"So you've been running for three years but never knew if anyone was actually chasing you?"

"I knew it was just a matter of time."

"Why?"

"Because she has what everyone wants."

"Which is?"

"Immortality. Or as close as we can get to immortality. Think about it, Andy. With her stem cells, you wouldn't die of cancer. Guaranteed. Live to be a hundred, disease-free. What would you pay for that? What's Russell Reeves willing to pay for that?"

"For his son."

"He wants to save his son. The next rich guy will want to save himself."

She tossed another branch into the fire.

"What are we going to do, Andy?"

Russell Reeves sat in a chair next to his son's bed; he was holding Zach's hand. The girl was his only hope. The cell phone rang. Russell looked at the caller ID and answered.

"Andy, where are you?"

"Frankie told me the truth, Russell. I know it's the girl you want. And why. How'd you find out about her?"

"My scientists searched the world for a stem cell match for Zach. One of them said, If only they could get stem cells from Patient X, supposedly a woman. The others laughed because most scientists thought Patient X was just a hoax. I decided to find out if Patient X was real or a hoax."

"How?"

"We found a source at the New York shop that printed the medical journals with the Patient X articles. He gave us Falco's name."

"Is that what Laurence Smith was doing for you in New York?"

"Yes."

"And now he's dead."

"Random crime, Andy. It happens here, too."

"And Mickey?"

"It happens in Boston, too."

"And then what?"

"We found Falco in China, at a stem cell research facility. He refused to give us Patient X's name. So we went to the last U.S. hospital he worked at—St. Aloysius Children's Research Hospital in Ithaca. The administrator was agreeable to an arrangement."

"A bribe?"

"A donation. He didn't have her name, but a hundred million got us three items: One, there was no '
Patient
X.' There was 'Baby X.' Not a woman, but a child. Two, a list of the women whose children were in Falco's research program back then; he ran tests on the mothers, too. And three, Baby X's DNA sample."

"That's why you needed her DNA."

"Yes. To confirm it was really her. And it was her DNA, wasn't it?"

"Yes. So all those women …?"

"Mothers of children in the research wing of the hospital at the same time as Baby X. The children were anonymous, but not their parents. We just didn't know which mother's child was Baby X."

"I wasn't searching for the women. I was searching for their children."

"For one child. Baby X."

"That's why all the other kids were sick."

"Yes."

"Why'd you give them money, those other women?"

"Because their children are sick."

"And you knew the sick kids couldn't be Baby X?"

"Yes. We were looking for the one child who wasn't sick. You found her."

"And when you're finished with her?"

"I'll give her mother ten million dollars. Or twenty. Or fifty. I don't care how much. If she'll save Zach. I'll set them up with new names, money, everything. Somewhere they'll be safe."

"Safe from whom?"

"Andy, there'll always be someone looking for Baby X. Her secrets will never be safe."

"I don't think she'll sell her child."

"I don't want to buy her, Andy. I just want to buy her stem cells. Zach needs them."

"And you'd kidnap her to get them? What was your plan, Russell?"

"Try to buy her stem cells. If that failed, then kidnap them, sedate them, extract her stem cells, and release them … with ten million in their bank account, wired from an offshore account untraceable to me."

"The perfect crime."

"A necessary crime."

"Every crime has a victim."

"What would you do, Andy, to save your son?"

"I wouldn't kidnap a kid."

"Are you sure about that? If she meant life or death for your child? If you had the money—the power—to do that, to kidnap a child for a short time, just to extract her stem cells, would you just watch your son die? Because her mother doesn't want to share the girl's gift?"

"It's wrong, Russell."

"How can it be wrong to save your son?"

"When it hurts someone else."

"I didn't hurt anyone, Andy. I tried to buy a longer life for my son. Why is that wrong? Zach will die without her stem cells. Do you want that?"

"No."

"Then bring her in."

"I can't make them, Russell."

"Andy, talk to her, please. I'll pay whatever she wants."

"You hired me for the SoCo projects so I'd already be your lawyer when you got her name and needed someone to find her."

"Yes. We thought we were close to getting the name. Instead, we got seventeen names."

"Why me?"

"C student, Andy. You wouldn't ask too many questions … or know the questions to ask. And you needed money. You wouldn't risk losing the fees. You were perfect."

"I was stupid."

"You were human. You needed money. I needed the girl. Will you talk to Frankie? For me?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you're my lawyer."

"I
was
your lawyer."

"Because I can help you."

"I don't need your help."

"Your father does."

"How can you help him?"

"I can get him a new liver."

"How?"

"A phone call."

"You can do that?"

"Yes, Andy, I can do that. Fifteen billion dollars still means something in this world. I can make a call and move your father to the top of the waiting list. I can buy your father a longer life—if the girl will save Zach's life."

Frankie said, "What did Reeves say?"

Andy told her. When he finished, she said, "So if he gets Jessie's stem cells, he'll get a liver for Paul?"

"That's what he said."

"Do you believe him?"

Andy nodded. "He's not a bad person, Frankie. He's just desperate. His son is going to die."

"I'll talk to Jessie in the morning. It's her decision."

Jessie rolled over and sat up.

"I'll do it. I'll do it to save the little boy. And Paul."

"She'll do it, Russell," Andy said into the cell phone. "It's too late to come in tonight. Send Darrell and the limo out here in the morning. We're at the Blanco State Park. We'll meet him at the park store."

"He'll be there at dawn. I'll have the doctors standing by. Thanks, Andy."

"Russell, make the call. For my dad."

They hung up.

"He'll save Paul?" Frankie said.

Andy nodded. He lay back in the warmth of the fire and stared at the stars above. Was it right to use Russell Reeves' money and power to save his father? To move him up the waiting list ahead of others who ranked higher? Was his father more deserving to live than the others? Was it cheating? Was it right? Or wrong? What would he do if he had Russell's money and could buy his father a longer life? What were the rules when it came to saving your father's life?

Or your son's life?

TWENTY-FOUR

Russell Reeves had changed Andy Prescott's life again.

He woke at dawn with a mane of hair across his face and an arm across his chest. But they didn't belong to Suzie or Bobbi or another Whole Foods girl. They belonged to Frankie. Of course, she was completely dressed, they had not gotten drunk at Qua the night before, and they had not had sex. She stirred and realized her position.

"Sorry. I must've gotten cold."

But she didn't move. He looked at her; she looked for Jessie.

"She went down to the river."

When she turned back, he kissed her. She started to kiss him back, then pulled away.

"Andy, I have to protect Jessie. I can't get involved. You're a good guy but—"

"But what?"

"But I've already got one child to raise. I can't take on another."

"You mean me?"

"You're suffering deferred adolescence. Like Mickey did."

"Is that a disease?"

"It was for me, living with Mickey. He refused to grow up. Like you, except you don't get drunk and beat up your wife."

"I don't have a wife."

"You wouldn't if you did."

She removed her arm and sat up.

"I need coffee."

Andy stood. "I'll check up at the store. See if Darrell's here. You'll like him … about as much as a root canal."

Andy took care of his restroom duties then rode the Slammer up to the store at the front of the park.