The Common Lawyer

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.'