a roll, stood back up, kept running. They spotted the small house, barely visible in the faint moonlight. There were no lights on inside, no hint of life. Myron did not bother trying the knob this time. He took it full on, crashing the door down. More darkness. He heard a cry, turned, fumbled for the light switch, flipped it up.
Jeremy was there.
He was chained to a wall — dirty and terrified and still very much alive.
Myron felt his knees buckle, but he fought them and stayed upright. He ran to the boy. The boy stretched out his arms. Myron embraced him and felt his heart fall and shatter. Jeremy was crying. Myron lifted his hand and stroked the boy's hair and shushed him. Like his father. Like his father had done to him countless times. A sudden, beautiful warmth streamed through his veins, tingling his fingers and toes, and for a moment, Myron thought that maybe he understood what his father felt. Myron had always cherished being on the son side of the hug, but now, for just the most fleeting of moments, he experienced something so much stronger — the intensity and overwhelming depth of being on the other side — that it shook every part of him.
'You're okay,' Myron said to him, cupping the boy's head. 'It's over now.'
But it wasn't.
An ambulance came. Jeremy was put inside. Myron called Dr. Karen Singh. She didn't mind being woken at five in the morning. He told her everything.
'Wow,' Karen Singh said when he finished.
'Yes.'
'We'll get someone to harvest the marrow right away. I'll start prepping Jeremy in the afternoon.'
'You mean with chemo.'
'Yes,' she said. 'You done good, Myron. Either way, you should be proud.'
'Either way?'
'Come by my office tomorrow afternoon.'
Myron felt a thumping in his chest. 'What's up?'
'The paternity test,' she said. 'The results should be in by then.'
Jeremy was on his way to the hospital. Myron wandered back outside. The feds were digging. The news vans were there. Stan Gibbs watched the mounds of earth grow, his face now beyond emotion. No sound, not even the crickets now, except for shovel hitting dirt. Myron's knee was acting up. He felt bone-weary. He wanted to find Emily. He wanted to go to the hospital. He wanted to know the results of that test and then he wanted to know what he was going to do with them.
He climbed back up the hill toward the car. More media. Someone called out to him. He ignored them. There were more federal officers working in silence. Myron walked past them. He didn't have the heart to hear what they'd found. Not just yet.
When he reached the top of the landing — when he saw Kimberly Green and the lifeless expression on her face — his heart took one more plummet.
He took another step. 'Greg?' he said.
She shook her head, her eyes hazy and unfocused. 'They shouldn't have left him alone,' she said. 'They should have watched him. Even after a careful search. You can never search too carefully.'
'Search who?'
'Edwin Gibbs.'
Myron was sure he'd heard wrong. 'What about him?'
'They just found him,' she said, having trouble with the words. 'He committed suicide in his cell.'
Chapter 39
Karen Singh summed it up for them: You can't get bone marrow from a dead man. Emily did not collapse when she heard the news. She took the blow without blinking and immediately segued to the next step. She was on a calmer plane now, somewhere just outside panic.
'We have incredible access to the media right now,' Emily said. They were sitting in Karen Singh's hospital office. 'We'll make pleas. We'll set up bone marrow drives. The NBA will help. We'll get players to make appearances.'
Myron nodded, but the enthusiasm wasn't there. Dr. Singh mimicked his motion.
'When will you have the paternity results?' Emily asked.
'I was just about to call for them,' Dr. Singh said.
'I'll leave you two alone, then,' Emily said. 'I have a press conference downstairs.'
Myron looked at her. 'You don't want to wait for the results?'
'I already know the results.'
Emily left without a backward glance. Karen Singh looked at Myron. Myron folded his hands and put them in his lap.
'You ready?' she asked.
He nodded.
Karen Singh picked up the phone and dialed. Someone on the other end answered. Karen read off a reference number. She waited, tapping a pencil on the desk. Someone on the other end said something. Karen said, 'Thank you,' hung up, focused her eyes on Myron.
'You're the father.'
Myron found Emily in the hospital lobby, giving the press conference. The hospital had set up a podium with their logo perfectly positioned behind it, sure to be picked up by any and all television cameras. Hospital logo. Like they were McDonald's or Toyota, trying to sleaze some free advertising. Emily's statement was direct and heartfelt. Her son was dying. He needed new bone marrow. Everyone who wanted to help should give blood and get registered. She plucked the strings of societal grieving, making sure it rang personal in the same way that Princess Diana's and John Kennedy Jr.'s deaths rang personal, wanting the public to mourn as if they actually knew him. The power of celebrity.
When she finished her statement, Emily hurried off without answering questions. Myron caught up to her in the closed-off area near the elevators. She glanced at him. He nodded, and she smiled.
'So now what are you going to do?' she asked him.
'We have to save him,' Myron said.
'Yes.'
Behind them the press were still yelling out questions. The sound trickled and then faded into the background. Someone ran by with an empty gurney.
'You said Thursday was the optimum day,' Myron said.
Hope lit her eyes. 'Yes.'
'Okay, then,' he said. 'We try it on Thursday.'
The bullet that had struck Greg had entered in the lower part of his neck and traversed toward his chest. It had stopped short of the heart. But it had done plenty of damage anyway. He survived surgery but remained unconscious in 'critical' and 'guarded' condition. Myron looked in on him. Greg had tubes in his nose and a frightening assortment of machinery Myron hoped never to understand. He looked like a corpse, waxen and gray- white and sucked dry. Myron sat with him for a few minutes. But not very long.
He returned to the offices of MB SportsReps the next day.
'Lamar Richardson is coming in this afternoon,' Esperanza said.
'I know.'
'You okay?'
'Dandy.'
'Life goes on, huh?'
'Guess so.'
Special Agent Kimberly Green came semi-bouncing by a few minutes later. 'It's all wrapping up,' she told him, and for the first time he saw her smile.
Myron sat back. 'I'm listening.'
