Chapter 6 - THE CHOICE
I hated Elias Voss before he finished the sentence.
“Only one?”
The fire alarms screamed behind us.
Snow melted against the warm pavement.
Voss looked at the cryogenic container.
“That sample contains a limited viable stem population.”
“Then grow more.”
“No time.”
“Split it.”
“Insufficient cell volume.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Marcus forced Voss against the van and handcuffed him.
“You can explain downtown.”
Voss laughed.
“By the time the police finish booking me, one child will already be beyond rescue.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I called Yates on video.
We showed him the sample label.
His reaction confirmed Voss’s claim partly.
“Theoretically, the tissue could be expanded,” Yates said.
“How long?”
“Several weeks.”
“We don’t have weeks.”
“Could we divide it?”
“Not safely.”
My stomach twisted.
“Which child?”
Yates went silent.
“Which child has the better chance?”
“I cannot answer without current marrow counts.”
“Then get them.”
“I will.”
Voss watched me.
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Not which child gets the sample.”
He smiled.
“Why there is only enough for one.”
Mara froze.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Who removed the rest?”
Voss’s smile disappeared.
“Victor.”
I stared at him.
“My uncle?”
“He moved most of the archive three years ago.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He stopped trusting me.”
“Smartest thing he ever did.”
Voss laughed softly.
“You think Victor is the villain because he lied to you. Victor thinks I am because I broke ethical rules. Yates thinks Northstar was corrupted by investors. Your wife thought everyone was guilty.”
He looked toward Mara.
“Evelyn thought she could save children by stealing records.”
Then back to me.
“They all saw pieces.”
“And you?”
“I saw the whole machine.”
“What machine?”
“The one powerful people build when they want miracles but don’t want responsibility for how miracles are made.”
I hated that sentence because it sounded almost wise.
“Where is the rest of the tissue?”
“Ask Victor.”
We rushed the container back to Chicago under armed escort.
Marcus handed Voss to federal investigators he trusted rather than local police, because by then I trusted almost nobody.
At the estate, Jonah’s fever had climbed.
Blythe required another platelet transfusion.
I stood between their beds as Yates examined the recovered sample.
He looked exhausted.
“It is viable.”
“How long to prepare it?”
“Six hours.”
“For one child.”
“Yes.”
Blythe stirred.
“Daddy?”
I walked to her.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Why are you crying?”
I hadn’t realized I was.
“I’m tired.”
She smiled weakly.
“You always say tired people should sleep.”
“I’m not good at following my own rules.”
Jonah opened his eyes.
“Is Aunt Celia coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“She promised Monopoly.”
Blythe whispered, “Jonah cheats.”
“I do not.”
“You hide money.”
“That’s banking.”
For ten seconds, they were six again.
Not patients.
Not genetic experiments.
My children.
I left before they could see me break.
Victor sat under guard in the library.
I placed a photograph of the sample on the table.
“Where is the rest?”
He stared at it.
“You found Rockford.”
“Where is the rest?”
“I destroyed it.”
My blood turned cold.
“No.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because Voss planned to restart the program.”
“You destroyed something that could save my children?”
“I didn’t know this would happen.”
“You knew their genetics were unstable.”
“We believed the correction had held.”
“We?”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Genevieve and me.”
I stared.
“She helped you destroy it?”
“She insisted.”
That didn’t sound right.
He continued.
“We moved the archives after Northstar closed. Genevieve wanted every embryo-derived sample destroyed so nobody could use your children’s genome again.”
“What about the fetal tissue?”
“She couldn’t do it.”
“The baby.”
“Yes.”
“So you preserved one sample.”
“One.”
“No backups?”
Victor looked away.
I knew.
“There is another.”
Silence.
“Victor.”
He whispered, “There may be.”
“Where?”
“Genevieve took it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You lie when you’re afraid.”
His eyes rose.
“She said if anything happened to her, the sample would be where you first promised to grow old together.”
My breath stopped.
Genevieve and I had made a thousand promises.
But that sentence belonged to one place.
Lake Geneva.
Not the town.
A cottage twenty minutes west of it.
My father had owned it before selling the property years ago.
It was where I proposed.
Where Genevieve and I spent our first married summer.
Where we carved our initials beneath the back porch.
The cottage now belonged to strangers.
Marcus found the owners.
They were in Florida for the winter.
We obtained permission to enter.
Before we left, Mara approached me in the hall.
“You should stay with the twins.”
“You go.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You know Genevieve’s records better than anyone except your mother did.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll know where she hid something.”
I handed her a photograph.
Genevieve and me at the cottage.
“Look beneath the porch.”
Marcus took Mara and two security officers.
I stayed.
Those next three hours were the longest of my life.
Yates brought me the latest test results.
“Jonah is weaker.”
“So he gets the sample.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“What does that mean?”
“Blythe’s markers suggest faster progression.”
“So she gets it.”
“Lawson.”
I looked at him.
“If we have only one treatment, choosing based on tonight’s numbers would be medically questionable.”
“Then tell me what isn’t questionable.”
He looked defeated.
“Nothing.”
I sat beside my children.
At 3:40 in the afternoon, my phone rang.
Mara.
“We found something.”
I stood.
“The sample?”
“A box.”
“Open it.”
“It has your name.”
Inside the box were three objects.
A handwritten letter.
A small silver key.
And an old photograph of Genevieve standing beside a bank vault.
On the back:
For when medicine becomes business.
The key belonged to a private safe-deposit facility in Chicago.
Marcus called ahead.
The vault had been untouched since three months before Genevieve died.
We raced there.
I brought Yates.
Inside the deposit box sat another cryogenic locator certificate.
Not a sample.
A storage receipt.
BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL TRANSFERRED TO HARBOR CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL.
PRIVATE CORD BLOOD BANK.
Quantity: two units.
Two.
Not one.
Two units.
I nearly collapsed.
“Enough for both?” I asked.
Yates read the document.
“If viable, yes.”
For the first time since Tuesday morning, hope felt larger than fear.
Then the bank manager entered the room.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a complication.”
Of course there was.
He held another document.
“The storage receipt was amended eighteen months ago.”
“By whom?”
He showed me.
Authorized transfer request.
One unit remained at Harbor Children’s Hospital.
The second had been moved.
Destination:
REDACTED BY COURT ORDER.
I stared.
“Who requested the transfer?”
May you like
The signature at the bottom belonged to Celia Ward.
My children’s nanny.
