Harlan Coben - Long Lost

“Yes.”

“Jones implied that you might have been lying about that DNA test in Paris.”

Berleand said nothing.

“I know you were telling the truth,” I said.

“How?”

But I had already said too much. “I have some calls to make. I’ll call you back.”

I hung up and called my parents. I was hoping my father would answer, so naturally my mother picked up.

“Mom, it’s me.”

“Hello, darling.” Mom sounded tired. “I’m just back from the doctor.”

“Are you okay?”

“You can read about it on my blog tonight,” Mom said.

“Hold up, you just got back from the doctor, right?”

Mom sighed. “I just said that, didn’t I?”

“Right, so I’m asking about your health.”

“That’s going to be my blog topic. If you want to know more, read it.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“Don’t take it personally, sweetie. This way I don’t have to repeat myself when someone else asks.”

“So you blog about it instead?”

“It increases traffic to my site. See, now you’re interested, am I right? So I’ll get more hits.”

My mother, ladies and gentlemen.

“I didn’t even know you had a blog.”

“Oh, sure, I’m very now, very today, very hip. I’m on MyFace too.”

I heard my father in the background shout out, “It’s MySpace, Ellen.”

“What?”

“It’s called MySpace.”

“I thought it was MyFace.”

“That’s Facebook. You have one of those too. And MySpace.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Listen to Mr. Billy Gates back there. Knows everything about the Internet all of a sudden.”

“And your mother is fine,” Dad yelled out.

“Don’t tell him,” she whined. “Now he won’t click my blog.”

“Mom, this is important. Can I talk to Dad for a minute?”

Dad came on. I explained quickly and with as little detail as possible. Again Dad got it. He didn’t question or argue. I had just finished explaining about how we’d get someone to pick them up and take them to the compound when my call waiting beeped in another call. It was Terese.

I finished up with my father and switched over.

“I’m about two minutes from you,” I said to Terese. “Stay inside until I get there.”

Silence.

“Terese?”

“She called.”

I heard the sob in her voice.

“Who called?”

“Miriam. I just got off the phone with her.”

I met her at the door.

“Tell me what happened.”

Her whole body shook. She moved close to me and I held her and closed my eyes. This conversation, I knew, would be devastating. I got it now. I got why Rick Collins told her to be prepared. I got why he warned that what he would say would change her entire life.

“My phone rang. I picked it up and a girl on the other end said, ‘Mommy?’ ”

I tried to imagine the moment, hearing that word from your own child, believing it was someone you loved more than anything else in the world and that you had a hand in killing.

“What else did she say?”

“They were holding her hostage.”

“Who?”

“Terrorists. She said not to tell anyone.”

I said nothing.

“A man with a thick accent took the phone away from her then. He said he’d call back with demands.”

I just held her.

“Myron?”

We managed to find our way to the couch. She looked at me with hope and-I know how this will sound-love. My heart was cracking in my chest as I handed her the photograph.

“This is the blond girl I saw in Paris and London,” I said.

She studied the picture for a full minute without speaking. Then: “I don’t understand.”

I wasn’t sure what to say here. I wondered if she saw the resemblance, if maybe some of the pieces were coming together for her too.

“Myron?”

“That’s the girl I saw,” I said again.

She shook her head.

I knew the answer, but I asked the question anyway: “What’s wrong?”

“That’s not Miriam,” she said.

She looked down again, wiped her eyes. “Maybe, I don’t know, maybe if Miriam had some facial surgery and it’s been a lot of years. Looks change, right? She was seven the last time I saw her. . ”

Her eyes jumped back to my face, hoping to find some reassurance. I offered her none. I realized that the time had come, dived in headfirst.

“Miriam is dead,” I said.

The blood slowly drained from her face. My heart shattered anew. I wanted to reach out to her, but I knew that it would be the wrong move. She swam through it, tried to stay rational, knew how important this all was. “But that phone call. .?”

“Your name has come up in some chatter. My guess is, they’re trying to draw you out.”

She looked back down at the picture. “So it was all a hoax?”

“No.”

“But you just said. .” Terese was trying so hard to stay with me. I tried to think of the best way to say this and realized that there was none. I would have to let her see it the way I had.

“Let’s go back a few months,” I said, “when Rick found out he had Huntington’s disease.”

She just looked at me.

“What would he have done first?” I asked.

“Have his son tested.”

“Right.”

“So?”

“So he also went to CryoHope. I kept thinking that he went there to find a cure.”

“He didn’t?”

“No,” I said. “Do you know a Dr. Everett Sloan?”

“No. Wait, I saw the name on the brochure. He works for CryoHope.”

“Right,” I said. “He also took over the practice of Dr. Aaron Cox.”

She said nothing.

“I just found out his name,” I said. “But Cox was your ob-gyn. When you and Rick had Miriam.”

Terese just stared at me.

“You and Rick had serious fertility issues. You told me about how difficult it was until, well, what you called a medical miracle, though it’s rather common. In vitro fertilization.”

She still wouldn’t or couldn’t talk.

“In vitro, by definition, is where eggs are fertilized by sperm outside the womb and then the embryo is transferred into the woman’s uterus. You mentioned taking Pergonal to up your egg count. This happens in almost every instance. And then there are the extra embryos. For the past twenty-plus years, the embryos have been frozen. Sometimes they were thawed for use in stem cell research. Sometimes they were used when the couple wanted to try again. Sometimes, when one spouse died, the other would use it, or if you’ve just found out you have cancer and still want a kid. You know all this. There are complex legal issues involving divorce and custody, and many embryos are simply destroyed or stay frozen while a couple decides.”

I swallowed because by now she had to see where I was going with this. “What happened to your extra embryos?”

“It was our fourth try,” Terese said. “None of the embryos had taken. You can’t imagine how crushing that was. And when it finally worked, it was such a wonderful happy surprise. . ” Her voice drifted off. “We only had two more embryos. We were going to save them in case we wanted to try again, but then my fibroids came up and, well, there was no way I could get pregnant again. Dr. Cox told me that the embryos hadn’t survived the freezing process anyway.”

“He lied,” I said.

She looked back at the picture of the blond girl.

“There is a charity called Save the Angels. They are against any sort of embryonic stem cell research or destruction of embryos in any way, shape, or form. For nearly two decades they’ve lobbied for the embryos to be adopted, if you will. It makes sense. There are hundreds of thousands of stored embryos, and there are couples who could conceive with those embryos and give them a life. The legal issues are complicated. Most states don’t allow embryo adoptions because, in a sense, the birth mother is no more than a surrogate. Save the Angels wants the stored embryos implanted in infertile women.”