Mariah Stewart - Cry Mercy

“So you sort of pick through the available data until you find a donor who has what you're looking for,” Emme said. “You want blond hair and blue eyes and a propensity for higher mathematics and when you find a donor on the list who has those traits, you say, I'd like donor number twelve?”

“That's right.” Dr. Drake nodded.

“So with just her donor number, and that Web address, Belinda could locate these other kids.” Nick pondered the possibilities.

“She could find her donor siblings, yes, Mr. Perone. There are almost twelve thousand donor offspring registered on that one website alone. I've been told that almost five thousand donor siblings have been matched already.”

“Five thousand?” Nick frowned. “How many of these donor kids are there?”

“The estimate is between thirty and forty thousand born every year. But again, because there are no regulations, no one really knows for certain.”

“And any one of those kids could be related to Belinda?”

Dr. Drake shrugged. “The sky's the limit, Mr. Perone. Donor 1735 was a popular guy. We sold a lot of his sperm.”

“Like how much?”

“Over fifty vials. That was back in the day before we starting limiting the number of reported births to eight from any one donor. But remember, every vial did not result in a birth. Some resulted in multiple births. Some vials were frozen and never used. Some were passed on to friends.”

“I get the picture,” Nick nodded.

“As I said”-Dr. Drake took a few steps toward the door to indicate, Emme assumed, that their time was up-“the sky's the limit.”

So the first thing we need to do is find a computer.” Nick said as they passed through the front door of Heaven's Gate.

“I've got that covered,” Emme told him. “My laptop is in your car in my briefcase. What we need is a coffee shop that has Wi-Fi.”

“That shouldn't be too hard to find.” They arrived at the car and got in. Nick started the engine impatiently. “Though maybe we should look for a town. We're more likely to find a coffee shop there than on the interstate.”

He gunned the engine on the way out of the parking lot and bolted into traffic. They followed the main road over a series of hills, past wooded areas and old farms. Finally, Emme touched his arm, then pointed to a small strip mall.

“There, on the left. Starbucks.”

“Hey, it's even a drive-through.” Nick made the turn and parked out front. “They don't look very busy.”

“As long as the coffee is hot and the wireless connections are good, that's all we need.” Emme grabbed her briefcase from the floor next to her feet and got out of the car. “You get the coffee, I'll get the table and get this going.”

“Fair enough. What would you like?”

“Decaf grande latte. One sweetener. Whole milk.”

“Got it.”

Emme took a table near the back wall and set up her laptop. By the time Nick returned with two coffees and a package of cookies, she was ready to roll. He took the chair nearest to hers and moved it as close as he could in order to see the computer screen. She tried to ignore the fact that they were thigh to thigh in the small space.

“You have the Web address of that site Dr. Drake told us about?” she asked.

He handed her the slip of paper and she copied the URL into her browser, and waited for the website to pull up.

“Here we go,” she said as the home page opened on her screen. “Started by a woman in L.A. who has three kids from three different donors. Wanted to see if they could find other kids from each of their donors, yada yada yada.

“Apparently they did… big picnic three years ago, everyone invited. Has reunion every summer, kids and their parents, grows in number every year as more siblings are identified, blah blah blah.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” he muttered.

“It says here that last summer not all the invitees attended but there were still over sixty people.” She glanced up at him. “Can you imagine?”

“No. Get to the part where it tells you how you find someone.”

She read silently while he sipped his coffee. Every time he moved, his thigh rubbed against hers. She stole a glance at him but he didn't appear to have noticed. She tried to scoot over but there was nowhere to move her chair.

“You have to go to the message board and look for other kids who have the same donor number. In our case, we're looking for donor number…”

“Number 1735.”

“Right, 1735,” she repeated and pulled up the message board. “Let's see if anyone is talking about Donor 1735 and his offspring.”

She scanned the messages for several moments.

“Oh! Here we go.” She sat up a little straighter. “Look at this folder. Donor Sibs 1735.”

She clicked on the icon, Nick leaning over her shoulder.

“We can't read the posts.” She read the heading. “You have to send the group a message and ask to be approved as a member before they'll open the messages to you. But you can post a message.”

She slid the laptop from its position in front of her to the space in front of Nick.

“Go ahead. Send them a message,” she said. “Tell them who you are, that you're trying to find Belinda.”

She paused. “Deb said everyone called her Belle. Use that instead of Belinda.”

“Just, Hi, I'm Nick, I'm Belle's uncle. She's been missing for five months and I'm desperate to find her?”

“That's a good start.” She nodded, and he began to type. “You might say something like, she's my only relative and I'm trying to find her. That's important, I think, because these kids come to sites like this because many of them feel they have no one except their mothers, so they should relate to your situation.”

“Good point.” He typed for a few minutes, then turned the laptop in her direction and asked, “How's that?”

Emme leaned in and read to herself.

“It's a good start. But I think you need to go further. Say you're trying to find her but you've run out of possibilities, that you've spoken with all her friends from school but no one's been able to help. Ask if she's been in contact with anyone on the list, if anyone knows where she is or has any ideas of someplace she might have gone. Had she mentioned taking a trip? Anything at all that might lead you in the right direction.”

“Hold up.” Nick frowned. “I can't type as fast as you talk.”

He continued to type. Finally he tilted the screen again so that she could read his message.

“That's excellent. Now just add your home number, your cell number, the number at the garage, your email address, and ask anyone who's heard from her since January to contact you ASAP. Oh, and ask for permission to join the list so you can access Belle's old posts. Maybe we'll pick up something from those.”

When he was finished, he hit send , then turned to look at Emme. “Now what?” he asked.

“Now we wait.”

He read the new post with great interest. He thought about shooting off a quick reply, but then thought better of it. Why insert himself into this now? If this post really was from an uncle of Belle's, and he was really looking for her, he'd post again.

But what would the others do?

He paused, thinking it through. Always best to avoid that shoot-from-the-hip thing. Didn't he always get into trouble when he did that?

In the end, he decided that he was going to have to toss in his two cents. Someone was going to have to guide this crew, and it was going to have to be him.

It took him almost twenty minutes to come up with the right thing, but finally, he thought he'd nailed it.

Hey, everyone. You see the post from Belle's “uncle”? How do we know that this really is a relative of hers? I'm thinking maybe we should ignore him. Maybe he'll go away.