Mariah Stewart - Cry Mercy

Emme nodded. “I know, Trula. And I appreciate it more than you could know.”

She continued down the hall and quietly went into her room. The kindness of everyone around her had been so unexpected, it had overwhelmed her. Last night she'd been thinking that in a pinch, it would be her, Trula, and Nick. Now she found herself for the first time ever feeling part of something larger than herself. It was more than she could think about and still function the way she needed to. She pushed away the events of the morning and stuffed her emotions back into that place where she kept things she didn't want to think about, and got to work.

First things first. She dialed Henry Carroll-Wilson's cell phone. Forced to leave another message when voice mail picked up, she tried Lori's number. No answer there, either, so she left basically the same message she'd left for her brother.

Next on the list: Aaron.

She turned on her computer and searched her email. There was still no response from him. She called Nick and was disappointed to have to leave a voice mail for him as well. She couldn't think of much to say other than “Please let me know if you've heard from Aaron.”

When she hadn't heard back from anyone by noon, she decided she was losing too much time waiting. She hunted through her file for the article about Aaron. Skimming, she made notes on an index card. His last name was Sparks. His hometown was Gettysburg and his father was from Rising Sun, Maryland. She went online and found a phone listing for A. Sparks in Gettysburg and dialed the number. The call was forwarded to another line, and she was expecting voice mail to pick up when the call was answered.

“Hello?”

“Is this Aaron Sparks?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes. Who's this?”

Emme introduced herself and explained that she was following up on the email he received from Nick Perone.

“Oh. Right. Belle's uncle.” He stifled a yawn. “I didn't get around to answering that yet.”

“Well, since I have you on the phone, I can save you the trouble. I'll ask you a few quick questions, you can give me a few quick answers, and hopefully that will take care of it.”

“Is Belle really missing?” he asked softly.

“Yes, Aaron. She really is missing.”

“You swear?”

“I swear. Why would I make that up?”

“Because she…” he hesitated.

“Because she what, Aaron?”

“Because it's just weird timing, that's all,” he mumbled.

“Because she was looking for Donor 1735?”

“No. Because she found him.”

“She found-” Emme took a deep breath. She hadn't expected this.

“Well, she thought she did, anyway.”

“Did she give you a name?”

“Uh-uh. She just sent me an email one time that said bingo , all in capital letters. I wrote back and asked if she'd gotten lucky and she wrote back that she was pretty sure she had, that she'd keep me posted but I didn't hear from her again.”

“That was your last contact from her? Do you remember when you got that email?”

“I think it was after Christmas break from school.”

Emme thought for a moment before asking, “How did she track her donor, Aaron?”

“Same way I tracked mine. I walked her through the process, but she was pretty much doing it on her own. Belle was one smart chick.”

“Can you walk me through it? I'm guessing she contacted you first via email and told you she wanted to search for her donor the way you had.”

“Right.”

“Then what?”

“Mostly, at first, she asked pretty general questions. Like, what lab did I use and how did I find it. Stuff like that.”

“How did you find the lab?”

“Online. That was the easy part.”

“So then she asked you to help her and you said yes. What steps did-”

“Well, actually, no. I told her I couldn't help her.”

“Why wouldn't you help someone who was trying to do the same thing you did?”

“I said I couldn't help her, not that I wouldn't.”

“I'm not following you, Aaron.”

“Belle wanted to find her donor the same way I found mine, but that wasn't possible. I tracked my donor through my Y chromosome DNA.” He paused to let that sink in.

“Which Belle, being a female, wouldn't have.” Emme gave herself a mental slap on the forehead. “The Y chromosome is passed male to male, father to son.”

“Right. It's sort of like the way the last name is passed on, you know? Boys get the X chromosome from their mom, and the Y from their dad. Girls get two X chromosomes, one from each parent. No Y chromosome, no Y chromosome-DNA test. No way to find the donor using the method I used.”

“But you just said that Belle later told you she found her donor.” Emme frowned. “How did she do that without the right DNA?”

“I didn't ask her who she got it from. But she came back a few weeks later and told me she had the DNA goods. I walked her through it from there.”

“She didn't say where the DNA came from?”

“Nope.”

One of the brothers, Emme thought. It had to have come from one of the brothers. Henry? The twins? Justin?

“Can you take me through the steps you went through with her?”

“Oh, sure. But…”

“But what?”

“But I might not have the information she sent me about 1735 anymore. I don't know if I kept all that.”

“What information?” Emme frowned.

“Where he was born and when. Where he went to college. What his ethnic background was. All the stuff the clinic would have given to Belle's mom.” He paused. “You know how I found my donor, right? I knew where he was born and the date and his ethnic background, which was Italian. After I had the DNA markers run through the online genealogy databases, I found a couple of guys with the same Italian last name. I went online and found one person who was born on the right date in the right city with that last name. So even if you had the DNA from the donor, without the rest of the information, you're not going to find him.”

“Can you check to see if you still have Belle's info and get back to me?”

“Sure. I'll do that right now. Can you hold on?”

“I've got all day.”

It only took six minutes.

“Sorry,” he told her. “I must have deleted those emails.”

“And there's no way to get them back?”

“I don't think so.” He grew quiet. “Maybe… I don't know. I can ask my buddy. He's like a super tech whiz.”

“Would you do that, Aaron? Please.”

He hesitated. “I'm wondering if this is a cool thing to do or not.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was one thing to help Belle find her donor, but I don't know about this. How do I know who you really are? How do I know this is really, like, kosher?”

She gave him the website address for the Mercy Street Foundation. “Check it out. Check out Robert Magellan. Belle has been missing since January, Aaron. Her uncle came to us to help find her because the police had no luck. There's a real good possibility that maybe she found her donor, maybe he knows where she is.” She felt herself losing patience. “And besides all that, we have no other leads.”

“I guess it's okay,” he said. “I'll call my friend and see what he can do.”

“Thank you, Aaron. If we find her-if she's still alive-we'll have you to thank.”

There was a long silence on the phone. “You think maybe she's not alive?” he asked, his voice quivering.

She could have kicked herself for that slip.

“There's always that chance when someone's been missing for so long.”

“Shit.”

“That pretty much sums it up,” she agreed. “Call me after you talk to your buddy. I'll be waiting to hear from you.”

She hung up and pondered her next step. She had the names of four of the male-donor siblings. Which one would Belle have contacted for a DNA swab?