Chapter 8
"Where is he?"
"Missing."
I looked at Prescott.
"When were you planning to tell me?"
"I learned it twenty minutes ago."
"Find him."
He nodded.
That afternoon, one of the Boston teams confirmed the mutation.
By evening, Zurich confirmed it independently.
Dr.
Yates called me into a consultation room.
"Elena was right."
I sat down.
He placed the results in front of me.
"The twins' leukemia cells express an altered receptor we've never seen documented in approved human therapy."
"Can you target it?"
"We believe so."
"Believe?"
"This is medicine, Lawson.
Not mathematics."
"What do you need?"
"Elena's cells.
Continuous access to both children.
A manufacturing team willing to attempt a compassionate emergency protocol."
"You'll have all three."
"There's a risk."
"They're dying."
"The treatment itself could kill them faster."
I stared through the glass at my children.
"What's the alternative?"
Yates didn't answer.
"Start."
For the next thirty six hours, the world narrowed to hallways, laboratories, phones, blood counts, and waiting.
Then Prescott found the coroner.
Dr.
Malcolm Veer had been living under another name in rural Indiana.
He refused to speak over the phone.
I drove there myself.
Prescott sat beside me.
Two security vehicles followed.
Veer lived in a small farmhouse surrounded by empty soybean fields.
He was seventy now.
Thin.
White beard.
Hands shaking before I had even entered his kitchen.
When he saw me, he started crying.
"I knew you'd come eventually."
I wanted to hit him.
Instead, I sat across from him.
"Whose body did I bury?"
His face collapsed.
"Lawson."
"Whose body?"
"I don't know her name."
Everything inside me stopped.
"The remains were female.
Similar age.
Similar dental structure.
We were given altered dental records."
"By whom?"
He looked toward Prescott.
I noticed it.
So did Prescott.
Veer stood abruptly.
"Please leave."
Prescott's hand moved toward his jacket.
I stayed seated.
"Doctor, look at me."
Veer wouldn't.
"Who paid you?"
"I didn't have a choice."
"Everyone has a choice."
"They had my daughter."
"Who?"
His breathing became shallow.
"Ask your father."
I stared at him.
My father had been dead for eleven years.
"You mean my father?"
Veer shook his head frantically.
"No."
His eyes moved again.
Not to me.
To Prescott.
"Her father."
A gunshot shattered the kitchen window.
Veer's body jerked.
Prescott pulled me to the floor.
Glass exploded over the table.
Security returned fire toward the tree line.
By the time we reached Veer, he was dead.