by Harlan Coben
"Set up my father?"
"Yes. You had to leave a trail for the feds to follow. Something subtle, something that would lead to your father, and something you could manipulate at any time. So you took a fake ID, Stan — the same way your father had. You even took a job where people would spot the disguise your father used and hey, maybe you could also tie in your dad's old nemesis the Lex family in the process."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You know what bugged me? Your father had been so careful in the past. Now all of a sudden he's leaving incriminating evidence in a locker. He rents the kidnap van on a credit card and leaves a red sneaker in it. It didn't make any sense. Unless someone was setting him up."
Stan's look of disbelief was almost genuine. "You think I killed these people?"
"No," Myron said. "Your father did."
"Then what—?"
"You're the one who used the Dennis Lex identity," Myron said, "not your father."
Stan tried to look stunned, but it wasn't happening.
"You kidnapped Jeremy Downing. And you called me and pretended to be the Sow the Seeds killer."
"And why did I do that?"
"To have this heroic ending. To have your father arrested. To have yourself redeemed."
"How the hell does calling you—"
"To get me interested. You probably learned about my background. You knew I'd investigate. You needed a dupe and a witness. Someone outside the police. I was that dupe."
"The dupe du jour," Win added.
Myron shot him a look. Win shrugged.
"That's ridiculous."
"No, Stan, it adds up. It answers all my earlier questions. How did the kidnapper happen to choose Jeremy? Because you followed me after I left your condo. You saw the feds pick me up. That's how you knew I'd spoken to them. You followed me to Emily's house. From there, any old newsman worth a damn could have figured out her son was the sick kid I told you about. His illness wasn't a secret. So Jeremy's being taken is no longer a coincidence, see?"
Stan folded his arms across his chest. "I see nothing."
"Other questions get answered too now. Like why did the kidnapper wear a disguise and make Jeremy wear a blindfold? Because you couldn't let Jeremy identify you. Why didn't the kidnapper kill Jeremy right away, like he had the others? Same reason you wore the disguise. You had no intention of killing him. Jeremy had to survive the ordeal unharmed. Otherwise you're no hero. Why didn't the kidnapper make his usual demand not to contact the authorities? Because you wanted the feds in. You needed them to witness your heroics. It wouldn't work without their involvement. I wondered how the media was always in the right spot — in Bernardsville, at the cabin. But you set that part up too. Anonymous leaks probably. So the cameras could witness and replay your heroics — your tackling your father, the dramatic rescue of Jeremy Downing. Good television. You knew the power of capturing those moments for all the world to see."
Stan waited. "You finished?"
"Not yet. You see, I think you went too far in spots. Leaving that sneaker in the van, for example. That was overkill. Too obvious. It made me wonder how neatly it all came together in the end. And then I start realizing that I was your main sucker, Stan. You played me like a Stradivarius. But even if I hadn't shown up, you just would have kidnapped someone else. Your main dupes were the feds. For crying out loud, that photograph of your father by the statue was the only picture in the whole condo. It even faced the window. You knew the feds were spying on you. You threw the truth about Dennis Lex right in their faces. Surely they'd go to the sanitarium and put it together. And if not, you could somehow get it out in the end, when they had you in custody. You were all set to cave in and tell on your father when I came through in the clutch. Me, the dupe du jour, saw the truth up at the sanitarium. You must have been so pleased."
"This is crazy."
"It answers all the questions."
"That doesn't mean it's the truth."
"The Davis Taylor address you used at work. It was the same address as your father's in Waterbury. So we would trace it back to him, to Nathan Mostoni. Who else would have done that?"
"My father!"
"Why? Why would your father change identities at all? And if your father needed a new identity, wouldn't he shed the old one? Or hell, at least change addresses? Only you could have pulled it off, Stan. You could have hooked up the extra phone line with no problem. Your father was pretty far gone. He was demented, at the very least. You kidnapped Jeremy. Then you probably told your father to meet you at the house in Bernardsville. He did what you said — for love or because of dementia, I don't know which. Did you know he'd arm himself like that? I doubt it. If Greg had died, you'd probably look worse. But I don't know for sure. Maybe the fact that he fired shots just made you look more heroic in the end. Think selfishly, Stan. That's the key."
Stan shook his head.
" 'Say one last good-bye to the boy,'" Myron said.
"What?"
"That's what the Sow the Seeds killer said to me on the phone. The boy. I made a mistake when he called me. I told him a boy needed help. After that, I only used the word 'child.' When I spoke to Susan Lex. When I spoke to you. I said a thirteen-year-old child needs a transplant."
"So?"
"So when we talked in the car that night, you asked what I was really after, what my real interest in all this was. Remember?"
"Yes."
"And I said I already told you."
"Right."
"And you said, 'That boy who needs a bone marrow transplant?" You said, 'That boy.' How did you know he was a boy, Stan?"
Win turned toward Stan. Stan looked at Win's face.
"Is that your proof?" Stan countered. "I mean, is this supposed to be a Perry Mason moment or something? Maybe you slipped up, Myron. Or maybe I just assumed it was a boy. Or I heard wrong. That's not evidence."
"You're right. It's not. It just got me thinking, that's all."
"Thoughts aren't proof."
"Wow," Win said. "Thoughts aren't proof. I'll have to remember that one."
"But there is proof," Myron said. "Definitive proof."
"Impossible," Stan said, but his voice warbled now. "What?"
"I'll get to that in a moment. First let me back off on my indignation a little."
"I don't understand."
"At the end of the day, what you did was scummy, no question about it. But in its own way, it was almost ethical. Win and I often discuss the ends justifying the means. You could claim that's what happened here. You tried to turn your father in before he struck again. You did all you could to make sure nobody else was harmed. Jeremy was never in any real danger. You couldn't know that Greg would be shot. So in the end, you scared a boy, but so what? Next to the murder and destruction your father would have continued to wreak, it was nothing. So you did some good. The ends perhaps justified the means. Except for one thing."
Stan didn't bite.
"Jeremy's bone marrow transplant. He needs that to live, Stan. You know that. You also know that you're the match, not your father. That was why you slipped him that cyanide pill. Because once we dragged your father to the hospital and realized that he wasn't a match, well, we would have investigated. We would have realized that Edwin Gibbs was not Davis Taylor ne Dennis Lex. So you had to have him kill himself and then you pushed for a quick cremation. I don't mean to make it sound as harsh or cold as all that. You didn't murder your father. He took the pill all on his own. He was a sick man. He wanted to die. It's yet another case of the ends justifying the means."
Myron took a moment and just looked into Stan's eyes. Stan did not look away. In a sense, this was more agenting work. Myron was negotiating here — the most important negotiation of his life. He had put his opponent in a corner. Now he needed to reach out. Not help him yet. He had to keep him in the corner. But he had to start reaching out. Just a little.
"You're not a monster," Myron said. "You just didn't count on the compli
cation of being a bone marrow match. You want to do right by Jeremy. It's why you've gone so nuts trying to help the bone marrow drive. If they find another donor, it takes you off the hook. Because you're in this lie too deep now. You couldn't admit the truth — that you are the match. It would ruin you. I understand that."
Stan's eyes were wide and wet, but he was listening.
"Before I told you that I had proof," Myron said. "We checked the bone marrow registry. Know what we found, Stan?"
Stan didn't reply.
"You're not registered," Myron said. "Here you are telling everybody to sign up and you yourself aren't in their computer. The three of us know why. It's because you'd be a match. And if you matched, there would be those questions again."
Stan gave defiance one last shot. "That's not proof."
"Then how will you explain not registering?"
"I don't have to explain anything."
"A blood test will prove it conclusively. The registry still has the blood that Davis Taylor gave during the marrow drive. We can do a DNA test with yours, see if it matches up."
"And if I don't agree to a test?"
Win took that one. "Oh, you'll give blood," he said with just the slightest smile. "One way or another."
Something on Stan's face broke then. He lowered his head. The defiance was over. He was trapped in the corner now. No way to escape. He'd start looking for an ally. It always happened in negotiations. When you're lost, you look for an out. Myron had reached out before. It was time to do it again.
"You don't understand," Stan said.
"Strangely enough, I do." Myron moved a little closer to Stan. He made his voice soft yet unyielding. Total command mode. "Here's what we're going to do, Stan. You and I are going to make a deal."
Stan looked up, confused but also hopeful. "What?"
"You are going to agree to donate bone marrow to save Jeremy's life. You'll do it anonymously. Win and I can set that up. No one will ever know who the donor was. You do that, you save Jeremy, I forget the rest."
"How can I believe you?"
"Two reasons," Myron said. "One, I'm interested in saving Jeremy's life, not ruining yours. Two" — he tilted both palms toward the ceiling—"I'm no better. I bent rules here too. I let the ends justify the means. I assaulted a man. I kidnapped a woman."
Win shook his head. "There's a difference. His reasons were selfish. You, on the other hand, were trying to save a boy's life."
Myron turned to his friend. "Weren't you the one who said that motives are irrelevant? That the act is the act?"
"Sure," Win said. "But I meant that to apply to him, not you."
Myron smiled and faced Stan again. "I'm not your moral superior. We both did wrong. Maybe we can both live with what we've done. But if you let a boy die, Stan, you cross the line. You can't go home again."
Stan closed his eyes. "I would have found a way," he said. "I would have gotten another fake ID, given blood under a pseudonym. I was just hoping—"
"I know," Myron said. "I know all about it."
Myron called Dr. Karen Singh. "I found a matching donor."
"What?"
"I can't explain. But he has to stay anonymous."
"I explained to you that all the bone marrow donors remain anonymous."
"No. The bone marrow registry can't know about this either. We have to find a place that can harvest the marrow without knowing the patient's identity."
"Can't be done."
"Yeah, it can."
"No doctor will agree—"
"We can't play these games, Karen. I have a donor. No one can know who he is. Make it work."
He could hear her breathing.
"He'll have to be retested," she said.
"No problem."
"And pass a physical."
"Done."
"Then okay. Let's get this started."
When Emily heard about the donor, she gave Myron a curious look and waited. He didn't explain. She never asked.
Myron visited the hospital the day before the marrow transplant was to begin. He peeked his head around the doorjamb and saw the boy sleeping. Jeremy was bald from the chemo. His skin had a ghostly glow, like something withering from a lack of sunshine. Myron watched his son sleeping. Then he turned and went home. He didn't come back.
He returned to work at MB SportsReps and lived his life. He visited his father and mother. He hung out with Win and Esperanza. He landed a few new clients and started rebuilding his business. Big Cyndi handed in her wrestling resignation and took over the front desk. His world was wobbly but back on the axis.
Eighty-four days later — Myron kept count — he got a call from Karen Singh. She asked him to visit her office. When he arrived, she wasted no time.
"It worked," she said. "Jeremy went home today."
Myron started to cry. Karen Singh moved around her desk. She sat on the arm of his chair and rubbed his back.
Myron knocked on the half-open door.
"Enter," Greg said.
Myron did so. Greg Downing was sitting up in a chair. He'd grown a beard during his long hospital stretch.
He smiled at Myron. "Nice to see you."
"Same here. I like the beard."
"Gives me that Paul Bunyan touch, don't you think?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of Sebastian Cabot as Mr. French," Myron said.
Greg laughed. "Going home on Friday."
"Great."
Silence.
"You haven't visited much," Greg said.
"Wanted to give you time to heal. And grow that beard in fully."
Greg tried another laugh, but he sort of choked on it. "My basketball career is over, you know."
"You'll get over it."
"That easy?"
Myron smiled. "Who said anything about easy?"
"Yeah."
"But there are more important things in life than basketball," Myron said. "Though sometimes I forget that."
Greg nodded again. Then he looked down and said, "I heard about you finding the donor. I don't know how you did it—"
"It's not important."
He looked up. "Thank you."
Myron was not sure what to say to that. So he kept quiet. And that was when Greg shocked him.
"You know, don't you?"
Myron's heart stopped.
"That was why you helped," Greg said. His voice was pure flat-line. "Emily told you the truth."
The muscles around Myron's throat tightened. There was a whooshing sound in his head.
"Did you take a blood test?" Greg asked.
Myron managed a nod this time. Greg closed his eyes. Myron swallowed and said, "How long…?"
"I'm not sure anymore," Greg said. "I guess right away."
He knows. The words fell on Myron, smacking down like raindrops, beading and rolling off, impenetrable. He's always known….
"For a while I fooled myself into believing it wasn't so," Greg said. "It's amazing what the mind can do sometimes. But when Jeremy was six, he had his appendix out. I saw his blood type on a chart. It pretty much confirmed what I'd known all along."
Myron didn't know what to say. The realization pushed down on him, swept away the months of blocking like so many children's toys. The mind can indeed do amazing things. He looked at Greg and it was like seeing something in the proper light for the first time and it changed everything. He thought about fathers again. He thought about real sacrifice. He thought about heroes.
"Jeremy's a good boy," Greg said.
"I know," Myron said.
"You remember my father? Screaming on the sidelines like a lunatic?"
"Yes."
"I ended up looking just like him. Spitting image of my old man. He was my blood. And he was the cruelest son of a bitch I ever knew," Greg said. Then he added, "Blood never meant much to me."
A strange echo filled the room. The background noises faded away and there was just the two of them, staring at one another from across the most bizarre ch
asm.
Greg moved back to the bed. "I'm tired, Myron."
"Don't you think we should talk about this?"
"Yeah," Greg said. He laid back and shut his eyes a little too tightly. "Maybe later. But right now I'm really tired."
At the end of the day, Esperanza stepped into Myron's office, sat down, and said, "I don't know much about family values or what makes a happy family. I don't know the best way to raise a kid or what you have to do to make him happy and well adjusted, whatever the hell 'well adjusted' means. I don't know if it's best to be an only child or have lots of siblings or be raised by two parents or a single parent or a gay couple or a lesbian couple or an overweight albino. But I know one thing."
Myron looked up at her and waited.
"No child could ever be harmed by having you in his life."
Esperanza stood and went home.
* * *
Stan Gibbs was playing in the yard with his boys when Myron and Win pulled into the driveway. His wife — at least, Myron guessed it was his wife — sat in a lawn chair and watched. A little boy rode Stan like a horsey. They other boy lay on the ground giggling.
Win frowned. "How very Norman Rockwell."
Myron and Win stepped out of the car. Stan the horsey looked up. The smile stayed on when he saw them, but you could see it starting to lose its grip at the edges. Stan hoisted his son off his back and said something to him Myron couldn't hear. The boy gave an "Aaaw, Dad." Stan jumped to his feet and ruffled the boy's hair. Win frowned again. As Stan jogged toward them, his smile faded away like the end of a song.
"What are you doing here?"
Win said, "Back together with the wife, are we?"
"We're giving it a go."
"Touching," Win said.
Stan turned toward Myron. "What's going on here?"
"Tell the kids to go inside, Stan."
"What?"
Another car pulled in the driveway. Rick Peck was driving. Kimberly Green was in the passenger seat. Stan's face lost color. He snapped a look at Myron.
"We had a deal," he said.
"Remember how I told you that you had two choices when the novel was discovered?"
