We Know

I sat on the floor, pinching the broken tip of the key between my thumb and forefinger. A skinny run of brass, all teeth, ending on a slant at the fracture. I nosed the end into the slot and guided it in a few ticks, but didn't let go, just as Raz had counseled. I held my breath. Readying the second piece in my other hand, I brought the broken edges together until they aligned. Then I firmed my grip on the fat head of the key, counted to three, and shoved. The key purred into the lock. I held it there a moment, gripping hard, praying it had aligned properly in the channel. Then, slowly, I twisted. Miraculously, the lock turned. Keeping the pressure steady, I tugged gently. The rectangular door opened an inch. I poked a finger through the gap and pulled it open, the top piece of the key falling from the lock, clattering on the tile.

The box appeared to be empty. I reached inside, found the manila envelope taped to the roof. Mack had given up a lot before he was killed, but not this. The envelope tore free. I ripped open one end, and a stiff sheet slid out into my hand.

An ultrasound.

I stared down at the flashlight-cone illumination, the messy grays and blacks, the alien blob of a fetus head. White letters stood out from the black top margin: J. Everett 10:07:28 a.m. December 12, 1990.

To the side, beneath some technical jargon and medical measurements, a note read, 18 wks, female. No hospital, no medical group, no Social Security number.

I dug in the rucksack and removed the torn page of numerals I'd pulled from the neighboring P.O. box two nights ago. Still I could make no sense of the digits. I peered inside the manila envelope I'd just retrieved, and, sure enough, it held a strip of paper. I tugged it out, and it aligned perfectly with the torn top edge of the larger sheet.

A lab report. At the top the mother's name was listed as Jane Everett, the father, Unidentified Male. And to the right, Baby Everett. Below the names were column headings for the grid of numerals-paternity indexes and specimen numbers and probe/locus figures. Bold print announced Mother's Alleles, Childs Alleles, Alleged Father s Alleles, and, finally, Percent Probability of Paternity. My eyes tracked down beneath that final heading to the one anomalous number: 99.999.

An arm around a campaign worker. A pregnancy. And an illegitimate child, fathered by Andrew Bilton, Mr. Family Values himself Was that really enough to lead to all that had been done? In an election year, with the presidency of the world's most powerful nation at stake? Certainly.

I fought the Polaroid of Bilton with the young woman out of my pocket. Hello, Jane Everett.

The baby would have been born just before Frank's murder. She'd be a high-school senior now. Seventeen years old, the same age I was then. And the same number of years I'd lived with the aftermath. We'd been in this together, somehow, from the beginning. Like me, she carried with her a burden. Even if she didn't know the fine points of her inheritance, she contained the concealed history in her DNA, held the weight of it in her bones.

I felt how Frank must have felt, as if a live grenade had been dumped in my lap. But burning beneath the surface of my thoughts was a new consideration. Baby Everett. I'd been old enough in 1991 to make my own choices, to walk out of that house and into the jaws of the consequences. She'd been a newborn. More than anything, I wanted her to have a shot at a life different from the one I'd been dealt.

Bilton would be safer with her in the ground. And he'd have no shortage of friends willing to put her there.

Was she in hiding? Had Charlie been telling me, in his own cryptic way, that I had to save her? Was that the grave responsibility he'd entrusted me with?

I sat on the floor, gazing down at the ultrasound, waiting for the buzz in my head to subside. I thought of the buses pulling into that stop a half block away and all the places they could take me. I put the documents and the picture into the rucksack, stood, and walked past Homer. He paused, holding a wadded priority envelope in either hand, and watched me pass.

I walked out into the biting night breeze. To the right I could make out the bus-stop shelter, glass walls and soothing blue bench. I gazed at it for a moment, then turned left and found the pay phone. My hands were surprisingly steady as I dialed.

When Induma picked up, I told her what I'd found. She was silent for a long time, then asked, "What are you gonna do?"

"If they're coming after me this hard, you can bet they're trying to erase all evidence. I have to find that girl. Baby Everett. Before they do."

"Baby Everett," she repeated, as if trying out the name.

"She may not even know she's in danger."

"How do you find someone if you don't know her name?"

"Start with her mom," I said. "Are you still willing to help me?"