Run Away(94)

When he got back up onto the street, a text came in from Yvonne.

Money is ready. You’ll need to sign for it. Ask for Todd Raisch.



The bank was located between a Wendy’s and a high-end bakery. There was no line and just one teller. He gave his name and asked to speak to Todd Raisch. Raisch was all professional. He showed Simon into a back room.

“Are hundreds okay?” he asked.

Simon said that they were. Raisch counted out the money.

“Would you like a bag for that?”

Simon had his own, a plastic bag Ingrid had saved from a recent trip to Zabar’s. He put the cash in that and then jammed the bag into his backpack. He thanked Raisch and started on his way.

As he headed up Broadway toward the hospital, Simon called Randy Spratt, the genetics tech. When he answered, Simon said, “I have the money.”

“Ten minutes.”

He hung up. Simon checked to see if there were any messages yet from Elena Ramirez. Nothing. It was probably too soon, but he sent a quick text anyway:

Have you met with Alison yet? Please fill me in when you can.



No immediate reply. No dancing dots indicating an answer was forthcoming.

Simon kept staring at his phone as he walked, mostly to distract himself from this upcoming rendezvous. He’d rushed himself on the paternity test, panicked even, without really considering the repercussions. But now that he had a second or two—now that the answer was about to, like it or not, slap him in the face—he wondered what he would do if he learned the worst.

Suppose he wasn’t Paige’s biological father?

Suppose he wasn’t Sam’s or Anya’s father either?

Slow down, he told himself.

But there really was no time to slow down, was there? The truth, one way or the other, was barreling toward him like a freight train. He still really couldn’t fathom it. For one thing, Sam looked just like him, everyone said so, and though he couldn’t see it himself—could any parents?—he knew…

He knew what?

It simply wasn’t possible. Ingrid would never do that to him. And yet that small niggling voice taunted him. He remembered reading some statistic that 10 percent of fathers are unknowingly raising another man’s child. Or was it really 2 percent? Or was that all nonsense?

When Simon reached the clearing behind the pediatric wing, Randy Spratt was already on a bench in the corner. Spratt sat upright with his hands jammed deep in the pockets of his trench coat, his gaze darting about like a scared rodent.

Simon sat next to him. The two men stared straight ahead.

“You got the money?” Spratt whispered.

“This isn’t a ransom drop, you know.”

“Do you have it or not?”

Simon reached into his backpack for the plastic bag. He hesitated. He didn’t have to go through with opening this particular Pandora’s box. Maybe ignorance was bliss in some cases, no? He’d lived happily without knowing Ingrid’s “secret past.”

Right, and look where that had brought them.

Simon handed over the cash. For a second, he feared that Spratt would count it right there and then, but the plastic bag quickly disappeared into the trench coat.

“Well?” Simon asked.

“The one you said was a priority. The yellow toothbrush.”

Simon felt his mouth go dry. “Yes.”

“I rushed that one, so it’s the only result I have with a scientifically definitive conclusion.”

Interesting that Spratt hadn’t told him that before he got paid, but maybe that didn’t matter.

“And what’s the conclusion?” Simon asked.

“It’s positive.”

“Wait, does that mean…?”

“You’re the biological father.”

Relief, sweet relief, flooded Simon’s lungs and veins.

“And for what it’s worth, even though the results are only preliminary, all indications are that you’re the biological father for all three.”

Without another word, Randy Spratt rose and walked away. Simon just sat there, unable to move. He watched an old woman wearing the standard-issue hospital smock and leaning on a walker make her way to a flower bed. She bent down and smelled the flowers, both literally and metaphorically. Simon did the latter by just sitting there and watching. A group of young medical residents sat on the grass and ate gyros from a nearby food truck. They all looked both frayed and happy, like Ingrid did during her residency, when she worked ridiculous hours but knew that she was one of the lucky few who found her calling.

Being a physician, Simon knew, was indeed a calling.

Weird thought, but there you go. Or maybe not so weird. Simon had recently learned that Paige had shared her mother’s calling. Under normal circumstances, it would mean the world to him. In some ways, it still did.

He had to find her.

He checked his phone, hoping to see something from Elena Ramirez. No new message. He typed her another one:

DNA test shows I’m Paige’s father. Still don’t know how she hooked up with Aaron, but I think it’s about the illegal adoptions. Call me when you finish with Alison Mayflower.

It was time to head back to Ingrid’s room. He stood up, tilted his face to the sky, closed his eyes. He just needed another moment or two. He and Ingrid had taken a few yoga classes as a marital bonding thing, and the instructor had been all about the importance of breathing. So he took a deep inhale, held it, let it out slowly.