Elixir.

She was halfway through cooking the pasta when Brett appeared at the kitchen doorway.

"Feel better?" she said looking up.

He was still in his uniform because it was the only outfit he had. But his hair was wet from the shower and his face was shiny.

He held a book in his hand. "Is this you?"

Laura nearly fainted on the spot.

If I Should Die.

The copy Jenny had given her years ago. She had forgotten it was on a shelf in the other room. Brett was staring at the black and white dustjacket photo.

Of all the nightmares Laura had lived with, this was the one she had dreaded the most. They had thought about making up a story about Roger stumbling upon a bank robbery one day, and how because he had seen the face of the man who killed a teller, they had entered a witness-protection program and taken on new ident.i.ties. Brett"s eyes shifted form the photo of Wendy Bacon to Laura, reading the author"s bio on the inside. She knew she could not mouth another lie. "Yes, it"s me."

Confusion clouded Brett"s eyes. "But it says Wendy Bacon."

Laura felt the press of tears but tortured her face into a smile. "Well, honey, that was the name I used back then."

"Back when? When did you write it?"

She took a deep breath and put her arm on his shoulder. This was not how she wanted to break it to him. "A long time ago."

"It says, "Ms. Bacon makes her home with her husband and son in Carleton, Ma.s.sachusetts."" He looked up at her for an explanation.

"That"s where we used to live."

"But you said I was born in Kansas."

"We moved."

Brett glanced back at the photograph. "But you look so different. Your hair...." The look in his face was utter bafflement. "The license plate said Ma.s.sachusetts in Dad"s picture I gave you."

"Why don"t we sit down inside and I"ll explain."

She walked him into the living room. Brett did not take a seat, but stood facing her with the dustjacket photograph of a brunette Wendy Bacon beaming out into the world from a simpler time.

Laura cupped his face in her hands. "Honey, I first want to say that we love you very much, and that it was because we love you-"

"Mom, cut the c.r.a.p!" He dropped the book on the table. He looked scared. "It"s Dad. He"s dying, or something."

"No, that"s not it. We"re both perfectly fine. You just talked with him. He"ll be here tomorrow. Believe me."

"I thought he was in the hospital." There was a frantic look in his eyes. "Where is he?"

She took a deep breath. "Madison."

"You lied."

"Honey, you asked about the book-"

"I don"t care about the dumb book. What are we doing here? What the h.e.l.l is going on? Where"s Dad?"

"I"m telling you Dad"s in Madison. And he"s not in a hospital. I swear to it."

Brett wiped his eyes. He didn"t have a clue.

It was obscene. This is the worst moment of my life, she told herself.

"Honey, there are some things we"ve not told you, so I wish you"d sit down-"

"I not going to friggin" sit down!"

"Okay," she said trying to find a center. "I"m going to start from the beginning, and everything I"m going to tell you is the truth, I swear to G.o.d. I swear on my life."

He looked scared.

G.o.d, give me strength.

"Long before you were born, we used to live in Ma.s.sachusetts where Dad had a job as a biologist. About twenty years ago, he went to Papua New Guinea where he discovered a very rare flower that..."

And she told him the story.

At first, Brett didn"t believe her, thinking it was some roundabout tale to say how Roger had picked up an exotic disease that was killing him. When it was clear that she was not making it up, he sat in stunned bewilderment.

"But Dad"s hair is turning white."

"Because he uses makeup."

"No, he doesn"t," he protested angrily.

"Brett, I know how scary this all sounds, but he"s perfectly healthy. Elixir keeps him from aging. The only problem is that there were some bad people who wanted to get hold of it and sell it illegally-people who blew up that airplane so we would be killed; but because we weren"t on it, they blamed it on us."

Brett"s eyes filled up. "What"s my real name?"

"Brett"s your real name."

"But you said I was born before you took off and got new IDs. When you lived in Ma.s.sachusetts." His voice was trembling.

"We had named you Adam, but after seven or eight months we... you were... Brett." She just couldn"t tell him that Brett was the name off some dead boy"s Social Security card.

"Adam what? What"s my whole name?" he demanded.

Laura summoned every last bit of strength to keep from breaking down. "Adam Bacon."

"What?"

"Adam Bacon."

"Adam Bacon?" He spoke his birth name for the first time in his life.

"But that was only while you were a baby."

"I"m adopted. That"s what this is all about. You adopted me and my real parents want me back."

"No, no, that"s not it."

"Yes, it is. That"s why I"m short."

She felt the absurd impulse to laugh. "Brett, honey, I"ve told you the G.o.d"s honest truth. You"re our son. I gave birth to you. Please believe me. You can see your resemblance in Dad, the shape of your face, your eyes and features... and you"re not short."

Brett looked as if he were suddenly trapped in a whirlpool and grasping for low-hanging branches. "How old am I? For real," he shouted. "How old am I?"

"You"re fourteen. You"ll be fifteen in November. You were born in-"

"That"s not me in the photograph I gave you, is it?"

"No... it was your brother who died before you were born. His name was Ricky."

"I knew that wasn"t me, but you said it was. You lied. You lied!"

Before she could explain, he jumped to his feet and cried out, "I don"t believe this." His face was flushed and beginning to crumble.

"I know how hard it is coming at you all at once-"

He turned toward her, his face wild. "Dad"s a freak," he cried. "He"s a freak. He can"t grow old like everybody else. He"s a freak, and you"re criminals."

Laura came toward him with arms, but he recoiled. "Don"t friggin" touch me!" he screamed. "I don"t even know who you are."

"I"m your mother. I"ve always been your mother."

Frantically he looked around the room again as if for the first time. "We"re going to be put in prison. Dad"s probably already in prison."

"You just talked with him. He"ll be here tomorrow."

Then Brett snapped his head toward her again looking at her as if she were alien. "How old are you? The truth! How old?"

She knew this would scare him even more than Roger"s condition-that his mother was suddenly fifteen years older than he had believed. "Fifty-five. For real."

She barely got the words out when he dashed into his room. The door slammed like a gunshot through her heart.

Inside she heard the m.u.f.fled sounds of him crying into the pillow.

Roger returned late the next night in sleeting rain. For the last week, unseasonably cold air had poured down from Canada and turned spring into winter.

After leaving Madison, he had driven to a wooded area and waited until nightfall for his drive to Minneapolis.

For most of that day Brett had stayed in his room, sleeping on and off, refusing to interact with Laura. He was in bed when Roger arrived.

The look on Roger"s face made Laura shudder.

"Wally"s in jail," he said. He knew that she could not care less about Wally at the moment. He was somebody from thirty years ago. He was somebody a.s.sociated with Elixir.

But she bit down on all that. "Is there anything you can do?"

"I tried." And he told her.

"You could have been killed."

"I couldn"t leave him."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he"s going to die if he already hasn"t."

"Oh, G.o.d. Can"t something be done?"

"No."

"But he"s your friend. You got him into this. You got him on the stuff, now he"s dead or dying."

"Look, I feel s.h.i.tty enough about this. I did what I could. And don"t talk to me like I"m some dope peddler."

She walked to the window. A hard white moon sat in the eastern sky setting the last of the storm clouds in motion. "I"m sorry," she said. "I"m just scared."

"So am I."

"What do we do?"

"Nothing." It wasn"t a good answer, but for the time being the condo was as safe as anywhere. Until that changed, they could hole up for a couple weeks, with Brett doing the food shopping and running errands. It was their faces that would be all over the media, not his. "How much did you tell him?"

"Everything."

He nodded. "I suppose it"s best."

Silence filled the room.

"Roger, I want us to turn ourselves in. I told you that I would not go on the run again. I will not put him through this."

"Would you prefer Brett grow up with his parents on death row?"

"You don"t know that. We might get off. Even so, Brett can live with Jenny."

"Jenny isn"t emotionally stable enough to handle another teenage kid."

"She is his aunt, after all. And it"s better than moving from place to place in the middle of the night. Think of him."

"I am thinking of him." Once the media got hold of this, the same people who bombed the plane could get back on their trail. People more interested in Elixir than justice-people who could use Brett to get to it. "We stay here for a week or two, then move out."