“Murph, come.” Marcus whistled to the dog, who trundled in after him.

Chapter Twenty-six

Christine and Marcus waited for Gary in his office, sitting in the chairs across from the lawyer’s ornate desk, having been served coffee in real china cups and saucers by his niece Theresa. Christine and Marcus had barely exchanged a word this morning, avoiding each other while they’d showered and dressed for the meeting, Christine into a blue oxford shirtdress and Marcus in a tan suit with a silk tie because he was going to work later. She was going home afterwards, so they had driven here separately, which was merciful. Christine imagined that a car ride together would have been miserable.

“Hello, Nilssons!” Gary boomed, clapping his hands together as he entered his office, scampered around his desk, and plopped into his ergonomic throne. “Sorry about that! Nature called! Ring, ring!”

“Good to see you, Gary,” Marcus said stiffly.

“Yes, hi, Gary,” Christine added.

“Glad you could come in. I love that we’re jumping right on this, no waiting.” Gary opened a manila folder on his desk, extracted two slim packets of papers from inside, and slid them across his glistening desk, one to Marcus and another to Christine. “I’ll take you through our suit papers, so you understand them completely.”

“Gary,” Marcus said, calmly, “before we do that, there’s something you should know. I could explain, but I’ll let Christine.”

Gary turned to Christine, his good cheer clouding over. “Don’t tell me you got cold feet. Did you get cold feet, Christine?”

“No, it’s not that.” Christine braced herself. “This weekend, I went to Graterford Prison with Lauren, and we interviewed Zachary Jeffcoat. I pretended I was a reporter and I didn’t tell him who I really was. He told me that he’s Donor 3319.”

“Are you for real?” Gary blinked in astonishment, then broke into a grin.

“Yes, it’s true,” Christine answered, confused. She hadn’t anticipated a favorable reaction. She was expecting that Gary would be as angry as Marcus, except for the jealousy part.

“That’s amazing! You went right to the source, eh? You used self-help, I love it. I didn’t know you had it in you, teach.”

“Neither did I,” Christine blurted out, with an abrupt laugh, like a release of pressure.

Gary laughed. “With clients like you, I’d be out of business.”

Marcus looked from Christine to Gary, incredulous. “What the hell? Are you two insane?”

“Hold on.” Gary held up a hand. “Let me get the facts—”

“Gary, what facts? What other facts do you need?” Marcus shook his head in disbelief, which seemed as fresh as last night. “Don’t you realize how dangerous that was, what she did? Going into prison? I looked it up online last night, it’s maximum-security. You know the animals that are in there?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow your roll.” Gary leaned over the desk, his smile fading. “I told you before about the plumbers in my family. That’s my father’s side. My mother’s side, they’re crooks. Petty crooks, not mobsters. Not mob. Not Mafia. Not every Italian-American is connected, is what I’m saying.”

“What’s your point?”

“That people in prison are still people. I spent my childhood visiting my uncle and my nephew in prison. They were nice guys. They made mistakes. One was an embezzler, the other got into a fight in a bar.”

Marcus bristled. “I’m entitled to be concerned about my wife and her safety.”

“Your wife was safe. She visited an inmate. People do it every day. She didn’t walk around naked in the exercise yard.”

“Gary, the man is a serial killer.”

“In a cage. The man is a serial killer in a cage.” Gary gestured at his pictures from the Serengeti. “You put a lion in a cage and he can’t hurt you—”

“Enough with the lions. We’re talking about my wife. She didn’t even tell me she did it.”

Gary didn’t bat an eye. “Marcus, I understand you don’t want your wife to do stuff like that without your knowledge. That’s a different issue. Don’t get your issues confused.”

“But it ruins the lawsuit now, doesn’t it?” Marcus motioned at the white papers on the desk.

“No, if anything, it helps the lawsuit.” Gary slid the papers back toward him. “If Jeffcoat told Christine that he’s 3319, then I would argue to Homestead that he’s waived his right to confidentiality. In other words, I would argue that they don’t have to keep his identity confidential because he’s already disclosed it. If he didn’t follow the agreement, then they don’t have to follow the agreement.”

Christine brightened, surprised. She hadn’t thought she’d hurt the lawsuit, but she hadn’t thought she’d helped it, either.

Marcus stiffened. “But what about the fact that she tricked him, that she got that information by false pretenses?”

“That’s irrelevant, legally.” Gary frowned, seeing that Marcus remained not only unconvinced, but unhappy. “Marcus, it’s all about what a court would do. It’s contract law. The reason Homestead wouldn’t disclose the identity before was because they signed a contract with Jeffcoat to keep it confidential. Once the other contracting party, namely Jeffcoat, discloses, then the only other person who would sue them for breach drops out. Jeffcoat could never sue in court for breach of confidentiality to an agreement that he’d already breached. The court would say he has ‘unclean hands’ and throw the case out.”

Marcus shook his head again, nonplussed. “Then what effect does it have? What do we do now? I don’t want to drop the lawsuit. I want to hold Homestead responsible for their negligence. It’s ruining our lives, our marriage.”

Christine swallowed hard, realizing that Marcus was right. It was ruining their marriage. She could feel it, too. She had to admit it to herself. They were in crisis. This was all happening, to them. To her. To their new family.

But Gary only shrugged in response. “Marcus, who said we’re dropping the lawsuit? We’re not. Now, what I would do is pick up the phone and see if we can do this quickly and more efficiently. I’m going to tell Homestead we have bad news for them—their donor waived, and they need to settle with us. Confidentially. Quietly. Just like before, nobody will be the wiser, they pay us to go away.”