Elixir

After a pause, Je

There were only three of them, but she was afraid of getting involved again, Laura guessed. And that was understandable since she was the single mother of a teenage girl. To harbor known fugitives could send her to jail. "I understand. I'm sorry to even ask, really, Jen. It's just that things are getting pretty dicey."

"Well, I really hate to say no," Je

"No."

"I see. Well…"

Je

"If it means that much to you," she began, then seemed to catch herself. "But if the police find out you're here… well, that would be awful. I mean, we'd all be caught and sent to prison."

"You're right. Forget it," Laura said, not wanting to put a guilt trip on Je

"So what happens now?" Brett asked.

While the condo complex was fairly anonymous, somebody would soon wonder why the perfectly healthy teenage kid from C7 was ru

"We'll hole up here for maybe another week," Roger said. "In the meantime, we'll look for a good lawyer. Do you think you can take a few more days?"

"Yeah, but what about you and Mom?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't grow old like Mom."

The Gordian Knot, thought Roger-what lay at the core of it all. The one inevitability they did not want to ponder. Laura would not yield, and Roger's condition was irreversible. Their heads would not grow old on one pillow. Someday she would die, and he would go on without her indefinitely and unchanged. The prospect tore at him.

The signs were already visible-age lines in her face, loosening flesh, slowing down. And, worse, beneath the skin of things, disaffection had crossed with resentment. They were pulling apart.

Brett sensed none of that. But when Laura came into the room, he asked, "Are you going to take Elixir?"

"No, honey, I'm not." She said that as if a

Brett's eyes filled up. "Why not? I don't want you to die."

She took his hand. "Brett, I'm not going to die, at least not for a long time. Meanwhile, you'll grow up and go off on your own like every other kid."

She had a knack for making things sound so normal. Brett thought about her words. He was not consoled. "How come Dad took it?"

"It was a mistake," Roger said. "I wish I hadn't. I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. I did a stupid thing. What's important is that we're still a family, and we're going to be a family for a lot of years. And right now we need you to be strong so we can beat this rap."

Brett stared at Roger for a long moment with an unreadable expression. Then he said, "What's so stupid about living forever?"

Eric Brown had hoped that Sally Johns, the Glovers' shop assistant, knew of relatives or friends who might put them up.

She didn't. She also never heard mention of a vacation home or favorite getaway. She had no idea where they went. Nor could she dispel the shock at the claims.

"He tutored kids in the back room. He had a blackboard and used the plants for show-and-tell. The kids loved him. And she was great-friendly and warm-and did fund-raising for the schools. I can't believe it."

Brown scribbled on his notepad. It was the same report he had gotten from neighbors: boringly nice people. Not even a fucking parking ticket.

Zazzaro stepped into the room with his cell phone. "Ben," he said and handed Eric the phone.

Brown moved to the far side of the room.

Four days ago, Ben Friedman had requested a priority cross-check of files at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta regarding the death of Walter Olafsson. An extensive autopsy revealed no odd biologies. However, the CDC did have in its files a similar case of death by accelerated senescence dating from 1986 in Canton, Ohio.

"A sixty-two-year-old male named Dexter Qui

"Oh my."

On the evening of the sixth day the cell phone rang.

Brett was in the shower while Laura and Roger were going through attorney names from photocopies of the Boston directory Brett had made at the local library. It made sense to seek counsel at the epicenter of their case.

They looked at each other anxiously. Only two other people in the world knew that number. And Wally was dead. Roger picked up.

It was Je

"I've thought over your request to stay," she a

"Well, that's very nice of you, but are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You know that the authorities are looking for us," Roger cautioned.

She must have bought a newspaper because she said, "I know that. But you'll be careful not to get caught driving down."

"We'll do our best."

"You have to," she said with forced solicitude. There was a long pause as she muttered something to herself. "It's just that I need a favor in return."

"What's that?"

No sooner were his words out, when like a half-glimpsed premonition he heard her say, "The orchid medicine. I want you to bring me some when you come."

Christ! She had reduced it to barter. "Je

"You can do it if you want to."

"But I'm not going to."

"Then you can't stay here!"

"Then so be it."

He heard her voice change pitch. "Don't you hang up on me, Christopher!"

He didn't know if she had called him that out of hostility or if she was just out of it.

"If you don't bring me some, I'm going to call the police. And I know where you are."

Roger took a deep breath. They didn't need this. He looked over to Laura. "She's threatening to call the cops unless we bring her some Elixir."

"Shit!" Laura grabbed the phone from him. "Je

There was a long gaping silence. For a moment she thought Je

Then in a strange girlish voice Je

She sounded crazy. "Je

But Je

"I don't believe you're doing this, Jen. I don't believe you'd betray us."

"It's you who's betraying me," she said in that weird singsongy voice.

Laura had never heard her sound so desperate. She had obsessed so much that she had pushed herself over the edge. "Je

"No, but I will. So you better be here tomorrow with it. I'm not fooling."

"Please wait a moment, and don't hang up." Laura put her hand on the mouthpiece and glared at Roger. "We'll have to bring her some. She means it."

Roger nodded and threw his hands in the air to say "promise her anything."

"Okay, we'll be there," Laura said. "But, Je