the Third Twin (1996)

“It’s a tort—a civil wrong. We covered this last year in law school.” In the back of his mind he was thinking, Why the hell am I talking to her about torts—I want to tell her how much I love her. “If Genetico offered a woman hormone treatment, then deliberately impregnated her with someone else’s fetus without telling her, that’s a breach of implied contract by fraud.”

“But it happened so long ago. Isn’t there a statute of limitations?”

“Yes, but it runs from the time of discovery of the fraud.”

“I still don’t see how it would ruin the company.”

“This is an ideal case for punitive damages. That means the money is not just to compensate the victim, say for the cost of bringing up someone else’s child. It’s also to punish the people who did it, and make sure they and others are scared to commit the same wrong again.”

“How much?”

“Genetico knowingly abused a woman’s body for their own secret purposes—I’m sure any lawyer worth his salt would ask for a hundred million dollars.”

“According to that piece in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, the entire company is only worth a hundred and eighty million.”

“So they would be ruined.”

“It might take years to come to trial.”

“But don’t you see? Just the threat would sabotage the takeover!”

“How so?”

“The danger that Genetico may have to pay a fortune in damages reduces the value of the shares. The takeover would at least be postponed until Landsmann could assess the amount of the liability.”

“Wow. So it’s not just their reputations that are on the line. They could lose all that money, too.”

“Exactly.” Steve’s mind came back to his own problems. “None of this helps me,” he said, suddenly feeling gloomy again. “I need to be able to prove your theory of the third twin. The only way of doing that is to find him.” A thought struck him. “Could your computer search engine be used? Do you see what I mean?”

“Sure.”

He grew excited. “If one search threw up me and Dennis, another search might throw up me and the third, or Dennis and the third, or all three of us.”

“Yes.”

She was not as thrilled as she ought to be. “Can you do it?”

“After this bad publicity I’m going to have trouble getting anyone to let me use their database.”

“Damn!”

“But there is one possibility. I’ve already run a sweep of the FBI fingerprint file.”

Steve’s spirits rocketed again. “Dennis is sure to be on their files. If the third one has ever had his prints taken the sweep will have picked him up! This is great!”

“But the results are on a floppy disk in my office.”

“Oh, no! And you’ve been locked out!”

“Yes.”

“Hell, I’ll bust down the door. Let’s go there now, what are we waiting for?”

“You could end up back in jail. And there may be an easier way.”

With an effort Steve calmed down. “You’re right. There has to be another way of getting that disk.”

Jeannie picked up the phone. “I asked Lisa Hoxton to try to get into my office. Let’s see if she succeeded.” She dialed a number. “Hey, Lisa, how are you.…Me? Not too good. Listen, this is going to sound incredible to you.” She summarized what she had found out. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I can prove it if I can get my hands on that floppy disk.… You couldn’t get into my office? Shit.” Jeannie’s face fell. “Well, thanks for trying. I know you took a chance. I really appreciate it.…Yeah. Bye.”

She hung up and said: “Lisa tried to persuade a security guard to let her in. She almost succeeded, then he checked with his superior and almost got fired.”

“What do we try next?”

“If I get my job back tomorrow morning at the hearing I can just walk into my office.”

“Who’s your lawyer?”

“I don’t have a lawyer, I’ve never needed one.”

“You can bet the college will have the most expensive lawyer in town.”

“Shit. I can’t afford a lawyer.”

Steve hardly dared to say what was in his mind. “Well … I’m a lawyer.”

She looked speculatively at him.

“I’ve only done a year of law school, but in our advocacy exercises I scored highest in my class.” He was thrilled by the idea of defending her against the might of Jones Falls University. But would she think him too young and inexperienced? He tried to read her mind and failed. She kept looking at him. He stared right back, gazing into her dark eyes. I could do this indefinitely, he thought.

Then she leaned over and kissed him on the lips, lightly and fleetingly. “Hell, Steve, you’re the real thing,” she said.

It was a very quick kiss, but it was electric. He felt great. He was not sure what she meant by “the real thing,” but it must be good.

He would have to justify her faith in him. He began to worry about the hearing. “Do you have any idea of the rules of the committee, the procedure for the hearing?”

She reached into her canvas briefcase and handed him a cardboard folder.