I walked out of the library and caught a cab straight to St.

Jude Fertility Clinic on Sixty-Eighth Street.

By half past six, the basement archive room smelled of old paper and cold fluorescent tubes.

Dr.

Marcus Vance stood behind a long steel counter, moving gray cardboard storage boxes from a rolling cart onto the lower shelves.

He stopped in the middle of the motion when he saw me in the doorway, his hand frozen on the metal handle of a file drawer.

He cleared his throat twice before he stepped out into the narrow aisle.