The Surrogate Read online

  “Yes, sir. That is correct.”

  “You’re using that picture I provided?”

  “Yes, we are, sir.”

  “Have you looked at the security tapes from the ATMs?”

  “Yes, sir. The girl had her hair stuffed inside a cap. None of the tapes revealed the presence of a baby, but she had a lot of clothes and boxes piled in the car, and it was impossible to view the far side of the backseat. There was a dog in the passenger side of the front seat.”

  Yes, Gus thought. Kelly had said she took her dog with her. “Can you get a still of the dog?” he asked.

  “We can try.”

  “What about the hospitals in those two towns?” Gus asked. “The nurse here says the girl probably would have needed some stitches.”

  “We thought of that. No one fitting her description and circumstances showed up at the emergency rooms in either city. We also checked with the family practitioners, obstetricians, and midwives in both towns, but the girl had not contacted any of them.”

  “What about other towns?” Gus demanded.

  “There aren’t any other towns in that area large enough to have a physician or a midwife.”

  Gus looked at the map he had spread out in front of him. “Go on up into Kansas—to Ulysses, Garden City, Dodge City. To any town that has any sort of medical practitioner. And check at service stations, convenience stores, roadside diners. She has to buy gas and she has to eat. And if the baby is alive, she’ll need diapers and other baby stuff. And she would have had to stop and sleep by now. Check motels for any young woman who paid cash. This is the highest priority. You got that! Highest priority! I want that girl and her baby found.”

  Gus slammed down the phone. The girl was outsmarting them.

  He got up and kicked a wastebasket across the room. He started to throw a crystal decanter against the wall but decided instead to pour himself a glass of sherry. He downed it and poured another.

  It was time for him to talk to Amanda.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  AMANDA HAD JUST stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in a warm towel when Toby tapped on the door. “Your brother is on the phone,” he said. Then he stepped inside and, wearing a playful look, tried to pull the towel away.

  She hit the side of his head with her fist and stormed out of the bathroom. He knew how upset she was about Montgomery. She was in mourning, for God’s sake. All the man could think about was sex.

  “Gus, darling, why haven’t you returned my calls?” she asked, allowing her voice to sound a bit angry. It wasn’t like Gus to ignore her. “Are you still at the ranch? I thought you would be back home by now.”

  “I am still at the ranch,” Gus said, his voice weary.

  “Freda said the service for Montgomery went well, but I wanted to hear it from you,” Amanda said. “And we need to discuss a grave marker. Something in pink granite, I think. I still can’t believe that she’s gone and that I’m never going to see her again.” Amanda closed her eyes against the pain.

  And the anger.

  How could Montgomery have done this to her? Montgomery knew how much she and Gus depended on her. How much they cared for her. Who was going to look after Mother now? And the ranch?

  “Are you sure she didn’t leave a note?” Amanda asked. “She owed us some explanation of why she would do such a thing. Or do you think she had a nervous breakdown?”

  “Something like that,” Gus said. “She was very upset, Amanda. And she had reason to be. Jamie Long left the ranch.”

  “Left the ranch!” Amanda cried out. “But why? Did she come back?”

  “No. I have people out looking for her, but it’s been three days now since she left. We think she’s someplace in Kansas.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would she be in Kansas?” Amanda demanded, her brow tightening with apprehension. “The baby is due in a couple of weeks. Surely she’ll return to the ranch to have the baby.”

  “Amanda, Jamie Long has already had the baby. She had it by herself in a deserted farmhouse during a snowstorm.”

  Amanda sank to the side of the bed and put her hand to her throat. “The baby is all right, isn’t he?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “How do you know she had a baby if you haven’t seen it?” Amanda rubbed her forehead. Her brother wasn’t making any sense. No sense at all. But he was frightening her. Really frightening her.

  “There was graphic evidence of a recent birth at that house,” Gus said. “I seriously doubt if some other woman had traveled to Marshall County to have a baby on her own in the middle of a blizzard.”

  “That terrible girl!” Amanda shrieked. “You have to find her! To find our baby!”

  “I will,” Gus promised, “but it may take a while. I have been making some phone calls. I plan to arrange for a soon-to-be-born baby to use as a stand-in until we find Sonny’s baby.”

  “No,” she screamed. “I don’t want another baby!”

  “Amanda, I want you to take a deep breath and listen to me. Listen very carefully. What if your supposed due date comes and goes and there is no baby? Your followers will be expecting an announcement of his birth and a picture of you with a baby. They are waiting with bated breath for that picture, and I’m not even sure that Jamie Long’s baby is still alive. It was three weeks early, and the girl was alone when she had it. I saw that house, Amanda. There was a lot of blood, and it was bitterly cold.”

  Amanda drew in her breath. “No,” she gasped. “I would know if the baby died. God would have told me.”

  “That may very well be,” Gus said, “but until I find Sonny’s baby, we may need another one to use in its place.”

  “No, Gus, no,” Amanda said, tears rolling down her face. “Please, I have to have Sonny’s baby. I have to. You know that. I don’t want Toby anymore. I just want you and our baby.”

  “And you will have him,” Gus said, his voice breaking. “You have my solemn promise.”

  Gus hung up the phone and drew in his breath, filling his lungs and heart and mind with resolve. He would keep his promise to his sister. He must. What good was all this power if he couldn’t give his sister the one thing that she wanted more than anything else?

  He should have removed Jamie Long from the ranch long ago and put her in a more secure place. He knew as soon as he realized what Amanda was up to and that her plan was fraught with problems. His sister lived in a fairy-tale world of her own making. Gus had realized from the very beginning—even before he learned that Sonny’s semen had been used to impregnate the girl—that one of two things was probably going to happen. The girl would realize that she was a goose about to lay a golden egg and hold out for more money, or, for quite another set of reasons, the girl might decide that she wanted to keep the baby for herself. The minute he found out that she was carrying Sonny’s baby, he should have locked her up in a place far from the ranch. A place that she would never leave.

  It was all his fault.

  He rose from his chair and began to pace across the imposing bedchamber—with its high ceilings and massive fireplace—that had once been his larger-than-life grandfather’s. Back in his Grandfather Buck’s day, the room had contained massive furniture—a huge four-poster bed that stood four feet above the floor, oversized chairs, and tall chests whose top drawers Gus could not reach. Now the room held different furniture. Chairs he did not have to scramble into. A bed he didn’t need a stepping stool to climb into. But the furniture never looked as though it belonged in a room of such grand proportions.

  He paused by the fireplace for a minute to warm his backside.

  What if he couldn’t keep his promise to his sister? What if he never found the girl?

  But that was ridiculous. She was clever, but it was only a matter of time until she made a mistake. There was a limit to how long she could elude the net he had thrown out there. Not without unlimited money. Not without help.

  Help. Was there anything he was overlooking? An all-points had been se
nt out on her and her car. He had found the girl’s address book in Montgomery’s desk and knew the names of her friends. And her sister. Those people were already being watched. Their phones were being tapped. Their mail would be examined. People in the girl’s hometown were already being interviewed—neighbors, teachers, classmates, members of her church. They were shown a badge and the cover story was kept vague but strongly implied that it would be in Jamie’s best interest for her to be located and that something ominous could happen to her if she were not. Even if those being interviewed were at first reluctant, eventually they would agree to help. They would let the interviewer know if they saw or heard from her.

  It was only a matter of time, Gus told himself as he pulled the covers back and crawled into bed.

  For so many years, whenever he was at the ranch, he and Montgomery would play gin rummy and drink scotch in the evening. And she would tell him stories about his father and grandfather. Coming here was never going to be the same.

  He should not have yelled at her. What happened was his doing, not hers. He should have seen it coming. “I’m so sorry, Montgomery,” he whispered. “So sorry.”

  He didn’t want to cry. Not again. He turned his thoughts to Amanda. She didn’t want Toby anymore. “I just want you and our baby,” she had said.

  Maybe they could name the boy Montgomery and call him “Monty.” Or “Buck” would be nice. Buck was a good name for a West Texas boy. And that’s what Gus wanted him to be. A rancher. A man of the land. He wanted to preserve his innocence, as he had with Sonny. Gus had convinced Amanda not to take Sonny on the road as a boy, claiming that some would see that as exploitation. There would be plenty of time for that after Sonny had finished college. But Sonny wasn’t much of a student and didn’t adapt well to college. Sonny wanted to spend his life here on the ranch—not saving souls and raising money to elect political candidates. But the boy had never had the courage to tell his mother. He was happiest here at the ranch. Like his great-grandfather Buck, the boy had loved the land. If he wasn’t riding across it on horseback, he was racing around in that damned all-terrain vehicle. Gus had wanted to blame the accident on the company that manufactured it, but maybe it was the land itself that had killed Sonny. All that space was seductive. It made a man feel one with the universe. Made him long to be a wild mustang. Or an eagle.

  Gus desperately needed a full night’s rest and had taken something to assure that sleep would come. He felt his body relaxing as the drug took hold. A nice feeling. He closed his eyes and imagined himself and little Buck in the pony cart. He could hear the boy’s laughter and the bells jingling merrily as the pony trotted down the drive. But to turn that vision into reality, he had to track down Jamie Long.

  The baby was still alive. He had decided to believe that was so until he knew otherwise. He needed to believe that.

  Monday morning Jamie found her way to the vital statistics office at the state health department. Using the information the midwife had given her, she filled out a form for the baby’s birth certificate and one for Janet Marie Wisdom. The clerk said she should receive them in a week to ten days.

  That was easy, Jamie thought as she picked up the infant carrier and headed for the door. As soon as she had a birth certificate, she could apply for a Social Security number and obtain a driver’s license.

  That afternoon she called a classic-car dealer in Wichita, Kansas, and told him about her car. He sounded interested. And honest, if one could determine such a thing over the telephone. Then she ran a few errands while she still had the car. At a secondhand store, she bought a baby bed, a floor lamp, and a radio. Then she went to a discount store where she selected more clothing for Billy, bedding for his bed, a huge package of diapers, a large bag of dog food, a rawhide bone, and a Frisbee. Last she stocked up on staples at a supermarket.

  The landlady’s door opened as Jamie started up the stairs with the last of her purchases. “How’s that baby doing,” Mrs. Duffy asked as she stepped out into the hall.

  “Just fine,” Jamie said. “He and I are learning more about each other every day.”

  Mrs. Duffy reached out and stroked Billy’s head. “Such a pretty little boy,” she said. “You be sure and enjoy him while he’s little. Children grow up so fast.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jamie said and headed up the stairs.

  After she put away the groceries, Jamie put the baby in the sling and the leash on Ralph, and they went out for an evening walk. It was almost balmy, and she realized that spring was in the air, that the trees and shrubs were starting to bud.

  Her long cold winter was over.

  Early the next morning, she gave Ralph the rawhide bone in hopes it would help him pass a long, lonely day shut up in the apartment and headed for Wichita.

  She avoided I-35 and took Highway 74 north until it ended at the town of Deer Creek, then she crossed under the interstate and took Highway 77 and then Highway 15 into Wichita.

  She arrived at the classic-car lot before the appointed hour. She watched while a tall, lanky young man named Underwood walked around the car then lifted the hood. Then she and Billy waited inside the cluttered office while Mr. Underwood drove the car.

  When he returned he asked what she wanted for the car. When Jamie told him, he looked as though she were demented.

  “You told me on the phone that you are an honest man and would do right by me,” Jamie told him. “I’m a single mother with a new baby and need the money from this car just to get by.”

  “I could take it on consignment,” he suggested.

  Jamie shook her head. She needed to sever all ties with this car. Today. Its very uniqueness made her feel as though she were driving around in a vehicle with a target painted on its side.

  Mr. Underwood made an offer considerably lower than her asking price. Jamie made him a counteroffer, and they shook hands.

  “I’ll need the money in cash,” Jamie told him.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Domestic trouble?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  He looked down at the car title. “I see the original owner of the car was a Gladys Simpson.”

  “She’s my grandmother. You’ll see on the back of the title where she signed the car over to me before she died. I have her death certificate—and her driver’s license if you want to verify her signature.”

  She watched while he looked at the certificate and the license and made copies of both. Then he picked up her Texas driver’s license again and stared at the image. “You have any other identification?”

  Jamie produced her Social Security card, her birth certificate, and her University of Texas student ID. She wondered how many months or years would have to go by before she once again could identify herself as “Jamie Amelia Long.”

  Mr. Underwood gave her a ride to the bus station in downtown Wichita. “Where are you headed?” he asked.

  “Florida,” she said firmly. “I am sick and tired of being cold. And I have an aunt there who is going to look after my baby while I finish college. That’s what the money from the car is for. I’m going to use it for tuition and books.”

  Her story amazed her. Should she be worried that she was getting so proficient at lying?

  She purchased a ticket to Oklahoma City.

  As the bus rolled down I-35 toward Oklahoma City, she tried to think if there was anything else she should do. Any mistakes she might have made.

  Every mile she put between herself and her car, she felt safer. Soon she would have a new birth certificate with a different name, which would also make her feel safer, but not safe.

  Would Amanda Hartmann find another baby to pass off as her own? Would Amanda ever tell her brother that he didn’t need to look for Sonny’s baby anymore?

  No, Jamie decided. Amanda would never give up.

  It was dark before a taxi delivered Jamie and her baby to the apartment house. Poor Ralph was so overjoyed to see her that he went absolutely crazy, leaping so high in the air that he did a complete bac
kward somersault. “Wow!” Jamie said, putting down the infant carrier and kneeling to hug her dog. “We’re going to have to give that Frisbee a try.”

  After she had seen to her dog and her baby, she carried a sandwich and a glass of milk to the coffee table. She planned to finally read the material on infant care that Mae had given her. But she ate her sandwich and then just sat there, allowing herself for the first time to address the horror that she had gone through. The bone-grinding pain, the blood, her ignorance of what was happening, the fear that she and her baby would die alone on an old mattress in the middle of a blizzard. And even after Billy had been born, how much determination it had taken for her to pack up the car and start out again with her body weak and torn and exhausted and hurting and bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. She was still bleeding. She hoped Mae’s little booklets would tell her that all that bleeding was normal. If not, she would have to find someone to make it stop.

  But for now she just wanted to sit here. She would read about motherhood tomorrow.

  She thought of how not long ago her most immediate goal had been to return to college. Maybe she would still do that someday, but right now she had to plan her life around two things—caring for her child and keeping her little family safe.

  She wondered if she would ever feel completely safe again.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  JAMIE STRETCHED IN her bed and took note of the sun streaming through the window. The weather report on the radio had promised a beautiful spring day. And she had the whole day ahead of her to do as she pleased. For the time being, her travels were over. Now she began a waiting game—waiting until she could establish her new identity, buy a car, look for a job, open a bank account, and begin her life anew as Janet Marie Wisdom.

  And more immediately, Jamie was waiting for tomorrow evening, when she would once again talk to Joe’s mother.