James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

“Toni, talk some sense into her, damn it,” the sheriff said to the woman in the biker’s leathers. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

As the sheriff left the house, I said to Sandy, “I’m putting my gun down.” I reached under my jacket, extracted my Glock with two fingers, and put it on the floor.

Toni Burgess scooped up my weapon and walked across the open room, chains clanking. She put my gun in the garbage can under the sink and closed the cabinet doors.

Sandy dropped her gun into her coveralls pocket, then hugged the baby with both arms.

I let out a breath I’d been holding for far too long and looked around. I saw baby bottles on the counter, baby toys on a sheepskin rug on the floor. Pictures of the baby were stuck all over the fridge.

Sandy jounced the baby against her shoulder and patted his back, but he kept crying.

“My name is Sandra Wilson,” she said. “And this is my son, Tyler Burgess Wilson. I’m his mother now. I answered Avis Richardson’s ad in Prattslist, and I paid her twenty-five thousand dollars as reimbursement for her expenses in carrying and bearing the baby. And she signed the papers. It’s all legal. You make sure to tell Avis that it’s too late to change her mind.”

“Avis ran the ad?”

“She sure did. I can show it to you. After Avis said she wanted us to have the baby, we wired the money into her bank account. Now, listen to me. We love Tyler and we’re not giving him up. This little boy is ours.”

CLAIRE SAID, “I’m a doctor, honey. And I have a baby not much older than Tyler. Could I just take a quick look at him? Please?” She reached out her arms toward the baby in Sandy Wilson’s arms.

“I can’t get him to eat,” Sandy said in a voice that suddenly cracked with emotion.

Claire hugged the girl and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Then she tugged the baby out of Sandy’s arms and took him to the kitchen table. “Got some baby wipes and a clean diaper?” she asked, her voice as calm as if we weren’t under the gun.

I was at Claire’s side as she unwrapped the baby, and I could see that he was brown-eyed and pink all over and that he had all his parts, plus a little port-wine stain on the back of his hand. I reached out and touched his little palm. He kicked his legs and let out a fresh new wail.

While Claire cleaned and inspected the baby, Toni Burgess disappeared. She returned a minute later with the ad from Prattslist and a sheet of paper in her shaking hands.

“Sergeant, I want you to see this so you can leave us in peace and tell Buck to go home.”

“You go ahead and read it. I’m listening,” I said.

“I, Avis Richardson, being of lawful age and sound mind, do give my unnamed son to Sandra Wilson and Antoinette Burgess, who have paid me $25,000 for my expenses in bearing this child.”

The ad was as Sandy described it. And the note was signed, dated, and witnessed by Antoinette Burgess and Sandra Wilson.

I sighed, and then I had to say it.

“Toni, the problem is, Avis Richardson is only fifteen years old.”

“She’s eighteen . She showed us her ID.”

“She’s a liar,” I said. “And that’s just the beginning.”

“This is just wrong ,” Sandy said, collapsing into a kitchen chair and sobbing into her hands.

She was crying so hard, it was difficult to make out everything she said, but this much I got loud and clear: “We planned for him. We delivered him. We’re giving him a loving home. Avis didn’t want him. She had no love for him at all.”

I went to Sandy and took her gun out of her coveralls pocket and ejected out the magazine.

She looked up at me, pleading. “Help us. What do we have to do to keep him?”

“You can’t keep him, Sandy,” I said, knowing that my words were like taking a hatchet to her heart. “This baby already has a family who wants him. I’m very sorry for your pain.”

OUR DEPARTURE from Clark Lane was excruciating; slow and tearful.

Cops, neighbors, and Devil Girlz crowded around the Explorer as Toni handed me a car seat and other things for the baby, and Sandy pushed papers into my hands.

“This letter is for Tyler to read when he’s older,” Sandy said. And she gave me her diary and a fat envelope of pictures documenting the baby’s birth.

I put the photos in the door pocket, evidence that would do until Tyler’s DNA was processed, and I set up the car seat in the backseat.

Claire fired up the ignition, and as soon as we cleared Taylor Creek, I reclined in the passenger seat and dozed, my eyes flashing open every few minutes over the next four hundred miles. I kept turning to look back at Tyler.

What was next for this baby?

Would he be okay?

As dusk blotted out sundown over Bryant Street, we pulled into the parking lot outside the Medical Examiner’s Office. Conklin was standing next to his car, tossing his keys into the air, catching them, waiting for us to arrive.

He came over to the car, opened the back door, and stood speechless as he gazed down at the baby.

“This kid is adorable,” he said. “So what’s the plan?”

I unfolded my aching bones, got out of the Explorer, and said, “We’re going to wait a few hours before calling Child Protective Services.”

I hugged Claire good-bye, took Tyler and his car seat, and got into the squad car, Conklin behind the wheel. He said, “The last place Avis Richardson used her cell phone was Tijuana. She called her parents. That was twelve hours ago.”

“Here’s what I think,” I said. “We introduce the baby to the Richardsons. Tell them to call Avis’s phone. Even if they just leave a message, that’s fine. They just need to say, ‘We got your baby back.’

“We put a trap on their phone line,” I said. “And we take the baby to St. Francis. We have undercover work in neonatal until Avis comes to see the baby. We put another team at the hotel.”

“And if she doesn’t show?”

“I’ll think of something else. You can bet I will.”

“Works for me,” said Conklin.

SONJA AND PAUL RICHARDSON were waiting in the hallway outside their suite, shades of hope, expectation, and praise-the-Lord lighting their faces.

They ran toward us as we got off the elevator, and I braced for the imminent shock of separating from the baby.

I clutched the little boy as I told Sonja that by law we had to take him to the hospital, and the legal system would dictate what happened to him after that.

“But I knew you would want to see him first,” I said and handed the child to his grandmother.

It was a beautiful moment.

Sonja’s pretty face shone with tears as she held him. Her husband curved a protective arm around her shoulders and put a hand on his grandson’s chest. Sonja looked up at me and said, “Thank you so much for finding him.”

“This is a great day,” Paul said. “A great day.”

Back in the suite, we all sat down for a serious conversation.

“Sonja, Paul,” I said. “Avis has to come in. Avis was the one who placed the ad on Prattslist. We have a copy of the ad. She wasn’t solicited. She put the baby up for sale and was paid twenty-five thousand dollars. That’s child trafficking. We have a copy of the contract she signed.”

Conklin said, “Avis is in Mexico, and that means that she’ll be deported when she’s caught. If Ritter is with her, he’s guilty of transporting a minor across international lines. He’s in enough trouble to keep a platoon of lawyers busy for years.”

“But because Avis is a minor,” I said, “if she comes in on her own, we can try to protect her. We’ll work with the DA to get her into the juvenile offenders system. But if she’s deported from Mexico …,” I said with a shrug. “Trust me. You don’t want her to be tried as an adult.”