Kelley Armstrong - Made to Be Broken

We'd been watching the door to the Byrony Agency since eight-thirty. Four employees had gone inside – two women and two men, both of whom, from our angle, had matched the description Fenniger gave of his contact.

At nine-thirty, the first couple arrived. At 10:15, they left, their steps slower, the husband's hand against the small of his wife's back as she stared down the street with empty eyes, clearly having had their hopes dashed. Even if I'd never wanted a child, I could imagine what it would be like to be told I didn't qualify to be a parent.

In a few hours, when their shock and disappointment had time to crystallize into despair, would they get a phone call? "Hello, it's Joe from the Byrony Agency. I was just reviewing your file. While you don't qualify for regular private adoption, I'm in charge of a special project we're testing here at the agency, and I think I might have some good news for you."

He'd offer a few more words of encouragement, enough to make them eagerly agree to the first meeting. After feeling them out over several sessions, he'd feel confident enough of their answer to make the offer. Their special needs could be met by special girls who wanted to get their lives back on track and, more important, hand their babies over to parents whose devotion would be unquestioned, parents willing to pay more than the price of a used car for a child. Provide this girl with the money she needed to go to college, to move away, to restart her life, and she would give up her child and all rights to that child, make the clean break that she was certain was in everyone's best interests.

One baby, at premium cost. A healthy, beautiful, well-adjusted baby with pictures they could see in advance. The mother paid and gone from their lives forever. Of fi cials bought off to provide legitimate adoption papers, with no fear of future repercussions.

How closely would the prospective parents examine such a deal? One glance at the faces of that couple leaving the office, and I knew the answer. With their dream within reach, they wouldn't dare look too closely.

About five minutes after the first couple left, a second arrived.

"They seem to have a steady flow of clients," I said. "Or prospective clients, at least."

Jack nodded.

The couple paused at the door, double-checking the name on the plaque, consulting a PDA, then flipping through papers in a folder.

"Their first visit, I bet," I said.

"Probably."

"Bet they get a lot of that."

"Probably."

I watched the couple go inside. "I imagine it wouldn't be very hard to – "

"No."

"May I finish the idea before you shoot it down?"

"Don't need to. Gonna suggest making an appointment. Playing parents. Long shot."

He sipped his coffee. I waited, giving him the chance to expand on that. Futile, of course, but I always do, just to be polite.

"What's a long shot?" I asked.

"Getting the offer. Won't do it for everyone. Gotta be just right. Try it? Big risk. Little chance of payoff."

"I wasn't thinking we'd play prospective parents and hope they'd offer us a black market baby. I'm not that deluded. But if you have a better idea for getting inside and taking a look at the office, the layout, the security setup, the staff…"

"Huh." Another slow drink of coffee. "Good idea."

"I do get them, on occasion."

Jack expected I'd want to wait for Quinn, so I could play this ruse with a husband closer to my age, but Quinn's acting skills were minimal. As Jack said, he preferred to play things straight. A small role with little stretching, yes. This required far more. It required Jack.

Besides, Jack's age seemed more an advantage than a liability in this scenario. A middle-aged guy with a younger wife still in her "I want a baby" time of life would be smarting from his inability to provide one. Even if the problem wasn't his, people might presume he wasn't as virile as the thirty-five-year-old prospective daddy she could have married.

The waiting time would be a factor, too. Tell that thirty-five-year-old he has to wait three or four years to get a baby, and that'd be fine. For a guy we could pass off as closer to fifty-five, he'd start having visions of walking his child to school in a mobility scooter.

Calling to make an appointment using phony names was risky. We had no idea whether the agency would research couples that were only asking for preliminary information, but we had to presume they might at least run a basic name check.

We needed a genuine cover. For that, Jack suggested getting Evelyn's help again. While he was adamant there would be no cost to me – it would go on his chit, which was overpaid – I knew Evelyn wouldn't go for that. Neither would I. I kept my accounts just as carefully tabulated, and would pay them back.

This time, though, Evelyn demanded her payment in advance.

"She wants something," Jack said, as he returned to the rental car from a pay phone.

"Dare I ask?"

"To see you. Before you go home."

"Uh-huh. And the purpose of this visit is to hit me up for – no, don't tell me. She's found another vigilante job that might tempt me more than the last."

"Yeah. Had it for a while. Kept pestering me to tell you. Said I would. Eventually."

"What's the job?"

"Not telling me."

He started the engine.

I put out my hand. "Go ahead and call her back. If I refuse, I'm only postponing the inevitable, and we need that appointment. Besides, given the choice, I'd much rather deal with her in person – with you there."

He nodded and shifted into reverse.

"You already told her to go ahead, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

We'd just finished lunch when Jack got a call from Evelyn. He didn't answer it. Just checked the number, then went to find a pay phone. His cell phone was, of course, a prepaid throwaway, and fine for basic security, but "fine" wasn't good enough for Jack. Detroit was a big city, where a pay phone call was far more anonymous than it was in White Rock, so he was mixing it up.

Fifteen minutes later, he tossed my notepad onto my lap. One of the pages was covered with shorthand details of the identities we were about to assume. In the top margin, he'd written and circled 4:45.

"Dare I hope this is an appointment time?"

"It is."

"For tomorrow? Wednesday…?"

"Today."

"Today?" My voice squeaked as I checked my watch. "Four hours from now? How did you manage to get one so quickly?"

"My admin assistant."

"Ah, Evelyn. You know, you really don't give the poor woman enough credit. She's just a sweet old lady who lives to help you, Jack. And for what? Just the simple satisfaction of staying useful in her twilight years."

A snort, followed by a few choice epithets.

"Let me see how well my Evelyn radar is working today," I said. "You didn't ask her to set it up. She did it on her own, to prove how useful she can be… and to sneak a hidden charge onto my bill."

"If I didn't ask her to do it, we don't owe. She knows that. She's grandstanding."

"Are you suitably impressed?"

"I'm not her target."

"Don't worry. When I see her, I'll be sure to thank her for the speedy appointment, and to display the appropriate lack of awe."

He laughed sharply as he pulled out of the restaurant lot. Identities in hand, we needed to find suitable outfits to hang on them. Time to go shopping.

We were assuming the identities of Debbie and Wayne Abbott. Thirty-three and fifty-one years old respectively, the Abbotts had been married four years. It was his second, her first. Neither had children. He owned a successful construction company. She taught third grade.