Judith Wall - The Surrogate

After they had killed her, they would have disposed of her and Ralph’s bodies and made it look as though she had fled in the night with her baby and dog. Ruby would have remembered her bruised forehead and concluded that Jamie was once again running away from an abusive boyfriend.

Except the kidnapper had taken the wrong baby. Soon someone was going to realize that. Jamie closed her eyes and prayed. Please don’t let them kill Lynette’s baby. Please.

She imagined Lynette coming in the morning and getting Ruby to open the door when Jamie did not respond to her knock. The police would be called. Would the police think that the woman who called herself Janet Wisdom had fled with both babies?

By now the kidnapper and his accomplices would be driving up and down the streets looking for her. Maybe they had called in others to help with the search.

She tried to make herself as comfortable as possible, leaning against the side of the house. She could feel the moisture from the damp earth penetrating the seat of her jeans and scooped a layer of dead leaves between herself and the ground.

And so she stayed. For hours. Grieving for her dog. Holding her baby. Wondering what was going to happen to them.

“We have the baby,” Felipe said when he had Hartmann on the line. He was in the back of a panel truck parked inside a garage at the end of the alley. “Carl and Luis have gone back to deal with the girl.”

“Is the baby all right?”

“Seems to be. It is with the woman in the other vehicle.”

“Good. You figured out how to get the girl’s body out of the apartment?”

“Toss it out the window. The dog, too. Then we will pick them up and be on our way. The plane is waiting at a rural airstrip south of here. After we leave the baby in Virginia, we will fly over the ocean and dump the bodies.”

“Call me before you take off.”

Next Felipe called the woman. “The baby okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I thought you said it was a boy.”

Felipe’s blood ran cold. “What are you saying?”

“The kid crapped and I just changed its diaper. This baby is a girl.”

Felipe paused for only a moment. He’d always known a time like this would come-a time when he himself would become the focus of Gus Hartmann’s rage. He got out of the truck, opened the garage door, then got back in and drove away. The waiting plane would take him to an island off the coast of Honduras. From there he would take a boat to the place that only he knew about. It was a relief, really. He had enough money in Swiss accounts to last three lifetimes.

At midnight, Amanda-wearing a flowing blue bathrobe-had joined Gus in his office. She would pace for a time then lie on the sofa, all the time offering a running monologue about how they needed to get this thing over with, how wonderful it would feel to finally have the baby in her arms, how no baby could ever replace Sonny but this child was the next best thing. How it didn’t feel right when she was holding that other baby.

Finally she ran out of steam and dozed off. Gus didn’t wake her after he’d talked to Felipe. He would wait until the plane was ready to take off. Until he was absolutely sure nothing had gone wrong.

He sat at his desk staring at the minutes ticking by on the clock. The plane would take off in about an hour.

After two hours had gone by, he finally had to admit that something was amiss, but he waited another thirty minutes to shake Amanda’s shoulder. “Something’s gone wrong,” he said.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“My man would have called by now. I’ve tried to reach him, but his phone is either turned off or he ditched it.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked.

“Because he screwed up and is running for his life.”

“What about the men he hired to help him?”

“The same,” Gus said, his jaw clenching.

“But you’ll still be able to get the baby, won’t you?” Amanda asked, panic in her voice.

“Yes, of course,” Gus said soothingly. “But it may take a few days. You might as well go on upstairs. Take something to help you sleep.”

“I won’t have my baby tonight?” she asked, her voice getting shrill.

“No, not tonight.”

Gus went to the sofa and took her in his arms. He spoke to her in his most soothing voice, telling her that everything was going to be all right, that it was just going to take a little bit longer than he had at first thought. He smoothed her hair and told her that he loved her and that they were going to be so happy with Sonny’s little boy to raise and to love. But right now, he needed for her to go to bed and let him think. And make a few phone calls.

It was noon before he had pieced together the story. Jamie Long had been caring for her neighbor’s kid. Felipe’s man had taken the wrong kid, and Jamie Long had gotten the hell out of there. The woman working with Felipe had left the baby girl in a hospital waiting room.

“What rotten luck,” Gus said with a slam of his fist on the desk. “Damned rotten luck.”

Then he calmed himself. A young woman with a small baby and no luggage and no one to turn to for help shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

When Jamie saw the morning’s first bus approaching, she crawled stiff and dirty and disheveled from the bushes. She was greeted by startled stares as she walked toward the cluster of waiting people, the infant carrier bumping against her leg. She got on the bus last, gave a crumpled bill to the driver, and sat in the seat immediately behind him.

When the bus reached Classen Boulevard, she got off and walked to the last of the three used-car lots she had visited. The same salesman was already there unlocking the door to the office. “You come back for the car?” he asked.

“If you’ll give me a good deal,” she said. “Otherwise, I’ll have to take my business elsewhere.”

The man took in her disheveled appearance with a knowing look and shook his head. “The price stands as is.”

Jamie shook her head. “If I pay what you ask, I won’t have enough money to buy gas.”

He dropped the price one hundred dollars.

Jamie could almost feel her pursuers getting closer by the minute. She nodded.

When he asked what name she wanted on the bill of sale, she told him Mary Johnson.

With the infant carrier anchored in the back with a seat belt, she drove south for fifteen or twenty blocks and stopped by a drive-up pay phone at a service station. She might as well call the Brammers’ number in Houston one last time. By the time her call was traced and someone arrived at this location, she would be miles away.

A man’s voice answered the phone. A young man. Jamie clutched the receiver saying nothing. Was it one of Gus Hartmann’s men just waiting for her to call? Waiting to threaten her? To lie to her and tell her that all they wanted was the baby and nothing would happen to her if she would give him up?

But then the voice said, “Jamie, is that you?”

She leaned forward and rested her head against the steering wheel. It had been a long time-another lifetime ago-since she had heard that voice. “Joe?” she whispered.

“Oh, my God, Jamie, what in the world is going on with you?”

“I can’t explain. I just called to say I wouldn’t be calling anymore. They know where I am now. I have to find someplace to hide. They even killed my dog,” she said, her voice breaking. “And they are listening to us now.”

“Jamie, listen to me very carefully,” Joe said. “Remember that Sunday afternoon when we planned to take your grandmother to a very special place?”

She tried to think. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It was someplace historical that Gladys had never been to before.”