Rick Mofina - Whirlwind

“I will do this my way. It’s been working so far, hasn’t it?”

“The longer we wait, the riskier it gets. We’re running out of time and money. The agency’s likely got people looking for us ever since we left. You signed a contract with them, took a lot of money then disappeared without delivering a baby. And there’s a chance that police are looking for this baby, too, since it’s been in the news.”

It was all true, but Remy pursed her lips.

“And,” Mason added, “how the hell are you going to pass off this five-month-old baby as a one-month-old? Even the doctor at the shelter thought he was big for three months.”

“Stop being so negative, Mason. It’s all going to work out,” Remy said. “We just need to wait a little bit, then we’ll have our money, then we’ll start the life we’ve been dreaming of, the life we deserve. Trust me, babe.”

“I can’t wait a little bit . Things are slipping away. I just want to get our cash and get the hell out of here.”

“We just need a bit longer.”

“You know what I think, Remy? I think the truth is you don’t want to give this baby up.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I think that after losing your baby, you’re going through something. You’re getting attached to this one and you’re delaying things because deep down you want to keep him.”

“That’s not true.”

Mason got his gun from his bag, pulled the slide back and released it. The gun clicked as it chambered a round from the magazine into the barrel.

“It’s not going to happen.” Mason pointed his gun at the baby.

“Mason, no!”

“We’re not keeping that kid under any circumstances, Remy. Is that clear?”

“Put the gun down, Mason! Stop being an asshole!” Without blinking Remy shoved the gun aside. “If we lose this child, we lose everything.”

Mason stood there for several seconds until he cooled down, then he lowered his hand, removed the magazine and the round, tossing them with the gun on the bed.

The baby’s crying forced Remy to shift her attention. She put him on the bed and started preparing a bottle for him when there was a knock on the motel room door.

The chain was up and the door was bolted. Mason went to the peephole. A fish-eyed view of the manager in his stained T-shirt filled it.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“You gotta keep it down in there-people are complaining. If I get any more shit, I’m calling the police.”

Mason shook his head.

“Yeah, we got it. Sorry, buddy,” he said.

Mason went to the bed, collected his gun and magazine.

“Mason, wait. What are you going to do?”

“Something I should’ve done a long time ago. I’m taking charge of our situation.”

“Mason!”

“Don’t do anything or call anybody. I’ll be back.”

He waited at the window for the manager to clear the front walk then, ignoring Remy’s pleas, he left her alone with the baby.

Chicago, Illinois

Lake Michigan stretched north against a crystal sky, but Hedda Knight was blind to the view from her seventy-fifth-floor law office in the Aon Center.

All she saw was a sea of problems.

One of her mothers had disappeared weeks before she was due to deliver, jeopardizing Hedda’s biggest deal.

Tapping her pen to her desk she pressed her phone to her ear as Ed Bascom, the senior agent with the private investigative agency she’d hired, gave her an update.

“We’ve confirmed that an ambulance was dispatched to Remy Toxton’s residence in Texas and that she was taken to hospital.”

“Where is she?”

“We obtained a new lead that she was transported out of state.”

“Where?”

“Arkansas.”

“Arkansas? What’d you find out in Arkansas?”

“Nothing, our investigation there dead-ended. We don’t know what hospital or which city. We suspect we were fed bad information by the church people supporting her boyfriend, Mason Varno. They’re protective.”

“I don’t care. Did Remy have the baby or not?”

“We haven’t confirmed it.”

“Why not? What’re we paying you for?”

“Did you ever consider that they could’ve been victims of the tornadoes?”

“Yes, but they live in Lufkin and from my read of the news Lufkin was not touched by the storms.”

“What if they happened to take a trip to Dallas the day the storm hit?’

“That’s your job to find out.”

“Can your nurse who was assigned to their case recall anything more?” Bascom asked.

“No! She’s told you everything. She went to the apartment and they were gone. Remy didn’t answer her phone, her emails. They left no forwarding address, no contact information, nothing. We’ve been over this.”

“They’ve covered their tracks,” Bascom said. “We still have no credit card or banking trail on Toxton or Varno.”

“Damn it, Ed, you’re no closer to finding them than when you started looking. Is there anything you can do, or should I hire someone else?”

“We’re working on another lead. Varno’s an ex-con.”

“An ex-con. Oh, that’s great.”

“He’s got a meeting with his parole officer coming up. We’ll surveil the office for him and he’ll lead us to Toxton.”

“Do that. I want that baby. But find Remy quietly. We don’t want anyone going public on this, or to the police. You got that?”

Hedda heard muttering.

“Ed? You got that?”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Hedda hung up, tossed her pen on her desk, turned to her computer screen and studied the file showing the photographs of Remy Toxton and Fyodor Gromov, the biological parents of a Caucasian baby.

Where’s Remy?

Hedda knew the likely scenarios. Remy could’ve lost the baby, grown fearful and fled to pocket the remainder of her fifteen-thousand-dollar signing payment. She could have changed her mind and decided to keep the child. Or she might be working with another agency for more money.

Hedda didn’t care. If that baby was alive, she wanted it. Needed it.

Calm down. Be careful, she told herself.

She had to remember her own rules. Never pressure the girls. Each case was delicate. Each case had its own complications. No two were ever the same. Most ended well but when it was time to deliver, you could not predict how some mothers would react. A few became emotional. But Hedda always worked things out. She kept the mothers happy so that they wouldn’t even consider going to the authorities. Hedda could never let that happen, especially now when she was on the brink of taking her surrogacy and baby adoption enterprise to a mind-blowingly lucrative level.

Thinking back, Hedda remembered a different time when her life was guided by a different dream.

She’d grown up in Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Her parents were both federal lawyers. Hedda, a high achiever, studied law at Yale, where she met her future husband. As young, rising stars they joined firms in New York. When Hedda began talking about starting a family, her husband confessed that he’d fallen in love with another woman.

Hedda’s dream died.

Her marriage over, she quit the firm, left New York and drifted to Los Angeles, where she found work specializing in adoptions. She became an expert in the adoption and surrogacy laws of every U.S. state, and most countries around the world. She knew the nuances, the gaps, the loopholes and the murky zones.

Moreover, Hedda knew that there were more parents seeking healthy babies than babies to meet the demand. Recognizing an opportunity, she set up her own firm in a low-rent strip mall in Long Beach, where she worked tirelessly to build a network of contacts across the country and around the world.