by James, Ed
Zangiev reached into his jacket pocket and produced a dining fork. “Oh?”
“Come on, Boris. Please!”
“And did Mr. Bartlett sign those documents?”
“I got there about six thirty. But Landon wasn’t there!”
“Was Marie with you?”
“What?”
“Was your sister with you, Marcus?”
“Well, yeah, but you told me to—”
“Did she take Mr. Bartlett’s baby?”
“Of course she didn’t!”
Zangiev slapped the fork against his open palm and pressed the tines into his skin. “This is a big mess, and I need to clean it up.”
“Okay!” Edwards raised his hands. “Look, I did talk to Landon.”
Chase let out a sigh of relief. His bullshit was actually true.
“We turned up early, and I spoke to him. Boris, I was just trying to get him to agree to your deal. Thought you’d appreciate—”
“YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT MY BUSINESS!”
“Boris! Please!” Edwards started squealing. “I know who took the baby!”
Zangiev just held the fork in the air. “I’m listening.”
“I was sitting there, like you asked, watching the home while I waited for him to come home, but I saw this chick take the kid.” Edwards scowled, panting now. “Her name is Kaitlyn.”
Chase shut his eyes.
Zangiev let a slow breath out of his nostrils.
“I know how you wanted something on Landon, so I’d been staking out that place for months, saw her coming and going. So I took a photo of her. Sent it to a friend who knows about these things. He got a first name for me.”
“Why didn’t you come to me first?”
“Boris, I know how you hate red herrings. I needed to get more information before I came to you. He just came through for me today.”
Zangiev ran his fingers along the end of the fork. “Well, the name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“No. Listen, I think she was having Landon’s kid. I don’t know. It seemed complicated. And—”
Chase stood there, unable to do anything. Kaitlyn was now on Zangiev’s radar. Meaning she was now in danger, meaning Ky was too. “Boris, you done with me?”
Zangiev turned around, like he’d forgotten Chase was even there. “You know this girl?”
“Met her at Landon’s once. I think she was their cleaner or something.”
“And she was pregnant?”
“No idea. I haven’t been around there in a long time. You know how it is between us.”
Zangiev appraised him for a few seconds. He reached into his pocket and tossed a cell phone at Chase. “You will keep this to yourself or I will have you killed.” He turned back to squat in front of Edwards. “Now, my friend, where were we?”
Chase left the room and marched through the hotel, fingers twitching, trying to get out of there before Zangiev changed his mind. Out into the cold morning, then crunching across the pebbles, then onto Madison with its heavy traffic thundering past.
He let himself breathe properly again.
Chase Bartlett and his tricks and games. Leaving out so many details from these stories. What could he do now?
He took out his cell phone from his pocket. Still locked with the passcode. Neither Zangiev nor Marie had opened it. He found a missed call, so he redialed it. Answered immediately. “It’s Chase. Listen, there’s heat on me.”
“What have you done?” Her voice was a harsh rasp.
“I can’t tell you over the phone. Not even sure I could tell you face to face.”
“Well, that’s your choice.”
“Listen to me, Layla, I’ve paid you well to be Kaitlyn’s guardian angel. Where did you drop her last night?”
“Who is she?”
“She’s nobody. Just a friend. Have you—”
“Are you screwing her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Chase tried to laugh it off like he always did, but there was still enough fear in his voice to indicate something weird going on. “I want the best for my nephew.”
She snorted. “So this is just you screwing over your brother?”
“Where did you take her?”
“You told me not to tell you. Goodbye.” She hung up.
Forty-Three
KAITLYN
08:13
“Here you go.” Mom holds a fork in front of my face, a chunk of blueberry pancake stuck on the end.
I bite it and get that savory-sweet tang. So good. Taste of my childhood, of breakfasts around this table.
Cole is feeding from my right nipple now. It hurts like crazy. It has to get easier, doesn’t it?
“Hungry little critter, ain’t he?” Mom pours out a fresh cup of her super-strong coffee and nudges it over the table to me. The drip machine belches out a hiss of steam. “Did the doctor tell you to feed from a bottle?”
I just shrug. I don’t dare reach for the coffee in case it spills on him, but I’m so tired and need a hit of it.
“Honey, I need to go run an errand.” Mom’s on her feet, zipping up her outdoor coat. “Got some checks to deposit in the bank, and the lord knows we need the money.”
Is that a hint?
Doesn’t seem like it. Mom’s always real direct, so I just let it pass.
“I’ll be about a half hour. I can get some of that bread you like?”
“That’d be good.” I feel that same connection I share with my son. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“No, I mean it. After the way I treated you and Duke, I didn’t deserve any help.”
“That’s what family’s for.” She pecks my cheek and goes out the front door.
Sitting in my mom’s kitchen, my baby feeding from my breast. It hits me hard, makes me clamp my jaw tight. Never thought this would happen. Never even considered it before I left.
The door opens and Duke sidles in, collapsing into his chair at the head of the table. He does a double take. “Kaitlyn?”
Cole is gurgling and cooing. Heavy eyes, though. He needs to sleep and soon.
“Don’t mind me, Kittycat.”
“He’s done anyway. Thought you’d want to hold your grandson.” I tuck myself away and pass Cole over to Duke. “Here.”
“He’s a sweet kid. I’ve seen a lot too.” Duke stares down at the little rug rat, tickling him on the chin. “Just wondering when you’re going to fess up?”
I reach over to take a sip of coffee. “About what?”
“This pack of lies you been telling your mother and me.” He holds Cole up high. “This is that stolen baby.”
“How dare you?”
Duke fixes me with that stare, the one he’d save for a visit to the principal’s office. “Don’t bullshit me, girl. I worked a maternity ward since I came home from the army. Seen enough babies to tell them apart like that.” He holds Cole in his arms. “And the kid’s photos are all over the news. This is Ky Bartlett.”
“You’re talking bull—”
“Kaitlyn, you’re lying.”
I don’t have a reply. Instead, I reach for Ky. “Can I have my son back?”
Duke doesn’t give him to me. “I want the truth.” He keeps hold of him in his bony arms. “You might think you can lie to your mother, but give me some respect.”
I put another scrap of pancake in my mouth, but it doesn’t taste so sweet now, just bitter and salty.
“When I took you and your mother in, I raised you to be honest. Now you’re here, lying about a baby you’ve stolen?” The word is a shrill hiss, like saying it above a certain level will make the feds come bursting through the front door.
I give him nothing, just keep on chewing.
“This is how you’re going to play it, huh?” Duke rests Cole on his knee, my son facing right at me. The baby I stole. The truth I hid. But he is my son. “Stealing a kid? Goddamnit, Kaitlyn.” He lets out a wracking cough. Sounds like he spat up half a kidney. “Goddamnit.”<
br />
I reach over and take Cole back. “He is my son.”
Another cough, louder than before, like he’s scraped his lungs or something. “I told you to stop lying to me.”
“Ky is my son, I swear.”
“So he is that kid?”
I need to give him everything. Lay it all on the line for him. I hold Ky tight. He’s asleep already. “I was a surrogate mother for this couple.”
“What?” Duke scrapes his chair back, but he struggles to stand up. “For money?”
“I was desperate, Duke.”
“It’s illegal!”
“Was.” I snap it out loud enough to wake Ky. “Became legal first of January last year. My roommate told me about it. I registered with this agency and… they paired me up with this rich couple. I got pregnant and stayed with them until… I delivered on schedule.” I reach down and lift up my top to show him my C-section scars. “These are past the point of sheer agony, at least.”
“So why did you kidnap him, Kaitlyn?”
“They kicked me out with a check for fifty grand. They’re going to send me four hundred bucks every month for four years. Enough to pay my way through college, pretty much, so I can graduate with barely any student debt.” I pause. “But I haven’t cashed any of the checks.”
“So what, you dropped out of college?”
“Look, I spoke to them about switching my major this year. I have enough credits that, if I work hard, I can catch up. I want to do the right course this time. Medicine. I want to help people.”
Duke nods, the first sign that part of him is still on my side here. “One thing I learnt in the army was how to heal people. It’s a noble thing to do, Kittycat. Hell, I wish I’d been a doctor. Being a male nurse in that day and age…”
He’s using my nickname again. I feel some tension slacken off.
“Why did you take the kid, though?”
“Because I couldn’t bear to be apart from him for a second.” I stare down at my son, sleeping in my arms. “I rented this room in Capitol Hill and just sat in my dorm, staring at the checks, knowing I couldn’t live without Ky.”
“Seems like you should’ve thought about it before you started it. Much like your degree.”
And Judge Duke is back.
I say nothing, just like I always did. Let him get it out of his system.
“So, what. His sperm and your eggs?”
I give him a nod. Some part of me isn’t quite prepared to give him the full truth here.
“And what’s your plan now?”
“I’m going to keep Ky. He’s my son, and I can’t live the rest of my life without him.”
“The goddamn FBI are on to you. You can’t stay here, you know that. Right?”
I shrug. “I have some money. I’ll take him on the road with me. I hear Alaska’s nice.”
“Anchorage is a modern city, so you’ll need to go out into the last American frontier. You need to ask yourself if that’s the right place to raise a kid.”
The only sounds are Ky’s breathing and the ticking clock above the stove.
“It’s your choice what you do. You don’t even have to tell your mother.”
“Thanks.”
“I think you should te—” Duke lurches forward, hacking away loud enough to wake Ky.
I don’t know what to do here. I reach over and clap his back, but he holds up a hand. No water on the table. And Ky’s screaming now. I pass my coffee to Duke, and he glugs at it.
He sits there sucking in air until his breathing’s back to normal. “This is getting worse.” His breath is long and rasping. “I’m dying, Kaitlyn. Not long left, but I’ll take your secret to the grave.”
“Don’t say that!”
“It’s the truth, girl. Sorry.”
Ky’s screaming in my ears. He won’t shut up! I try to feed him, even though my nipples are raw, but he won’t latch on, just keeps screaming. Please, little guy. Please!
Duke takes him from me and does this strange clapping motion on Ky’s back. “This isn’t working.”
“What isn’t?”
“It’s like he has wind, but…” He snorts.
The front door opens and Mom clomps in, holding a loaf of tiger bread like a baby. She rests it on the countertop and smiles at Duke. “You’re up?”
“There’s something wrong with Cole.” Duke’s clapping him harder, real precise movements.
Mom comes over and takes him, tries a sort of stroking thing. But if anything Cole gets worse. “This isn’t right.”
Duke just sits there, like he’s struggling to breathe. “One thing I’ve learned from this ordeal is that you need to treat these conditions early.”
My mouth hangs open. “What? There’s something wrong with him?”
“Kaitlyn, I worked maternity for twenty-five years and… Let’s see. Can you run and get my bag?”
Forty-Four
CARTER
08:14
Carter stared hard at Jennifer, drilling through her lies. “Mrs. Bartlett, you need to be completely honest with me if we’re to stand any chance of finding your son.” His words echoed around the interrogation room. The video camera blinked its red light.
Jennifer looked away, like the truth was for other people. “There’s just no way I… No way on earth I can…”
“This ends, now. This denial.” Carter got in her eye line. “You’ve wasted so much time. Both of you. Lying to me while your son was missing. Why?”
She didn’t have an answer.
Landon sat next to Jennifer. He took her hand and wrapped his own shovels around hers.
Carter prodded his thumb on the tablet screen, warping it slightly. “You recognized her in these photos, didn’t you? You knew it was her last night. And you lied to us.”
“I couldn’t… I…”
“Your baby’s out there, Jennifer, with this Kaitlyn woman. Maybe she doesn’t even have him anymore. Who knows? Last night, we stood a good chance of recovering Ky, but now—because of your lies—those chances are much smaller. Start with telling me why you lied to us?”
“What will people think of me?” Jennifer seemed to shrink. “Bad enough that I can’t bear children, but them knowing I’m a bare-faced liar?”
“Lying’s what got us into this, Jen.” Landon’s lips quivered and he chanced a look at Carter. “This whole thing is a sham. Jen even wore a fake maternity belly for six months, then a fake baby belly afterwards.”
She collapsed into Landon’s arms, tiny against his bearlike torso.
“Jen can’t have kids. We tried for a couple years, but it started driving a wedge between us. We wanted them so bad. We tried IVF, considered adoption, but we’re too old for that. All the babies go to younger parents, and call me evil or whatever, but I don’t want to raise some nightmare eight-year-old whose mom was a crack addict.”
“I just wanted to have my own baby. My husband’s baby.” The words sounded thin, her justifications shrill and selfish. “What kind of woman can’t conceive? Can’t give her husband a son? This is all my fault.”
“Jennifer, your way out of this is to keep telling me the truth, okay?” Carter stared at her, meaning every single word. “You have been pregnant before, correct?”
“How the hell…?” She pushed away from Landon and folded her arms. “Yes, I had a son with my previous husband.”
“With Chase.”
Jennifer looked at him with glossy eyes. “Todd. But he… We were in a car accident. I was pregnant at the time and I miscarried. The fertility doctor said the accident caused trauma to my uterus and, while my eggs are fine, I can’t conceive again.”
“That must’ve been hard to take.”
“So we went to an agency, part of our foundation, and they paired us up with this girl who’d bear our child for me, with my egg and Landon’s sperm. After everything that happened, I just wanted to have my husband’s child, but this was the next best thing.”
Landon reached out a hand, and she to
ok it. “I love you, Jen.”
Carter gave them a few seconds of space. Sometimes reconnecting emotionally let that little bit more of the truth out. “I need to ask about the woman on the photo, okay? Your surrogate.”
Jennifer took a halting breath. “Her name is Kaitlyn Presswood. She lived with us until Ky came into our lives, even let her stay here for a few weeks afterwards, but I didn’t let her see him. All this time, I’ve worried that Kaitlyn would come back and steal my baby from us.”
“Ma’am, my priority now is recovering Ky, okay?” Carter stopped himself. This wasn’t getting anywhere. “Do you have any idea where she could’ve taken your son?”
“Shit.” Landon tugged at his thick beard. “My PI dug into Kaitlyn’s background. He might know.”
Forty-Five
LAYLA
08:28
Layla drives on. She is so over men and their stupid games. The Bellevue towers are a few blocks away, surrounding that sprawling new mall, all bigger, shinier, and fresher than the downtown skyscrapers across the lake. Hotels, tech companies, management consultancies, banks.
She slows as she nears the house. Set back from the road in a big yard surrounded by a white picket fence. Used to be three trees in the yard, shielding their home from outside view, but they’ve all been chopped down, giving a perfect view inside.
No sign of anyone in there. No lights, no movement. But you can never be too careful.
So she drives on past and takes another couple of blocks before she pulls over. This house seems just as empty. She opens the window to a crack and the only sound is a lonely dog barking for its owners. No sign of anyone watching from any of the homes across the street.
She reaches into the glovebox and takes out the Glock, gives it another once-over, and stuffs it in her pancake holster, just above the hip. Heavy and a constant presence, but better than in her jacket pocket, better than tucked into the back of her pants.
Ready.
She gets out of the rental and rests the key on the front driver-side tire. No obvious threats around here. Besides, they just see someone out for a morning run. She tugs her cap low, zips up her jacket, and jogs the two blocks back to the house, taking it slow and moderating her breathing, the Glock rocking with every step.