by Harlan Coben
“It wouldn’t matter. I don’t know anything about placement.”
“You’re a midwife, correct?”
She folded the smooth, muscular arms under her bosom. “I’m not answering any of your questions.”
“See, Denise, I know most of it. I just need you to fill in a few blanks.” Rachel sat on the vinyl couch. Denise Vanech didn’t move. “You have people in a foreign country. Maybe more than one country, I don’t know. But I know about Serbia. So let’s start there. You have people there who recruit girls. The girls come over pregnant, but they don’t mention that at customs. You deliver the baby. Maybe here, maybe you have another spot, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know a lot.”
Rachel smiled. “I know enough.”
Denise put her hands on her hips now. Her poses all seemed unnatural, as if she practiced them in front of a mirror.
“Anyway, the women have the babies. You pay them. You turn the baby over to Steven Bacard. He works for desperate couples who might be willing to bend the rules. They adopt the child.”
“That’s a nice story.”
“Are you saying it’s fiction?”
Denise grinned. “Total fiction.”
“Cool, fine.” She took out her cell phone. “Then let me call the feds. I’ll introduce them to Katarina. They can go down to Union City and grill Tatiana. They can start going through your phone records, your finances—”
Denise started waving her hands. “Okay, okay, tell me what you want. I mean, you said you’re not an FBI agent anymore. So what do you want with me?”
“I want to know how it works.”
“You trying to cut yourself in?”
“No.”
Denise waited a beat. “You said before that you’re looking for a specific kid.”
“Yes.”
“You’re working for someone, then?”
Rachel shook her head. “Look, Denise, you don’t have a lot of options here. You either tell me the truth or you do serious jail time.”
“And if I do tell you what I know?”
“Then I’ll leave you out of it,” Rachel said. It was a lie. But it was an easy one. This woman was involved in baby selling. There was no way Rachel was just going to let that go.
Denise sat. The tan seemed to be leaving her face. She looked suddenly older. The lines around her mouth and eyes deepened. “It’s not what you think,” she began.
Rachel waited.
“We aren’t hurting anyone. The truth is, we’re helping.”
Denise Vanech picked up her purse—white, of course—and dug out a cigarette. She offered one to Rachel. Rachel shook her off.
“Do you know anything about orphanages in poor countries?” Denise asked.
“Just what I see on PBS documentaries.”
Denise lit the cigarette and drew a deep breath. “They are beyond awful. They may house forty babies to one nurse. The nurse is uneducated. The job is often a political favor. Some of the children are abused. Many are born drug dependent. The medical care—”
“I get the picture,” Rachel said. “It’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And we’ve found a way to save some of these children.”
Rachel sat back and crossed her legs. She could see where this was going. “You pay pregnant women to fly over and sell you their babies?”
“That’s hyperbole,” she said.
Rachel shrugged. “How would you put it?”
“Put yourself in their position. You are a poor woman—and I mean poor—maybe a prostitute or somehow involved in white slavery. You are dirt. You have nothing. Some man knocks you up. You can abort or, if your religion forbids that, you can stick the kid in a godforsaken orphanage.”
“Or,” Rachel added, “if they’re lucky, they end up with you?”
“Yes. We will give them adequate medical care. We will offer financial restitution. And most importantly, we will make sure that their baby is placed in a loving home with caring, financially stable parents.”
“Financially stable,” Rachel repeated. “As in wealthy?”
“The service is expensive,” she admitted. “But let me ask you something now. Take your friend out there. Katarina you said her name was?”
Rachel kept still.
“What would her life be like right now if we hadn’t brought her here? What would her child’s life be like?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you did with her child.”
Denise smiled. “Fine, be argumentative. But you know what I mean. Do you think the baby would be better off with a dirt-poor prostitute in a war-torn hellhole—or with a caring family here in the United States?”
“I see,” Rachel said, trying not to squirm. “So you’re sort of like the world’s most wonderful social worker. This is charity work you’re doing?”
Denise chuckled. “Look around you. I have expensive taste. I live in a ritzy neighborhood. I have a kid in college. I like to vacation in Europe. We have a house in the Hamptons. I do this because it’s incredibly profitable. But so what? Who cares about my motives? My motives don’t change the conditions in those orphanages.”
“I still don’t understand,” Rachel said. “The women sell you their babies.”
“They give us their babies,” she corrected. “In return, we offer financial restitution—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You get the baby. They get money. But then what? There has to be paperwork on the child, otherwise the government would step in. They wouldn’t just let Bacard keep running adoptions like this.”
“True.”
“So how do you work it?”
She smiled. “You plan on busting me, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
She was still smiling. “You’ll remember I cooperated, right?”
“Yes.”
Denise Vanech pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. It looked as if she might be praying. “We hire American mothers.”
Rachel made a face. “Excuse me?”
“For example, let’s say Tatiana is about to have the baby. We might hire you, Rachel, to pose as the mother. You’d go to vital records at your town hall. You’d tell them you’re pregnant and going to have a home birth, so there won’t be a hospital record. They give you forms to fill out. They never check to see if you’re really pregnant. How would they? It’s not like they can give you a gynecological exam.”
Rachel sat back. “Jesus.”
“It’s pretty simple when you think about it. There is no record that Tatiana is going to have a baby. There is a record that you are. I deliver the baby. I sign as the attending witness to your child being born. You become the mother. Bacard has you fill in the paperwork for adoption. . . .” She shrugged.
“So the adopting parents never learn the truth?”
“No, but they don’t look too hard either. They’re desperate. They don’t want to know.”
Rachel suddenly felt drained.
“And before you turn us in,” Denise went on, “consider something else. We’ve been doing this for almost ten years now. That means there are children who’ve been happily placed with families that long. Dozens. All of those adoptions will be considered null and void. The birth mothers can come over here and demand their children back. Or take a payoff. You’d be ripping apart a lot of lives.”
Rachel shook her head. It was too much to consider right now. Another time. She was getting off track. Had to keep her eye on the prize. She turned and squared her shoulders. She looked Denise deep in the eye.
“So how does Tara Seidman fit into all this?”
“Who?”
“Tara Seidman.”
Now it was Denise’s turn to look confused. “Wait a second. Wasn’t that the little girl kidnapped in Kasselton?”
Rachel’s cell phone rang. She checked the Caller ID and saw it was Marc. She was just about to press the answer button when a man stepped into view. Her
breath stopped. Sensing something, Denise turned around. She jumped back at the sight.
It was the man from the park.
His hands were huge, making the gun he now pointed at Rachel look like a child’s toy. He wiggled his fingers in her direction. “Give me the phone.”
Rachel handed it to him, trying her best to avoid his touch. The man put the barrel of the gun against her head. “Now give me your gun.”
Rachel reached into her handbag. He told her to lift it into view with two fingers. She complied. The phone rang for the fourth time.
The man hit the answer button and said, “Dr. Seidman?”
Even Rachel could hear the reply. “Who is this?”
“We’re all at Denise Vanech’s house now. You will come here unarmed and alone. I will tell you all about your daughter then.”
“Where’s Rachel?”
“She’s right here. You have thirty minutes. I will tell you what you need to know. You have a tendency to try to be cute in these situations. But not this time or your friend Ms. Mills dies first. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
The man hung up the phone. He looked down at Rachel. His eyes were brown with a gold center. They looked almost gentle, the eyes of a doe. Then the big man swung his gaze toward Denise Vanech. She flinched. A smile came to the man’s lips.
Rachel saw what he was about to do.
She shouted, “No!” as the big man aimed the gun at Denise Vanech’s chest and fired three shots. All three hit dead center. Denise’s body went slack. She slid off the couch and onto the floor. Rachel started to stand, but now the gun was pointed at her.
“Stay put.”
Rachel obeyed. Denise Vanech was clearly dead. Her eyes were open. Her blood streamed down, the color startlingly red against a sea of white.
chapter 42
Now what doI do?
I had been calling to tell Rachel about the shooting death of Steven Bacard. Now this man was holding her hostage. Okay, so what’s my next step? I tried to think it through, to analyze the data carefully, but there was not enough time. The man on the phone had been right. I had been “cute” in the past. During the first ransom drop, I had let the police and FBI in on it. During the second, I’d enlisted the aid of an ex–federal agent. For a long time, I blamed the first drop-gone-wrong on my decision. Not anymore. I had played the odds both times, but now I think the game was fixed from the get-go. They had never intended to give me back my daughter. Not eighteen months ago. Not last night.
And not now.
Maybe I had been on a search for an answer that I knew all along. Verne had understood my quest with one caveat: “Long as a man ain’t fooling himself.” But maybe I had been. Even now, even as we were uncovering this baby-smuggling scam, I had allowed myself fresh hope. Perhaps my daughter was alive. Perhaps she had gotten ensnared in this adoption con. Would that be horrible? Yes. But the obvious alternative—that Tara is dead—was a hell of a lot worse.
I no longer knew what to believe.
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes had passed. I wondered about how to play it. First things first. I called Lenny on the private line at his office.
“A man named Steven Bacard was just murdered in East Rutherford,” I said.
“Bacard the lawyer?”
“You know him?”
“I worked a case with him a few years ago,” Lenny said. Then: “Oh damn.”
“What?”
“You asked before about Stacy and an adoption. I didn’t see a connection. But now that you say Bacard’s name . . . Stacy asked me about him, what, three, four years ago.”
“What about him?”
“I don’t remember anymore. Something about being a mother.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I really didn’t pay that much attention. I just told her not to sign anything without showing it to me.” Then Lenny asked, “How do you know he’s been murdered?”
“I just saw his body.”
“Whoa, don’t say anything else. This line might not be secure.”
“I need your help. Call the cops. They need to get Bacard’s records. He ran an adoption scam. There’s a possibility that he had something to do with Tara’s kidnapping.”
“How?”
“I don’t have time to explain.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll call Tickner and Regan. Regan’s been searching for you pretty much nonstop, you know.”
“I figured.”
I hung up before he could ask more. I am not really sure what I expected them to find. I couldn’t make myself believe that the answer to Tara’s fate lay in some file cabinet in a law office. But maybe. And if something went wrong here—and there was certainly a decent chance of that happening—I wanted someone to be able to follow up.
I was in Ridgewood now. I did not believe for a second that the man on the phone was telling the truth. They were not in the trade-information business. They were here to clean house. Rachel and I knew too much. They were drawing me there so that they could kill us.
So what do I do?
There was very little time. If I stalled—if it took me much longer than a half an hour—the man on the phone would start getting antsy. That would be bad. I thought again about calling the police, but I remembered his warning about being “cute” and I still worried about a leak. I had a gun. I knew how to use it. I was a pretty good shot, but that was at a range. Shooting at people would, I assumed, be different. Or maybe not. I no longer had qualms about killing these people. I’m not sure I ever had.
A block away from Denise Vanech’s house, I parked the car, grabbed the gun, and started down the street.
He called her Lydia. She called him Heshy.
The woman had arrived five minutes ago. She was petite and pretty, her baby-doll eyes wide with excitement. She stood in front of Denise Vanech’s corpse and watched the blood still trickling out. Rachel sat still. Her hands had been bound behind her back with duct tape. The woman named Lydia turned to Rachel.
“That stain is going to be a bitch to get out.”
Rachel stared at her. Lydia smiled.
“You don’t think that’s funny?”
“Inside,” Rachel said. “Inside I’m cracking up.”
“You visited a young girl named Tatiana today, yes?”
Rachel said nothing. The big man named Heshy began to pull down the shades.
“She’s dead. Just thought you’d like to know.” Lydia sat next to Rachel. “Do you remember the TV showFamily Laughs ?”
Rachel wondered how to play this. This Lydia was insane, no doubt about it. Tentatively she said,“Yes.”
“Were you a fan?”
“The show was puerile nonsense.”
Lydia threw back her head and laughed. “I played Trixie.”
She smiled at Rachel. Rachel said, “You must be very proud.”
“Oh I am. I am.” Lydia stopped, tilted her face, moved it closer to Rachel’s. “You know, of course, that you’re going to die soon.”
Rachel did not blink. “Then how about telling me what you did with Tara Seidman?”
“Oh please.” Lydia stood. “I was an actress, remember? I was on television. So, what, is this the part of the show where we tell all so that the audience can catch up and your hero can sneak up on us? Sorry, sweetie.” She turned to Heshy. “Gag her, Pooh Bear.”
Heshy used the duct tape and wrapped it around Rachel’s mouth and the back of her head. He moved back toward the window. Lydia bent close to Rachel’s ear. Rachel could feel the woman’s breath.
“I will tell you this,” she whispered, “because it’s funny.” Lydia bent in a little closer. “I have no idea what happened to Tara Seidman.”
Okay, I wasn’t about to drive up and knock on the door.
Let’s face it. They were out to kill us. My only chance was to surprise them. I didn’t know the layout of the house, but I figured that I could find a side window and try to sneak in. I wa
s armed. I was confident I could shoot without hesitation. I really wished that I had a better plan, but even if I had more time, I doubt that I’d come up with anything.
Zia had mentioned my surgeon’s ego. I admit that it scared me. I actually felt confident that I could pull this off. I was smart. I knew how to be careful. I would look for an opening. If I didn’t see one, I would offer them a trade—me for Rachel. I would not be sucked in by talk of Tara. Yes, I wanted to believe that she was still alive. Yes, I wanted to believe that they knew where she was. But I would no longer risk Rachel’s life for a pipe dream. My life? Sure. But not Rachel’s.
I moved closer to Denise Vanech’s house, trying to duck behind trees while not looking conspicuous. In an upscale suburban neighborhood, this was impossible. People don’t skulk. I imagined the neighbors watching me from behind the blinds, their fingers on the auto-911 dial button. I couldn’t worry about it. Whatever was going to happen, one way or the other, would happen before any police could get here.
When my cell phone rang, I nearly jumped out my skin. I was three houses away now. I cursed under my breath. Dr. Cool—Dr. Confident—had forgotten to put his phone on vibrate. I realized with a sinking certainty that I was deluding myself. I was out of my element here. Suppose, for example, the phone had rung when I was right up against the house. What then?
I leapt behind a shrub and answered it with a snap of my wrist.
“You got a lot to learn about sneaking up on places,” Verne whispered. “I mean, you’re godawful at it.”
“Where are you?”
“Check out the second-floor window, far back.”
I peeked out at Denise Vanech’s house. Verne was in the window. He waved to me.
“Back door was unlocked,” Verne whispered. “I let myself in.”
“What’s going on in there?”
“Stone-cold killing. I heard them say they killed that girl at the motel. They blew away that Denise woman. She’s lying dead not three feet from Rachel.”
I closed my eyes.
“This is a trap, Marc.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“There’s two of them—one man, one woman. I want you to hustle back to your car. I want you to drive and park on the street. You’ll be far enough away so that they won’t get a clear shot at you. Stay there. Don’t get any closer. I just want you to draw their attention, you got me?”