Hope House

by Tracy L Carbone

  Along with the tissue, Gloria found something else. The paper with Kurt Malone’s name and number on it. She clutched it tight. Tommy recommended him so he must be trustworthy. The driver got her this far safely. Hopefully Kurt would pick her up at the next stage of her journey.

  Chapter Three

  1.

  Miami, Tuesday morning, February 7th

  Gloria drove her rented red Toyota Camry down Brickell Avenue in Miami. Another couple of blocks and she’d arrive at the agency. Gripping the steering wheel tight, she thought of what a full morning it had been. The day had started out well enough. She had walked out into the bright Miami sun and smiled as a busy lizard skittered by underfoot. She had looked up at the enormous palm trees. For just a few seconds she had enjoyed her environment and contrasted it to the bitter Boston snowstorm she’d fled. But as she had reached for her car door she saw him in the reflection of the car window.

  He wasn’t wearing the trench coat this time, but she’d know that face anywhere: the man from the airport who had tried to kill her last night. His image in her window grew larger as he approached, and she couldn’t get her key to fit in the lock. Her fingers wouldn’t cooperate because she couldn’t focus on opening the door. Finally, she managed to get in and hit the locks. He walked toward her, but then a couple of other people entered the parking lot and he turned away. She started the car and screeched away onto the main street. After that, she took a series of lefts and rights, got lost for about a half hour, and finally found her way to Brickell. She hoped that getting herself all turned around had prevented that man from following her, but she couldn’t be sure. What did she know about running away from people?

  She looked in her rearview now. He was nowhere to be seen.

  There it is. An imposing granite building stood on her right. She parked in front and walked into the enormous lobby. Wall to wall black marble with matching floors. Only palm trees and an artificial waterfall oriented her. Gloria walked to a wall of company names and locations. New Age Adoption Agency was on the seventh floor. She took a deep breath and walked toward a bank of elevators.

  “Excuse me, Miss!”

  Oh God, it was him again, she feared, too terrified to turn and face him. A different voice but—she ran for the elevators. How had he found her?

  “Miss, stop! Security!”

  She quickened her pace.

  Security. Very slowly she turned around.

  A short Hispanic man with a silver name plaque that said, “Ramirez” rushed toward her. “I’m sorry. I thought I could just go up,” she said.

  “That’s all right. I didn’t mean to frighten you. You okay? You look a little pale,” he said.

  “Rough night. Rough day.”

  “If you just follow me over to the desk then you can give your ID and they’ll call upstairs to get you entry.”

  “Call upstairs?”

  “Well, since we’re the ground floor, anyone you’re going to see must be upstairs somewhere. Who are you going to see?”

  By the time she answered, they were at the main desk. A skinny and pretty girl with olive skin and large brown eyes manned the reception kiosk. She wore a navy blue blazer and her nametag said, “M. Cardoza.”

  “New Age Adoption Agency,” Gloria replied.

  “Can I see your ID please?” the girl asked after she typed something into her computer.

  Gloria handed over her license. The receptionist looked at it and then to her monitor. “I’m sorry; you’re not on the list. Let me just call up and have them add you.”

  “Can’t I just go up?”

  “No. Since Nine-Eleven we’ve gotten awful tight with security. We don’t let anyone up unless you’re on the list. But clients forget all the time. It’ll just take a second to call.”

  Gloria hoped her name wouldn’t sound off any alarms at the agency. She tried to remember if she had given her name when she’d called yesterday.

  The girl covered the mouthpiece on her phone. “Were they expecting you?”

  “No, I’m just stopping by. I’d like to speak with the owner.”

  Ms. Cardoza relayed that to whoever had answered the phone upstairs. Then she frowned with razor-thin brows.

  “I’m sorry. They said the owner is out today but if you want to call and make an appointment—”

  “Listen. I don’t want to get pushy with you because I know it’s not your fault, but I have to get up to the seventh floor and talk to someone at the agency. I don’t care if it’s not the owner, just please tell them to let me come up.”

  “They said you need an appointment.”

  Gloria felt her anger rise and was losing her patience. “I flew all the way here from Boston last night just to talk to them, and I have to go back home tomorrow night. I don’t have time to make an appointment.”

  “Let me call them back for you. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

  In the meantime, the security guard who had led her to the desk came back. “Everything all right?” he asked Gloria.

  “Yes. Ms. Cardoza is just calling again to get my name on the list.”

  “Name’s Maria,” the girl said, covering the phone with her hand. Her face started to redden as she looked at the license and spoke to New Age. “Her name is Gloria Hanes. Yes, I’ll hold.” A couple of minutes went by. Long minutes. “Hi. Oh, I see. Well she flew here from Boston just to see someone. She said it doesn’t have to be the owner but—okay, but she’s leaving tomorrow and—all right. I’ll tell her.”

  She hung up the phone. “You’ll have to make an appointment. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s the number?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The phone number. I’ll call them from my cell phone right now and make an appointment for ten minutes from now if that’s how it has to be.”

  The girl smiled and gave her the number, her face a mask of pity. “Good luck.”

  Gloria dialed as both Maria and Ramirez watched. She didn’t know if they were cheering for her or gauging her deteriorating mental state.

  “New Age Adoption Agency, how may I help you?”

  “Hi, this is Gloria Hanes. I’m down in the lobby and want to make an appointment to come in.”

  “People don’t usually just stop by but—”

  “But I did, so can I come up or not?”

  “Are you interested in giving up a child for adoption or adopting one yourself?”

  “If I say yes will you put my name on the visitor’s list?”

  The woman on the other end snapped her gum. “No, because I don’t believe you.”

  “Listen, I know you recognize my voice. I called yesterday and you said the owner would be back today so I jumped on the first plane I could get and hotfooted it down here. I just want to speak to someone about a little girl that your agency placed with a family five years ago.”

  “And I told you yesterday, Miss Hanes, that we cannot talk to you about any adoptions. The records are sealed and frankly, it doesn’t sound like whatever you’re looking into is any of your business.”

  “You bitch!” Gloria heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end.

  “Well, you can just forget about ever coming upstairs now.” The woman slammed down the receiver.

  Gloria stared at her phone, stunned. “She hung up on me!” Gloria said to Maria and Ramirez.

  “You swore at her,” the guard said.

  “But she—listen, there’s a lot going on here you don’t know about. That agency stole my child and adopted her out to someone else.” Tears sprouted in Gloria’s eyes but she caught them. She would not unravel, vowed to remain calm. No one listens to a hysterical person, she reminded herself. Something she learned the hard way during her time in the hospital ward that Tommy had checked her into after she’d lost her child the first time.

  She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and a dark brown mascara smudge covered her white silk cuff. “She’s mine, and no one will listen!” By now two additional security gua
rds crowded around her and all the passersby in the lobby had turned to watch. It was hard to breathe.

  “You don’t understand. I have to get upstairs. They stole my baby and they’re denying it happened.”

  Ramirez grabbed her wrist hard. “Come with me, Miss Hanes. We don’t want any trouble here. You’ll have to leave.”

  She walked along with him while punching send on her phone twice with her free hand.

  “New Age Adoption Agency, how can I help you?”

  “I’m not going away. Don’t think I am. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” Gloria hung up this time, a small consolation.

  “I don’t think you should keep calling them,” Ramirez said. “Maybe you should see a doctor. They have pills that work real good to help people like you.”

  She stopped short and yanked her wrist away. “People like me?”

  “You know, paranoid. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. My little sister kept thinking the government was after her and then she got some meds and now she’s okay. Maybe they could help you.”

  If he hadn’t looked so sincere in his offer to help, she would have slugged him. “Please,” she said quietly, “don’t look at me like that. I’m not crazy. Not paranoid. I got a little overexcited back there and that wasn’t very professional or smart, but if someone took your child, Mr. Ramirez, I think you would behave the same way.”

  He led her to the front door. “Just please don’t come back into the building okay? We don’t want any trouble.”

  She gave him a cold stare but finally nodded and went through the door he held open for her. The temperature was in the eighties, a shock to feel that in February. So now what? Ask Tommy for help again?

  As she walked toward the car, she spied the man from the airport again. He was standing by her car, looking in. Then he looked up, but thank God, not in her direction. She darted to her right and into a McDonald’s two doors down. She ran into the bathroom and shut the stall door. Finally she let herself cry.

  Why the hell had she given that stupid DNA sample? The marrow drive was for a girl from the office who had leukemia. Gloria hadn’t matched her. No one had and the patient died. That was supposed to be the end of it. Although she knew that her DNA would be kept in a registry, she hadn’t given it another thought.

  If she’d just said no that day the employees had gone to the hospital and swabbed their cheeks with Q-tips, she never would have known about Alison. She could have just gone on thinking that her baby had died as Tommy and Dr. Boucher and her shrink had said. Gloria had a nice life. Great condo, great job. A partnership now! And yet here she was hiding out in a McDonald’s bathroom in Miami over a thousand miles from her life and everything she knew. Those guards thought she was nuts, the creep from the airport lurking around her car, waiting to corner and silence her, to kill her like Donna. Some people, Tommy for sure, would call her behavior self-destructive. Hell yes, and Tommy thought she was going crazy again. But she wasn’t. Damn it! She hadn’t gone out looking for trouble or danger.

  But trouble had found her. Alison had found her. Once she had looked into Alison Gander’s face there was no denying the truth. She just wished she had an ally in all this. She slumped onto the seat and blew her nose and wiped what was sure to be a pair of mascara-laden eyes. Then she remembered Kurt Malone. He’d help her. Even if he didn’t believe her, he’d help. She flipped open her phone and dialed the number she’d programmed into it.

  “Kurt Malone.” Strong male voice. Not sing-songy. “How may I help you?”

  “Hi. My name is Gloria Hanes, and I need your help. I’m in a bathroom at a McDonald’s on Brickell Avenue, near the Morton Building. Someone’s trying kill me, I think. And there’s so much else.”

  “Please, Ms. Hanes, slow down.”

  “I live in Boston but came out here last night to talk to some people I suspect of a horrible crime, but they won’t see me. They think I’m crazy but I swear I’m not. I’m not crazy. Can you please meet me? Right away. Can you meet me right away? My ex-husband Tommy Carpenter recommended you. He said you could help me.” God, she hadn’t even let him talk. She sounded crazy. If she were him—

  “I’m right in the area as a matter of fact. There’s a vintage clothing store a few doors down on the right. Can you safely get there?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay, why don’t you go there now? Walk to the back and go into a dressing room. Just grab anything off the shelf and pretend to try it on. I’ll meet you in a few minutes.”

  “So you don’t think I’m crazy?” A sliver of hope filled her. If just one person believed her—

  “I don’t get paid to judge people.”

  “So you take money from the insane?”

  “Money’s money. When we meet you can tell me your story and then I’ll decide what I think. I’ll help you either way though so don’t worry. You’re not in this alone anymore. See you in a few.”

  He hung up and Gloria stood and exited the stall. She took just a second to wash her face then walked out of the bathroom. After putting on her Coach sunglasses, she rolled on some lipstick and walked out the front door. She didn’t see the man at her car anymore and hoped he had walked the other way. She hurried toward the clothing store while chanting the words Kurt Malone had said to her. “You’re not alone in this anymore.”

  2.

  New Age Adoption Agency, Miami, morning

  Mick leaned against his office door, his sweaty cheek pressed against the wood. He closed his eyes and tried to unclench his jaw. Too close. Mick’s sister Angela, who worked the desk, dealt with that damnable woman and sent her away. Angela had no idea who Gloria Hanes-Carpenter was. Probably some nut. A stalker, like Mick told her when she asked him what to do about the pushy woman in the lobby. What would have happened if Angela had let Gloria in? Would she have recognized Mick Puglisi from college? He walked from the door and sat at his desk, slumping in the high back leather chair. From now on, all the donors die, he decided. No more of this fake miscarriage crap. They hadn’t had a new donor in years, hadn’t needed one, but next time . . .

  If Gloria found out what really happened to her baby, it would be the end of the enterprise and possibly the crumbling of a lot more. He’d hoped getting rid of that actress Donna Mallory had taken care of everything, but now this.

  “Get a grip, man,” he said to himself. Angela didn’t let Gloria in so he didn’t need to get all bent out of shape with what ifs. Things were still fine. It was a small potential business hurdle; nothing else. Besides, he had a man on it. Joey would take care of the prying bitch soon enough. He’d better.

  He hit speed dial. “Joey, you got good news for me?”

  “I lost her. She’s parked right outside your office. She in there?” Joey didn’t pronounce any of his r’s and it made Mick cringe. He had worked so hard to break himself of his New England accent but people like Joey utterly refused to integrate. Joey stuck out like a sore thumb in the circles Mick aspired to travel in. Angela was the same way. Actually Mick was the only one in his family or group of friends who didn’t still have an accent. The only one who seemed to rise to the level of professionalism if the Puglisis were ever to be taken seriously in corporate America.

  “No, Joey, she’s not in here.”

  “Well, she ain’t out here neither. I’m by her car though so she ain’t going far.”

  “Out by her cah, ain’t going fah?”

  “Don’t gimme shit, Mick. You want her hit or not?”

  “Yeah just find her will you? And make it look like an accident. Don’t just shoot her. It will be too obvious. She might have told someone about her suspicions and if she’s shot, no one will believe it was random.”

  “I’m on it boss.”

  Mick hung up and called his cousin Louie. “Hey Louie, sorry for the short notice but I need to fly to Haiti right away.”

  “I don’t know, Mick. My guy isn’t working Customs tonight.”

  “That’s okay. It’s
just me flying and I’ve got my passport. No cargo is coming home with me.”

  “All right. What say you meet me at the plane at two o’clock?”

  “Great thanks. Oh, I’ll have little Luke with me too, but I’ve got his passport.”

  “We spending the night?”

  “Yeah. I’ll book you a room in Port Au Prince.”

  “Good man. See you at two.”

  Mick hung up and looked at the stack of applications on his desk he needed to review. So many people willing to pay top dollar for a healthy American infant. Never a shortage of demand for his product. They didn’t all want blonds of course. Those were just what came out of the Haiti operation. His other centers had brown, black, and redheaded kids. Different mothers, different sperm donors. He’d considered mixing up the batches a little, but keeping the centers separate by coloring simplified things for him. It made it a lot easier figuring out where he needed to fly and when.

  He flipped through the folders and frowned. “Angela!”

  Mick saw his sister’s long, red fake nails wrap around the door and heard her gum snap before he saw her face. “What, Mickey? I’m reading People.”

  If Daddy hadn’t made him give Angela this job he would’ve hired an assistant with class, someone who more rightly fit the part of the kind of agency he wanted this to be. She wore a tight black top, cut too low, and a gaudy gold necklace. Her lipstick was much too red. It screamed tramp.

  “You have to dress like that, Angie? Why don’t you try to look more professional?”

  “Give it a rest, Mickey. You call me all the way in here to give me a fashion lecture?” Lektcha. She snapped her gum again.

  “No. These files.” He pushed the stack toward her. “These are supposed to be sorted by preference. None of these are tagged.”

  “None of these parents had a preference. They all just said they wanted healthy babies. I sorted them by boys and girls but no one requested any hair color.”