The Surrogate (21 page)

Mrs. Duffy cocked her head to one side and regarded Jamie and then the baby. “How old is the baby?” she asked.

“Three days,” Jamie said.

“Where’s the father?”

Jamie hung her head. “He’s not in the picture,” she said.

“He the one that put that bruise on your forehead? I don’t want someone like that showing up here and causing trouble.”

Jamie touched her forehead. “No,” she said, revising the story she had been about to tell. “I tripped and fell. The baby’s father doesn’t know anything about the baby,” she said, thinking of poor dead Sonny.

The landlady looked dubious. “You have a job?” she demanded.

“Not yet. But I have enough money to tide me over until I find work.” Jamie leaned her cheek against her baby’s head. “Please,” she begged. “I am exhausted, and it’s getting late.”

“If you’re planning to write a check, you won’t be able to move in until Monday morning—after I call the bank and make sure it will clear.”

“I can pay you in cash.”

Ruby stepped a bit closer and touched the top of the baby’s head. “Three days old,” she said reverently.

Then she stepped back and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Okay. A two-hundred-dollar security deposit for the dog. Up front. There’s parking behind the building. Don’t leave anything inside of your car if you don’t want it broken into.”

She followed the woman back down the stairs to her apartment, which was more spacious than the one Jamie was renting. Even so, two oversized recliners, a big-screen television, and an enormous rolltop desk filled up the entire front room. Ruby Duffy had to turn her body sideways to get to the desk.

Jamie paid the rent and deposit and signed the lease as “Janet M.Wisdom.” The name was only temporary, she told herself. Someday she hoped to reclaim her own name, but for now she was grateful for Janet’s.

She put Billy in the baby sling and, with Ralph following at her heels, began carrying her possessions up the three flights of stairs and dumping them in the tiny living room, which turned out to be a seemingly endless job. She took several breaks, once to nurse Billy, and others to simply sit and catch her breath. Her stitches hurt and every muscle in her body protested that she simply could not take another step. When she had the interior of the car emptied, she decided that the things in the trunk would have to wait until tomorrow. At least there was nothing visible to tempt thieves.

Then she loaded the baby and Ralph back into the car and drove to the nearby grocery store to buy a few groceries, mouse traps, and some cleaning supplies.

She made up the bed, got the baby settled, and ate a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk before walking down the hall to the pay phone.

She stood there for a minute, coins in hand. But maybe this call wasn’t such a good idea. What if the phone was tapped?

It couldn’t be, she told herself. No one knew that she was here. But what if Mrs. Brammer had let something slip to a friend or neighbor? Or her husband had? Maybe their phone was the one that was tapped.

Jamie felt as though she was going to pass out if she took one more step. Maybe she should wait until tomorrow to call Mrs. Brammer.

Instead, she loaded up the baby and the dog in the car one last time and, keeping to residential streets, drove to far north Oklahoma City and placed her call from a drive-up pay phone near a service station.

“Mrs. Brammer, it’s Jamie. I’m sorry to be calling so late.”

“Jamie, thank goodness!” Mrs. Brammer said. “I’ve been waiting all day for you to call. Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a phone number where you can be reached?”

Jamie hesitated. “No, and please, you must not tell
anyone
about me,” she added. “Except your husband and Joe, of course.”

“Are you in hiding?”

“Yes. I am in hiding. I haven’t broken any law,” she hastened to add, “but I am in trouble. Serious trouble. Do you have any idea when Joe might call again?”

“Not really. It could be tomorrow or several weeks from now.”

Jamie ended the call by saying that she would try to call again the following Thursday evening.

She drove home by another route, getting lost on the way. Almost an hour had passed by the time she returned her car to the parking space in the alley behind the apartment house. She waited for Ralph to relieve himself before going inside. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to climb the stairs. Just one step at a time, she told herself.

She drank another glass of milk, fed the baby, and then at last was able to take a shower. A long, hot shower. Even though the bathroom was dirty, it was the most wonderful shower she had ever taken in her life.

She put on one of the flannel nightgowns that Amanda had given her, picked up her baby, and crawled into bed with him. Ralph jumped up on the bed and curled up at the foot. “We’re home,” she told her baby and her dog. Then she began to weep. She wept because she was more exhausted than she had ever been in her life and every muscle in her body felt as though it were on fire. She wept because she was lonely and faced an uncertain future. But mostly she wept because she was afraid.

So very afraid.

The next morning, she finished unloading the car and dyed her hair. The results were discouraging. Her hair not only looked as though it had been trimmed by a lawn mower, it was now a flat shade of brown that made her skin seem sallow. She wanted to cry, but she had already done enough of that.

Her aching body begged her to leave the cleaning and settling in for later, but she had been raised by a woman who believed that rest was allowed only after the chores were done. And it was such a small apartment.

Her grandmother used to say that scrubbing was good for the soul, and it did prove to be good for her spirits as she scoured away years of grime and mouse habitation and polished the two windows until they gleamed. Cleanliness gave the shabbiness a genteel quality that reminded Jamie of the little house in Mesquite.

“You mean that you couldn’t find a single person in Guymon, Oklahoma, or Liberal, Kansas, who remembered seeing Jamie Long?” Gus demanded.

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“You’re using that picture I provided?”

“Yes, we are, sir.”

“Have you looked at the security tapes from the ATMs?”

“Yes, sir. The girl had her hair stuffed inside a cap. None of the tapes revealed the presence of a baby, but she had a lot of clothes and boxes piled in the car, and it was impossible to view the far side of the backseat. There was a dog in the passenger side of the front seat.”

Yes, Gus thought. Kelly had said she took her dog with her. “Can you get a still of the dog?” he asked.

“We can try.”

“What about the hospitals in those two towns?” Gus asked. “The nurse here says the girl probably would have needed some stitches.”

“We thought of that. No one fitting her description and circumstances showed up at the emergency rooms in either city. We also checked with the family practitioners, obstetricians, and midwives in both towns, but the girl had not contacted any of them.”

“What about other towns?” Gus demanded.

“There aren’t any other towns in that area large enough to have a physician or a midwife.”

Gus looked at the map he had spread out in front of him. “Go on up into Kansas—to Ulysses, Garden City, Dodge City. To any town that has any sort of medical practitioner. And check at service stations, convenience stores, roadside diners. She has to buy gas and she has to eat. And if the baby is alive, she’ll need diapers and other baby stuff. And she would have had to stop and sleep by now. Check motels for any young woman who paid cash. This is the highest priority. You got that!
Highest priority!
I want that girl and her baby found.”

Gus slammed down the phone. The girl was outsmarting them.

He got up and kicked a wastebasket across the room. He started to throw a crystal decanter against the wall but decided instead to pour himself a glass of sherry. He downed it and poured another.

It was time for him to talk to Amanda.

A
MANDA HAD JUST
stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in a warm towel when Toby tapped on the door. “Your brother is on the phone,” he said. Then he stepped inside and, wearing a playful look, tried to pull the towel away.

She hit the side of his head with her fist and stormed out of the bathroom. He knew how upset she was about Montgomery. She was in
mourning,
for God’s sake. All the man could think about was sex.

“Gus, darling, why haven’t you returned my calls?” she asked, allowing her voice to sound a bit angry. It wasn’t like Gus to ignore her. “Are you still at the ranch? I thought you would be back home by now.”

“I am still at the ranch,” Gus said, his voice weary.

“Freda said the service for Montgomery went well, but I wanted to hear it from
you,
” Amanda said. “And we need to discuss a grave marker. Something in pink granite, I think. I still can’t believe that she’s gone and that I’m never going to see her again.” Amanda closed her eyes against the pain.

And the anger.

How could Montgomery have done this to her? Montgomery knew how much she and Gus depended on her. How much they cared for her. Who was going to look after Mother now? And the ranch?

“Are you sure she didn’t leave a note?” Amanda asked. “She owed us some explanation of why she would do such a thing. Or do you think she had a nervous breakdown?”

“Something like that,” Gus said. “She was very upset, Amanda. And she had reason to be. Jamie Long left the ranch.”

“Left the ranch!” Amanda cried out. “But why? Did she come back?”

“No. I have people out looking for her, but it’s been three days now since she left. We think she’s someplace in Kansas.”

“I don’t understand. Why would she be in Kansas?” Amanda demanded, her brow tightening with apprehension. “The baby is due in a couple of weeks. Surely she’ll return to the ranch to have the baby.”

“Amanda, Jamie Long has already had the baby. She had it by herself in a deserted farmhouse during a snowstorm.”

Amanda sank to the side of the bed and put her hand to her throat. “The baby is all right, isn’t he?”

“I have no idea.”

“How do you know she had a baby if you haven’t seen it?” Amanda rubbed her forehead. Her brother wasn’t making any sense. No sense at all. But he was frightening her.
Really
frightening her.

“There was graphic evidence of a recent birth at that house,” Gus said. “I seriously doubt if some other woman had traveled to Marshall County to have a baby on her own in the middle of a blizzard.”

“That terrible girl!” Amanda shrieked. “You have to find her! To find our baby!”

“I will,” Gus promised, “but it may take a while. I have been making some phone calls. I plan to arrange for a soon-to-be-born baby to use as a stand-in until we find Sonny’s baby.”

“No,” she screamed. “I don’t want another baby!”

“Amanda, I want you to take a deep breath and listen to me. Listen very
carefully.
What if your supposed due date comes and goes and there is no baby? Your followers will be expecting an announcement of his birth and a picture of you with a baby. They are waiting with bated breath for that picture, and I’m not even sure that Jamie Long’s baby is still alive. It was three weeks early, and the girl was alone when she had it. I saw that house, Amanda. There was a lot of blood, and it was bitterly cold.”

Amanda drew in her breath. “No,” she gasped. “I would know if the baby died. God would have told me.”

“That may very well be,” Gus said, “but until I find Sonny’s baby, we may need another one to use in its place.”

“No, Gus, no,” Amanda said, tears rolling down her face. “Please, I have to have
Sonny’s
baby. I
have
to. You know that. I don’t want Toby anymore. I just want you and
our
baby.”

“And you will have him,” Gus said, his voice breaking. “You have my solemn promise.”

Gus hung up the phone and drew in his breath, filling his lungs and heart and mind with resolve. He would keep his promise to his sister. He
must.
What good was all this power if he couldn’t give his sister the one thing that she wanted more than anything else?

He should have removed Jamie Long from the ranch long ago and put her in a more secure place. He knew as soon as he realized what Amanda was up to and that her plan was fraught with problems. His sister lived in a fairy-tale world of her own making. Gus had realized from the very beginning—even before he learned that Sonny’s semen had been used to impregnate the girl—that one of two things was probably going to happen. The girl would realize that she was a goose about to lay a golden egg and hold out for more money, or, for quite another set of reasons, the girl might decide that she wanted to keep the baby for herself. The minute he found out that she was carrying Sonny’s baby, he should have locked her up in a place far from the ranch. A place that she would never leave.

It was all his fault.

He rose from his chair and began to pace across the imposing bedchamber—with its high ceilings and massive fireplace—that had once been his larger-than-life grandfather’s. Back in his Grandfather Buck’s day, the room had contained massive furniture—a huge four-poster bed that stood four feet above the floor, oversized chairs, and tall chests whose top drawers Gus could not reach. Now the room held different furniture. Chairs he did not have to scramble into. A bed he didn’t need a stepping stool to climb into. But the furniture never looked as though it belonged in a room of such grand proportions.

He paused by the fireplace for a minute to warm his backside.

What if he couldn’t keep his promise to his sister? What if he never found the girl?

But that was ridiculous. She was clever, but it was only a matter of time until she made a mistake. There was a limit to how long she could elude the net he had thrown out there. Not without unlimited money. Not without help.

Help.
Was there anything he was overlooking? An all-points had been sent out on her and her car. He had found the girl’s address book in Montgomery’s desk and knew the names of her friends. And her sister. Those people were already being watched. Their phones were being tapped. Their mail would be examined. People in the girl’s hometown were already being interviewed—neighbors, teachers, classmates, members of her church. They were shown a badge and the cover story was kept vague but strongly implied that it would be in Jamie’s best interest for her to be located and that something ominous could happen to her if she were not. Even if those being interviewed were at first reluctant, eventually they would agree to help. They would let the interviewer know if they saw or heard from her.

It was only a matter of time, Gus told himself as he pulled the covers back and crawled into bed.

For so many years, whenever he was at the ranch, he and Montgomery would play gin rummy and drink scotch in the evening. And she would tell him stories about his father and grandfather. Coming here was never going to be the same.

He should not have yelled at her. What happened was his doing, not hers. He should have seen it coming. “I’m so sorry, Montgomery,” he whispered.
“So sorry.”

He didn’t want to cry. Not again. He turned his thoughts to Amanda. She didn’t want Toby anymore. “I just want you and our baby,” she had said.

Maybe they could name the boy Montgomery and call him “Monty.” Or “Buck” would be nice. Buck was a good name for a West Texas boy. And that’s what Gus wanted him to be. A rancher. A man of the land. He wanted to preserve his innocence, as he had with Sonny. Gus had convinced Amanda not to take Sonny on the road as a boy, claiming that some would see that as exploitation. There would be plenty of time for that after Sonny had finished college. But Sonny wasn’t much of a student and didn’t adapt well to college. Sonny wanted to spend his life here on the ranch—not saving souls and raising money to elect political candidates. But the boy had never had the courage to tell his mother. He was happiest here at the ranch. Like his great-grandfather Buck, the boy had loved the land. If he wasn’t riding across it on horseback, he was racing around in that damned all-terrain vehicle. Gus had wanted to blame the accident on the company that manufactured it, but maybe it was the land itself that had killed Sonny. All that space was seductive. It made a man feel one with the universe. Made him long to be a wild mustang. Or an eagle.

Gus desperately needed a full night’s rest and had taken something to assure that sleep would come. He felt his body relaxing as the drug took hold. A nice feeling. He closed his eyes and imagined himself and little Buck in the pony cart. He could hear the boy’s laughter and the bells jingling merrily as the pony trotted down the drive. But to turn that vision into reality, he had to track down Jamie Long.

The baby was still alive. He had decided to believe that was so until he knew otherwise. He
needed
to believe that.

Monday morning Jamie found her way to the vital statistics office at the state health department. Using the information the midwife had given her, she filled out a form for the baby’s birth certificate and one for Janet Marie Wisdom. The clerk said she should receive them in a week to ten days.

That was easy, Jamie thought as she picked up the infant carrier and headed for the door. As soon as she had a birth certificate, she could apply for a Social Security number and obtain a driver’s license.

That afternoon she called a classic-car dealer in Wichita, Kansas, and told him about her car. He sounded interested. And honest, if one could determine such a thing over the telephone. Then she ran a few errands while she still had the car. At a secondhand store, she bought a baby bed, a floor lamp, and a radio. Then she went to a discount store where she selected more clothing for Billy, bedding for his bed, a huge package of diapers, a large bag of dog food, a rawhide bone, and a Frisbee. Last she stocked up on staples at a supermarket.

The landlady’s door opened as Jamie started up the stairs with the last of her purchases. “How’s that baby doing,” Mrs. Duffy asked as she stepped out into the hall.

“Just fine,” Jamie said. “He and I are learning more about each other every day.”

Mrs. Duffy reached out and stroked Billy’s head. “Such a pretty little boy,” she said. “You be sure and enjoy him while he’s little. Children grow up so fast.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jamie said and headed up the stairs.

After she put away the groceries, Jamie put the baby in the sling and the leash on Ralph, and they went out for an evening walk. It was almost balmy, and she realized that spring was in the air, that the trees and shrubs were starting to bud.

Her long cold winter was over.

Early the next morning, she gave Ralph the rawhide bone in hopes it would help him pass a long, lonely day shut up in the apartment and headed for Wichita.

She avoided I-35 and took Highway 74 north until it ended at the town of Deer Creek, then she crossed under the interstate and took Highway 77 and then Highway 15 into Wichita.

She arrived at the classic-car lot before the appointed hour. She watched while a tall, lanky young man named Underwood walked around the car then lifted the hood. Then she and Billy waited inside the cluttered office while Mr. Underwood drove the car.

When he returned he asked what she wanted for the car. When Jamie told him, he looked as though she were demented.

“You told me on the phone that you are an honest man and would do right by me,” Jamie told him. “I’m a single mother with a new baby and need the money from this car just to get by.”

“I could take it on consignment,” he suggested.

Jamie shook her head. She needed to sever all ties with this car.
Today.
Its very uniqueness made her feel as though she were driving around in a vehicle with a target painted on its side.

Mr. Underwood made an offer considerably lower than her asking price. Jamie made him a counteroffer, and they shook hands.

“I’ll need the money in cash,” Jamie told him.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Domestic trouble?” he asked.

She nodded.

He looked down at the car title. “I see the original owner of the car was a Gladys Simpson.”

“She’s my grandmother. You’ll see on the back of the title where she signed the car over to me before she died. I have her death certificate—and her driver’s license if you want to verify her signature.”

She watched while he looked at the certificate and the license and made copies of both. Then he picked up her Texas driver’s license again and stared at the image. “You have any other identification?”

Jamie produced her Social Security card, her birth certificate, and her University of Texas student ID. She wondered how many months or years would have to go by before she once again could identify herself as “Jamie Amelia Long.”

Mr. Underwood gave her a ride to the bus station in downtown Wichita. “Where are you headed?” he asked.

“Florida,” she said firmly. “I am sick and tired of being cold. And I have an aunt there who is going to look after my baby while I finish college. That’s what the money from the car is for. I’m going to use it for tuition and books.”

Her story amazed her. Should she be worried that she was getting so proficient at lying?

She purchased a ticket to Oklahoma City.

As the bus rolled down I-35 toward Oklahoma City, she tried to think if there was anything else she should do. Any mistakes she might have made.

Every mile she put between herself and her car, she felt safer. Soon she would have a new birth certificate with a different name, which would also make her feel safer, but not safe.

Would Amanda Hartmann find another baby to pass off as her own? Would Amanda ever tell her brother that he didn’t need to look for Sonny’s baby anymore?

No, Jamie decided. Amanda would never give up.

It was dark before a taxi delivered Jamie and her baby to the apartment house. Poor Ralph was so overjoyed to see her that he went absolutely crazy, leaping so high in the air that he did a complete backward somersault. “Wow!” Jamie said, putting down the infant carrier and kneeling to hug her dog. “We’re going to have to give that Frisbee a try.”