Surrogate Escape Read online

  She nodded again. “Quit my job at the pharmacy, too.”

  “Like to tell me why?”

  “They kept coming around there. They talked to the counselor, my boss. The principal kept calling me to the office. But I didn’t go. I ran instead.”

  “Why?”

  “You know Marta Garcia?”

  Jake’s skin began to tingle. This was the name of the second girl to go missing. He nodded.

  “She told me that they were after her, too. Only, she went back to the clinic.”

  “Who was after her?”

  “I don’t know. She said someone was following her. I know she went back to the clinic and she came over to the pharmacy with a prescription. They said she was anemic because, you know, her period was so heavy. So I filled her prescription. She said it was iron pills, but it wasn’t.”

  “What was it?” asked Jake.

  “Prenatal vitamins.”

  Jake’s skin prickled.

  “I told her, and that’s when she told me about the two that was following her, and then she was gone.”

  Jake frowned. Her mother said that Minnie Cobb had been here looking for her daughter. “Zella, is someone after you now?”

  She nodded.

  “Who, Zella?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know them. A man and small woman.”

  “Have they been here recently?”

  “Not anymore. They were only...”

  “Only what?”

  “I don’t have her anymore.” She looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  “The baby?”

  “They’re after her. I knew they would be. That’s why I gave it to you.”

  “Zella, you put that newborn in my truck?”

  She lowered her head and nodded.

  “That little girl is your baby?”

  She shook her head with vehemence and met his shocked stare.

  “Did you deliver that baby?”

  Another nod, jerky this time, and her shoulders began to shake.

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He still couldn’t conceive how a girl with Zella’s dark coloring had birthed Fortune.

  “But it’s not mine. I know what you have to do to have a baby and I never, ever did that with a boy.”

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “It happened to Mary.”

  “Mary who?”

  Zella pointed skyward. “Mary and Joseph.”

  This made no sense. But he half believed her. The other half made him wonder if she’d snatched that baby and then panicked. Or worse, that she’d been raped. Taking her to the doctors would help determine if she had recently given birth.

  “Zella, are you all right? Maybe you should come with me. Get you checked out. I could take you to the clinic.”

  As soon as he said clinic, he realized his mistake. If the tribe’s health care facility was tied up in this, then he absolutely could not bring her there.

  The girl backed away.

  “Zella?”

  She turned and ran. By the time Jake got to the corner of the property, the girl had vanished.

  * * *

  JAKE KNEW ZELLA could not have gone far. Behind the house was the pasture, and beyond that his home. She did not have time to cross the field, so she was close.

  It took the better part of an hour to check all the places a girl as thin as Zella could hide, but he found her at last. Coaxing her out took time and patience. She made him promise not to bring her to the tribe’s health clinic. Instead, he drove her to Turquoise Ridge and the series of four FEMA trailers that now comprised the tribal police headquarters. Zella sank so far down in the seat beside him as to be invisible to any passersby.

  Jake met with Chief Tinnin and Detective Bear Den in the chief’s trailer. Zella preceded him in and curled up in a chair, drawing her knees to her chest and pulling her sweatshirt over her legs.

  “Where was she?” asked Tinnin, referring to Zella Colelay, the rail-thin, dirty female, as if the girl were a lost puppy.

  “She had a sort of fort right in the bramble bushes beside her house. Blankets, chair, schoolbooks and food, of course.”

  Bear Den regarded the teen with hands on hips, making him look even more imposing. Zella sank farther into her seat.

  Jake knew that Bear Den had been to both the school and the Colelays’ residence about Zella’s truancy. Bear Den had even thought she might be missing for a time, but her mother had assured him that Zella was living there, but Zella had flat-out refused to go back to school. Mrs. Colelay said Zella was too old for her to do much with.

  “How’d you find her?” asked Bear Den.

  “I heard her crying,” said Jake.

  Tinnin sat with his hands tented before him, staring across the clear surface of his battered wooden desk at Zella. “She looks like she needs a proper meal. More than one.” He turned to Bear Den. “Think you could drive her over to Darabee? Maybe have your brother, Kurt, check her out without bringing her to the ER. Like to keep her reappearance quiet for now.”

  Jake knew that Kurt was a paramedic and worked with the air ambulance, and also volunteered at the tribe’s fire department in his free time.

  “Kee could do a blood test,” said Jake.

  Zella’s knees slipped out of her sweatshirt, and she glanced at the closed door. Jake sidestepped to block any attempted escape. Zella watched him like a caged dog in an animal shelter.

  Tinnin picked up the conversation. “Kee works at the tribe’s clinic, son. As of right now, that makes him a suspect.”

  That hit Jake like a kick in the gut. He was about to protest his brother’s innocence, but of course that was what anyone would do. Still, Kee was too smart to get tied up in this.

  Jake thought of his brother’s student loans, and fear crept into his heart.

  “Kurt Bear Den is not involved,” said Tinnin. “He can arrange for someone to see Zella privately. We need a blood sample from Zella, and we have one from the baby.”

  “The clinic has it,” Bear Den reminded him.

  Tinnin nodded. “Best bring the baby to Darabee, too, then.”

  Jake did not argue. That was the very reason he had tracked Zella. He needed answers. And he needed to know what Zella’s intentions toward the baby were.

  Tinnin pressed his mouth together and held Jake’s gaze. “Might be safer all round to turn the baby over to Protective Services for immediate placement elsewhere.”

  “She was born on Turquoise Canyon land,” said Jake.

  Bear Den gave a nearly imperceptible nod, and Jake felt glad to have the detective’s support.

  “You put her under my protection,” said Jake. “I’m not turning her over to you or anyone else.”

  “We need you back at work, Jake.”

  “I know that, but that baby needs me, too.”

  Zella watched Jake with dark, fathomless eyes. She had given Fortune to him to protect. He intended to do just that.

  “Jake, you’re forcing me into a bad spot.”

  “Aren’t you investigating the disappearances of our girls? Isn’t Zella a victim of a crime? Maybe they’re related. Now Zella says folks from the clinic keep hounding her. And Lori has found a real connection between all the missing girls at the clinic.”

  “Except Weaver,” said Bear Den. “She’s different somehow. Seen only once at the clinic and disappeared over a month later.”

  Jake glanced at him but continued on. “True, but Zella received a warning from Marta Garcia that someone was after her before Marta vanished. That’s why Zella hid.”

  Bear Den looked to Zella. “Is that true?”

  Zella nodded. “A creepy couple came to the school and my house. They was looking for me.”

  Th
e men regarded her.

  “I think they knew I was having a baby before I did.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Tinnin.

  “They first come after me in February,” she said.

  “We need to formally interview her,” Jake said to Tinnin. “Get a description of the couple.”

  “Agreed,” the chief said, then turned to Zella and asked her a question about the couple in Tonto Apache.

  “I don’t speak Tonto. I mean, just a little.”

  The three men put their heads together, speaking in low voices in Tonto.

  “I’ll lay odds that the creepy couple are members of the Wolf Posse. Maybe even the two who attacked the clinic,” said Jake. “The gang is tied up in this, whatever it is, and this baby is the key.”

  “It’s a big case,” said Bear Den. “The kind that will help you get your gold shield.”

  Once, that had been Jake’s goal. Now he just wanted to keep Fortune safe, and get Lori to trust him.

  “I’m doing this because I found that baby. It’s mine until someone better can convince me to let her go. That someone is not you, Bear Den, or you, Chief.”

  The detective’s thick brows rose. Silence stretched.

  “We’ll bring you, Zella and the baby to the hospital in Darabee. See what they can tell us and then decide what’s best,” said Tinnin.

  “Lori, too,” said Jake.

  “Fine,” said Tinnin.

  “And, Chief?” said Jake.

  Tinnin lifted his chin and waited.

  “How did it go with Kee?”

  “I can’t talk about that.”

  “Was he charged with a crime?” asked Jake.

  “No.”

  Jake squeezed his eyes shut with relief. But then he wondered if no meant no—or just not yet.

  * * *

  LORI AND THE baby rode to the hospital in the back of Bear Den’s SUV. The chief took point, driving Zella Colelay. Next came Bear Den, and then Jake in the rear. If there were eyes on them, Jake didn’t see them. They drove through the vacant town of Piñon Forks and then along the river to the east toward Darabee.

  Kurt Bear Den met them at the entrance to Emergency, and they walked in a procession to an examination room. Detective Bear Den stationed himself in the hall outside the room. Tinnin stood watch a little farther down near the nurses’ station. Jake and Lori waited in the examination room for the doctor to arrive like anxious parents.

  Fortune was a good baby, but she did not like having her heel pricked and blood taken. She fussed and howled a good while, and the doctor commented on the health of her lungs.

  The blood results did not take as long as Jake expected. All afternoon he’d been trying to drum up an argument convincing enough for Lori to agree to help him adopt Fortune. She had told him she needed a man she could love and trust. How did he go about earning those things? All he knew for certain was that he wanted them both—Fortune and Lori. And he didn’t want Lori just because he needed a caretaker. He recognized that whatever he had with Lori, that indefinable attraction, was rare, and it was growing.

  There was a knock at the door and Detective Bear Den stepped in. He said that Kurt was on his way down with the results. Detective Bear Den’s brother had been the one to push the sample quickly through the in-house phlebotomy lab.

  “He’ll be down in a minute,” said Bear Den. “You’ll want to hear.”

  Lori gathered up the diaper bag and a small, soft blanket. “They have the results from Zella’s blood test, as well?”

  Bear Den nodded and said Zella had agreed to cooperate now, even seemed resigned.

  “I told her that we needed her help to get her friend back. That struck a chord. She wants to help us.”

  “She was just afraid,” said Lori, coming to Zella’s defense. “Did she say who the father is?”

  “Still saying she’s never done that. But we know how that goes.” Bear Den was used to being lied to. It came with the job. Bear Den turned to Lori. “Was Zella seen at the clinic?”

  “Probably. I didn’t look for her name because she wasn’t one of the missing,” said Lori. “But I could call Burl. He’d check for me. Then we’d know why she was seen and why they needed to follow up.”

  Bear Den glanced at Jake.

  “Seems you were both right. The clinic is at the center of this again. We’ll need to ferret out who did what.”

  Jake thought of Kee and issued a silent prayer that his brother had not been lured into illegality because of those massive student loans.

  Lori sprang to the defense of her coworkers. “Our clinic helps our people. Keeps them from having to go over to Darabee and instead use the ER here,” said Lori. “We save the tribe money and provide excellent care.” She didn’t sound like she was convincing even herself. She’d been the one to discover that all the missing girls had been seen at the tribe’s clinic. Finally, she went silent for a moment. Then she spoke quietly, as if to herself. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Any ideas who the couple after her were?” said Bear Den, switching subjects.

  Jake nodded. “Mrs. Colelay mentioned Minnie Cobb. Said she was one of the individuals looking for Zella.”

  Bear Den’s expression went dark. He knew Minnie and her former boyfriend, Trey Fields.

  “She’s seeing Earle Glass now. We’ll pick them both up,” said Bear Den. He shifted and his gaze went to the door, seaming anxious for the chase.

  Minnie and Earl. Was this the creepy couple that Zella described? Jake had to wonder.

  “And how is the Wolf Posse tied up in all this?”

  He had no idea.

  “Do you think I should check the records for Zella?” asked Lori.

  “Too dangerous,” said Jake.

  “But we need that information,” Bear Den spoke up.

  “Either Nina or Burl could check for you,” said Lori.

  “Suspects,” said Jake.

  Detective Bear Den rested a hand over the radio clipped to his belt. “Burl was there at the shooting. So call him.”

  “Might still be involved,” said Jake.

  “He’s not,” said Lori.

  “Call him,” said the detective.

  Lori lifted the phone and made the call and her request. Jake waited. Lori lifted the mouthpiece and whispered, “He’s on his laptop now and checking.” She lowered the phone. “Yes, I’m here.”

  She listened and then thanked him and disconnected.

  “What did he say?” asked Bear Den.

  Lori folded her arms around herself, physically shielding her body. “Zella was seen only once in January. She had a yeast infection. She did not return for her follow-up.”

  Bear Den did the math. “She would have been pregnant, or would that have been just before she became pregnant?”

  A pall fell over the room as they each arrived at a disturbing conclusion. Lori’s breath caught.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered.

  “It’s possible,” said Jake.

  “Definitely a theory,” replied Bear Den.

  “By whom and for what reason?” asked Jake.

  “Are you really suggesting that these girls were impregnated on our land in our clinic?” asked Lori. She did not disguise the horror in her voice.

  “I’m willing to consider the possibility,” said Bear Den.

  “But if you’re right, what would members of the Wolf Posse do with a baby?” asked Lori.

  Jake made a sour face. “Sell them, maybe. There is a big market for babies.”

  “We can’t send Zella home,” said Lori. “They might still take her.”

  “Tinnin and I discussed that,” said Bear Den. “We’re taking her off the reservation.”

  Lori frowned. Like most of their tribe, she felt safer on tribal lands. />
  Bear Den continued, “I called a friend of mine for help. Gabe Cosen is chief of police up on Black Mountain. He’s sending one of his guys for her. She’ll be placed with a good family and be able to finish her schooling. They’ll give her a new name and identity. Tell folks she’s from up in Oklahoma.”

  Jake knew that the Apache up that way had once been on the losing side of the Apache Wars. Geronimo’s band had lost to the US Army and his people, who acted as scouts. It was that decision, to fight with the United States, that gave Jake’s people this land and sent Geronimo and his people to exile in Florida, and later Oklahoma.

  “What about Fortune?” asked Lori. “Is Zella claiming parental rights?”

  Jake held his breath.

  “First of all, we don’t even know if she is the girl’s parent,” said Bear Den. “But no, she says she just wants the baby safe and to keep it from being taken like her friend Marta Garcia,”

  “She’s a minor. We’ll have to have her parents’ permission on any release of custody,” said Lori.

  “If she’s the mother,” said Bear Den.

  There was a knock on the exam door. Fortune waved her arms and gazed up at the lights on the ceiling as Bear Den verified who was at the door and emitted Chief Tinnin.

  “Kurt,” said the detective, moving to the door.

  Lori scooped up the bassinet as Bear Den admitted Tinnin, who clicked across the crowded room followed by Kurt Bear Den, who shut the door behind him. They all gathered in a circle, their heads together over the open manila folder Kurt held.

  Jake’s mouth went dry as he waited. Was Zella the mother? And who was the father?

  Kurt opened the folder. Jake spotted a lab-results sheet stapled to the inside.

  “Got the blood results,” said Kurt. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kurt Bear Den gave the blood results to Lori as he spoke to the rest of them. She scanned the page.

  “The baby’s blood type is AB positive,” he said.

  Jake waited.

  “That’s a rare type. And Zella’s blood type is O negative,” said Kurt.

  Jake glanced at Lori, who was scowling at the chart.

  “That’s impossible,” she said.

  “Why?” asked Tinnin.