LITMIR.BIZ

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named—”

      “KCPD is well aware of who Zero Chambers is. You don’t have any business messing with him.”

      “Yes, well—” she breathed deeply to ignore the memory of his hands and body rubbing against hers “—he mentioned something about a clinic. One where pregnant women go to sell their babies. I guess it’s more profitable than giving the child up for adoption.”

      “Wait a minute. Go back.” Cooper touched his fingers to the back of Maddie’s hand, where she still clutched her purse in her lap. “Zero knows about a clinic where they’re buying babies?”

      Isn’t that what she’d just said? “Is Zero—this Mr. Chambers—reliable? He talked as if it were something he’d considered investing in.” Maddie pulled her hand away, embarrassed that she wasn’t a better judge of men. “Maybe he just made it up. I’m sure he was trying to shock me.”

      Instead of another lecture on the foolhardiness of conducting her own private investigation, Cooper Bellamy was suddenly, intensely interested in everything she had to say. “If there’s word on the street, Zero would know about it.” He pulled out his pen and notepad and turned to a fresh page. “Now tell me again exactly what he said about this clinic.”

      Hoping that she’d finally provided a lead in the search for Katie while praying that a place that bought and sold babies couldn’t really exist, Maddie carefully related the details of her encounter with Zero—minus the touchy-feely, groping part. “I can’t imagine anyone doing something so awful—taking advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society—and not hearing about it on the news.”

      Detective Bellamy raised his dark eyes from his notes and looked at her as if he thought she was simpleminded. “It’s not something they want to advertise, Ms. McCallister. Those babies are for sale. They want to keep their operation way under the radar so that it doesn’t generate any press. They have to be sidestepping a bunch of legalities—medical licenses, government inspections, forged documentation, taxes.”

      “Who’d want to buy a baby?”

      “Wanna-be parents who can’t or don’t want to conceive themselves. Couples who’ve gotten stuck for years in the legal-adoption process or who don’t qualify for some reason. If they can meet the asking price, Junior can be theirs.” He pulled up something on his computer and scrolled down the screen.

      “KCPD suspected something like this was going on.” He spared her a glance from his furtive work. “Six months ago, we had an eighteen-year-old show up in rehab. The girl’s parents claimed she’d been pregnant before disappearing on a meth binge. The girl wasn’t pregnant when she surfaced again, and she had no recollection of the baby’s whereabouts or even having been pregnant.”

      “Katie isn’t a drug addict. If that girl you mentioned was a meth user, then her baby might have—” it was tragic to even suggest the possibility “—died. Katie wouldn’t take drugs, drink or smoke anything that could harm a fetus.”

      Bellamy nodded, but Maddie had a feeling the detective’s interest in her search had moved way beyond Katie. “We had another vic, unidentified, show up two months back who, according to the medical examiner, had recently gone through a healthy delivery. The mother was dead, but there was no sign of the baby—alive or dead. It matches a case in St. Louis. We haven’t had any leads—”

      “Dead? The mother was dead?”

      The idea that anyone would treat an innocent baby like a commodity didn’t stun her as much as the expression on the detective’s face that said Zero’s story could be true.

      Maddie felt the blood draining to her toes, leaving her light-headed and sick to her stomach. “Katie doesn’t want to give up her baby. She picked out names. We decorated the nursery together. We’re not rich, but we’re not hurting for money, either. She wouldn’t get involved in something like that. Not if she had a choice.”

      But Cooper wasn’t listening now. He was on his feet, glancing through the deserted rows of paired-off desks and cubicle walls that filled the Fourth Precinct’s Detectives Division.

      Katie wouldn’t sell her baby. Where would she meet such people? Why?

      For the first time in twenty-nine days, Maddie hoped that Katie was just another teenage runaway.

      The blood of determination started pumping through her veins again. Maddie braced her hand against the desk and rose to her feet. “Katie’s in more trouble than I thought, isn’t she? She might already be dead.”

      Cooper’s own color blanched, as if he just now realized how many gruesome details he’d shared. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I was just thinking out loud. I’m sure your niece will turn up perfectly fine. The baby, too. The possibility of that clinic is just something we were briefed on. Something to watch for. If it happened in another town, it could be happening here. But we don’t have any proof of that yet.”

      Maddie didn’t want his apologies and reassurances; she wanted cold, hard facts. “You think it’s a possibility, though, don’t you? That this baby-selling clinic exists. That Katie’s a part of it.”

      “I don’t know, ma’am.”

      “She’s important to you now because she could be a lead on a major case.”

      “Just sit tight for a sec. Please.” He waved toward the chair beside his desk and urged her to take a seat. “Let me run this story by someone else. Make sure I’m not crazy for even considering it.”

      Maddie hesitated. Was this a brush-off or a reason to hope? “What about Katie?”

      “Ms. McCallister, if your niece is involved in an illegal-adoption ring—whether by choice or against her will—then I can guarantee you that every resource KCPD has will be put into finding her. This could be a huge case.”

      “And if this adoption ring doesn’t exist?”

      “We’ll still find her.”

      He asked her to sit one more time before zipping toward a door marked Captain. But Maddie hugged her arms around her middle and chose to pace instead.

      Whether Katie was involved in a major criminal operation or just a seventeen-year-old girl, confused and alone on the streets, Maddie was beginning to fear that she’d never see her again.

      Chapter Two

      “What am I supposed to do with it?”

      The Fourth Precinct’s briefing room was generally empty on a Saturday morning. But drawn like bees to a dewy flower, a surprising number of plainclothes and uniformed officers alike had gathered around the front table. Some of them weren’t even on duty. Grown men spouted nonsense words; professional women cooed. Stories about kids and grandkids and kids some hoped to have one day filled the air like a party.

      Dwight hovered near the back of the room, staying well away from the happy throng. His all-night marathon of answering questions about the baby’s mother and what the blood in his office and on the note might mean made him testier than usual. “There’s no way I’m taking it home with me.”

      “He’s not an it, Dwight,” A. J. Rodriguez insisted. “His name is Tyler, and even though he’s only been around a couple of weeks, he’s still a living, breathing human being. You have to deal with him.”

      “No, I don’t,” Dwight enunciated, in case there was someone on the planet who didn’t yet know just how little he wanted to be responsible for the welfare of a child. “I bought him a bag of diapers and some formula. I gave you my report and turned over all the case files you requested. The Department of Family Services is on the way to take care of the kid from here on so he’s not in any danger. If they can’t locate any family, they’ll find someone else. I’ve done my part.”

      “Nice speech. But I don’t think you really believe that you can write off that kid.”

      Dwight

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