No Second Chance

“You got it that fast?”

She shrugged. “All Harold has to do is type the license plate. He’s going to see what he can dig up on her.” Her stylus started up again. “Meanwhile I’m going to plug the name into Google.”

“The search engine?”

“Yup. You’d be surprised what you can find.”

I knew about that, actually. I once put my own name in. I don’t remember why. Zia and I were drunk and did it for fun. She calls it “ego surfing.”

“Not much speaking now.” Katarina’s face was a mask of concentration. “Maybe she’s examining her?”

I looked over at Rachel. “Two hits on Google,” she said. “The first is a Web site for the Bergen County planning board. She requested a variance to subdivide her lot. It was rejected. The second, however, is more interesting. It’s an alumni site. It lists past graduates that they’re trying to locate.”

“What school?” I asked.

“University of Philadelphia Family Nurse and Midwifery.”

That fit.

Katarina said, “They’re done.”

“Fast,” I said.

“Very.”

Katarina listened some more. “The woman is telling Tatiana to take care of herself. That she should eat better, for the baby. That she should call if she feels any further discomfort.”

I turned to Rachel. “Sounds more pleasant than when she arrived.”

Rachel nodded. The woman we assumed was Denise Vanech came out. She walked with her head high, her rear end twitching in that cocky way. The stretched white shirt was ribbed and, I couldn’t help but notice, rather see-through. She got in her car and took off.

I started up the Camaro, the engine roaring like a lifetime smoker with a hacking cough. I followed at a safe distance. I wasn’t too worried about losing her. We knew where she lived now.

“I still don’t understand,” I said to Rachel. “How do they get away with buying babies?”

“They find desperate women. They lure them here with promises of money and a stable, comfortable home for their child.”

“But in order to adopt,” I said, “there’s a whole procedure you have to go through. It’s a pain in the ass. I know some children overseas—physically deformed children—people tried to bring over. You can’t believe the paperwork. It’s impossible.”

“I don’t have the answer to that, Marc.”

Denise Vanech veered onto the New Jersey Turnpike north. That would be the way back to Ridgewood. I let the Camaro drop back another twenty, thirty feet. The right blinker came on, and the Lexus turned off at the Vince Lombardi rest stop. Denise Vanech parked and headed inside. I pulled the car to the side of the ramp and looked at Rachel. She was biting her lip.

“Could be she’s using the bathroom,” I said.

“She washed up after examining Tatiana. Why didn’t she go then?”

“Maybe she’s hungry?”

“Does she look like she eats much Burger King to you, Marc?”

“So what do we do?”

There was little hesitation. Rachel gripped the door handle. “Drop me off by the door.”

Denise Vanech was pretty sure that Tatiana was faking.

The girl had claimed to be hemorrhaging. Denise checked the sheets. They hadn’t been changed, yet there was no blood on them. The tiles on the bathroom floor were clean. The toilet seat was clean. There was no blood anywhere.

That alone, of course, wouldn’t mean all that much. There was a chance the girl had cleaned up. But there were other things. The gynecological examination showed no signs of distress. Nothing. Not the slightest red tint. Her vaginal hairs, too, had no traces of blood. Denise checked the shower when she finished up. Dry as bone. The girl had called less than an hour before. She claimed to be bleeding heavily.

It didn’t add up.

Lastly, the girl’s demeanor was wrong. The girls are always scared. That goes without saying. Denise had moved out of Yugoslavia when she was nine, during Tito’s reign of relative peace, and she knew what a hellhole it was. To this girl, from where she had come, the United States must seem like Mars. But her fear had a different quality to it. Usually the girls stare at Denise as if she were some kind of parent or savior, looking up to her with a mix of trepidation and hope. But this girl averted her gaze. She fidgeted too much. And there was something else. Tatiana had been brought in by Pavel. He was usually good about watching them. But he hadn’t been there. Denise was about to ask about that, but she decided to wait and play it out. If nothing was wrong, the girl would certainly raise Pavel’s name.

She hadn’t.

Yes, something was definitely wrong.

Denise did not want to raise suspicion. She finished the exam and hurried out. Behind her sunglasses, she checked for possible surveillance vans. There were none. She looked for obvious unmarked police cars. Again nothing. Of course, she was no expert. Though she had been working with Steven Bacard for nearly a decade, there had never been any complications. Perhaps that was why she’d let her guard down.

As soon as she got back into her car, Denise reached for her cell phone. She wanted to call Bacard. But no. If they were somehow on to them, they’d be able to trace that back. Denise debated using a pay phone at the nearest gas station. But they’d be expecting that too. When she saw the sign for the rest stop, she remembered that they had a huge bank of pay phones. She could call from there. If she moved fast enough, they wouldn’t see her or know what phone she used.

But was that safe either?

She quickly sorted through the possibilities. Suppose she was indeed being followed. Driving to Bacard’s office would definitely be the wrong move. She could wait and call him when she got home. But they might have a tap on her phone. This—calling from the large bank of pay phones—seemed the least risky.

Denise grabbed a napkin and used it to keep her fingerprints off the receiver. She was careful not to wipe it off. There were probably dozens of fingerprints already on it. Why make their job any easier?

Steven Bacard picked up. “Hello?”

The obvious strain in his voice made her heart sink. “Where is Pavel?” she asked.

“Denise?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you asking?”

“I just visited his girl. Something isn’t right.”

“Oh God,” he moaned. “What happened?”

“The girl called the emergency number. She said she was hemorrhaging, but I think she was lying.”