He still talked about missing his mommy and daddy, and Wendy was puzzled. The Campbells should’ve explained things to the boy by now. That was part of the deal. By the third visit he was supposed to know that he was going to come and live with the Porters in Ohio. That they were his new family.
It didn’t matter. Rip told Joey every chance he had. Tonight was no different. They were eating dinner—chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Rip waved his fork in the air. “You can start calling me Daddy now. That’s what the judge says.”
Joey blinked. He looked both puzzled and frightened. “My d-d-daddy lives in Florida with me.” He poked his fork into another bite of macaroni.
“Doesn’t he know yet?” Rip looked at her. For once he wasn’t angry, just curious.
“I guess not.” Wendy wasn’t hungry. She pushed her plate back and smiled at her husband. Anything to keep him calm. “It’ll be obvious soon enough, Rip.”
He looked back at Joey. “Here’s the deal, little man.” He waited until Joey’s eyes were on him. “I’m your real daddy and this,” he gestured to the small living area made up of the kitchen and living room, “this is your real home.” He leaned over the table so his face was closer to Joey’s. “The Campbells adopted you, only there was a mistake.” He pointed at Wendy. “Me and her, we’re your real parents and the judge says you’re gonna come stay with us. Starting in three weeks.”
Tears gathered in Joey’s eyes and he shook his head. “My Mommy and D-d-daddy and Gus are in Florida.” He dropped his fork. “That’s my real f-f-family.”
Rip was getting madder by the second. Just when it looked like he might throw a glass of milk at the boy, he jerked his chair back, stood, and grabbed his car keys. “I’ll be at the bar.”
That was that. It took Wendy an hour to calm Joey down, and she did it by agreeing with him. Yes, his real parents were in Florida. Yes, that was his real home. “But we’re like your mama and daddy, too,” she told him. Because if she didn’t say so now, how would she explain the situation when he came to live with them in three weeks?
Joey looked confused. He didn’t finish his dinner, and he talked to the Campbells on the phone longer than usual. He didn’t really relax until Wendy led him into the TV room and turned on SpongeBob SquarePants. Halfway through the program, he even laughed a little. The sound of it made Wendy dream of the days ahead, days when the transition would be over and having Joey could be part of their regular routine.
When the program ended, Joey wanted to watch more cartoons. They found Bear in the Big Blue House, and after it got started, Wendy did something she’d been wanting to do since Joey’s first visit. She reached out . . . careful not to startle her son . . . and she took hold of his fingers.
He looked at her and smiled. Then without hesitating, he tucked his hand the rest of the way into hers. The feeling of that single touch was so amazing, so right, it stayed with her the rest of the night. Even when he said his bedtime prayers.
“Please, God, bring me home safe and fast ’cause I miss Mommy and Daddy and Gus so so so much. Gee this name, amen.”
Now Wendy looked at his sleeping form again and gently patted his back one more time. “Good night, Joey. Mama loves you.”
She wandered down the hallway and back to the kitchen. Along the way she picked up her Bible. Actually it was her grandma’s Bible, but lately she’d been reading it. Taking it with her to church on Sundays and trying to find meaning in it. Strength or peace or wisdom. Something to help her be the sort of mother Joey needed.
She’d been reading a part called First Kings, because that was where Solomon made a lot of decisions. That’s what the pastor had said a few weeks ago. And no Old Testamant person was as wise as King Solomon. Of course, Rip didn’t like her reading the Bible. Made him nervous, he said. But Rip wouldn’t be home until well after midnight.
She looked out the window and sighed. Rip had hit her again the day before, this time on her back. She hadn’t looked, but she was pretty sure she had a bruise. He was sorry, he told her so. When she looked at the big picture, he did seem to be doing better with his rage than he’d done before he went to prison.
But things weren’t headed in a good direction. He’d quit his job at the theater. Too stressful, he’d told her—working nights when he was trying to learn how to be a father. Wendy wasn’t sure how hanging out at the bars was helping, but she didn’t ask.
She opened the Bible. She was on the third chapter, the part with the little heading that said, “A Wise Ruling.” The story was about two women who shared a house, and each of them had a newborn baby. It was fascinating and it caught her attention right away.
The story went on that one morning one of the babies was dead, and an argument broke out about which of the women was the mother of the living baby. The women took the baby to King Solomon and asked him to decide, so the king pulled out a long sword. He told the mothers he would cut the living baby in half and give them each a part since they couldn’t agree about who the mother was.
The real mother stepped forward right away. “Give the baby to the other woman,” she said.
But the other woman was defiant. She had no trouble allowing the king to cut the baby in half. The King then awarded the baby to the first woman. The reason was obvious—only the child’s real mother loved him enough to give him up, rather than see him die.
Wendy finished the story and quickly shut the Bible. What had she just read? A story about two mothers, two women with a claim to the same child. Wasn’t that just like her and Molly Campbell, Joey’s adoptive mother? The two of them both loved Joey, and both of them wanted to have him for their own.
She pushed the Bible away. The story rubbed her the wrong way. What sort of wisdom did it have for her? In this case, she was the real mother, but she wasn’t willing to give Joey up, not even if that was the best thing for him. She loved him too much. Especially now.
Enough Bible stories, she told herself. She put the big book away and turned on the television. Reruns of American Idol were on. That would help her forget the strange story in the Bible. At least in today’s world, judges didn’t decide custody issues by threatening to cut a baby in half. They handled it fair and square. Even if the decision seemed hard at the time. Wendy was beyond glad, too. She might’ve let Joey go once, back when she didn’t know him. But now that she knew what it felt like to hold his hand and feed him dinner and sit beside him watching cartoons, one thing was certain.
She would never let him go again.
Never.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The office was as small as it was seedy. Jack sat in one of two available chairs. The other one was near the door, empty. Copier fluid and printer cartridges were stacked on two filing cabinets, and the place smelled of thick cigar smoke and ink. Angelo St. Pierre worked his machine in the back corner by the light of a pair of small, dusty table lamps. Jack guessed the place was maybe a hundred square feet altogether.
Angelo pushed a button on the machine and stood back. “Mr. Sanders?” He turned to Jack. The man was from Dominican Republic, and his accent was almost too thick to understand. “You need these today, yes?”
“Yes.” Jack folded his hands on the man’s small desk. The legs were uneven and the desk wobbled hard to the right. “That would be best.”
“Tell me your story again.”
The man seemed to like stories. For the job Angelo was doing, Jack was willing to indulge him. “My wife and I are missionaries.” He smiled, not his standard grin, but the humble smile he’d seen people at Bethel Bible Church use with each other. “We’re taking our little boy to Indonesia.” He frowned. “Very dangerous.”
“Yes.” Angelo St. Pierre punctuated the thought by jabbing his finger in Jack’s direction. “I know that place. Very dangerous.”
Jack had found Angelo’s information in an Internet chat room. He did a search and wound up on a site where people with broken English wrote in what seemed like a code. It took Jack a
few nights in the chat room before he realized that nearly everyone was—or claimed to be—an illegal alien. Fake passports were a hot topic, and when it came up, Jack joined in.
“I need documents fast. I live in Florida. Any suggestions?” “Fast” was the codeword for “illegal.” Jack had picked up that much.
“AAA Copiers is a good place to start,” someone wrote back. Two other people in the chat room agreed.
Jack looked it up the next day and had a phone conversation with Angelo St. Pierre. Again the conversation was in code. Jack talked about needing passports quickly, and Angelo said it wouldn’t be a problem. He said he was in favor of American freedom. Whatever that meant.
“Just bring in your photos and we can do things very quickly.” He paused. “There will be fee for very fast passports.”
Jack agreed, and that was exactly how things had gone. When he got there, he filled out a piece of paper for each of the three of them, providing their new names and making up every other answer needed. Angelo didn’t ask for identification; he merely looked at the papers, collected the small passport-size photos, and went to work.
Behind Angelo St. Pierre, the machines ground to a halt. He worked and folded and pressed the documents into another machine on the floor. He used a series of what looked like stamps and then a fine-point pen. After ten minutes he laid three passports on the desk and smiled. “There. You have your passports quickly.”
Indeed.
Jack picked them up and looked them over. He’d used his own passport often enough to see that—at least to his eye—there was no difference here whatsoever. Angelo’s work was brilliant. Certainly the passports would trick officials in Haiti. And once they did, once there were stamps in the back, it would be even easier to trick officials in Europe and Grand Cayman.
“You do good work, Angelo.” Jack had already agreed to the price. Quick passports were expensive. Two hundred dollars each. Cash, nothing else. He paid the man.
Angelo smiled. “Angelo St. Pierre in favor of American freedom.” He nodded. “Good day.”
No need to wait for a receipt. Jack collected the passports, nodded one last time to the man, and left the building. Just as he stepped out, as he tucked the passports into his suit-coat pocket, a car approached from fifty yards away—one that looked an awful lot like the car belonging to Bill and Beth Petty.
Jack wanted to run or hide, but he didn’t have time. It couldn’t be them, not here in Miami in the middle of the week. Once in a while Bill did business in Miami, but the corporate offices were blocks away. Jack kept his pace normal, not too hurried. Angelo’s shop was on a busy street, but it was smack in the middle of the worst part of town, the part run by drug lords and mafia and friendly swindlers from the Dominican Republic who believed in American freedom.
This section of town was no place the Pettys would come. But as the car approached, all doubt vanished. It was the Pettys’ car, and Bill was driving. There were at least three other businessmen in the car with him. Jack kept his eyes straight ahead.
After the car passed, he allowed himself to breathe.
Ten more steps and Jack reached his car. Bill hadn’t seen him—he was too busy making conversation with his passengers. But what could he possibly have been doing in that part of Miami? And what if he had spotted Jack? Wouldn’t he have stopped and made casual conversation? Bill was driving, after all. He could’ve pulled over. Jack felt the adrenaline work its way through his body and out of his system. If Bill had seen him, he would’ve stopped. It was that simple. Jack put all thoughts of Bill and Angelo St. Pierre and what he’d just done by purchasing false passports out of his head, and focused instead on what was still left to do. He’d already done the unthinkable—lying and taking part in criminal activity. Every detail from here on out needed to be perfect.
The trip was in ten days; there was no room for error.
Beth and Molly were at the pool when Beth decided she’d had enough. They were leaving for Haiti in eight days. It was time to come straight out and ask the question.
The kids were in the pool, the boys gathered in the shallow end playing a wild game of water volleyball. Cammie sat with a few of her neighborhood friends at the far side of the deep end. All of them were out of earshot. Beth and Molly sat on the edge of the pool, their feet in the water. Molly had her eyes on Joey, and Beth made little splashes with her toes. So far there hadn’t been much conversation between them. Beth decided to start with the easy questions.
“When’s your hearing?”
“What?” Molly didn’t turn her head. She leaned back on her hands.
“The hearing. The one in Ohio to see if the judge will change his mind about Joey.” She tried not to sound short. “That hearing.”
“Oh. Right.” Molly nodded. “Jack says it’ll be Monday or Tuesday.”
Beth hesitated. “So when are you leaving?”
“Leaving?” Molly blinked twice and turned to her. “Friday, same as you.” She turned her focus back to Joey again.
This was ridiculous. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Molly was on drugs. “Not for the work trip. When are you leaving for Ohio? I’m assuming you and Jack are going to be there.”
Across the pool, Joey climbed out, dripping water, and waved at Molly. She waved back and then turned to Beth. “Jack found an attorney. He said we don’t have to be there. He can get a continuance to buy time.” She found Joey again. “I thought I told you.”
Beth wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or to call her sister a liar. Bill had told her about seeing Jack in downtown Miami. He said he thought Jack recognized him, but since Jack looked away so quickly, he assumed whatever Jack was doing he didn’t want to be caught. Even Bill was suspicious now. But Beth never got the chance to call Molly about it. Blain and Jonah had the stomach flu that day, and it had been all she could do to keep them hydrated between bathroom runs. Now, twenty-four hours later, the boys were well again and Beth was desperate for answers.
She swirled her feet in the water. “A continuance? You mean, you don’t have to give Joey up the week after we get back from the trip?”
“Nope.” Molly smiled, but something about it was flat. In the background, the sound of kids laughing and splashing water seemed to fade. “You were right, Beth. God worked a miracle for us. The attorney is buying us time—a month, maybe more. He says he can help us keep custody of Joey.”
“So where’s the hooting and hollering?” Beth laughed just once. “I would think you’d have called me with that news the minute it came in.”
Molly looked at her, and her eyes were somehow deeper than before. “I can’t call you with everything that happens in regards to Joey.”
Beth had the strangest feeling. As if there was something Molly wanted to say, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t say it. “You always did before.”
“I know.” Sorrow welled up in Molly’s eyes. “We’re not out of the woods yet. That’s the reason I didn’t call.”
It was time. If Beth didn’t ask now, she would never have the courage. She angled her body and looked straight to her sister’s heart, beyond whatever walls she’d put up in the past few months. “Can I ask you something?”
“If it’s about Joey, there’s not much else to say.” Molly picked up the bottle of sunscreen beside her, and poured a small amount into her right hand. She rubbed it slowly onto her knees.
“Look at me, Molly. I have to see your eyes.”
Her sister made a face that showed her surprise, but she did as Beth asked. “Okay.”
“Why did you and Jack take out a loan for almost a million dollars?”
And there it was. The moment she asked the question, the walls in Molly’s eyes fell and what remained was pure, terrifying fear. It was a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look. A look that said Beth had caught her.
But in just half a second it was gone. Molly raised her brow. “Nice. Snooping through our mail now, are you?”
“Of course not.” Beth his
sed the words. She didn’t want to fight, but she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Not if Molly and Jack were really thinking of running. “It was out in the open.”
“Right.” Molly leaned closer. She was mad, and her tone didn’t hide the fact. “Why do you think it was out in the open, Beth? Because Jack and I have nothing to hide, that’s why.” She straightened, indignant. “And if you must know, we’re purchasing a medical office building in downtown West Palm. Okay? Any other questions?”
“In downtown . . .” Beth wanted to cry. The last thing she intended was to make Molly mad, but even with her sister’s explanation, she still wasn’t convinced. She swallowed and summoned her courage. “Yes. One more.”
“Okay, shoot. Wanna know how much the building costs? Four million. Wanna know how we found it? Jack’s real estate connections—Paul Kerkar, to be specific. He’s listed. Look him up.” She made a tight line with her lips. “Go ahead, Beth. What else do you want to know?”
The air around them grew still, the voices of the children almost silent. Beth never broke eye contact with her sister. “I want to know . . . if you’re going to run.”
Molly’s shock was genuine, or at least it seemed that way. “Beth Petty! Are you asking me if Jack and I are going to run away with Joey?”
“Yes.” It was too late to back down now. “Bill told me he saw Jack in downtown Miami, near a place where they make phony passports.” Tears blurred her vision. “I had to ask, because, Molly—you can’t run. If they catch you, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”
She didn’t mention the other obvious consequence. That the two of them would be finished, their relationship over. It was the heartbreaking part of the possibility that Beth tried not to think about. It was one thing to want to protect Molly from herself, from doing something that might land her in prison. That sort of motivation was okay. But it was entirely different if she was concerned mainly for herself, because she loved Molly too much to lose her.
Molly lifted her legs out of the pool and pushed herself up onto her feet. She stared down at Beth, her face a mask of hurt. “I can’t believe you’d think that.”