Surrogate Escape

by Jenna Kernan

  Lori fielded that one. “A mother with O-negative blood cannot give birth to a child with this baby’s blood type.”

  “The father could have AB blood,” said Jake.

  “Yes, but mixed with Type O, the baby might have Type A or B but not AB. Zella is not the biological mother.”

  “Just as she said,” Tinnin murmured.

  “What about the blood on Jake’s truck?” asked Bear Den.

  Tinnin’s answer was automatic as if his mind were elsewhere. “Type O.”

  “Likely Zella’s.” Kurt glanced down at the chart. “And the blood we took from one of Jake’s samples, the blood on the baby after birth, matches Zella Colelay’s type. We don’t do DNA tests here. You’ll have to ask Jack’s fiancé, Sophia Rivas, to help you with that.”

  Jack’s woman was an FBI field agent with access to the federal government’s crime labs, and it was very much looking like they were going to need them.

  We are providing the FBI with samples from the scene and the infant’s blood for DNA analysis. They will run it through available databases. Try for a match. I’m not hopeful. But they’ll keep the information and a sample in case there is any inquiry.”

  Tinnin turned to Lori. “What is a possible scenario where those blood types could happen, assuming that Zella delivered this baby?”

  “Well, surrogacy is the obvious explanation.”

  Jake felt suddenly sick. Could someone have paid Zella to be a surrogate?

  “She’s only fifteen,” said Bear Den.

  “Too young to enter into that sort of agreement,” added Kurt.

  “Could her mother have made this arrangement?” asked Lori.

  “Maybe she didn’t agree,” said Tinnin, his expression troubled and his jaw working his gum with rhythmic ferocity.

  “But as far as I can tell, she’s only been seen at our clinic,” said Lori, and then the implications of her words struck and her mouth dropped open. Her gaze flashed to Jake. “No,” she said.

  Bear Den said nothing, but his expression darkened.

  “I work with these people,” Lori said and turned to Jake. “Your brother works there.”

  “Surrogacy explains the disappearances. Explains the baby and why Zella insists she’s never had sex,” said Bear Den. “It fits.”

  “You don’t know that for certain,” said Tinnin. “She might have been seen right here. We need more information.”

  “She could be lying,” said Jake. “About being with a boy.”

  “Blood samples don’t lie,” said Detective Bear Den.

  “We need to run the tests again,” said Tinnin.

  “On all blood samples,” said Bear Den. “I’ll call the FBI to coordinate the investigation.”

  “Federal involvement requires approval and an invitation from the tribal council,” said Tinnin, lifting his phone from the cradle at his hip.

  “What about the other girls?” asked Jake.

  “We have to find them,” Bear Den added.

  “When did Elsie go missing?” asked Tinnin.

  “November,” Jake answered.

  Jake counted to nine. If Elsie had been pregnant in November, she should have delivered by now—and she was still gone.

  The implications settled over them all like wet, heavy snow.

  Jake thought of the third missing girl, Kacey Doka. She and Colt had been serious before he enlisted. Colt had believed she’d wait, and when Jake wrote to say she’d left the reservation, Colt’s letters had stopped coming. Shortly afterward, he’d been taken captive in Iraq. But now Jake thought that Kacey had not run. She’d vanished on February 22. He counted again.

  If she was pregnant when she was taken then, Kacey should be ready to deliver a child. He had to tell Colt what was happening. He didn’t know if it would make a difference, or get his brother to leave his self-imposed isolation, but he had to try.

  Had his brother Ty known about this all along? He hoped not, but it looked like Jake needed to detain his brother for questioning. Of course, first he’d have to arrest him.

  Just like he’d feared. He felt sick to his stomach.

  “What’s going to happen to this baby?” asked Lori.

  * * *

  LORI’S QUESTION HUNG in the air. What would happen to baby Fortune?

  Bear Den and Tinnin exchanged looks. Kurt glanced at his brother and Jake stared at Lori.

  Lori knew that under normal circumstances, the tribe would temporarily place any Apache baby with a vetted family on the rez. But this was not a normal circumstance. Someone wanted this baby badly enough to shoot at a police officer to get her. If what they said about the circumstances of Fortune’s birth were true, then this baby was evidence of a crime.

  They would have to interview Zella very carefully to see if she could help them determine who had done this to her. And Fortune would likely be at the center of a criminal investigation.

  Lori knew all that, but she also knew that caring for Fortune was not like holding one of the dozens of babies in her care at the clinic. Fortune was much more. She’d bonded to this fair-skinned child. She was not a replacement baby. Fortune was in need of a mother, and Lori was ready to be that to her. She really didn’t care what color she was. She was born here on their land. That made her their responsibility.

  Lori had been trying to prove to everyone here on the rez that she could take care of herself by herself. And she owed it all to those who had pigeon-holed her, painted her with the same brush as her three older sisters and their mom. She loved her mom and her sisters, but she did not want to be like them. If not for their legacy and the girls who had been so cruel after she got pregnant, she might not have made it through her nursing program. Her fury had driven her because she would be damned if she’d fail. It just was not an option. But in her mind, she had spent too much time living in the past and too much time independently alone. Fortune kept her in the present with all the wants and needs of a newborn, and she also gave Lori connection and hope for the future.

  “She’ll need to be placed,” said Tinnin. “You happen to know anyone who would like temporary custody of a baby?” he asked Lori.

  “I would,” said Jake.

  All heads turned in his direction.

  “I found her,” he said. “She’s mine.”

  Tinnin chewed his gum and studied his junior officer. “It don’t work like that, son. Zella gave birth. She’s got parental rights.”

  Jake pressed his lips together and faced his superior. Lori sensed a fight coming.

  “Zella is the birth mother,” said Tinnin.

  “Surrogate,” said Lori. “In Arizona that makes her the legal mother unless or until she transfers custody by adoption.”

  “Abandonment,” added Jake. “And Bear Den said she doesn’t want to keep Fortune.”

  “True. Zella expressed her intention to sign away her parental rights, but, as a minor, we require her mother’s signature, which we don’t have,” said Bear Den.

  “I can assign temporary custody to you both,” Tinnin said.

  The men looked to Lori.

  Jake seemed to brace for what she might say. Her heart began banging around in her rib cage. She felt panic and something new. Was that hope? Whatever it was, it was terrifying.

  “Lori?” Jake asked a question, and it contained everything in just that word. Was she with him, against him or just ready to disappear again?

  She didn’t want to challenge Jake for this baby, but neither did she want to give her up. Custody with Jake raised all kinds of prickly questions that she just didn’t feel ready to face. She had always been attracted to Jake. That had not changed—if anything, that attraction had grown stronger.

  “Can we have a moment?” she asked.

  Tinnin motioned to the hall. “Take your time. Big decision.”

>   Lori glanced at Jake.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. He stepped into the hall. The men followed Jake out.

  She wanted to join them but hesitated, not trusting him. What did he need to say that she could not hear? She wavered between waiting as he asked and joining them. Lori remained where she was looking down at the active little baby, wiggling and sucking on her fist, unaware of the decisions being made that would affect the rest of her life.

  * * *

  JAKE STOOD OUTSIDE the examination room with Tinnin, Bear Den and his brother, Kurt. Behind the closed door, Lori waited with Fortune. Jake turned to Tinnin.

  “Any chance the tribe will give me full custody, if I can’t convince Lori to...”

  Tinnin adjusted his belt and then settled his hands on his hips. Finally, he replied with a question of his own. “What do you think?”

  “I think they would prefer a couple or a woman.”

  “That’s certain,” said Kurt.

  “If you want to keep that little one, you need to convince that girl to marry you,” said Tinnin.

  “She doesn’t want me,” said Jake.

  “But she wants the baby,” said Bear Den. His observation did not make Jake feel any better.

  “You don’t know that for certain,” said Kurt. “She asked for a moment.”

  “But marriage would be better,” repeated Bear Den.

  “There are worse reasons to marry,” said Tinnin. “Oldest reason in the world. Lots of the folks I know wouldn’t have married if not for an unexpected pregnancy.”

  “It’s a bad reason,” said Jake.

  “Worked out okay for me and the missus,” said Tinnin, bringing all the men’s attention to him. His face flushed in a rare show of being rattled. “Now, don’t you go saying so or she’ll chew my butt off.”

  No one said a word.

  Tinnin cleared his throat and addressed Jake. “We’ll get you set up somewhere for the night. You two mull it over and let me know tomorrow what you all decide.” He turned to Bear Den. “Meantime, we need Minnie Cobb and Earle Glass in custody.”

  Minnie was the one who had come looking for Zella, according to Zella’s mother. And Earle and Minnie were now prime suspects in the clinic shooting. Likely the “creepy couple” Zella had described.

  Jake wanted more than temporary custody of Fortune. He wanted to get Lori and Fortune to safety and adopt the baby girl. Ty had told them that the Wolf Posse was looking. That meant the officers’ homes were no longer safe. He considered going to Ty’s home, the last place anyone in the Posse would look for them, but rejected the notion, as it could very well get Ty killed. They were watching his mother’s home, his home and likely Lori’s.

  Jake raised the question with Bear Den and Tinnin. The FBI safe house was rejected because it was off the rez and opened up the possibility that they would lose custody of the infant. Finally, they settled on the best of the bad options. Tinnin would wait with the blood evidence for the FBI while Bear Den escorted them back to the rez.

  Jake went to retrieve Lori.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Tinnin wants to give us more than a few minutes to talk about Fortune’s future placement. We have until tomorrow. Then he’ll be presenting his recommendation to the tribal council.” He filled her in about the decision to involve the FBI in the investigation, but not to use their safe house or leave the rez.

  “Wise,” she said.

  “You want to join us?” he asked and waited while she fell into step with him, returning to the chief and detective.

  “We need more manpower,” Bear Den was saying. “When will we have the new detective?”

  “Soon, I hope. Our top candidate has accepted the position and given two weeks’ notice.”

  This was news to Jake. But it was easy to miss when set against the relocation of the tribe, the initiation of the investigation with the FBI to locate the missing girls, and the usual number of domestic disputes, drunk drivers, gang violence and auto accidents.

  Bear Den excused himself to retrieve his vehicle.

  “We’re getting a new detective?” asked Jake.

  “And a new officer. Tribal council approved it,” said Tinnin.

  “That was fast,” said Jake.

  “The flood was a clincher.”

  “Then something good might come out of that,” Lori chimed in.

  “And Detective Bear Den is engaged to FBI agent Rivas,” said Tinnin.

  She thought of that big, intimidating man and wondered who would ever want to marry him. “Yes. I heard that. She’s the FBI explosives expert Sophia Rivas. The one who set all the charges and nearly died in the blast?” asked Lori.

  “That’s her,” Tinnin said.

  “I don’t really know her. She’s Apache, though, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she’s Black Mountain Apache.”

  “Have they set a date?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “I doubt it. She’s still recovering from injuries suffered in the blast.”

  Fortune squawked and Lori turned. The squawk became a cry.

  She glanced at Jake. “We better go. She’s hungry.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thirty minutes later they arrived at the home of the brother of Officer Harold Shea. Gill worked in tribal government and was on the volunteer fire department. He had been working with their men on the move. He agreed to bunk over at his brother’s if he needed a bed, but he was on hand to show them around. Though once he finished his tour of his two-bedroom home, he shoved off.

  Baby Fortune had been changed and fed and now blinked at the mobile above the crib that Gill had borrowed from his mother and set up in the living room. A pink giraffe turned in a lazy circle followed by a blue lion, a mint-green elephant and a yellow zebra. They all moved to the music of a lullaby. There was also a rocking chair placed before the desk in the room that Gill used for an office. The crib and rocker looked as out of place beside the black leather sofa as a china teacup amid beer glasses.

  Jake was in the kitchen cooking them up a late supper while Lori stood over the crib watching Fortune.

  She tried to think about how many babies she had held and fed and changed, and could not come up with a guess. There had been so many. So why did this one, looking up at the mobile with the unfocused stare of a newborn, make her heart twist? Something was happening and had been happening since she first held Fortune. Her breasts ached every time the baby nursed from her bottle. Lori had never experienced this reaction before, and there was a definite tug in her belly with the urge to hold Fortune every time she saw her.

  The baby turned her head and spotted Lori, staring up at her with a look of fascination. The tug of longing grew and Lori forced herself to glance away, breaking the spell the infant cast. Lori walked to the bookshelf across the room to study the collection of objects and frowned. Gill had an odd assortment of figurines. Each showed an Indian as depicted by white culture over the years. He had a small copy of a cigar-store Indian that looked quite old and a football team mascot—a bronze chief with a full feather headdress, an exaggerated nose and a tomahawk.

  Another model was of an Indian princess, her plastic breasts nearly spilling out of the painted white buckskin as she raised her arm for a perching eagle while her other hand rested on the head of the white wolf frozen in place at her side. Beside her was an Indian angel tree topper with white wings and a white-and-turquoise flowing robe that seemed a strange amalgamation of European and indigenous cultures. Her upraised hand held a dove, which was not a Native symbol of peace. Beside her was a toy from the 1950s of the TV show sidekick Tonto. This Tonto wore his iconic headband and full plastic buckskin.

  She stared down at the figure that represented all that many whites knew of her people, the tribe name becoming the name of a riding personal assistant for the L
one Ranger. This toy had been on his back and clearly was meant to sit on a horse. She knew the horse because her older sister had once owned it. It was a brown-and-white paint named Scout, and Lori believed it was still in the bedroom they had shared. She wondered if Gill would like it.

  “Hmm. Hello, Kemosabi,” she said to it. He continued to stare up at her with a somber, stoic expression.

  She moved from the shelf and returned her gaze to Fortune, whose eyes were closed, her features slack. Lori flicked off the mobile and laid a mint-green blanket over Fortune’s legs and belly. She had knit this with her mother in those frightening months between when she had told her mother that she had gotten pregnant and the day she went to the hospital. Her mother had been delighted, which only reinforced Jake’s belief that Lori had somehow set him up. When had he taken the blanket?

  Lori glanced down at Fortune. She was already looking forward to when the baby woke, so she could hold her again.

  When she turned, it was to find Jake leaning against the doorjamb between the kitchen and living room, relaxed, arms folded, a sad smile on his full mouth. She startled and then returned his smile, feeling a wistfulness mingle with the longing.

  “Sleeping?” he said, his voice low.

  She nodded and he stepped into the room, filling the space and making her heart pound. Why did her body react so to him? He was still the only one who made her brain go haywire when he got too close. It was yet another reason to keep him at arm’s length. But if they were to be Fortune’s parents, that would no longer be possible.

  Jake stopped beside her, staring down at the little sleeping girl, and he leaned so that his shoulder touched hers as they stood side by side.

  “Do you ever think about her?” he asked.

  Her throat began to close. She knew exactly who he meant. Somehow she managed to reply.

  “Every day.”

  “Me, too. She’d be almost five.”

  He was calculating from the time she should have been born rather than her actual birthday, three months too soon. Lori did that devil’s math all the time. She’d be in preschool. She’d be attending her first powwow, her third birthday and, this year, kindergarten. The invisible ghost girl who lived with her still, growing older only in her mind and, apparently, in Jake’s.