10th Anniversary - James Patterson [61]
She had a baby under a blue blanket over her left shoulder. It was a wriggling newborn.
Was this Avis Richardson’s baby?
All I knew for sure was that he was alive.
And then I noticed that Sandy had a 9-millimeter handgun pointed right at my head. And from the look on her face, I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
Chapter 79
“BUCK, GET THE HELL OUT of here!” Sandy shouted.
“I’m not leaving,” he said, “until you put down that gun and tell me what the hell is going on. That is your baby, right, Sandy? You were pregnant. I saw you —”
“Aw, geez, Buck. Don’t ask, don’t tell. You ever heard of that?” said the girl with the baby over her shoulder.
“What are you saying? You were lying to everyone? You were faking your pregnancy? Toni? Jesus Christ. How could you two do that?”
Sandy put the barrel of the gun underneath her chin. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. All of you. Get out. I’m not kidding,” she said. “And I’m not lying either.”
The blood left my face. Coffee climbed into my throat.
“Sandy,” Keene said. “We’ll help you. This isn’t the way.”
“It’s my way. Now, get out, get out, get out!” she shouted.
The baby was crying now, real hearty wails.
My mouth went dry. So many ways for this to go wrong and I never even imagined it this way. I said, “You’re not in trouble, Sandy. We just want to talk about the situation. Buck, let us have some privacy. Please.”
“Toni, talk some sense into her, damn it,” the sheriff said to the woman in the biker’s leathers. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
As the sheriff left the house, I said to Sandy, “I’m putting my gun down.” I reached under my jacket, extracted my Glock with two fingers, and put it on the floor.
Toni Burgess scooped up my weapon and walked across the open room, chains clanking. She put my gun in the garbage can under the sink and closed the cabinet doors.
Sandy dropped her gun into her coveralls pocket, then hugged the baby with both arms.
I let out a breath I’d been holding for far too long and looked around. I saw baby bottles on the counter, baby toys on a sheepskin rug on the floor. Pictures of the baby were stuck all over the fridge.
Sandy jounced the baby against her shoulder and patted his back, but he kept crying.
“My name is Sandra Wilson,” she said. “And this is my son, Tyler Burgess Wilson. I’m his mother now. I answered Avis Richardson’s ad in Prattslist, and I paid her twenty-five thousand dollars as reimbursement for her expenses in carrying and bearing the baby. And she signed the papers. It’s all legal. You make sure to tell Avis that it’s too late to change her mind.”
“Avis ran the ad?”
“She sure did. I can show it to you. After Avis said she wanted us to have the baby, we wired the money into her bank account. Now, listen to me. We love Tyler and we’re not giving him up. This little boy is ours.”
Chapter 80
CLAIRE SAID, “I’m a doctor, honey. And I have a baby not much older than Tyler. Could I just take a quick look at him? Please?” She reached out her arms toward the baby in Sandy Wilson’s arms.
“I can’t get him to eat,” Sandy said in a voice that suddenly cracked with emotion.
Claire hugged the girl and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Then she tugged the baby out of Sandy’s arms and took him to the kitchen table. “Got some baby wipes and a clean diaper?” she asked, her voice as calm as if we weren’t under the gun.
I was at Claire’s side as she unwrapped the baby, and I could see that he was brown-eyed and pink all over and that he had all his parts, plus a little port-wine stain on the back of his hand. I reached out and touched his little palm. He kicked his legs and let out a fresh new wail.
While Claire cleaned and inspected the baby, Toni Burgess disappeared. She returned a minute later with the ad from Prattslist and a sheet of paper in her shaking hands.
“Sergeant, I want you to see this so you can leave us in peace and tell Buck to go home.”
“You go ahead and read it. I’m listening,” I said.
“I, Avis Richardson, being of lawful age