“She didn’t just happen to work at that lab, though,” Diana clarified. “She said she’d purposefully gotten herself hired there.”
“Right.”
“Why would she do that?” Logan asked.
“Because they handled all of Dr. Paskota’s tests,” Diana said.
Sara nodded. “Brenda told us she had a cousin who’d been recruited by Dr. Paskota. After a while, Ruby-that’s what Brenda called her-began to get suspicious that something wasn’t right. She talked to Brenda, who was actually a lab tech at a hospital across town, and said she was going to start asking some questions she should have asked a long time ago. Two days later, her car was broadsided by a truck that had lost its brakes. Brenda didn’t like it, not at all, so she started digging.”
A baby mill, Logan thought. There were no barren families, at least not those who were looking for surrogates. The doctor was creating the product, and undoubtedly selling them to the highest bidder. Though he was sure that had to be it, he said, “So what did she find?”
Sara looked too distressed to continue, so Diana took up the story. “Dr. Paskota had set up a program that has one purpose-to insure the health of its clients.”
“Insure? Like insurance?” he asked.
Diana shook her head. “Not in the way you’re thinking of. Something a bit more tangible.”
How does selling babies insure health? “I’m not following.”
“It’s a long-term plan,” she said. “People. Genetically matched people.”
He stared at her, still not getting it.
“If you’re rich enough and still relatively young,” she said, “why not hedge your bets against the future? Thanks to Dr. Paskota, somewhere there’s a person, your offspring, just waiting in case you need…anything.”
Logan’s lips parted in horror. “I hope I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying.”
“I doubt it,” Sara said. “Heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, whatever-perfectly matched to you, just hanging around in case you ever needed them.”
He hadn’t misunderstood. It was…inhuman.
“Do you have proof?” he asked.
“The fact that they have your father isn’t proof enough?” Richard said.
Again, Sara put a hand on her brother to calm him down, then said, “That’s what Brenda had been collecting. We made plans to take what she had to the FBI. I was going to be the final piece of evidence, an actual person still in the process. Only she didn’t show up when she was supposed to, and on the news that night, there was a report about a woman who had been murdered while getting money from an ATM, a lab technician named Monique Pond. The picture they showed was Brenda’s. I immediately called Diana.”
“If Dr. Paskota knew about Brenda, she probably also knew that Sara had been talking to her,” Diana said. “Hell, I was concerned someone was waiting outside Sara’s apartment to mug her, too. I told her to pack only what she really needed, then sent Richard to pick her up. I was right. Someone was waiting. The doctor and one of her men.”
“They tried to grab me when I came down,” Sara said. “Dr. Paskota said I was going with them someplace where they could keep an eye on me until the baby was born. Whatever kindness I’d seen in her was gone.”
Her brother grinned. “They weren’t expecting me, though. Dislocated the guy’s shoulder and broke his leg. The doctor I only knocked to the ground so she’d get out of our way.”
Quite a family, Logan thought.
“We’ve been hiding Sara ever since,” Diana said.
“Hold on,” he said. “What if you’d never found out and had Emily there? Then what?”
“They would have paid me and I would have gone on my way,” Sara answered.
“And Emily? What would Dr. Paskota have done about her? She can’t just stick all these babies in a room until they’re needed.”
“She doesn’t have to. This isn’t the only thing Dr. Paskota does, though there’s no doubt it makes her a ton more money than anything else. See, the other thing she does is help match newborns with families wanting to adopt. It’s the perfect cover. When one of her special cases comes up, she can just add the baby to the mix, and carefully track them as they grow up. Once a special child reaches sixteen, he or she becomes viable. If the client associated with that child ever needs a kidney or, say, a heart, the child is simply snatched and…harvested. The doctor makes money on both ends-the clients who are buying the insurance in case they have a need someday, and the parents who think they’ve just adopted their dream child.”
“Has that happened?”
Sara shook her head. “From what Brenda could learn, Dr. Paskota had only been doing this special service for about twelve years, which means about fifteen now. Those first kids will soon become viable, and then it becomes a waiting game.”
“They may never be used, though. Not everyone’s going to need a transplant.”
“True, but remember, to the ones who’ve paid for these kids’ existence, the cost is minimal so it’s worth the risk. Most of the children will probably live full lives, but not all. No way was I going to risk Emily’s life like that.”
So horrifying, yet so simple. Logan wondered if there were others doing something similar.
“Why didn’t you go to the FBI on your own?”
“We didn’t have Brenda’s proof,” Diana said. “Why would they believe us? The three of us with our less-than-stellar family history versus the good Dr. Paskota? A woman who’s helped hundreds of deserving families get matched with ‘needy’ children? Not only would all the adoptive parents come to her defense, but her wealthy special clients wouldn’t want their involvement in her program exposed. They would do anything to help her keep things quiet. The FBI would never listen to us.”
“There’s another reason,” Sara said. “One of those clients is Emily’s father. What if he got custody of her? What would I do then?”
Though unsure what he would have done in similar circumstances, he understood their reasoning.
“Why did you marry Alan? Wasn’t that taking a chance?” he asked, wanting to fill in the holes so he could have the full picture.
“I didn’t set out to meet him, and I certainly didn’t mean to fall in love,” Sara said defensively. “After we started seeing each other, I can’t tell you how many times I almost disappeared. And when he asked me to marry him? Oh, God. I wanted to so bad, but how could I?”
“I’m the one who encouraged her to say yes,” Diana said. “I’m the one who came up with the plan that if something happened, she could leave Emily with him. That way she would be safe.”
“So what triggered you to run again?”
“I have people I talk to,” Diana said. “Friends who think I’m on the run from a bad relationship. They keep their eyes open and let me know if anyone’s asking around about me or Richard or Sara. About three months ago I started getting calls, and knew it wasn’t going to be long before they figured out my new last name and tracked me down. Once they did that, they’d try to use me to get to Sara. So I knew it was time for her to disappear.”
“But you didn’t,” Logan said. “You stayed in Braden.”
“I wanted to be sure. If they didn’t show up, then perhaps we were in the clear, and if they did, I’d just sneak away. I thought your friend the other night was one of them. Hell, I thought you were, too.” She paused. “Sorry about your friend. That was…a mistake.”
Logan looked at Richard for a second, then back at Diana. He’d already figured Richard was the one who’d attacked Pep.
“Don’t blame him,” she said. “I was the one in charge. It was my mistake.”