“No. I have people out looking for her, but it’s been three days now since she left. We think she’s someplace in Kansas.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she be in Kansas?” Amanda demanded, her brow tightening with apprehension. “The baby is due in a couple of weeks. Surely she’ll return to the ranch to have the baby.”
“Amanda, Jamie Long has already had the baby. She had it by herself in a deserted farmhouse during a snowstorm.”
Amanda sank to the side of the bed and put her hand to her throat. “The baby is all right, isn’t he?”
“I have no idea.”
“How do you know she had a baby if you haven’t seen it?” Amanda rubbed her forehead. Her brother wasn’t making any sense. No sense at all. But he was frightening her. Really frightening her.
“There was graphic evidence of a recent birth at that house,” Gus said. “I seriously doubt if some other woman had traveled to Marshall County to have a baby on her own in the middle of a blizzard.”
“That terrible girl!” Amanda shrieked. “You have to find her! To find our baby!”
“I will,” Gus promised, “but it may take a while. I have been making some phone calls. I plan to arrange for a soon-to-be-born baby to use as a stand-in until we find Sonny’s baby.”
“No,” she screamed. “I don’t want another baby!”
“Amanda, I want you to take a deep breath and listen to me. Listen very carefully. What if your supposed due date comes and goes and there is no baby? Your followers will be expecting an announcement of his birth and a picture of you with a baby. They are waiting with bated breath for that picture, and I’m not even sure that Jamie Long’s baby is still alive. It was three weeks early, and the girl was alone when she had it. I saw that house, Amanda. There was a lot of blood, and it was bitterly cold.”
Amanda drew in her breath. “No,” she gasped. “I would know if the baby died. God would have told me.”
“That may very well be,” Gus said, “but until I find Sonny’s baby, we may need another one to use in its place.”
“No, Gus, no,” Amanda said, tears rolling down her face. “Please, I have to have Sonny’s baby. I have to. You know that. I don’t want Toby anymore. I just want you and our baby.”
“And you will have him,” Gus said, his voice breaking. “You have my solemn promise.”
Gus hung up the phone and drew in his breath, filling his lungs and heart and mind with resolve. He would keep his promise to his sister. He must. What good was all this power if he couldn’t give his sister the one thing that she wanted more than anything else?
He should have removed Jamie Long from the ranch long ago and put her in a more secure place. He knew as soon as he realized what Amanda was up to and that her plan was fraught with problems. His sister lived in a fairy-tale world of her own making. Gus had realized from the very beginning-even before he learned that Sonny’s semen had been used to impregnate the girl-that one of two things was probably going to happen. The girl would realize that she was a goose about to lay a golden egg and hold out for more money, or, for quite another set of reasons, the girl might decide that she wanted to keep the baby for herself. The minute he found out that she was carrying Sonny’s baby, he should have locked her up in a place far from the ranch. A place that she would never leave.
It was all his fault.
He rose from his chair and began to pace across the imposing bedchamber-with its high ceilings and massive fireplace-that had once been his larger-than-life grandfather’s. Back in his Grandfather Buck’s day, the room had contained massive furniture-a huge four-poster bed that stood four feet above the floor, oversized chairs, and tall chests whose top drawers Gus could not reach. Now the room held different furniture. Chairs he did not have to scramble into. A bed he didn’t need a stepping stool to climb into. But the furniture never looked as though it belonged in a room of such grand proportions.
He paused by the fireplace for a minute to warm his backside.
What if he couldn’t keep his promise to his sister? What if he never found the girl?
But that was ridiculous. She was clever, but it was only a matter of time until she made a mistake. There was a limit to how long she could elude the net he had thrown out there. Not without unlimited money. Not without help.
Help. Was there anything he was overlooking? An all-points had been sent out on her and her car. He had found the girl’s address book in Montgomery’s desk and knew the names of her friends. And her sister. Those people were already being watched. Their phones were being tapped. Their mail would be examined. People in the girl’s hometown were already being interviewed-neighbors, teachers, classmates, members of her church. They were shown a badge and the cover story was kept vague but strongly implied that it would be in Jamie’s best interest for her to be located and that something ominous could happen to her if she were not. Even if those being interviewed were at first reluctant, eventually they would agree to help. They would let the interviewer know if they saw or heard from her.
It was only a matter of time, Gus told himself as he pulled the covers back and crawled into bed.
For so many years, whenever he was at the ranch, he and Montgomery would play gin rummy and drink scotch in the evening. And she would tell him stories about his father and grandfather. Coming here was never going to be the same.
He should not have yelled at her. What happened was his doing, not hers. He should have seen it coming. “I’m so sorry, Montgomery,” he whispered. “So sorry.”
He didn’t want to cry. Not again. He turned his thoughts to Amanda. She didn’t want Toby anymore. “I just want you and our baby,” she had said.
Maybe they could name the boy Montgomery and call him “Monty.” Or “Buck” would be nice. Buck was a good name for a West Texas boy. And that’s what Gus wanted him to be. A rancher. A man of the land. He wanted to preserve his innocence, as he had with Sonny. Gus had convinced Amanda not to take Sonny on the road as a boy, claiming that some would see that as exploitation. There would be plenty of time for that after Sonny had finished college. But Sonny wasn’t much of a student and didn’t adapt well to college. Sonny wanted to spend his life here on the ranch-not saving souls and raising money to elect political candidates. But the boy had never had the courage to tell his mother. He was happiest here at the ranch. Like his great-grandfather Buck, the boy had loved the land. If he wasn’t riding across it on horseback, he was racing around in that damned all-terrain vehicle. Gus had wanted to blame the accident on the company that manufactured it, but maybe it was the land itself that had killed Sonny. All that space was seductive. It made a man feel one with the universe. Made him long to be a wild mustang. Or an eagle.
Gus desperately needed a full night’s rest and had taken something to assure that sleep would come. He felt his body relaxing as the drug took hold. A nice feeling. He closed his eyes and imagined himself and little Buck in the pony cart. He could hear the boy’s laughter and the bells jingling merrily as the pony trotted down the drive. But to turn that vision into reality, he had to track down Jamie Long.
The baby was still alive. He had decided to believe that was so until he knew otherwise. He needed to believe that.
Monday morning Jamie found her way to the vital statistics office at the state health department. Using the information the midwife had given her, she filled out a form for the baby’s birth certificate and one for Janet Marie Wisdom. The clerk said she should receive them in a week to ten days.
That was easy, Jamie thought as she picked up the infant carrier and headed for the door. As soon as she had a birth certificate, she could apply for a Social Security number and obtain a driver’s license.