“The young girl you just visited in Union City. It’s about her. For starters.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t discuss my patients.”
“I said, for starters.”
“Why would a former FBI agent be interested in any of this anyway?”
“Would you prefer I call a current agent?”
“I don’t care what you do, Ms. Mills. I have nothing else to say to you. If the FBI has questions, they can call my lawyer.”
“I see,” Rachel said. “And would your lawyer be Steven Bacard?”
There was a brief silence. Rachel glanced back at the car.
“Ms. Vanech?”
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
“No, that’s true. I’ll start going door-to-door maybe. Talk to your neighbors.”
“And say what?”
“I’ll ask them if they know anything about a baby-smuggling operation that runs out of this house.”
The door opened quickly. Denise Vanech with her tan skin and white hair pushed her head through the door. “I’ll sue you for libel.”
“Slander,” Rachel said.
“What?“
“Slander. Libel is for the printed word. Slander is for the spoken. You mean slander. But either way, you’d have to prove what I’m saying is untrue. And we both know better.”
“You have no evidence I’ve done anything wrong.”
“Sure I do.”
“I was treating a woman who claimed to be ill. That’s all.”
Rachel pointed up the lawn. Katarina stepped out of the car. “And what about this former patient?”
Denise Vanech put a hand to her mouth.
“She’ll testify that you paid her money for her baby.”
“No, she won’t. They’ll arrest her.”
“Oh sure, right, the FBI would much rather crack down on a poor Serbian woman than break up a baby-smuggling ring. That’s rich.”
When Denise Vanech paused, Rachel pushed open the door. “Mind if I come in?”
“You have it wrong,” she said quietly.
“Cool.” Rachel was inside now. “You can correct me on all my misgivings.”
Denise Vanech seemed suddenly unsure what to do. With one more look at Katarina, she slowly closed the front door. Rachel was already heading into the den. It was white. Totally white. White sectional couches against a white carpet. White porcelain statues of naked women riding horses. White coffee table, white side tables, and two of those white ergonomic-looking chairs with no backs. Denise followed her in. Her white clothes blended into the background, camouflagelike, making it look like her head and arms were floating.
“What do you want?”
“I’m looking for a specific child.”
Denise let her eyes wander toward the door. “Hers?”
She was talking about Katarina.
“No.”
“It wouldn’t matter. I don’t know anything about placement.”
“You’re a midwife, correct?”
She folded the smooth, muscular arms under her bosom. “I’m not answering any of your questions.”
“See, Denise, I know most of it. I just need you to fill in a few blanks.” Rachel sat on the vinyl couch. Denise Vanech didn’t move. “You have people in a foreign country. Maybe more than one country, I don’t know. But I know about Serbia. So let’s start there. You have people there who recruit girls. The girls come over pregnant, but they don’t mention that at customs. You deliver the baby. Maybe here, maybe you have another spot, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know a lot.”
Rachel smiled. “I know enough.”
Denise put her hands on her hips now. Her poses all seemed unnatural, as if she practiced them in front of a mirror.
“Anyway, the women have the babies. You pay them. You turn the baby over to Steven Bacard. He works for desperate couples who might be willing to bend the rules. They adopt the child.”
“That’s a nice story.”
“Are you saying it’s fiction?”
Denise grinned. “Total fiction.”
“Cool, fine.” She took out her cell phone. “Then let me call the feds. I’ll introduce them to Katarina. They can go down to Union City and grill Tatiana. They can start going through your phone records, your finances—”
Denise started waving her hands. “Okay, okay, tell me what you want. I mean, you said you’re not an FBI agent anymore. So what do you want with me?”
“I want to know how it works.”
“You trying to cut yourself in?”
“No.”
Denise waited a beat. “You said before that you’re looking for a specific kid.”
“Yes.”
“You’re working for someone, then?”
Rachel shook her head. “Look, Denise, you don’t have a lot of options here. You either tell me the truth or you do serious jail time.”
“And if I do tell you what I know?”
“Then I’ll leave you out of it,” Rachel said. It was a lie. But it was an easy one. This woman was involved in baby selling. There was no way Rachel was just going to let that go.
Denise sat. The tan seemed to be leaving her face. She looked suddenly older. The lines around her mouth and eyes deepened. “It’s not what you think,” she began.
Rachel waited.
“We aren’t hurting anyone. The truth is, we’re helping.”
Denise Vanech picked up her purse—white, of course—and dug out a cigarette. She offered one to Rachel. Rachel shook her off.
“Do you know anything about orphanages in poor countries?” Denise asked.
“Just what I see on PBS documentaries.”
Denise lit the cigarette and drew a deep breath. “They are beyond awful. They may house forty babies to one nurse. The nurse is uneducated. The job is often a political favor. Some of the children are abused. Many are born drug dependent. The medical care—”
“I get the picture,” Rachel said. “It’s bad.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And we’ve found a way to save some of these children.”
Rachel sat back and crossed her legs. She could see where this was going. “You pay pregnant women to fly over and sell you their babies?”
“That’s hyperbole,” she said.
Rachel shrugged. “How would you put it?”
“Put yourself in their position. You are a poor woman—and I mean poor—maybe a prostitute or somehow involved in white slavery. You are dirt. You have nothing. Some man knocks you up. You can abort or, if your religion forbids that, you can stick the kid in a godforsaken orphanage.”