Birthright

taken in for questioning. You didn’t get out in time, Dot. You should’ve run.”
    “I’ve never run. That idiot Simpson and his trophy wife can say anything they want. They’ll never have enough to indict me.”
    “Maybe not. Just tell me why,” Doug demanded. “Why did you take her?”
    “I took no one. That would’ve been Barbara. There were others, of course.” She drew a breath. “And, if and when it becomes necessary, I can and will name names. For my own deal.”
    “Why take any of them?”
    “I want to call my daughter again.”
    “Answer the questions, we’ll give you the phone.” Lana set it in her lap, folded her hands over it. “We’re not the police. You know enough about the law to understand that nothing you say to us is admissible. It’s hearsay.”
    She stared at the phone. Lana saw the genuine worry. She’s afraid for her daughter, she thought. Whatever she is, she’s still a mother.
    “Why did he do it?” Doug pressed. “All I’m asking you is why he did it.”
    “It was Marcus’s personal crusade—and his very profitable hobby.”
    “Hobby,” Lana whispered.
    “He thought of it that way. There were so many couples with healthy bank balances who couldn’t conceive. And so many others who were struggling financially who had child after child. One per couple, that was his viewpoint. He handled a number of adoptions, legitimate ones. They were so complicated, so drawn out. He saw this as a way to expedite.”
    “And the hundreds of thousands of dollars he earned from the sale of children didn’t enter into it.”
    She sent Lana a bored look. “Of course it did. He was a very astute businessman. Marcus was a powerful man in every way. Why weren’t you enough for your parents?” she asked Doug. “Why wasn’t one child enough? In a way, they were surrogates for another couple. One who desperately wanted a child and had the means to support that child very well. Who were loving people in a stable relationship. That was essential.”
    “You gave them no choice.”
    “Ask yourself this: If your sister was given the choice today, who would it be? The people who conceived her, or the parents who raised her?”
    There was conviction in her voice now. “Ask yourself that question, and think carefully before you continue with this. If you walk away, no one else has to know. No one else has to be put through the emotional turmoil. If you don’t walk away, you won’t be able to stop it. All those families torn apart. Just for your satisfaction.”
    “All those families torn apart,” Lana said as she rose, “so Marcus Carlyle could make a profit from playing God.”
    She handed Doug the phone. “Call the police.”
    “My daughter.” Dorothy sprang to her feet. “You said I could call my daughter.”
    “I lied,” Lana said, and took great personal satisfaction in shoving the woman back into the chair.

Twenty-eight
    A few hundred miles away, Callie scrambled out of a six-foot hole even as she clicked off her cell phone. It was temper that propelled her up and out, that had her lips peeling back from her teeth when she spotted Dory briskly crossing the field toward the cars and trucks parked on the side of the road.
    She shot off in a sprint, cutting through the mounds, leaping over a stunned Digger by the kitchen midden.
    It was his instinctive shout that had Dory whipping her head around. Their eyes met, one thudding heartbeat. Callie saw it then—the rage, the acknowledgment, the fear—then Dory broke into a run.
    Through the buzzing in her ears, Callie could hear other shouts, a quick, surprised laugh, a blistering guitar riff from someone’s radio. But all that was distant, down some long, parallel tunnel.
    Her focus had fined down to one goal. She saw nothing but Dory. And she was gaining.
    When Bob crossed Dory’s path, he came into Callie’s field of vision, his clipboard in his hand, his mouth movingto the tune of whatever played in his headset. He went over like a tenpin, papers flying, as Dory rammed him.
    Neither woman slowed pace. He was still flat out when Callie pumped her legs, flew over him and, using the momentum, plowed her body into Dory’s.
    The force sent them both sailing over buckets and tools, an airborne instant before they hit the ground with a jar of bones and a tangle of limbs.
    There was a red haze in front of her eyes, a primal, violent beat in her blood. She heard someone screaming, but her own breath only grunted out as she