Nobody's Child (Georgia Davis Series) (18 page)

G
eorgia finished her coffee and called Jimmy. She got his voice mail. She used the facilities and climbed back into the Toyota for the drive into Lake Geneva. Jimmy usually had dinner at his mother’s restaurant, so she headed there, remembering the lunch they’d shared only a couple of weeks ago. She pulled into the driveway. Three inches of snow already covered the gravel-packed parking lot, but the lights from the restaurant beckoned. She parked. She didn’t see his car, but it was early.

A sudden shyness came over her. She didn’t want to go into the restaurant unless he was there. So she stayed in her car and fired up her tablet and went over her notes, which were in the Cloud no matter what device she used.

She was trying to figure out her next step when a car pulled into the parking lot. It was a dark Accord. Jimmy’s car. Her heart caromed around her chest. Jesus. She had it bad if just the sight of his car could make her lose it. She opened the car door, ready to get out and jog over, snow be damned. But then she spotted someone in the front seat beside him.

Georgia closed her car door and made sure the dome light was out. She watched as Jimmy parked, got out, and went to the passenger side. A woman slid out. Georgia caught a glimpse of a pale face framed by long dark hair and a saucy wool hat. Jimmy smiled at her, cupped her cheeks in his hands, just the way he did with Georgia. Then pulled her to him in a tight embrace.

G
eorgia blasted the heater on the way home. She was ice-cold, but it had nothing to do with the weather. The cold was within, a cold that would fail to go away even if she danced across hot coals. All the old tapes replayed in her head. She’d been rejected again. She was unlovable. She was destined to be alone.

It took nearly three hours to get home, and when she did, she went to bed. She slept late the next morning. A bright, showy sun woke her, and when she raised the shades, she witnessed the magic of Chicagoland politics. The snow had stopped and the streets were clear. While politicians couldn’t control the weather—at least yet—they did control its cleanup. They had to; their next election depended on it. Still, the sunlight bouncing off neat piles of snow at the curb and her neighbors’ lawns made her want to scream. How dare the day look so cheerful?

When she checked her phone, she found two voice mails from Jimmy. How could he be AWOL all day, then manage to call last night? She figured he was spending the day with Saucy Hat and forgot he had a date with Georgia until he got home. She debated whether to return the calls. She should be mature about it; perhaps it was something else entirely.

No. A crack in their relationship had appeared, and if Jimmy was anything like Matt or Pete, over time that crack would expand into a spiderweb of mistrust and suspicion. On the other hand, if she ignored the calls, she could pretend the crack wasn’t there. At least for a while.

She dressed, making sure to grab a muffler and extra socks. The glitter of the sun’s rays was deceptive; the thermometer outside her window read eighteen degrees. She opened the door and headed to the coffee shop.

The comforting aroma of fresh coffee wafted over her as she swung through the door, and she decided a latte would be even more comforting, calories be damned. Paul was looking impossibly chipper this morning, and after she placed her order, he grinned.

“Why are you in such a good mood?” she asked.

“Why not? The storm’s over, it’s a beautiful day, and God is smiling down on us.”

“You got laid last night.”

“That, too.” His smile widened. “Then again, you’re not doing too bad in that department.”

Her heart skipped. She couldn’t help it. “What do you know about it?”

Paul let out a mock sigh. “How soon ye forget. You brought him in here a week ago.”

Georgia remembered. She and Jimmy had run in for a quick coffee and Danish over the weekend. Now, though, she kept her mouth shut. Paul’s smile thinned, and she sensed he was going to follow up when her phone chirped. She fished it out of her pocket. Jimmy’s name flashed on the caller ID. She let it go to voice mail.

Paul saw it and lifted his eyebrows. When the chirping stopped, she could hear the churn of the hot-milk machine, the quiet hum of conversation, the rustle of someone turning a newspaper, the tap of fingers on a keyboard.

She took her latte, sat down, and tried to focus on Chad Coe, Zoya, and the farm in Capron. In the harsh light of day, her hypothesis about the baby farm didn’t seem so clear-cut. The farm might simply be the place where Zoya lived. Except that Bruce Kreisman had told her at least one pregnant girl had been in the warehouse downtown, and when she’d showed up, it had been abandoned. A few days later, she learned Kreisman had been killed . Because of his debts in Florida? Or because Kreisman had led her to the warehouse and told someone? Even if he had, why would someone kill him for it? It was a brutal retaliation for loose lips.

She called O’Malley to ask if Chicago had any suspects in Kreisman’s murder. When he finally called her back, he said Chicago PD had nothing and wasn’t looking too hard. In fact, he said, they probably wouldn’t find anything unless it fell from the sky with Chicken Little. Because they had virtually no evidence, CPD might even reclassify his death from homicide to death investigation to keep the city’s crime stats in check.

Georgia worried a hand through her hair. Kreisman was a lowlife; he wasn’t going to be missed, even by the cops. So how did his death connect to the farm? If the operation really was a black market baby factory, maybe it was based in Capron, and the warehouse was just a convenient spot, the downtown branch, so to speak, where they picked up johns and got the girls pregnant. The farm could be the place they took the girls afterward. It was in the middle of nowhere, which meant few neighbors and no tourists. Assuming the girls were young and healthy, they could spend their pregnancies on the farm, maybe even go into labor and deliver their babies there. Then the infants would be whisked away and sold.

She dug out her tablet. She needed to find out who was in charge of the operation. It wasn’t Chad Coe; from his behavior, he was on the logistical side. Arranging. Enabling. But not getting his hands dirty. It wasn’t Lotwin either, and she didn’t think it was Zoya. Georgia remembered the phone call Zoya took while doing her nails. She’d sounded submissive. Was she talking to the boss? The person who took the money? Recruited the girls? Decided what baby went where? Or was she just talking to a boyfriend or relative?

She reviewed her notes on the people Coe had visited. The doctor. The couple in Glencoe whose husband needed a kidney transplant. The apartment building in Skokie. She went over the tenants in the apartment building. The Mexicans, the construction guy, the Chinese couple, and the woman who worked at Evanston Hospital.

She reread what she had on Claudia Nyquist. Upside-down mortgage. Divorced. Moved from a house in Des Plaines to a cheaper apartment in Skokie. Worked in computers at Evanston Hospital. Some kind of data administrator. In a hospital.

She checked the time. Eleven in the morning. She gathered her drink, tablet, and coat, and waved good-bye to Paul.

E
vanston Hospital was always in a state of renovation. Fifteen years earlier they’d remodeled the first floor and parking lot. Now a sign on the elevator announced they were working on the upper floors. Georgia didn’t get it. The elegant lobby, with its abstract art, a player piano, and lots of marble, looked more like an upscale hotel than a hospital. Was the spiffy décor supposed to cheer up patients? They rarely left their rooms. Was it for visitors? Did they really expect family members to be comforted by happy furnishings? Maybe it was for employees, to lighten the fact that they dealt with illness and death all day.

Inside the elevator Georgia pushed the button for the third floor. Hospital shift changes usually happened just after lunch, but that might not be the case for an IT or data employee. With luck Claudia Nyquist would be at her desk until five.

She found the data administration office in a corner of its own wing and pushed through the door. A receptionist’s booth was vacant; then again, computer geeks probably weren’t inundated with appointments. She smiled, imagining the type of person who would want to meet a nerd. To the right of the booth was a large room partitioned into cubicles, each with a desk, chair, and computer monitor. Most of the cubicles were occupied by men tapping on keyboards, and for an instant, Georgia felt like she’d walked into a video arcade.

She went down one side of the room and found an empty cubicle with a fake purple flower in a tiny vase on the desk. Next to it was a small heart-shaped picture frame with a photo of a rosy-cheeked little girl who couldn’t be more than four. This had to be Claudia Nyquist’s desk. Georgia remembered the apartment manager saying she babysat for Nyquist. There was no other decoration in the cubicle, but a bright blue quilted parka hung on a hook, and a pair of matching boots lay on the floor. Paper and files were strewn across the desk, and a molded plastic chair was squeezed into a corner. Georgia sucked in a breath; she was a little claustrophobic and imagined the walls closing in. She was examining the cubicle for other clues about the woman when a man poked his head in.

“Can I help you?”

Georgia turned around. The man looked to be in his thirties, unkempt dark hair and scrawny. He looked like a nerd, with glasses, a pocket protector, and flakes of dandruff on his shoulders. Central Casting couldn’t have done a better job.

Georgia forced a smile. “Oh, hi. I’m waiting for Claudia. Is she here?”

The man frowned. “I saw her earlier. Maybe she’s using the facilities. Can I help you?”

“That’s all right. Claudia is—the friend of a friend. I work a few blocks away. At the art gallery. I wanted to see if she was free for lunch.”

“Oh.” Nerdface managed to look surprised and disappointed at the same time. “Well, have a seat.”

Georgia nodded and gingerly maneuvered herself into the chair. Nerdface disappeared.

Five minutes later, the door to the office squeaked open. An undertone of conversation followed. Georgia couldn’t be sure, but the male voice sounded like Nerdface. When she heard a whispered “said she was a friend,” she knew. He was the office magpie, chatting up everyone so he could keep tabs on them.

Nyquist appeared. Medium height, she was about twenty pounds overweight. Her jeans were tight, her sweater too big, but she had lovely straight blond hair that hung down her back. A black canvas bag, big enough to qualify as a small suitcase, was slung over her shoulder. Her face was pleasant but not pretty, and she wore no makeup. Georgia didn’t blame her. If she spent all day in this desperate cubicle, why bother?

A worried frown pinched her face when she saw Georgia. “I’m sorry. Do I know you? Do we have a meeting?”

Georgia spotted Nerdface lurking outside the cubicle. “I know your pal is listening in on our conversation, so just to set the record straight, I did not tell him I was your friend. I said I was a friend of a friend.”

Nyquist threw a glance over her shoulder toward Nerdface and shook her head. Georgia heard footsteps recede. Nyquist came in and sat behind her desk. Her bag dropped to the floor. “Who would that be? My friend, that is?”

Georgia waited a beat. “Chad Coe.”

T
he woman blanched, then tried to cover it. Her hands, which had been on the desk, disappeared into her lap, and her spine straightened. She cast a furtive glance at Georgia, lifted a hand, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Who?”

Georgia inclined her head. This was amateur hour. “You heard.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you. A friend of Chad’s.”

“I don’t know anyone named Chad.”

Georgia blew out an irritated breath. “Look. We can go around the dance floor as many times as you want, Claudia. I have time. But I know you need to do your work. And your pal with the pocket protector is just bursting to tell your boss about my visit. He’s the kind that could make trouble for you, isn’t he? And trouble is the last thing you need right now.”

Nyquist swallowed.

“So let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

Nyquist squirmed and flashed Georgia a guilty look.

“You’re basically in a really bad place. If you’re not up shit creek, then you’re close. You were underwater on your mortgage. You got divorced. Neither you nor your ex could afford the house. So the bank took it. You moved to a cheaper apartment in Skokie. In fact, this job is your only anchor.”

Nyquist played with her hair.

Georgia appraised her, glanced at the photo of the little girl. She decided to take a risk. “But the job doesn’t pay enough for you to keep your daughter in day care. So now someone—your husband, maybe your relatives—has threatened to take her from you.”

Tears welled in Nyquist’s eyes. “How do you know that?” she whispered.

She’d guessed right. Georgia suppressed her satisfaction. “And then you met Chad Coe.” She went on. “Where did you meet him? At a bar? In the hospital cafeteria? The nice new parking lot?”

Nyquist bit her lip. “At Dominick’s.”

“The grocery store.” Georgia followed up. “He followed you there, didn’t he? From here.”

Nyquist looked up at Georgia, astonishment warring with tears.

Georgia felt the warmth of triumph. It wasn’t hard to put things together when you knew how people behaved. “And he told you he knew a way for you to make a lot of money. Move to a better house than the one in Des Plaines.” She paused. “How am I doing?”

The woman nodded.

“All you had to do was take a peek at the records of infertile couples who came in. Couples who were trying to conceive but couldn’t. And give him their names.”

Nyquist’s brow furrowed.

“How much did he pay you for each lead?”

“Infertile couples? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, Claudia. I thought we were past that.”

“No…really. What names? What couples?”

Frustration rolled through Georgia. The day had started out badly and, despite her inroads a moment ago, it was deteriorating. “For the adoption ring.”

Nyquist flipped up her hands. “What adoption ring?”

Georgia studied the woman. Nyquist’s posture was rigid, all her wriggling and fidgeting and playing with her hair gone. She was telling the truth.

“I have reason to believe that Chad Coe is part of a sex-trafficking ring where the girls are impregnated and forced to give birth. Their babies are then sold to couples who want them. Without going through the hoops of adoption.”

Nyquist sat back, a puzzled look on her face.

Georgia pushed. “If you’re helping him in any way, what you’re doing is illegal. You could be prosecuted. In fact, you could go to prison. Forget about a new home. Keeping your daughter. Even this job. All of that goes up in smoke if I tell the authorities what you’re doing.”

“Are you with the police?”

“What are you hiding?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m not the one who’s breaking the law.”

Nyquist leaned forward. “You think I’m mixed up in an illegal adoption ring? One of those baby-breeding farms?”

“Aren’t you?”

Nyquist laughed. Actually laughed. Then she slumped in her chair. Defeat washed over her. “If only it was.”

A prickly feeling climbed up Georgia’s back. She thought back to the church newsletter that described how the couple in Glencoe needed a kidney transplant. The queasiness she’d felt then returned.

Nyquist tilted her head. Relief spread across her face. “You know, I’m glad you’re here. Whoever you are. I can’t do this anymore.”

Georgia ran her tongue around her lips. “My name is Georgia Davis, and I’m a private investigator. You and I need to go somewhere and talk.”