Dread Champion (17 page)

“No.”

“And after that?”

“Yes, two more things.We sealed off Breaker Beach to the public in order to watch for anything washing up on shore.During that time we searched the beach daily to see if anything appeared. Finally, on Saturday, two items did wash in with the tide on Breaker Beach. The first item was a piece of torn navy blue fabric. The second was a tooth that looked to be human.”

The courtroom rustled. Stan hoped for another rise out of the Three Fates but none came. Oh, the power of a judge's evil eye. He checked the jury. They were hanging on the detective's every word.

The courthouse clock read almost 5:00 p.m. “Your Honor,” he offered with an air of innocence, “I think this would be a good place to stop.”

T
HE COURTHOUSE HALLWAY WAS
a beehive as Kerra made her way toward the escalator. Camera crews readied themselves, and reporters called questions to anyone who might answer. Spectators gaped at the action. Several reporters crowded around that black-haired lady with the spiked butch haircut. Suddenly the hallway lit up as a television crew's lights went on.A camera aimed in the lady's direction. She squinted, then continued her animated diatribe.

Kerra felt a presence at her side. She turned to see Brett, who watched the woman with obvious distaste. “Who is she?” Kerra asked.

“Lynn Trudy. Shawna's sister.”

The line of demarcation became clear. The sister out for justice. The son hoping for mercy. Kerra felt a welling of renewed sorrow for Brett. “It must be so hard.” Even as she said the words, they felt shallow, trite.

His eyes remained on Lynn Trudy, half-focused. “The whole thing's pretty surreal. You work hard, do well, make some money. Provide the country with needed products and lots of people with jobs. The town respects you, but beyond that nobody pays much attention. Then you're accused of a murder. And suddenly anyone around you is noteworthy. Everybody wants to talk to them; everybody's their instant friend.”

Kerra didn't know how to respond. Brett blinked, then turned his deep-set gaze on her. “Sorry. Didn't mean to ramble.”

Kerra glanced back to Lynn Trudy. A reporter was asking her a question.“How come they don't try to talk to you?”

“Oh, they have. I just never say anything, so they finally gave up. Doesn't stop them from filming me coming and going, however. Great background shots for the evening news.”His voice was tinged with bitterness.

She shook her head, unable to imagine how it felt to walk in Brett's shoes. In the next moment she spotted Aunt Chelsea emerging from the door that led to the hallway behind the courtrooms. Her aunt looked around, spotted her, and headed for the escalator with purpose. Kerra crimped her mouth. “I have to go.”

“You going sightseeing again tonight?”

Kerra felt almost guilty. “Yes.What will you do?”

Brett shrugged. “Visit Dad for a while. After that not much. But I'd better get out of here while the vultures' attention is turned on a willing victim.”He gestured toward the reporters. “See ya 'round.”

Kerra shot a glance at Brett's retreating back.A television camera swung around, aiming at his profile as he stepped onto the escalator.

SEVENTEEN

Rogelio drove through his neighborhood, mouth dry.He thought he'd been nervous last evening, going to see Kristin. This evening his hands didn't even want to turn the wheel in the right direction. The moment he'd hit the end of his street, he'd had to fight the urge to head the wrong way, looking for friends, acquaintances, anyone who'd give him an excuse for hanging out. It would be so easy just to whittle the time away.He could begin his mission just as well tomorrow when he had more courage.

How he wished he had Kristin beside him! She'd cut out another piece of his heart yesterday.What would she do if he got Roselita back?
When
he got Roselita back.Would she care? Would she want to see the little girl? How would Rogelio ever tell his growing daughter that her own mother didn't want her?

Surely that would not happen. Rogelio knew Kristin. She wasn't selfish and uncaring. She'd just gotten into something over her head. Something he now had to fix.

He drove through east Salinas, heading toward John Street, which would cross the freeway serving as a barrier between his neighborhood and the nicer areas of town.The streets were lined with old cars, sometimes three or four to a house due to the large extended Hispanic families. During the day the cars were gone,many of their owners working the fields of the ranches surrounding Salinas. If Rogelio hadn't been introduced to his boss just when the man needed another pair of hands, he'd probably be working the fields himself. Maybe even the fields of the Welks' ranch.He'd been glad to avoid that backbreaking labor—yet look where his gardening work for the Welks had gotten him.

For the thousandth time Rogelio cursed the day that Kristin, then eight months pregnant, had picked him up after a full day's work on the Welks' sprawling property. Kristin had needed his car to get to a doctor's appointment, and Rogelio had let her take it for the afternoon. Around five o'clock she drove up the Welks' impressive driveway and pulled herself awkwardly out of the car, staring openmouthed at the large house. A light rain was falling through the chilly air, but Kristin didn't seem to mind. “One thing about being pregnant: you don't get cold,” she'd told Rogelio. He saw her from a distance and pushed away from his weeding long enough to walk over. “I'm not quite done yet,” he told her, flexing his back after hours of bending.“We've got about another half hour of work.Why don't you sit in the car, get out of the rain.”

She looked disappointed. “That's a long time to wait.”

“I have to finish.”

Kristin put a hand on her spreading hip and gazed at the Welks' house. “I want to live in a place like this someday, Rogelio.”

Her wistful words pierced him.“Don't we all,” he mumbled as he turned away, self-defensiveness edging his tone.

Rogelio returned to his work. Kristin leaned against the car and looked at the house, oblivious to the drizzle. Crouching next to Chester, Rogelio yanked at weeds too hard and brought away a section of a spreading ground plant. “Hey, watch what you're doing,” Chester growled. Rogelio clamped down on his emotions and paid attention to his work.

A few minutes later Rogelio looked up to see Shawna Welk's car easing to a stop behind Kristin. Mrs.Welk got out and they began talking. Kristin pointed at him, and Mrs.Welk gave him the once-over. Rogelio's eyes flicked back and forth between his work and the two women.What could they possibly have to say to one another? Kristin standing in the rain with her long-sleeved denim maternity shirt over a pair of jeans she'd worn just about every day for the last two months, and Mrs.Welk holding a newspaper over her perfectly combed hair, red high heels matching her red business suit. Rogelio felt a stab of embarrassment for Kristin. She would probably gush over the house. Mrs.Welk couldn't help but look down on her. Roge-lio pressed his lips together, his fingers scraping through the flower beds. Then he sat back on his haunches, hands stilling. Mrs.Welk was escorting Kristin into the house.

Looking back on that moment, Rogelio had to admit that deep inside he'd known. He knew Shawna Welk ran an adoption agency from offices in the west wing of the house. He knew because he'd mowed the lawn right under the Welk Adoption Agency sign, had seen the couples and the pregnant women come and go. But at the time, Rogelio chose to dwell on the fact that Kristin and Shawna Welk had gone in the front door, not the side entrance to the offices. Mrs.Welk was just being kind, showing Kristin the house, he told himself. Getting her out of the rain.

By the time he finished, wet and sweaty and tired, Kristin was exiting the Welks' front door by herself.“Why'd she take you inside?” he demanded as they drove away.

Kristin shrugged. “I said I liked the house. She offered to show it to me. That's all.” She looked out her window, as if she'd suddenly found the flat, familiar ranch lands of Salinas very interesting.

Remembering the purposeful turn of Kristin's head, Rogelio berated himself for not listening to his gut and asking more questions. Hadn't she been tucking something in the pocket of her jeans when she left the Welks' house? A phone number maybe?

Why, Rogelio wondered for the hundredth time, had Shawna Welk wanted Kristin's baby so much?

Rogelio turned left onto California. Soon he was cruising down Hawthorne, nervously checking street numbers. Eleven thirty-four.

There it was—a pale blue stucco with a rounded front window. Multicolored cyclamen bordered the small porch on either side.

He pulled up to the curb and shut off the engine. Reached for the piece of paper in the glove compartment, then sat frozen, staring at its typed and handwritten words.

I/We, the
father
of
Roselita Nicole,
a minor
female
child, born
January 3, 2002
in
Salinas, California,
do hereby relinquish and surrender said child for adoption to
Welk Adoption Agency
… . It is my/our intention that the agency place the child for adoption with _______________… . I/We fully understand that when this relinquishment is filed with the headquarters office of the Adoptions Branch of the California Department of Social Services by said agency, all my/our rights to the custody, services, and earnings of said minor child, and any responsibility for the care and support of said minor child, will be terminated.

Terminated.

Rogelio's signature was underneath.

A few things about the document puzzled Rogelio. There were lines for the signatures of two witnesses who apparently were supposed to watch him sign the document. But no one had done that and the lines remained blank. At the bottom the form included a line for the “authorized agency official,” presumably Shawna Welk, to sign. That was blank, too.

Rogelio smoothed the document in his lap and prayed that something on it was wrong.Wrong enough that someone would listen to him.

J
ANET
C
LINE SPRAWLED IN
her recliner before the television, half-dozing through
Wheel of Fortune.
Her shoes lay on the carpet, her stocking feet pointing at opposite corners of her blue and yellow living room. Janet's hands lay folded across her belly. Every once in a while her heavy eyelids slid up, allowing glimpses of the turning letters.

Her stomach growled. Janet shifted in her chair. She really ought to drag herself into the kitchen and make some dinner. But she was so tired. She'd been up almost the entire night, coaching a seventeen-year-old through her first delivery. Janet had held the girl's hand, massaged her, comforted and encouraged her.When dawn finally broke, the girl was in the final stages of labor. The baby, a boy, was born at 8:21. The poor girl lay back on her pillow and sobbed as the baby was handed to her. Janet stood aside, allowing the young mother the time she needed to hold her baby and say good-bye.No matter how firm a birth mother's decision, no matter how much she liked the adoptive couple, giving up her baby was like giving away part of herself. Janet had only one word to describe these mothers—
courageous.
As a mother of two adopted children, Janet could only begin to imagine the pain birth mothers must feel, even as they held fast to their decision to do what was best for the baby.

The doorbell rang.With a sigh Janet eased down the footrest of her recliner and pushed to her feet. Running fingers through her short gray hair, she plodded to the entryway. The bell rang again. “Yes, yes,” she mumbled, “I'm coming.”

A young, wiry Hispanic man stood on her porch, fingers tightly clasped.His black hair was slicked back neatly.He wore a navy blue T-shirt tucked into jeans that were clean but frayed. A breeze sauntered across the porch, and Janet caught a whiff of spring-scented men's soap.At first Janet thought he must be selling something, but he carried nothing in his tensed hands. Then she looked at his face and saw an all-too-familiar sight. His dark eyes held a mixture of pain, fright, and purpose, like crushed coal gathered and pressed into new form.

“May I help you?” She worked to push aside her tiredness.

He swallowed. “Are you Janet Cline?”

“I am.”

He nodded once, as if to urge himself on.He opened his mouth again and words blurted forth. “I need to talk to you about a baby.”

The statement was of no surprise to Janet. His girlfriend was probably pregnant. She wondered if the girl knew what he was doing. “I would be very happy to talk to you. However, my office is downtown.Would you like to call tomorrow during business hours to set up an appointment? I can give you a card.”

“No, please.” He tilted his head. “I work all day. This is the only chance I have. It won't take long. I just need some information.”

Janet glanced beyond him to his car, an old Chevy, buffed and shined. This young man clearly took pride in what was his.Her eyes rested again on his face. An aura of resilience and desperate hope hovered about his narrow cheeks. “What's your name?” she asked.

“Rogelio Sanchez.”He looked at her expectantly.

Something about him made her step back, open the door wider. “Come on in. But understand I can only give you a few minutes.”

She led him to the living room couch, picked up the remote, and switched off the television. She sat opposite him in her recliner,with her feet on the floor. Automatically she donned her business persona, a mixture of empathy and calm experience. “Okay.What can I do for you?”

He took a deep breath, eyes raking the carpet. “I have this paper.” He pulled a piece of paper out of the front pocket of his jeans and unfolded it. “I signed it seven months ago but it was a big mistake.” He held it out to her.

Janet held his gaze for a moment before accepting it. If this was about an adoption already completed, there was nothing she could do. She read the familiar title of the document—one she'd signed many times in the last two and a half years. Then her eyes ran down the words and signature and her heart stilled. She stared at the name and address of the Welk Adoption Agency, then at Rogelio's signature. A moment passed before she could think of what to ask first.