“Yes, I’m aware. I was hoping you could give her a message from me,” I said and smiled hopefully.
“I suppose I could do that.”
“My name is Dice. Please tell her I’m here, and I want to give her money. A lot of money, but she has to see me so we can talk about it.” I handed her the fifty-dollar bill I’d pulled from my wallet. “Give that to her and tell her there’s a lot more where that came from.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“I’ll wait right here.”
I was not at all surprised when the nurse stuck her head out of the room and waved me over moments later. “She’s agreed to a brief visit with you.”
“Thanks,” I said and hurried into the room, stopping short when my eyes landed on Tawny. She looked worse than I’d ever seen her, and it broke my heart.
“Tell me about the money,” she said without preamble. Even though I expected that response, it still hurt that she didn’t even pretend to be happy to see me. It was just as well. The more detached she was from the situation, the better my chances were.
“I know you’re pregnant, and I want to buy your baby,” I said quickly.
The next blow hit even harder. “How much?”
I hadn’t thought about how much to offer, and I had no idea what was appropriate, so I blurted out the first number that came to mind. “Twenty-five thousand. You have to go to rehab and stay there for the entire pregnancy or no deal.”
“You’re serious?”
“You know I am.”
“Deal.”
And just like that, she sold her baby. Meanwhile, I felt all the emotions—elation, relief, disgust, anger, sadness, disappointment.
“I’ll have my lawyer draw up the contract. Twenty-five thousand dollars for one drug-free baby.”
“I heard you the first time. You can go now.”
“Tawny,” I said slowly.
“If you want the baby, fine. But the deal’s off if I have to listen to you beg and plead with me. Tell your lawyer to put that in the contract. No contact between you and me for the duration of the pregnancy.”
“I’ll agree to that as long as I’m permitted to speak to your doctor about the health of the baby. On that note, since I’ll be paying for your prenatal care, you’ll see the doctor I choose.”
“Fine,” she huffed.
“One last thing. You’ll keep the details of our arrangement to yourself. I’ll decide what we’re telling to who and when. For now, you can say you don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“Anything else?”
It took everything I had to hold my tongue. “No,” I said with obvious disgust, and turned away from her. “That’s all.”
I walked out of her room and made it to the end of the hall before I almost collapsed against the wall. The girl in that bed was a stranger living in the shell of a girl I used to know, and still loved. I hadn’t been able to save her, but damn it, I was going to do everything I could to save her baby.
It took me several minutes to get myself together before I returned to the waiting room with Badger and Macy. I expected them to ask why I’d been gone so long, but they didn’t seem to notice.
“You don’t have to stay here with us all day,” Macy said kindly. “We’ll call you if anything changes.”
“I want to be here.”
“Who’s covering Daphne?” Badger asked.
“She’s at the office all day. I offered to pick her up for lunch, but she said she’d eat at her desk and get caught up on paperwork. She’s good until five.”