Joe Brammer’s father stepped forward to introduce himself and offer a perfunctory handshake. Then he announced that he was going inside to help Millie with the baby. Joe didn’t bother with a handshake. He simply nodded.
As did Jamie. She was wearing jeans and a black, sleeveless shirt, with no jewelry, no discernible makeup. Her hair was back to its natural blond but shorter than before.
“You’re looking well, Jamie,” Bentley said. Which was true. She was lovely to look at-like before. But he realized that he was looking at quite a different person than the hopeful young woman who had come to his office almost a year and half ago. This new Jamie would be forever wary, the innocence with which she had once met the world gone forever.
Bentley felt perspiration collecting in his armpits and under his collar. He was a bit nervous, and the air was muggy and still. He would have liked to remove his jacket and loosen his tie but decided it was best to maintain a professional appearance.
He did, however, accept Jamie’s offer of iced tea. He watched while she poured three glasses and seated herself at a glass-topped table. Joe sat by her and Bentley sat across from them.
He took a swallow of the tea, then set down the glass and picked up his briefcase. He pulled out the yellow legal pad on which his notes were written, placed it in front of him, and cleared his throat.
But Jamie spoke first. “I want to thank you for intervening that night. If you hadn’t contacted that judge and convinced her that I was Billy’s mother and his sole legal parent, she would have taken him away from me and put him in foster care until a custody hearing could be held. I would have lost my mind if they had taken him away from me.” She spoke calmly, but Bentley realized that her statement was meant to be taken literally.
He thought of the frantic middle-of-the-night phone call from Lenora. It had taken Bentley a while to comprehend what she was telling him. That someone named Joe Brammer had called her. That Brammer and Jamie Long had been on the run with her baby. That Gus Hartmann was dead. And some judge in Dallas was about to put Jamie’s baby in foster care. What had gotten Bentley’s attention was the statement about Gus. Dead? If that was true, then his own life had just been irrevocably changed. It was hard for him to concentrate enough to piece together Lenora’s tale of her meeting with Brammer and the young man’s insistence that Gus Hartmann was trying to have Jamie murdered. With all the publicity about Amanda having a baby, Bentley had assumed that Jamie must have returned to the ranch and that the baby in the newspaper pictures was the one that had been contracted for. “You’ve got to do something,” Lenora kept saying. “You can’t let them take Jamie’s baby away from her.”
The judge he contacted in Dallas had been a law-school classmate of his. “But I thought you worked for the Hartmanns,” she said, puzzlement in her voice.
Bentley had explained that Jamie Long was the birth mother and that no matter what Amanda Hartmann was claiming, Miss Long had never relinquished legal custody of the child. The judge had given temporary custody to Jamie until a hearing could be held. In the meantime, with the help of Toby Travis, Bentley had been able to convince Amanda that all sorts of ugly things would come out if there were any sort of legal proceedings.
“It was the least I could do,” he told Jamie then glanced down at his list. “I assume you’ve been in touch with the district attorney’s office in Dallas,” he said by way of inquiry, glancing from one to the other. They made a handsome couple. Both were tan, young, and athletic-looking. Joe’s head was no longer shaved; his dark hair was longish and curled around his ears. Joe had scooted his chair closer to Jamie’s and moved his arm so that it touched hers.
“Yeah,” Joe said. “We were informed that the shooter agreed to a plea bargain but that the information he gave didn’t amount to much. As we understand it, he and the other three men who joined Hartmann’s people in Dallas were Honduran nationals and apparently had been hired through a third party in Tegucigalpa. The four hired guns who arrived in Dallas on the Hartmann jet have not been apprehended.”
Bentley nodded. “The man known as Zubov apparently worked for Gus Hartmann, but he was off the books. No one knows his real name or those of the woman and two men he brought with him.”
“We were amazed at how little media coverage the shooting garnered,” Jamie said.
“Yes,” Bentley agreed, “even in death, Gus Hartmann has remained a very private person. There are those in high places with a vested interest in keeping anyone from probing too deeply into his life. And his death.”
“But all those people saw him die,” Joe protested. “Thousands of people. And two television stations were there filming the event, yet it barely got a mention on the morning news-just something about a crazed shooter killing the brother of evangelist Amanda Hartmann. The Dallas television reporter covering the assignment resigned the next day, and we later learned that she had accepted a position as a network correspondent in London. The newspapers weren’t any more forthcoming than the television broadcasts. The AP story said that a Honduran man in the country illegally went berserk and tried to kill Amanda Hartmann and that her brother died trying to protect her. Which wasn’t what happened at all. And Amanda isn’t being held accountable for anything. Or her dead brother. Gus Hartmann had Jamie’s money stolen from her bank account. He had God knows how many people’s telephones tapped. He used government agents to track us down, and he brought in illegal aliens to kill us. A baby in Oklahoma City was mistakenly kidnapped because of him. And the men he hired killed Jamie’s dog. She has been through absolute hell because of the Hartmanns, and no one knows it.”
“Perhaps it’s just as well,” Jamie said, reaching for Joe’s hand. “I certainly don’t want the notoriety. This way Billy can maybe grow up as just a normal kid.”
“That would be nice, but he is not just a normal kid,” Bentley pointed out. “He will be forever linked to Amanda Hartmann.”
“Not unless Amanda goes public with the unusual circumstances of his conception,” Joe said.
“What about the baby she adopted?” Jamie asked.
“Amanda Hartmann and her husband plan to raise him and see that his future is assured. But understandably she desperately wants a relationship with her grandson. And I must point out that by shutting the boy off from her, you could be denying him a vast inheritance. However, if you grant her partial custody of the child, she is willing to pay you…”
“Stop,” Jamie said, holding up her hands. “All I want from Amanda Hartmann is for her to leave us alone.”
“And if she doesn’t,” Joe said, “we will file charges against her for knowingly entering into an invalid contract, unlawful imprisonment, conspiring to murder Jamie and kidnap her child, and anything else I can think of.”
Bentley sighed. He really had no taste for this at all. “You realize,” he said to Jamie, “that when your son reaches maturity, Amanda will legally be able to contact him.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Joe said hotly. “You tell that woman that if she attempts to call us or to contact us by mail or have us followed or interfere with our lives in any way whatsoever, I will file those charges.”
“I don’t think you understand what a sheltered life Amanda has lived,” Bentley said. “Gus kept anything distasteful from her. She really had no idea…”
Jamie slapped her hands down on the table and leaned forward, glaring at him. “Don’t you try to tell me that Amanda didn’t realize what was going on. She would caress me and kiss me and tell me how much she and God loved me, all the while knowing that I was to be killed after the baby was born. Her mother isn’t playing with a full deck, and Mary Millicent certainly understood what was going on. And by the way, we contacted the sheriff’s office in Marshall County about Mary Millicent, and they ignored us. So we have contacted the state department of health and the victim services office in the state department of public safety to report the conditions under which Amanda Hartmann’s mother is being kept. So you better tell Amanda that she’s going to have to get that old woman down from the tower and start treating her like a human being. I’m just sorry that Ann Montgomery is dead so that we can’t include her name on the complaint we have filed on Mary Millicent’s behalf.”