“I was leaving the law library one evening a few months later and waiting for me outside was Adel Newsom. She said she wanted me to sue the Evanses for the return of my child. I said no. She said yes. We argued right there on campus. I wanted to knock her silly, but I kept my temper. She gave me a card and said I was to go to that office the next day and that the lawyer there would represent me. She told me how much money I would get for filing the suit, and that then we would…privately place the baby for adoption with other, more suitable parents. That’s what she said, ‘More suitable parents.’ The Evanses were more than suitable, and they had been very kind to me. She said they didn’t have the money to fight a lawsuit, and the courts always gave the birth mother the baby. I held my ground for a few days, and she kept threatening me. She said she would post all kinds of garbage on the Internet and no one would hire me once I took the bar exam. I caved in and did it. I cried for days and days.” She jerked her head in Donna Davis’s direction and said that the same thing had happened to her the same way.

“This is a stupid question, but what did you do with the money?” Alexis asked.

Joan Olsen started to cry. “I spent the first money paying my tuition and rent. I never touched the rest. It’s in the bank. I just couldn’t bring myself to spend it. I was going to try and send it back to the Evans family. I didn’t do that, though. I’m sorry about all of this. I really am.”

“That’s it! Or is there more?” Kathryn demanded.

“There’s more. That bitch said she wanted me to have another baby and that the pay would be doubled. I ripped her a new one and shoved her out of my apartment and told her never to come back or I’d report her to the police. She threatened me with the Internet again, said she knew all the judges and lawyers in town, that kind of thing. I said I’d kill her if she did that, and I meant it at the time.”

“And now?” Annie asked quietly.

“I’m hoping you do it for me,” the surrogate said bitterly.

“Give me your bank account information,” Nikki said. “If you really haven’t spent the money, we’ll go easy on you. If you lied, oh, well!”

“Don’t believe a word she says!” Adel Newsom sputtered. “She jumped at the money. She tried to hold me up for double what she was offered.”

“Yeah, right. The money’s in the bank. Be my guest. Take it and give it back to the Evanses.”

“You’re up next!” Yoko said, prodding Donna Davis.