“The second surrogate is Joan Olsen. She’s also a student. The parents are Beth and John Evans. She’s a nurse, he’s a doctor. Intern, actually. Like the Dawsons, they didn’t want their employer, the hospital, to know what was going on. Newsom represented Olsen, Baron Bell represented the Evanses. They had essentially the same experience the Dawsons did, absent the attempted extortion. When things went sour, they tried contacting Bell, but he wouldn’t return their calls. John Evans said at their initial meeting Bell spelled it all out for them. Once they took possession of the baby, and all the papers were signed, his part was done. Any future legal problems would have to be dealt with by another lawyer. Bell said he simply did not have the time to do a follow-through for the next eighteen years. Evans said he made a joke of it, and they signed off on it. So Bell didn’t commit any obvious crime in that case. Morally, that’s another story.”

“What do we do and when do we leave?” Annie asked. “By the way, does Mr. Bell’s safe have some kind of special significance?”

Charles smiled. “Think about it, ladies. Seeing a safe like that, an old-timey affair, complete with the engraved elk on the door, tells me Bell wants people to think he has a lot of things in there. It also tells people it’s impenetrable. What it tells me is this…There’s another safe in his offices. Snowden managed to secure and forward to me a complete blueprint of the entire office building. Mr. Bell’s second safe is built into the floor under his desk. I’m sure he has one of those hard plastic sheets on top of it so that his chair can roll and move about with ease. Undetectable to the naked eye.”

“So which safe do we want to crack?” Myra asked.

“Both,” replied Charles. “If I’m right, the one in the floor will be a modern safe, digital, a snap for someone like Mr. Tyson to open. The old-timey Browning safe is going to be more difficult. You have to have a good ear so you can hear the tumblers. Not to mention a light touch.”

Annie looked over at Myra. “This is exciting, don’t you think, Myra?”

Myra thought the whole thing was frightening. Here she was, soon to finally marry the love of her life, but before she could do that, she had to take a hiatus so she could do a little breaking and entering and possibly pay a visit to the local jail.

“Absolutely, it’s exciting,” she snapped.

“Is that why you have such a death grip on those pearls around your neck?” Annie asked.