“The offices, firms, and Bell’s office pretty much are locked up by six o’clock. My intel tells me that on occasion an architect on the second floor stays as late as eight o’clock. And he uses the stairwell to get to the underground garage and doesn’t go through the lobby. We already discussed the security guard, so there’s no point going over that again. You want to be in and out.”

“What makes you so sure Bell wasn’t keeping his records at Rehoboth, where Newsom kept hers?” Kathryn asked.

“Instinct. With Bell keeping his records separate, Newsom has no hold on him other than a possible personal relationship. I suspect when caught, both of them will try to blame the other to get out from under. It’s the survival instinct. Storing such incriminating records in a freezer tells me Newsom is not the brains of that duo. Bell, now, has thought this through and prepared for it. I can almost guarantee it. I suppose I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

“If you’re wrong, and Bell has moved his records from the office, where does that leave us? With no proof of wrongdoing, our hands are tied. The guy is a lawyer and knows how to cover his butt,” Kathryn said.

Charles laughed. “Girls, a little matter like no proof has never stopped you before. It’s a given that he won’t willingly give up anything, but Newsom will.”

Isabelle was about to voice a question when the timer on the oven went off, signaling that the pizza was ready. At the exact same moment, Charles’s cell phone chirped. The girls rushed to the kitchen, while Charles moved out of sight to talk in hushed whispers.

Alexis poured root beer into frosty glasses from the freezer while Annie and Myra sliced the pizza with kitchen shears. Plates rattled, napkins were unfolded, and silverware was placed on the table just as Charles slipped his phone into his pocket. “I have news.”

“Tell us, dear,” Myra said. “The pizza is too hot to eat at the moment.”

“One of my people has zeroed in on the surrogates. They’re waiting for word from you as to when and where you want them taken. The original adoptive parents are standing by. Right this moment, we do not know where the babies are. That information, I’m sure, will be in Ms. Newsom’s records. I have a small cadre of nurses on standby who will bring the babies to a designated safe house, at which time the original adoptive parents will be brought in to claim their babies. It seems all the surrogates are third- or fourth-year college students, recruited from Georgetown, George Washington, and the Catholic universities. The ones we know about all filed suits to reclaim their babies.”