Whirlwind. Rick Mofina

This business would be based in Belize, then expand in the Caribbean and Central America. It was going to be huge. With the $25,000 investment Mason was guaranteed $250,000 return in the first two months.

      Word got back to Mason that Garza would let him into the enterprise as a favor for a friend. Garza was moving fast so he’d set a deadline for Mason’s delivery of $25,000 cash: within three months of Mason’s release.

      Trouble was Mason had lied about having the cash.

      He’d said he had it stashed from the deal he was doing time for, just so Garza would hold a place for him in the deal when he got out.

      Truth was Mason had no cash.

      He’d told no one, but when Mason got out he intended to pull a few quick freelance deals to secure the cash for his investment. It was risky, but it was the best he could do.

      Whenever Remy visited Mason at the prison he’d tell her he needed $25,000 to start his carpentry business. Then they could live their dream in Oregon. That’s when she stunned him.

      “I can get the cash for us,” she said.

      A couple of months after that, she beamed from the other side of the glass, telling him that she was pregnant, how she’d answered an ad online to be a surrogate. When she delivered and signed off she’d get $60,000.

      Mason couldn’t believe his ears.

      But there Remy was, smiling, saying it was all legal, all handled by international adoption lawyers through a global network. They took care of everything. They’d flown her to one of their clinics overseas for the procedure. Remy would be due around the time of Mason’s release. She said giving up the baby was not a big deal for her. As a teen she’d had a baby and given it up to some couple. This time it was all planned, and again she’d help a childless couple.

      “And I’ll be helping us get closer to our dream, too. It’s all meant to be, babe,” Remy told him.

      This was a long way from the fifty dollars in gate money and the bus ticket the prison gave Mason when he got out. It left him thinking how now he wouldn’t have to pull off any risky deals. When Remy delivered the baby, he’d take $25,000 and dump her.

      Hard.

      Let her learn a valuable life lesson.

      He had other plans that did not include carpentry, kids or any white picket fences in freaking Oregon.

      When Mason was released from Hightower, Remy had things nicely set up. She already had a clean apartment for them in Lufkin where Mason started his first carpentry job, through a prison reentry program with a faith-based outreach group, the Fellowship of the Good Thief Society. They’d already helped him get the low-interest loan on his truck, which he needed for work, and they were very protective of an ex-con’s privacy.

      As part of the surrogate deal, Remy’s agency would pay all her medical costs and ensure regular home visits by nurses, and provide a small living allowance. But, if the mother backed out of the deal, or lost the baby, all coverage would cease and the mother could be responsible for repaying the agency fifty percent of what they’d paid out to cover medical costs so far.

      “They told me they deal with repayment by the mothers on a case-by-case basis,” Remy said.

      Remy and Mason kept the surrogacy secret and kept to themselves. Everything went well until the night he woke to Remy’s screams as she held herself in agony.

      “Something’s wrong, Mason! Take me to a hospital!”

      His first thought was to alert Remy’s agency nurse.

      “No! They can’t know! If I lose it, we lose everything! We’ve got to do this without them knowing at all! Hurry, call the people you work for. I saw in your file papers, the church fellowship that supported you, they’re connected to a medical network. There’s a twenty-four-hour emergency number.”

      Mason’s people were helpful and discreet. They’d immediately arranged for an ambulance to rush Remy and Mason to the Beau Soleil West Medical Center, a faith-based nonprofit hospital in Shreveport, a little over one hundred miles away.

      That’s where she lost the baby.

      The church group quietly covered all the costs and arranged to bring them back to Lufkin, protecting Remy and Mason’s privacy while they mourned their loss. Few people knew what had happened.

      Remy said they had to leave before the agency nurse came for her next visit. Once the agency found out what had happened, Remy would not only lose out on all that cash, but the agency would demand she repay them half of the thousands they’d spent on her.

      “We have to get away, Mason, so I can decide what to do.”

      He told his employer and parole officer what had happened and that they needed time away, for a “spiritual retreat,” to begin to heal.

      They pulled together all the cash they had and hit the road. They both tried to find a solution in between Remy’s postpartum bouts of psychosis.

      That’s how Mason got here.

      The speaker atop the menu board crackled.

      “May I take your order?”

      He ordered, and as he moved on down the line he wondered if his situation could get any worse. While idling, he reached under his seat and felt his Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol and the magazine, taking comfort in the fact it was there if he needed it. Then he licked the residue off of the small square of foil as he always did in a bid to prolong his comedown. There was no shortage of challenges.

      He glanced at the letters on the console, one reminding him of his monthly meeting with his parole officer, another from the Parole Division saying he’d been randomly selected for drug and alcohol testing. He had twenty-four hours to report to a District Parole Office to submit a urinalysis. Failure to appear would result in a case conference, which was not a good thing.

      Mason stopped at the first window and paid for the food.

      While waiting to pick up his order, he saw a new message on his phone. The number was blocked.

      Heard you are out and got access to 25k—about what you owe. DOA’s comin for your ass.