The Baby Merchant
The baby business is booming. Billions of dollars are spent each year on strollers, cribs, and clothing, not to mention assisted reproduction and adoption. With fertility rates dropping precipitously in the US and babies becoming ever more valuable as a combination of status symbol and perfect accessory, there's clearly a developing market for someone like Tom Starbird. Tom is The Baby Merchant – though he'd never think of himself in such terms. In his mind, Tom creates perfect families by matching famous couples with prime – but neglected – newborns. Tom's a master of surveillance and secret "pickups". His small staff is extremely well-paid, especially the doctor who implants the government-required tracking chip into each infant's developing skull.
Sasha Egan is a talented artist feeling trapped by an accidental pregnancy. Determined to place her child with a loving family, Sasha is jolted by the arrival, at her chosen home for unwed mothers, of the unborn baby's father. Behind Gary's insincere protestations of love, Sasha detects the hand of her powerful, wealthy grandmother. Nearly nine months pregnant, Sasha disappears, going to ground at a seedy motel.
Jake Zorn is a crusading TV journalist who has broken some of the biggest scandals of the day. His life is perfect – except that he and his rainmaker attorney wife, Maury, cannot have children. They've tried everything; repeated miscarriages drove Maury to a terrible act that makes adoption agencies turn them away.
Tom Starbird is Jake's last chance, but it's too late – Tom wants out of the baby business. Jake Zorn knows more than a few hard truths about Tom Starbird, and he's not afraid to expose them to the nation.
Desperate to find a baby for the Zorns, Tom Starbird settles on Sasha Egan as the perfect supplier.
Soon Sasha's baby will be born. And many lives will be forever altered.
Readers also enjoyed
Kit Reed
Kit Reed (1932-2017) was an American author of both speculative fiction and literary fiction, as well as psychological thrillers under the pseudonym Kit Craig.
Reed was born on June 7, 1932 in San Diego, California. Her first short story, "The Wait" (1958), was published by Anthony Boucher in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of a five-year grant literary from the Abraham Woursell Foundation.
The New York Times Book Review said about her short fiction in 2006: "Reed has a prose style that's pure dry ice, displayed in dystopian stories that specialize in bitterness and dislocation." The Wall Street Journal said: "The title of Kit Reed's [2013] selection of her own short stories, The Story Until Now (Wesleyan), reminds us that although she has been writing award-winning fiction for some 50 years, she's still accelerating. The scope of these 35 stories is immense, their variety unmatched."
More books by Kit Reed
