Chapter 17 - Someone Took Noah
I do not remember getting back into the car.
I remember Ruiz shouting into his radio.
I remember Vanessa grabbing my shoulders and saying, “Clara, look at me.”
I remember not looking at her.
I remember thinking that every instinct I had ever trusted had led Noah directly into danger.
Dana had taken him to a protected county apartment.
Protected.
Another word I was beginning to hate.
Police reached the building before we did.
The front door was open.
Dana was conscious on the kitchen floor with blood at her hairline.
No Noah.
The bassinet was empty.
I made a sound I did not recognize as mine.
Ruiz caught me before I ran through the apartment.
“Clara.”
“Move.”
“We need the scene preserved.”
“MOVE.”
“Clara!”
I hit him.
Not hard.
Not intentionally.
My palm struck his chest and I kept pushing.
“He’s a baby. He is eight pounds. He can’t even hold his head up, and you want me to worry about your scene?”
Ruiz did not move.
His eyes were steady.
“I want him back too.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right. Not like you do.”
That stopped me.
He lowered his voice.
“So let me do the part you cannot.”
I hated him for making sense.
Dana woke fully in the ambulance.
She grabbed my wrist.
“I’m sorry.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see.”
“What happened?”
“I opened the blanket seam.”
“What was inside?”
“A microSD card.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
“Who came in?”
“Someone knocked and said they were police. I checked through the peephole.”
“Uniform?”
“Yes.”
Ruiz’s face darkened.
“One of ours.”
Dana nodded weakly.
“I opened the door. He showed a badge. Then somebody hit me from behind.”
“Did you see the second person?”
“No.”
“Did the officer take Noah?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa paced behind us.
“Maddox.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Arthur does not take babies himself.”
“Great. His customer service has boundaries.”
“Vanessa.”
“No. I’m done speaking politely about monsters.”
A security camera in the hallway had been disabled seventeen minutes before the attack.
A traffic camera two blocks away caught a dark SUV leaving.
Partial plate.
Registered to Ashford Community Institute.
Mercer looked stunned.
“We have six black fleet SUVs.”
Ruiz checked.
One was missing.
Assigned to Associate Dean Philip Shaw.
We had our first concrete direction.
Cell tower records placed Shaw’s phone east of town.
Toward the old warehouse.
We had just come from there.
“He waited for us to leave,” Ruiz said.
We raced back.
The warehouse was dark.
Police entered first.
I stayed outside because this time every cell in my body understood that rushing in could get Noah killed.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Then a gunshot.
I stopped breathing.
Another.
Ruiz disappeared inside.
Vanessa grabbed my hand.
Neither of us pretended we were not holding on.
A radio crackled.
“Suspect down.”
My knees weakened.
“Infant located.”
I ran.
Nobody stopped me.
Noah was in the arms of a female officer near the back room.
He was crying.
The most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
I took him and pressed my face to his.
“I’m here. I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m here.”
He screamed louder.
I laughed and cried at the same time.
The officer said, “He appears unharmed.”
I checked every finger.
Every toe.
His face.
His breathing.
His blanket was gone.
Across the room, Philip Shaw lay on the floor with a gunshot wound in his shoulder.
Alive.
Ruiz stood over him.
Shaw laughed through gritted teeth.
“You people are predictable.”
I moved toward him.
Jonah stepped between us.
“Let the detective.”
“No.”
Shaw looked at Noah.
“There he is.”
My blood turned to ice.
“Do not look at him.”
Shaw smiled.
“Maddox was right about you.”
“You kidnapped a baby.”
“I recovered evidence.”
“You hit Dana.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“Who was the cop?”
Shaw closed his mouth.
Ruiz crouched beside him.
“You are looking at kidnapping, assault, fraud, obstruction, attempted destruction of evidence, and whatever else I find before breakfast. Give me the officer.”
Shaw smiled.
“You still trust your department?”
Ruiz’s jaw tightened.
Shaw had hit the right nerve.
Helen had named Lieutenant Carl Benton.
The man who trained Ruiz.
Ruiz said, “Benton?”
Shaw laughed.
“That would be easy.”
“Then who?”
“Ask your judge.”
Judge Cole.
The courtroom.
Her father had worked with Maddox.
My skin prickled.
“Judge Miriam Cole helped take Noah?”
Shaw looked at me.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what did you say?”
“I said ask her.”
Ruiz ordered him transported under armed guard.
Police searched the warehouse.
The microSD card was not there.
Neither was Noah’s blanket.
Shaw had brought Noah to the one place where we had found the old ledgers, but the evidence taken from the blanket had disappeared.
Then Vanessa found something.
A phone.
Cheap prepaid model.
Hidden beneath the steel desk.
One text thread.
No names.
Only numbers.
The latest message had been sent thirty minutes earlier.
BABY SECURED. CARD MOVING.
A reply followed.
GOOD. LEAVE THE CHILD.
I stared.
Whoever ran the operation wanted evidence.
Not Noah.
That was one tiny mercy.
Then I saw the previous messages.
Dates stretched back months.
One from the morning I found Noah outside St. Catherine’s.
PLACE HIM WHERE CLARA WILL SEE HIM.
My throat closed.
The person who took Noah from the clinic had deliberately given him to me.
Another message:
SHE WILL PROTECT HIM. SHE ALWAYS PROTECTS STRAYS.
That language.
I knew it.
Trash collecting trash.
Something Vanessa used to say.
Something Marlene had said about injured animals when I was a kid.
I looked at Marlene.
She was standing in the doorway under police guard.
Her face had gone white.
“You left him there.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You told someone to.”
“No.”
“That sounds like you.”
“Clara, I swear.”
Vanessa stared at her mother.
“Who else used to say that?”
Marlene’s expression changed.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
“One person.”
“Who?”
Marlene whispered, “Your mother.”
Rachel stepped back.
I turned toward her.
She looked horrified.
“No.”
Marlene said, “Rachel used to tease Thomas. She said he brought home every stray animal he found.”
Rachel shook her head.
“I did not write those messages.”
“Then who knew the phrase?”
Rachel’s eyes filled with fear.
“Thomas.”
Silence.
My father had been dead sixteen years.
Unless someone had spent sixteen years using his identity.
Samuel Pike.
I looked at Ruiz.
“Pike is alive.”
Ruiz nodded slowly.
“And he may be the person who gave Noah to you.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
An older man’s voice said, “You finally found the right question.”
My skin went cold.
“Samuel Pike?”
May you like
He chuckled.
“Hello, Clara.”
