by Lucy Kerr
From his back pocket, he whipped out a knife, and my knees turned to water. “Stay away.”
I held up my hands, making myself look as nonthreatening as I could. “I’m staying right here. Promise.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to stay away.” He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. The jackknife, its blade long and curved, gleamed as it pointed directly at my heart. He stumbled backward a few paces. “I never wanted to hurt anybody.”
I was losing him. In a moment, he’d be gone, and I’d be no closer to understanding Kate’s death. “Why did you go after Kate? Did someone hire you?”
“It was an accident,” he repeated, his voice thin and panicked. “It wasn’t about money. It was never about money.”
“Then what was it about? Please, please tell me. I promise I’m listening. What is this about?”
The knife trembled, then lowered. “Proof,” he said, as if it were obvious.
Nothing about this was obvious to me. “Proof of what?”
“Frankie?” Charlie’s voice, high-pitched and alarmed, floated down the hill toward us.
Before I could tell her to stay back, Josh lunged, grabbing my arm and throwing me to the ground. Momentum carried me down the rest of the hill. I glimpsed Josh running away and Charlie racing toward me as I tumbled down the slope, bones jolting and teeth rattling.
“Frankie!” Charlie said as I came to a stop. “Oh, my God! Was that—”
“He’s getting away,” I mumbled and pushed up on my hands and knees.
“You’re not going after him,” Charlie ordered and helped me to my feet. “He had a knife!”
“I’m adventurous, not stupid,” I said, gingerly testing my arms and leg. Nothing broken, though my dress was covered in grass and dirt, and I’d lost a shoe somewhere. “We need to call Noah.”
“My phone’s in the car,” Charlie said. “But there are a ton of cops in the parking lot. We can let them know. Are you okay to walk?”
I took a few wobbly steps and managed to stay upright. Charlie retrieved my shoe and slipped an arm around my waist, and it was only when the parking lot came into sight that it hit me: for the second time in a week, I’d let Josh Miller escape.
*
By the time we arrived at the parking lot, Steven had already started his statement to the press. Cameras clicked and whirred as reporters jostled for position. It was hard to hear everything Steven said, but his demeanor was calm and determined. Snatches of his statement floated toward us, words like “tragedy” and “determination,” “privacy” and “child,” “commitment” and “campaign.”
Rehearsed, I thought absently, noting the smooth cadence of his delivery, but painful nevertheless. I turned my back and continued searching for an officer, aware that every single second I wasted, Josh Miller was getting farther away. Charlie pointed to Sheriff Flint, standing to one side of Steven, Ted Sullivan on the other, but I wasn’t about to tell Steven I’d let his wife’s killer escape on national television.
Travis Anderson, hat pulled low to hide his stitches, was directing traffic. I shook off Charlie’s grip and ran toward him. His face lit with recognition, then darkened as he realized I probably wasn’t sprinting across a cemetery parking lot for a social visit.
Before I could speak, another squad car pulled up, lights whirling but sirens silent, parking a few feet away. A moment later, Noah climbed out, jaw set, eyes hard. Everything about him was grim and unyielding and tightly wound fury. Someone must have spotted Miller already and called it in.
I whirled and reached for his arm.
“Not now,” Noah said and brushed past me.
“Noah, listen. I saw Miller. He was on foot, but he might have a car stashed somewhere, on a back road or something. Southwest side of the cemetery.”
“What?” He stopped and looked at me as if he’d only just realized I was there. “Who?”
“Miller,” I repeated, and somewhere behind me, Charlie made a noise of distress. “He was here. But he got away, and he’s armed.”
“Josh Miller?” he said, anger darkening his features. “He’s here?”
“Yes! I mean, he was. I tried to follow him, but he—wait. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“No. We have a situation,” he said dully, and he dragged a hand across his face. He twisted away to speak into his radio, and I heard him ordering all available units to the southwest side of the cemetery, repeating the information I’d blurted. The entire time he spoke, his gaze was locked on Steven.
And that’s when I understood. Noah wasn’t here because someone had spotted Miller. Noah had come to the cemetery to deliver bad news, and it must have been very, very bad indeed for him to intrude on this moment.
Steven was taking questions from the reporters clustered around him, barely visible behind the cameras and mics. Noah started toward them, but I caught his arm and hung on. “What happened?”
He opened his mouth, closed it again, then glanced over at Steven and the press corps, shaking his head.
“Noah, it’s his wife’s funeral. You can’t barge in, especially with all those reporters standing a foot away.”
“I need to talk to Steven.” But he stayed rooted to the spot, his eyes gone distant and unseeing.
Behind me, Charlie said in a low voice, “People are starting to stare, you two.”
“Noah,” I said sharply, and his gaze refocused on me. The wind snaked beneath my skirt, and I shuddered and tried to brace myself for whatever he was going to say next. “Tell me.”
“It’s the baby,” he said. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” I said as Charlie gasped. My fingers tightened on Noah’s arm, anchoring myself to his solidity.
“Gone. Taken. Somebody kidnapped Trey Tibbs.”
Fifteen
I could only imagine how the scene would play out in the national news. Everyone in America would witness Steven’s anguish, every moment captured in high definition from every angle, parsed by pundits and gossip rags alike. Noah’s approach. Sheriff Flint slipping away to confer with him. Ted Sullivan following a moment later. One reporter noticing, then another, and another. Steven, puzzled and frustrated when he realized his audience was drifting away.
Ted and Sheriff Flint tried to usher Steven back into the car, where there was a modicum of privacy, but he wasn’t having it. Finally, they each took an arm, but he threw them off, face flushing, voice rising. “What the hell is going on?”
Noah leaned in to give him the news, and Steven’s face went slack. Seconds passed, my heart thudding in the silence, and then his shock transformed to trembling fury like someone had flipped a switch. For a moment, I thought he’d take a swing at Noah, but Ted grabbed him by the arm, shielding him from the cameras and speaking in a low urgent voice.
“This is your fault,” Steven snarled, but it was impossible to know who he meant. Noah? Ted? Sheriff Flint? Whatever Ted said convinced Steven to let himself be hustled away, even as he continued shouting orders and insults at everyone.
“Come on,” Charlie said, tugging at me. “We have to go.”
“Where?” I said, wrenching away as she led me back toward the car. “I should help.”
“How?” she snapped. “Nobody’s hurt. Nobody’s sick—except the monster who stole Trey, and I guarantee they’re not here. I need to check on Rowan.”
“She’s fine, Charlie. Noah said the other kids were safe and the NICU is on a hard lockdown.”
A noise emanated from deep in her throat—half growl, half sob. “They aren’t his kids, are they? Keys. Hospital. Now.”
So we went.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said as we drove to Stillwater General. Charlie was flying, easily twenty over the limit, but I wasn’t brave enough to tell her to slow down. “Josh Miller couldn’t have taken him—he was at the funeral.”
“Who else would have a reason to take Trey?”
“Forget who,” I said. “How? The NICU’s the most se
cure ward in the hospital. You know how carefully those kids are watched. There are cameras and ID badges and security anklets on each baby. Taking a kid through NICU without deactivating his anklet sets off alarms on the entire floor—everything goes into a hard lockdown.”
“Not hard enough,” Charlie said. “Maybe Miller had a partner.”
“He’s already on the run,” I said. “Even if he had a partner, why would he want to make things harder for himself?”
“Maybe he doesn’t see it that way,” Charlie replied. “Everyone says Josh went after Kate out of revenge, right? Because she took his little girl. What if taking her child is his way of evening the score?”
It made a horrible sort of sense: justice, twisted beyond recognition. I did not point out that kidnapping Trey might be better than the alternative.
“Do you think the baby will be okay?” Charlie asked. “If it were Rowan … she’s not ready to leave the NICU. What if Trey isn’t ready either?”
Once again, I had no good answer. According to Donna and Jess, Trey’s stay in the NICU had been more about security than any specific medical concern. He would have been discharged in the next couple of days, but that didn’t mean he was out of the woods. He might have needed a home CPAP machine to help with breathing, or medicine, or special formula. I couldn’t envision Josh, strung out and desperate, providing that level of care.
We raced inside the hospital. Police were stationed everywhere, and they scrutinized my hospital badge while Charlie showed her driver’s license and the security bracelet that matched Rowan’s. We had to repeat the procedure three more times—once when we left the elevator, once when we’d been buzzed onto the maternity wing, and again when we entered the NICU.
Charlie rushed ahead of me, scooping Rowan out of her isolette and holding her close, murmuring something indecipherable. I couldn’t help but stare at the empty place where Trey’s isolette had stood. He’d been ten feet away from Rowan. Ten feet, and someone had snatched him. They could have taken Rowan too. What if one of the nurses had intervened, and it escalated to a hostage situation? Every infant in this room had been in danger. My hands shook, and I didn’t know if it was relief or rage.
Whatever investigating the police were doing, it wasn’t happening here. The only other people in the room were staff and parents, all stricken and solemn, the tension in the air ratcheted up to an unbearable degree.
“What happened to Trey’s isolette?” I asked one of the other nurses as she rocked a baby whose parents hadn’t yet arrived.
“The police took it,” she said. “Dr. Solano won’t let them work in here, but they’re questioning all of us, one by one.”
“How did it happen?”
Her voice was flat, nearly defeated. “Jess.”
I drew back, looking around for her familiar blonde head. “Jess Chapman? Did the kidnapper …”
“No.” Her arms tightened around the baby. “Jess is the kidnapper. She stole Trey.”
I sank onto the nearest chair, cold sweat trickling down my sides. “Are you sure?”
“She switched shifts today,” the nurse said. “Something about needing to help out a relative. Trey doesn’t need one-on-one care like some of the others, so she volunteered to take him along with her other assignment. Jess really bonded with him the night of the accident, and we all thought she wanted a chance to say good-bye before he was discharged this afternoon.”
I pressed a fist against my stomach, trying to quell the oily rush of nausea. I’d seen the bond between Jess and Trey, the way she checked on him even when she was assigned to other patients, and assumed it was harmless. Healthy, even, as if it was her way of making up for freezing in the ER. How could I have misjudged her so badly?
“So she walked off the floor with him? How is that even possible?” There was no reason for a baby to leave the NICU during their stay—the whole point of the unit was to centralize care, to make sure their specialists were nearby.
She wiped at a tear. “Dr. Solano had ordered one last kidney ultrasound before discharge.” I nodded. Standard procedure if there had been any suspicion of internal bleeding from the accident—an all-clear before sending the patient home. “Jess said the machine was broken, so she took him down to imaging instead.”
“And they never showed.”
Her fingers twisted together, over and over. “Jess called to say they were backed up and squeezing him in would take more time than expected. It was a slow day, so we figured we could manage without her.”
It was a good cover story. Imaging never went as quickly as you expected. Emergencies threw off the schedule, machines went down, software glitched. We’d all been there before, so a delay wouldn’t send up any red flags. “How long were they gone before you realized something was wrong?”
“An hour,” she said miserably. “Dr. Solano called the imaging lab to ask for the results, and they said she’d told them the order was cancelled.” Her voice cracked. “We called the Code Pink in minutes.”
Code Pink: infant abduction.
Things would have moved quickly once the code was called. An immediate lockdown and room-by-room search of the entire hospital from patient rooms to janitor’s closets; the police brought in for a second sweep; every infant on the ward double-checked and guarded until their parents arrived. Trey’s chart and blood samples would have been put in a secure location for identification purposes. I forced myself to take slow, even breaths, trying to keep from throwing up.
“Is there security footage?” I asked, once I could speak again.
“They’re not telling us much, but the cameras must have caught something. I heard she left a note in the isolette, but …” She lifted her hands. “What could she possibly say?”
What could any of us say?
“They’ll find her,” I said. “Every police department in the country’s going to be looking for them.”
People disappear more often than you’d expect. I saw it all the time in Chicago—patients who managed to slip off the grid, go underground, and leave their old lives behind. Not easy, but manageable in a big city.
Here, though? Where the land was flat, the vistas wide, and everyone’s lives were on display? It would be nearly impossible to hide.
Then again, if you’d asked me this morning, I would have said it was impossible to steal a baby from a locked ward.
“Is Garima on duty?” I asked.
“Dr. K? She’s in her office. The police asked her a bunch of questions since she was with Jess on the night of the delivery, but I’m not sure how much she was able to tell them.”
True enough. Once Garima handed off the baby to the neonatologist, her work was done; postpartum, she focused more on the mother than the baby. But she and Dr. Solano were the driving force behind the department, the ones who’d developed a NICU facility instead of requiring families with high-risk pregnancies to drive to a larger regional center. This department was her baby, she’d told me more than once, and I knew she’d feel responsible.
“Was Trey receiving any kind of treatment that’s going to be a problem if we don’t find him quickly?” I asked.
“No. He’d stepped down to regular feedings.” It was the only bit of good news in this entire nightmare. “What could Jess want with him?”
None of the answers were positive, so I mumbled something reassuring and went to find Garima. She was on the phone, promising the person on the other end that everything was well in hand, though I could tell she didn’t believe it.
“You heard?” she asked when she’d hung up.
“I was at the funeral when they told Steven.” I sank into the chair across from her. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” she said, but the skin beneath her eyes looked bruised, and her dark skin had a grayish cast to it. “We have to find him.”
“The entire sheriff’s department is on it. So are the state police and the FBI. They’ve questioned all of the staff?”
She nodded. “So
me of us more than once. Grace Fisher asked the night shift to come in early for questioning too. They’re talking to the parents, and anyone who was buzzed onto the floor. I’m sure they’ll want to interview you.”
“Of course,” I said. “Was there any sign Jess was unbalanced?”
“None,” she replied. “I know she had a hard time in the ER the night of the delivery, but she bounced back quickly enough. Her work until now has been exemplary. Solano says she’s rock-solid.”
“She left a note in the isolette?”
Garima glanced up sharply. “We’re trying to keep that quiet.”
“Good luck,” I said. “What did it say?”
She dragged in a breath. “‘Please let him go. Kate would want it this way.’”
I felt the blood drain from my face, suddenly light-headed.
“Exactly.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her forehead. “You were at the funeral? How did Steven handle it?”
I searched for the words, trying to make sense of not only what I’d seen and heard but the undercurrents.
“Josh Miller was there,” I said, and Garima’s jaw dropped. “I spotted him during the graveside service and tried to follow him, but …” I waved my hand. “That’s a whole different story. By the time I got back to the service, Steven was giving his statement, and I was trying to find a cop to go after Miller. That’s when Noah pulled up, and once the press smelled blood in the water, it turned into a circus.”
“Today of all days,” Garima said softly. “Steven’s already been through the wringer. It’s cruel.”
I nodded. “It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Jess must have planned it down to the minute.” Had she and Josh planned it together? I filed the thought away for now, focused again on Garima’s question. “You’ve seen patients in shock. They shut down. And Steven did, for a minute. He kind of staggered, and the sheriff and his campaign manager were holding him up, and then he snapped. He nearly tried to take a swing at Noah.”
Garima’s eyes widened.
“Kate’s death really devastated him, but he seemed to handle it pretty well,” I said. “After a loss like that, some people lash out. They’ve got so much rage that it burns right through their control. Steven was hurting, but he was turning it inward, you know? He almost seemed to blame himself, like if he hadn’t gone to the fundraiser or had made Kate go with him, he could have stopped it.”