Chapter 7 - THE EMPTY ROOM
I reached the guest room before Paige finished explaining. The door was open. Inside, my mother stood beside an empty stroller, her phone on the floor.
“Where is he?”
My mother turned. “Teresa took him to the nursery to change him. Then she texted me that someone had called her down to the service hall. I tried her phone.”
I picked up hers and looked at the message.
IT’S TERESA. STAY HERE. I’LL BRING LEO RIGHT BACK.
“Teresa wouldn’t leave him alone,” I said.
“I know.”
The nursery was two floors above us. I ran up the stairs, David’s incoming call buzzing unanswered in my hand.
At the landing, I saw Teresa sitting against the wall. She was conscious, holding one hand to her forehead.
“Where’s Leo?”
Her face crumpled. “I thought the message was from you. It said to bring him upstairs because you wanted him away from the guests. A woman in a catering jacket met me here.”
“Where did she take him?”
“She said you’d sent her.” Teresa tried to stand. “I told her I needed to go with him. A man came out of the stairwell and shoved me. When I got up, they were gone.”
I crouched in front of her. “Did you see his face?”
“Only for a second. He had a gray beard. I don’t know him.”
I called 911. My voice sounded strange to my own ears as I gave the address and said my baby had been taken.
David arrived on the landing while I was still speaking. I handed him Teresa’s phone. He immediately began saving the messages and recording the time.
Security came up the stairs. Paige had already told them to stop anyone from leaving with a child. The front doors were covered, but the venue had a loading entrance and a garden gate.
I went down the back stairs with two guards.
Outside, delivery vans lined the service drive. A woman in a catering jacket was stepping toward a black SUV. She carried a covered infant car seat.
“Stop!” I shouted.
She turned.
I ran straight toward her. One of the guards reached the SUV first and blocked its door. The woman lowered the car seat onto the pavement.
Inside was a stack of folded towels.
A distraction.
May you like
I spun around. At the far end of the drive, a second SUV pulled through the garden gate.
Through its rear window, I saw the bright yellow blanket Leo slept with every night.
