Chapter 4
Detective Reed would not tell us Sarah’s location.
“Until we confirm her identity, I can’t give you an address.”
Ryan stepped closer.
“She’s my mother.”
“She may be your mother. Right now, she is also a possible victim in an active investigation.”
“She has spent twenty-six years believing I was dead.”
“I understand.”
“No, Detective. You don’t.”
Reed held Ryan’s gaze.
“You’re right. I don’t. But if Margaret has been following this woman, approaching her without protection could put her in danger.”
I shifted Ava carefully against my chest.
“Has Sarah been warned?”
“An officer is going to her address now.”
Ryan looked at the photograph again.
“She lives close enough for Margaret to watch her.”
“Less than an hour from Atlanta.”
That revelation hurt him almost as much as the recording.
His biological mother had been nearby.
Margaret had known.
Henry might have known too.
Reed sealed the photograph again.
“We’re searching Margaret’s home this afternoon. The evidence from the safe may support new charges.”
“Kidnapping?” Ryan asked.
“Potentially. Fraud. Unlawful imprisonment. The age of the case creates complications, but the investigation is moving.”
“And what about Emily?”
“The district attorney is reviewing charges for aggravated assault, poisoning, and attempted kidnapping.”
“Reviewing?”
“I know that word is frustrating.”
“She almost killed my wife and daughter.”
“Which is why you need to let us build the strongest possible case.”
After Reed left, Ryan stood by the window.
I could see him fighting the urge to run.
“Go,” I said.
He turned.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Jessica is here. Security is outside.”
“No.”
“Ryan, you need answers.”
“I need you alive.”
“I am alive.”
“You almost weren’t.”
His voice broke.
Ava stirred against me.
Ryan lowered his head.
“I walked into our house and saw her on top of you. I keep seeing it every time I close my eyes.”
“So do I.”
“What if I had taken the later flight?”
“Don’t.”
“What if I had stayed in Chicago?”
“You came home.”
“By accident.”
“No. You came home because I told you my contractions had started and you changed your flight.”
“I almost waited.”
“But you didn’t.”
I held out my hand.
He came to me.
“We cannot build the rest of our lives around what almost happened,” I whispered. “Margaret has already stolen enough.”
Ryan sat beside me.
Ava’s hand rested against his thumb.
He stared at her for a long time.
Then his phone rang.
Detective Reed again.
Ryan answered immediately.
“Did you find Sarah?”
Reed’s voice was loud enough for me to hear.
“The officer reached her home. The front door was open.”
Ryan stood.
“Was she there?”
“No.”
“Was there blood?”
“No sign of a struggle, but the house had been searched.”
“Margaret.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You released her.”
“The sheriff’s department is trying to locate her now.”
Ryan ended the call and grabbed his jacket.
“I’m going.”
“Where?”
“To Margaret’s house.”
“No.”
“She may have taken Sarah there.”
“The police are already searching it.”
“She has other properties.”
Jessica looked up.
“The lake house.”
Ryan faced her.
“What lake house?”
“Dad bought a cabin near Lake Lanier years ago. Mom told everyone they sold it after he died.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know.”
Jessica opened a property-search website on her phone.
After several tense minutes, she found the old listing.
The cabin had been transferred to a holding company.
The company’s registered mailing address belonged to Dr. Walter Hale.
Ryan called Reed and gave him the information.
Then he paced.
“I’m still going.”
I wanted to stop him.
But I understood.
“If you go, take Jessica. Keep your location shared. Do not enter before the police.”
Ryan looked at me.
“You should hate all of us.”
“I hate Margaret.”
“My family helped her.”
“Your father helped her. Dr. Hale helped her. Jessica was six.”
Jessica looked away.
I continued.
“You did not choose any of this.”
Ryan kissed me and Ava.
“I’ll be back.”
When he left with Jessica, the room felt colder.
A security guard remained outside.
A nurse checked Ava’s oxygen and assured me she was improving.
I tried to rest.
Ten minutes later, my phone vibrated.
Another blocked message.
Your husband is going to the wrong place.
I sat upright.
A photograph followed.
It showed Sarah outside a redbrick church.
St. Matthew’s.
The picture had been taken that morning.
I immediately called Ryan.
“Margaret sent me a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Sarah at St. Matthew’s.”
Jessica heard me through the car speaker.
“The church where Mom took Ryan.”
“When was it taken?” Ryan asked.
“This morning.”
“We’re turning around.”
“No. Call Reed first.”
“I’m not waiting for him.”
“Ryan, that may be exactly what she wants.”
A new message appeared.
Bring the recorder alone, Jessica.
I read it aloud.
Jessica inhaled sharply.
“She thinks I still have it.”
Ryan contacted Reed, who ordered them not to approach the church.
Officers were dispatched.
For the next twenty minutes, I watched Ryan’s location move across the map.
Then it stopped.
“Why aren’t you moving?” I asked.
“Traffic.”
His voice sounded wrong.
“Ryan.”
Jessica whispered something in the background.
Then the call disconnected.
I called again.
No answer.
My pulse raced.
A nurse entered.
“Emily, your blood pressure is rising.”
“My husband may be in danger.”
I called Detective Reed.
He answered on the second ring.
“Ryan’s phone went dead near St. Matthew’s.”
“We’re two minutes away.”
“Is Margaret there?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find him.”
“We will.”
Ava began crying.
I lifted her carefully.
“I’m here,” I whispered. “Mommy’s here.”
But fear made my hands tremble.
At St. Matthew’s, Ryan and Jessica had found the parking lot empty.
Jessica later told me every detail.
The church had been closed for renovations.
Plastic covered the windows.
A chain hung from the front door, but a side entrance stood open.
Ryan wanted to wait for the police.
Then they heard a woman scream inside.
Jessica recognized the voice from an old home video.
Sarah.
Ryan ran through the side entrance.
Dust filled the sanctuary.
Rows of pews had been pushed against the walls.
At the altar, a gray-haired woman was tied to a chair.
Tape covered her mouth.
Ryan rushed toward her.
“Sarah?”
She stared at him.
Her eyes widened.
Before he reached her, Dr. Walter Hale stepped from behind a pillar.
He was seventy-two, thin, and carrying a metal bar.
Jessica shouted a warning.
Hale swung.
Ryan raised his arm and took the blow near his shoulder.
He crashed into a pew.
Jessica grabbed a wooden candle stand and pushed it between them.
Hale stumbled.
“Stay back!” she yelled.
The old doctor laughed.
“You should have stayed quiet like your father.”
Ryan got up.
His arm hung awkwardly, but rage kept him moving.
“You helped steal me.”
Hale backed toward Sarah.
“You were given a good life.”
“You drugged my mother.”
“She was unstable.”
“You made her unstable.”
Hale’s expression hardened.
“Margaret saved you from her.”
Ryan lunged.
They struck the floor together.
The metal bar slid beneath a pew.
Jessica ran to Sarah and pulled the tape from her mouth.
Sarah gasped.
“Behind you!”
Margaret emerged from the dark hallway beside the altar.
She grabbed Jessica’s hair and dragged her backward.
Jessica screamed.
Margaret pressed a small knife against her throat.
Ryan froze.
His injured arm was wrapped around Hale’s neck.
“Let her go.”
Margaret smiled.
“Now you understand what it is like to watch someone take your child.”
“I’m not your child.”
Her smile vanished.
“I raised you.”
“You stole me.”
“I saved you.”
Sarah pulled at the ropes around her wrists.
“You told me he died.”
Margaret looked at her with disgust.
“You would have ruined him.”
“You locked me away.”
“You were weak.”
Ryan released Hale and stood slowly.
“Let Jessica go.”
“Give me Henry’s recorder.”
“The police have it.”
Margaret’s face changed.
“You’re lying.”
Sirens sounded outside.
Hale ran toward the rear hallway.
Margaret glanced at the door.
Jessica drove her heel down on Margaret’s foot and twisted away.
The knife fell.
Ryan tackled Margaret before she could reach it.
Police flooded the sanctuary.
Hale escaped through a rear exit, but Margaret was handcuffed on the floor.
Sarah remained in the chair, staring at Ryan.
An officer cut her ropes.
She stood unsteadily.
Ryan faced her.
Neither of them spoke.
Sarah lifted one trembling hand toward his face.
Then she stopped before touching him.
“I called you Daniel,” she whispered.
Ryan’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“I held you for eleven minutes.”
His face broke.
Sarah began to cry.
“I counted every one of them because I thought I would have a lifetime.”
Ryan stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.
She clung to him.
Jessica stood nearby with blood running from a small cut near her hairline.
Margaret watched from the floor.
Her expression was not regretful.
It was furious.
“You ungrateful boy,” she said.
Ryan looked at the woman who had raised him.
“You almost killed my wife.”
“I was protecting this family.”
“You poisoned my daughter before she took her first breath.”
“She belongs to me too.”
“No.”
Ryan’s voice echoed through the church.
“She will never belong to you.”
Margaret smiled coldly.
“We’ll see.”
At the hospital, I received a call from Reed telling me everyone was alive.
My relief lasted only seconds.
A nurse entered pushing an empty bassinet.
“Emily, we need to move Ava for a routine scan.”
I held her tighter.
“No one takes her without my husband or me.”
The nurse smiled.
“Of course.”
Something about the smile felt wrong.
I looked at her badge.
The photograph showed a woman with blond hair.
The nurse standing before me had brown hair tucked beneath her cap.
I reached for the call button.
Her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t make this difficult.”
I screamed.
The security guard rushed inside.
The fake nurse released me and ran.
He caught her near the doorway.
A syringe fell from her pocket and rolled across the floor.
Hospital staff surrounded her.
I held Ava against my chest and could not stop shaking.
Detective Reed arrived forty minutes later.
The woman’s name was Laura Hale.
Dr. Walter Hale’s daughter.
She had used an old employee badge to enter the maternity floor.
Reed sealed the syringe as evidence.
“What was in it?” I asked.
“We’re testing it.”
“She was going to inject me?”
“We don’t know.”
“She tried to take Ava.”
Ryan entered the room with his arm in a sling.
Sarah and Jessica followed him.
The moment he saw my face, he ran to me.
“What happened?”
I told him.
His expression became terrifyingly calm.
He turned toward Reed.
“You said we were protected.”
Reed did not argue.
“We believe Laura intended to move the baby through a service elevator. Someone had left a carrier near the exit.”
“Her father?”
“Possibly.”
Sarah stood at the foot of the bed.
“He won’t stop.”
We all looked at her.
“Walter spent years hiding what he did,” she said. “If the full truth comes out, he loses everything.”
Reed asked, “Do you know where he would go?”
Sarah nodded slowly.
“He kept records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Every woman Margaret sent to him.”
The room fell silent.
I held Ava closer.
“There were others?”
Sarah looked at me.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I never knew.”
“Where are the records?”
“In a room beneath his old clinic.”
Detective Reed immediately called his team.
Sarah’s voice dropped.
“But if Walter knows Margaret has been arrested, he will destroy them.”
Ryan looked at Reed.
“Then you’d better reach that clinic before he does.”
Outside the window, dark smoke began rising over the city.
Reed’s phone rang.
May you like
He answered, listened, then looked at Sarah.
“The old Hale clinic is on fire.”
