Chapter 16 - Grace Is Gone
Sarah ran for the NICU barefoot.
Daniel and Arthur struggled to keep up while Ortiz shouted into her radio.
The unit was in chaos.
A nurse was crying beside an empty crib.
“How?” Sarah screamed.
Security footage showed a respiratory therapist entering with valid credentials, pushing Grace’s incubator toward a procedure room.
The badge was stolen.
The woman’s face was hidden behind a mask and surgical cap.
But she had one identifying feature.
A scar across the back of her left hand.
Daniel knew it.
Eleanor had gotten the scar during a boating accident when he was sixteen.
“She took my daughter.”
Ortiz grabbed his arm. “Then we find her.”
An Amber Alert would have drawn too much attention to a medically fragile newborn and risked panic, so investigators locked down roads quietly while checking every exit camera.
Sarah could barely stand.
Arthur held her shoulders.
“Look at me.”
“She took Grace.”
“I know.”
“I should never have agreed to the plan.”
“No. Eleanor changed the target. That is what predators do when control slips.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
Eleanor.
He answered on speaker.
Grace was crying in the background.
Sarah made a sound that broke everyone in the room.
“Give her back.”
Eleanor’s voice was calm.
“Withdraw the court petition.”
“Done,” Daniel said immediately.
“Daniel—” Ortiz warned.
“I said done.”
“And publicly state the balcony incident was an accident.”
Sarah grabbed the phone.
“You put one mark on my daughter and there is nowhere on earth you can hide.”
Eleanor laughed softly.
“There’s the backbone I was warned about.”
“Where is Grace?”
“Safe, as long as you behave.”
A faint bell rang in the background.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
Another bell.
Then a low mechanical horn.
Arthur whispered, “Ferry terminal.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“Which one?”
Arthur listened.
A voice over a loudspeaker mentioned Pier 11.
Ortiz was already moving.
Police units converged on the East River.
They found the stolen hospital van abandoned near the terminal.
Inside was Grace’s blanket.
No baby.
Security cameras showed Eleanor carrying an insulated medical bag onto a commuter ferry bound for Brooklyn.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“She put Grace in a bag?”
“It’s a neonatal transport carrier,” a nurse said. “If she has oxygen, Grace could be okay.”
Could be.
The ferry had already left the dock.
Ortiz called harbor police.
Then the ferry captain radioed back.
May you like
A woman matching Eleanor’s description had just entered the restricted engine-access stairwell.
And she was holding a lighter.
