Chapter 14 - The Hospital Trap
Malik ordered them nowhere near the hospital. This time they listened. Officers checked every pediatric appointment under Eli's name and found one created that morning with a forged referral. The system listed a routine hearing test. The check-in note requested no identification from the escorting adult.
"They want him separated from us," Claire said.
Daniel couldn't make himself say the word kidnapping. It was too large and too ugly to fit beside the image of Eli asleep with one hand wrapped around his toy truck.
Police used the appointment as bait. A plainclothes officer checked in carrying a stuffed animal while another waited in the hallway. Daniel and Claire remained at the station, watching a monitor with Malik.
A woman in scrubs approached the waiting area. She wore a medical mask and held a clipboard. She scanned the benches, then the hall behind her. When the officer stood, she backed away. Two detectives intercepted her at the elevator.
She wasn't Nora. Her name was Denise Cole, a temporary clerical worker. She claimed an anonymous recruiter had paid her to pick up a child and bring him to a waiting car. She had been told the parents signed a consent form. Her fear seemed real. So did the cash in her pocket.
"Who was the recruiter?" Malik asked.
"A man who said he worked for a private custody service. He showed me a photo." Denise pointed at the monitor. "That lady."
The photograph was Claire, taken through their living room window while she held Eli.
Daniel tasted metal. Someone had turned the intimate details of their family into a job order.
Denise provided a phone number. It led to a burner device abandoned behind a gas station. But the surveillance footage from the station revealed a man entering a gray sedan with a vanity plate. Owen recognized the car immediately.
"Mason's attorney," he said. "His name is Grant Vale."
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By nightfall, police had a warrant for Vale's office. They found shredded contracts and a locked drawer.
Inside the drawer was a current photograph of Claire with a bullet hole punched neatly through the middle.
