Chapter 17 - The Hand on the Crib
Damon was on his feet before the message finished loading. Security immediately reviewed access logs and hallway footage. Noah was unharmed, but the picture proved someone had approached him without permission.
Damon stood beside the bassinet, counting Noah’s breaths without meaning to. A passing nurse checked the monitor and told him what she could confirm, not what he wished to hear. He thanked her. He was learning that calm facts were a better kind of comfort than grand promises.
Maya held Damon back from storming through every corridor. "Find the breach. Don't frighten the nurses who are helping him."
He forced himself to listen. Tessa coordinated a protective move within the hospital and reported the intrusion to the appropriate authorities. The photograph had been sent from a disposable account, but a reflection in the bassinet's plastic side showed part of a sleeve: dark gray with a tiny embroidered black star.
"Aster," Damon said.
The hospital identified a temporary contractor who had entered under a borrowed badge. He had left twenty minutes before the photo arrived.
"How do these people keep getting close?" Damon demanded.
Tessa looked exhausted. "Because they have money, access, and people willing to sell both. But every time they move, they leave something we can follow."
That night, Celeste's recorded interview produced the break they needed. She explained that Cross used a supposedly independent transportation charity to relocate witnesses. Its vehicles were routinely parked behind an abandoned church outside Fort Collins.
Maya knew the place. "Hannah once asked me to meet her near there. She said if she went missing, I should remember the stained-glass window with the broken blue pane."
Tessa's team approached the church while Damon stayed with Noah. On a grainy surveillance feed, investigators moved across the dark grounds. They found a parked van, then a basement door bolted from outside.
A voice rose from below.
"June, get behind me!"
Damon pressed both palms to the table.
May you like
It was Hannah's voice.
Then someone shouted, and the feed went black.
