Chapter 4 - Run
“There!” Nathan shouted.
Leah did not wait to hear what came next.
Mae grabbed a wheelchair, threw blankets across it, and placed Noah in Leah’s arms.
“Sit.”
“What?”
“Sit!”
Mae pushed her hard down the hall while Simone pulled a fire alarm.
Sirens erupted.
Doors opened. Nurses spilled into the corridor. A red light flashed above the elevators.
Nathan shoved through the confusion.
“Leah! Stop!”
She looked back once.
For the first time, Nathan’s face did not look worried.
It looked angry.
They cut through a laundry staging room and into a service elevator. Mae hit the basement button.
Nathan lunged for the doors.
His fingers caught the edge.
“Leah, don’t do this!”
“Do what?” she screamed. “Keep my son?”
The doors closed on his face.
In the basement, Simone led them past boilers and supply cages toward a loading dock.
“My car is two blocks east.”
Mae shook her head. “Too exposed.”
“Then you have a better idea?”
“No. I have a stolen laundry van.”
They climbed inside.
Leah sat on the floor holding Noah while Mae drove. Every pothole stabbed through her abdomen.
“Where are we going?” Leah asked.
“My aunt’s place outside Grove City.”
Simone checked the rear window. “We have company.”
A black SUV had turned behind them.
Mae accelerated.
The SUV followed.
Leah looked down at Noah. “He’s six hours old.”
“I know.”
“He shouldn’t be in a van running from his father.”
Mae’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Your husband stopped being the safe option when he agreed to have you locked up.”
The SUV moved closer.
Simone grabbed her phone. “I’m calling the police.”
Mae shouted, “Don’t!”
“Why?”
“Because Briar Glen already reported the baby abducted.”
Leah felt sick.
Then Noah began to cry.
At the same moment, the black SUV pulled alongside them.
The passenger window rolled down.
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As the van raced through evening traffic, Leah's phone filled with messages from relatives she barely knew. Nathan's sister asked why Leah had "taken the baby during a mental episode." An aunt begged her to return to the hospital before she hurt someone. The lie was moving faster than the van. Doreen had not only prepared legal documents; she had prepared an audience. Leah understood then that getting Noah back would not be enough. She would have to prove, publicly and permanently, that the story being told about her was manufactured.
Doreen was sitting inside.
