Chapter 5: The Blue Bag Was Empty
The other mother's name was Diana.
A nurse told me that quietly, an hour after the Code Pink.
Diana's baby — the one who had been placed beside my bed — had been returned to her.
She was two rooms down the hall.
She was not hurt.
I asked if I could see her.
The nurse looked uncertain.
"I just need to know she's okay," I said.
"I need to see it."
They wheeled me down in the bed.
Diana was sitting up, her daughter against her chest, her husband standing at the window with his arms crossed and his shoulders shaking.
When Diana saw me in the doorway, she didn't speak for a moment.
Then she said: "They told me what your little boy did."
"He's a good kid."
"He saved her." Her voice broke on the last word.
"He saved my baby."
I couldn't answer that.
I just nodded.
Her husband turned from the window.
His eyes were red.
"Do they know where yours is?"
"Not yet."
He nodded once, the way men do when they don't have words but need to acknowledge something that matters.
I went back to my room.
Detective Solis was waiting.
"We need to talk about the bag," she said.
"Eli said June was in it."
"She was.
We found the bag in the stairwell exactly where Eli described.
There was a receiving blanket inside.
A pacifier.
A small card."
"A card?"
Solis slid a photograph across the tray table.
A small white card.
Handwritten.
The handwriting was not Luke's.
It read: *She belongs with someone who will love her the way you never could.*
My vision blurred.
"That's Renata's handwriting," Solis said.
"She wrote that card before the birth.
She brought it to the hospital herself.
She was here, Mrs.
Hartley.
She was in this building."
"Then where is June?"
"The bag was empty when we found it.
The blanket and pacifier were there.
June was not." Solis leaned forward slightly.
"Someone moved her after Luke left the stairwell.
Before our officers secured it."
"Renata took her."
"We believe so."
"Then why did Renata call me and tell me to stop talking to the police?
If she already had June—"
"Because she didn't expect Eli to speak up as fast as he did.
She expected more time.
She expected Luke to be out of that room and in a car before anyone knew what had happened." Solis's voice stayed level.
"The call was a delay tactic.
She needed twenty minutes.
Maybe thirty."
I grabbed the bed rail.
"How long ago did she call?"
May you like
Solis checked her watch.
"Forty-seven minutes ago."
