Chapter 3 - THE MISSING TRANSPORT
Detective Ruiz did not arrest Victoria in the ballroom.
That shocked me.
After hearing the recording, I expected handcuffs.
I expected officers to surround her.
I expected some visible sign that the world had finally recognized what I had been living inside.
Instead, Ruiz separated us into different rooms and began asking questions.
Later, I learned why.
The audio was powerful, but context mattered.
Victoria had not said she harmed my daughter.
She had not admitted abducting anyone.
The transfer document might be forged.
The hospital records were incomplete.
And the Whitmores had lawyers on site before the first police report had even been finished.
Malcolm Reed arrived at 11:43 that night.
I knew the time because I was staring at the clock in a private conference room while Oliver slept against my chest.
Malcolm had represented Whitmore Holdings for twenty-seven years.
He was thin, silver-haired, and always looked as though he had just stepped out of an elevator on the top floor of a bank.
He did not come to see me.
He walked directly into the room where Preston and Victoria were being questioned.
Five minutes later, two more attorneys arrived.
Then the hotel’s general counsel.
Then a public relations executive.
The machine had started.
That was what the Whitmores were best at.
They did not panic in public.
They mobilized.
Rebecca sat beside me with her arms folded.
Detective Ruiz entered carrying a paper cup of water.
She set it down in front of me.
“How are you feeling?”
“My daughter is missing.”
“I know.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You know there is a form.”
“You know there is audio.”
“You do not know what it feels like to have everyone tell you a child never existed while your body remembers carrying her.”
Ruiz was quiet.
I immediately regretted the words.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
She pulled out a chair.
“Anger is appropriate.”
I looked toward the door.
“Why aren’t they under arrest?”
“Because I want your daughter back more than I want a bad arrest tonight.”
That answer made me look at her.
She continued.
“The transfer form gives us a lead.”
“The audio gives us probable cause to investigate a concealment scheme.”
“But if I move too fast and the warrant gets challenged, their attorneys will spend the next six months turning evidence into arguments.”
I hated that she was right.
Rebecca leaned forward.
“What do you know about St. Agnes?”
Ruiz looked at her.
“You tell me.”
Rebecca rubbed her forehead.
“It was a pediatric recovery center on the west side.”
“Private.”
“Mostly post-surgical children and complex neonatal transfers.”
“Whitmore Foundation funded it years ago.”
“It lost state certification after a billing investigation.”
“When?”
“About seven years ago.”
“Is it open?”
“I thought it was closed.”
Ruiz took out her phone.
“It is.”
My heart sank.
“The address is an abandoned building?”
“Officially.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the corporation that owns it still pays utilities.”
Rebecca looked at her sharply.
“Who owns it?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“Agnes Recovery Properties LLC.”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s a shell company.”
“Yes.”
“Linked to whom?”
Ruiz looked at me.
“Whitmore Community Health Trust.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Everything came back to them.
Hospitals.
Hotels.
Foundations.
Board seats.
Charities.
Preston once joked that there were neighborhoods in Chicago where you could not break an ankle without enriching someone in his family.
I had laughed.
I did not laugh now.
Ruiz continued.
“We have officers headed there.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“She’s my daughter.”
“You have an eighteen-hour-old infant in your arms.”
“I am not sitting here.”
Rebecca touched my shoulder.
“Emily.”
I turned on her.
“You told me to keep the watch on because you thought something was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“You copied the file because you thought something was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Then do not tell me to sit in a hotel conference room while strangers look for my child.”
Rebecca did not answer immediately.
When she did, her voice was softer.
“I was going to say you should come with me to the hospital first.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because there’s something else you need to know.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
She looked at Ruiz.
“Can we have a minute?”
Ruiz stood.
“I’ll be outside.”
The door closed behind her.
Rebecca did not speak for several seconds.
I hated that pause.
People had been pausing around me all day before saying terrible things.
“Just say it.”
She reached into her bag and took out another copy of my delivery record.
“This is from the fetal monitoring system.”
She placed it on the table.
There were two columns.
Two heart rate traces.
Two labels.
A and B.
I stared at them.
“How long did you know?”
“I knew you were carrying twins at twelve weeks.”
I looked up so fast my neck hurt.
“What?”
“I confirmed two viable fetuses myself.”
“You told me that.”
“Yes.”
“Then at twenty-six weeks Preston said the second heartbeat was a mistake.”
Rebecca’s face tightened.
“That was not true.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I called you six times.”
I stared at her.
“I sent messages.”
“I sent a letter to your home.”
“I requested a case review.”
“I tried to get back onto your care team.”
My skin went cold.
“I never got any of it.”
Rebecca looked toward the door.
“Someone was screening your communication.”
Preston.
The answer formed before she said it.
I thought about the way he had taken over my schedule during pregnancy.
The way he said stress was bad for the baby.
The way he collected my phone each night because the blue light was supposedly interfering with sleep.
The way his assistant suddenly began sorting the mail because I needed to rest.
At the time, each thing had seemed small.
Together, they looked like a cage.
“Why?”
My voice barely came out.
“Why would he hide a twin pregnancy from me?”
Rebecca looked at the paper.
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
She exhaled.
“There may be a financial reason.”
I almost laughed.
“What financial reason makes someone erase a baby?”
Rebecca looked me directly in the eyes.
“Harrison Whitmore’s trust.”
Preston’s grandfather had died three years earlier.
Harrison Whitmore built the family hotel empire from three properties into forty-six.
He was also the only Whitmore who had ever treated me kindly.
At our wedding, he had taken me aside and said, Do not let this family make you small.
I thought he was being sentimental.
Maybe he was warning me.
“What about the trust?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I don’t know the exact terms.”
“I only know Harrison changed his estate plan before he died.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your mother knew him.”
That surprised me.
“My mother?”
“Years ago.”
“Before you met Preston.”
I stared at her.
“Rebecca, what are you not telling me?”
She looked down.
“I promised your mother I would not drag you into old Whitmore history unless it became necessary.”
“My daughter is missing.”
“I know.”
“That sounds necessary.”
Rebecca opened her mouth.
The door swung open.
Detective Ruiz stepped inside.
Her expression told me the news was bad.
“They reached St. Agnes.”
I stood too quickly.
Oliver startled awake and began crying.
I soothed him automatically.
“What did they find?”
“No baby.”
The room tilted.
“No.”
Ruiz held up her hand.
“There are signs the building was used tonight.”
“What signs?”
“Fresh tire tracks.”
“Medical packaging.”
“A recently emptied oxygen canister.”
“Security cameras wiped within the last hour.”
“Someone knew we were coming.”
Rebecca went pale.
“How?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
I looked toward the hallway where Preston’s lawyers were standing.
“You told them.”
Ruiz’s eyes hardened.
“No.”
“Someone did.”
She did not deny that.
Then her phone vibrated.
She checked the screen.
“Wait.”
“What?”
She lifted one finger.
“Traffic camera hit.”
She read silently for several seconds.
“A private neonatal transport van left St. Agnes at 10:52 tonight.”
“Forty minutes before officers arrived.”
My heart pounded.
“Where did it go?”
“We only have the first camera.”
Ruiz typed something rapidly.
“Plate is registered to Northline Pediatric Transport.”
Rebecca swore under her breath.
“You know it?”
“Yes.”
“Whitmore Foundation used them for private neonatal transfers.”
Ruiz looked up.
“So your daughter was likely alive when she left St. Agnes.”
Alive.
The word nearly broke me.
I pressed my lips to Oliver’s forehead.
“Find the van.”
“We’re trying.”
I wanted to run into the hallway and put my hands around Preston’s throat.
The thought frightened me because it was so clear.
For years, I had been afraid of his anger.
Now I understood what rage felt like from the other side.
Rebecca seemed to read my face.
“Do not go near him.”
“I need him to tell me where she is.”
“He will not tell you anything useful while he has three lawyers standing beside him.”
“He knew there were twins.”
“We do not know exactly what he knew.”
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“You heard the recording.”
Ruiz stepped closer.
“Emily, listen to me.”
“If your husband is involved in moving that baby, the best thing you can do right now is let him believe we have less than we do.”
“I have nothing.”
“You have a living child on video.”
“You have a transport trail.”
“You have audio.”
“You have a physician willing to testify that your records were altered.”
“And you have me.”
I looked at her.
Her voice lowered.
“I know that does not feel like enough.”
“It is more than you had six hours ago.”
Oliver fussed against my chest.
I looked down at him.
His nose was the same shape as mine.
I had spent the entire pregnancy wondering whose eyes he would have.
Now all I could think was whether his sister had the same nose.
Whether she was warm.
Whether someone had fed her.
Whether she was crying for a body she recognized by heartbeat but could no longer find.
That thought nearly dropped me to my knees.
Rebecca reached for Oliver.
“Let me hold him for a minute.”
I shook my head.
I could not let go.
Not after learning someone had already taken one child from me.
Rebecca did not push.
Detective Ruiz’s phone rang again.
She stepped into the hall.
Through the open door, I saw Preston at the far end of the corridor.
Malcolm Reed stood beside him.
Victoria sat in a chair with one ankle crossed over the other as if she were waiting for a delayed flight.
Preston looked at me.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then he lifted his hand and touched two fingers to his own wrist.
The gesture was small.
A private reference to the watch.
Then he smiled.
I understood the message.
He wanted me to know he was not afraid of the recording.
Or he wanted me to believe he was not.
Victoria turned her head and caught us looking at each other.
She leaned toward Preston and whispered something.
His smile disappeared.
That interested me.
Whatever Victoria said, it frightened him more than the police did.
Ruiz returned.
“We found another camera hit on the transport van.”
“Where?”
“Lower Wacker.”
“Then it disappears.”
“Disappears how?”
“Either the plates changed, or it entered private underground access.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Whitmore Tower has underground loading access.”
“So does the Grand Hotel.”
Ruiz nodded.
“So does St. Catherine’s.”
My stomach turned.
“They could have brought her back here.”
“They could have taken her anywhere connected to that tunnel system.”
Ruiz watched my face.
“Which means we need to be careful about who sees our next move.”
A terrible possibility settled over me.
“What if someone in the police department is telling them?”
Ruiz did not answer.
She did not need to.
Her silence told me she had already considered it.
I looked through the doorway again.
Preston was gone.
So was Victoria.
Only their lawyers remained.
“They left?”
Ruiz turned sharply.
One of the officers at the end of the hall raised his hands.
“The attorneys said they were free to go.”
Ruiz swore.
“Did you clear that?”
“No.”
Malcolm Reed looked almost amused.
I felt something inside me shift.
This was bigger than a cruel husband and an imperious mother-in-law.
Someone had altered hospital records.
Someone had moved a newborn through a private medical network.
Someone had warned St. Agnes before police arrived.
And now Preston and Victoria had walked out of a police interview before the detective leading it even knew they were leaving.
The Whitmores had not built their power by being rich.
They had built it by making systems bend.
That was when my phone buzzed on the table.
I looked down.
Unknown number.
For one second, I thought it would be spam.
Then a photograph appeared.
A newborn girl wrapped in a pale pink blanket.
Her eyes were closed.
A hospital bracelet circled her ankle.
WHITMORE, BABY B.
My breath stopped.
Beneath the photograph was a message.
STOP ASKING QUESTIONS IF YOU WANT BOTH OF YOUR CHILDREN TO LIVE.
I stared at the words.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
Ruiz took the phone from my hand.
Then another message appeared.
This one contained only an address.
May you like
And one sentence.
COME ALONE BEFORE SUNRISE.
