I block out the rest, holding the baby tighter and shifting into professional mode. “Dale, can you get a blanket out of the ambulance and put a call in to the hospital? It looks like we’re making another trip to the city.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jake
One Hour Later
Watching Emily hold the baby made my chest ache. Her face was stark, but she maintained professionalism and stayed in charge. It reminded me of the time I fell out of a tree in their yard and had to go to the ER.
My mom had tears streaming down her face, but her eyes were focused, and her shoulders were back as she hauled me off the ground and dropped me into the backseat of her car. Not for one second did I think she wouldn’t rescue me from my own stupidity.
Mine and Kaleb’s, that is.
We’d been halfway up a tree, and I fell to the ground, hitting my knee on a rock. She might’ve muttered the entire way about stupid hairbrained ideas, but she got me there.
Not with all my pieces in the right places. The ER doctor had to patch me back together, shoving my kneecap back into place and stapling the cut in my leg. Kaleb, Emily, and their mom rode with us because we were all riding and dying together back then.
Focus on what’s important. I pull up the video footage from this morning and watch frame by frame. I arrive at the station, and Grabill leaves eleven minutes later. A cat passes by the front door fifteen minutes later.
See, I’m not crazy. I heard a cat. And then…. Nothing.
Moments later, a box sits in front of the door. How? I didn’t see anything. After skipping backward two minutes, I stare with such intensity that it feels like my eyes are going to cross and permanently stay out of position.
There it is. Right there. A shadowed arm moves back out of view.
I go back thirty seconds and watch again. Then back sixty seconds. Then back to when the cat passed by the camera. Again, nothing but a shadow that shows for less than three full seconds.
I skip back to when Grabill left the station. Nothing.
From that little snippet of movement, I can’t make anything out. The person must’ve intentionally moved around the monitored areas to go unnoticed. I pull up another camera angle and get the same results.
I squint at the screen and skip back ten seconds. A car leaves the ambulance lot and travels away from the center of town. It’s possible that the driver stopped at the ambulance lot looking for assistance, but Emily and Dale were out on a call, so they dropped the baby off here.
Unfortunately, I can’t identify the make and model from this vantage point.
The car went toward Kansas City. Did they take the mother to the hospital? Why not the baby?
I’ve reviewed every camera angle four times and nothing changes. But I’ll do it again.
I lean back into my chair, causing it to squeak, and dial the closest hospital where Emily and Dale took the baby. After identifying myself, I ask about the baby’s status, which is stable and improving. However, there’s no record of a female having given birth coming to the hospital without a baby.
Or at any of the other local hospitals.
Another dead end. I’m chasing this whole thing the wrong way. Who in Brookhaven would abandon their baby?
This is such a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. It’d be impossible to drop off a baby at the police station and keep it a secret. Someone knows something.
As I’m finishing up my report, the ambulance settles to a stop by my cruiser. Moments later, Emily pops her head inside. “Did you find anything?”
“No.” I shake my head as she stands with the door propped open.
“Are you okay?” She strides toward me. Within a couple of steps, she stops and looks down at her clothes. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess. I’ll stop by and talk to you later.”
“No.” I dodge the edge of the desk and slide around to face her. “Now’s fine. Is the baby okay?”
It wouldn’t matter if she were standing around covered in hog manure; I’d still think she was beautiful and feel an undeniable pull to her.
“I don’t know how the mother left that baby out there alone. What if something happened?” She swipes the back of her hand across her cheek, smearing a tear that she likely didn’t even realize she was shedding. “Shit.”
