Chapter 4
I struck the stairwell door with my shoulder.
It did not move.
“Desmond!”
His scream came from below.
A security guard arrived with a master key.
We opened the door and ran down three flights.
Corinne had already reached the parking garage.
A camera showed her forcing Desmond into a gray sedan.
Vivian was driving.
The fire had started inside a linen cart. Investigators later found a timer and fuel beneath the towels.
It had been a diversion.
I stayed with Wren because she was still connected to a heart monitor.
Every instinct demanded that I chase Desmond, but leaving my daughter alone after an attack was exactly what Corinne expected.
Officer Morales joined the search.
State police blocked the roads leading to the airport.
The Costa Rica flight departed without them.
Vivian’s sedan was found behind an abandoned grocery store.
Desmond’s shoe lay on the back seat.
I called his phone.
It rang twice.
Then he answered without speaking.
“Desmond?”
I heard breathing.
A door slammed near him.
Then his whisper came through.
“Red barn.”
The call ended.
My mind raced through every place Corinne had taken the children.
Vivian’s brother owned a farm outside Millstone.
A red barn stood behind the house.
Police approached from both roads.
I watched the operation through Morales’s body-camera feed while sitting beside Wren.
The farmhouse was empty.
Inside the barn, officers found a chair, rope, and Desmond’s backpack.
Words had been scratched into the dirt.
NOT THIS BARN.
Desmond had known police might trace the phone.
He gave us a clue Corinne would misunderstand.
“What other red barn does he know?” Morales asked.
I remembered a school field trip.
Three months earlier, Desmond and Wren visited Maple Creek Farm. He came home with a photograph of both children standing before a red barn.
The farm was closed for winter.
It stood twenty miles north.
Police reached it before dawn.
A caretaker said no one had permission to enter, but one of the security cameras had been disconnected.
Officers searched the barn.
They found Desmond beneath a pile of blankets in an empty horse stall.
Corinne and Vivian were gone.
Morales called me from the ambulance.
“He’s frightened, but he isn’t seriously injured.”
“Can I speak to him?”
Desmond came onto the phone.
“I didn’t tell them where you were.”
“You did perfectly.”
“They wanted your hospital room number.”
“You kept Wren safe.”
His voice broke.
“Mom said if I didn’t help, Grandma Vivian would hurt her.”
“You are not responsible for anything they threatened to do.”
“I bit Mom.”
“Good.”
He gave a small, shaky laugh.
Police believed Vivian and Corinne fled through a wooded trail behind the farm.
A truck had been stolen from a nearby road.
An arrest warrant now included kidnapping and arson.
Desmond was brought to the hospital.
He ran to Wren before anyone could stop him.
She held out both arms.
“You came back.”
“So did you.”
They clung to each other beside the hospital bed.
Dr. Shah examined Desmond and found rope burns on his wrists.
He also had a needle mark behind one knee.
Corinne injected him with a sedative, but he spat out additional pills and pretended to lose consciousness.
He heard Vivian and Corinne arguing.
Vivian wanted to leave the country.
Corinne refused to go without Wren.
“She said Wren was the last payment,” Desmond told Pike.
“What did she mean?”
“She said Grandma already promised her to someone.”
Nora investigated Bright Haven’s accounts.
A transfer of one million dollars was pending from a private fertility agency in Nevada.
The payment description read: WC biological materials and custodial placement.
Wren’s initials were WC.
The agency had been disciplined for arranging illegal private adoptions.
Corinne planned to make Wren sick, declare her dead on paper, and transfer custody under a new identity.
Her inheritance would go to Bright Haven.
The fertility agency would sell access to Wren’s identity and trust through another family.
My daughter had been reduced to a payment.
Detective Pike obtained records showing Vivian had already selected buyers.
A wealthy couple in Nevada believed they were adopting an orphan with a large protected inheritance.
They had never met Wren.
The couple cooperated after learning the truth.
They gave investigators every message from Vivian.
One contained a scheduled meeting location.
Vivian planned to deliver Wren at an abandoned private airstrip in two days.
Police prepared a controlled operation.
They wanted me to send a message from the couple’s account claiming they already had Wren.
Vivian responded within minutes.
Bring her death certificate and trust records. No child, no payment.
The meeting was set for the next night.
Pike asked me to attend wearing a concealed transmitter.
“No.”
“You won’t be alone.”
“I’m not using Wren as bait.”
“She will remain at the hospital.”
“What happens when Vivian realizes she isn’t there?”
“We arrest her.”
Corinne knew my habits and voice too well for an undercover officer to impersonate me.
I agreed only after federal agents took control of the operation.
Emily Ross, a former prosecutor appointed as Wren’s trust guardian, placed armed protection around both children.
At the airstrip, I carried a briefcase filled with fake documents.
Vivian emerged from an empty hangar.
Corinne stood behind her holding a gun.
“Where is Wren?” she demanded.
“Safe.”
“You were supposed to bring her.”
“I came for answers.”
Vivian laughed.
“You never asked questions when Amelia was alive.”
The words struck me harder than a fist.
“Did you kill her?”
Corinne’s gun trembled.
Vivian answered for her.
“Your wife was dying before we met her.”
“That is not an answer.”
“She changed her will. We simply made sure her money went where it could be useful.”
I kept them talking while agents moved closer through the darkness.
“Did Corinne poison her?”
Vivian looked toward her daughter.
“Corinne could never finish anything difficult.”
Corinne’s face changed.
“You told me the dose was safe.”
“You gave too much.”
“She was going to report us!”
Their argument became a confession.
Then Vivian noticed a red light beneath my collar.
“He’s wired.”
Corinne raised the gun.
A shot struck the ground near my feet.
Agents rushed from cover.
Vivian surrendered.
Corinne ran into the hangar.
An engine roared inside.
She drove a truck through the rear doors and escaped across a service road.
Police caught Vivian.
They recovered her phone.
May you like
Its final outgoing message had been sent to Dr. Cole.
Get the girl from the hospital now.
