Chapter Twenty-six
A flicker preceded the sudden flood of light that filled the darkened living room as Charlotte’s quivering hand found the circuit breaker switch downstairs.
Her chest heaved with fear as she ran through the house and found each room empty.
No sign of Emma. She returned to the nursery, immediately looking at the monitor.
There was no green light or red. The monitor had been turned off.
She turned back to the crib and stared at its emptiness. She reached out, her fingers trembling over the blankets, hoping against reason for a sign she had simply overlooked her daughter’s presence.
Where is my baby?
Beside the crib, on a small table that hosted an array of storybooks and soft plush toys, sat an abandoned baby bottle. The milk within it had settled. How long had it been there? When did Emma last eat?
Charlotte’s fingers trembled as she punched the numbers into her phone, the chilling silence of Emma’s room amplifying her racing heartbeat. “Grant,” she spoke, her voice a mix of fear and urgency as the call connected, “Where are you? Where’s Emma’s?”
There was a pause filled with the muffled sound of laughter and clinking glasses before Grant’s voice came through, casual and unaware of the storm brewing in Charlotte’s chest. “Hey, hon, I’m next door,” he said, the murmur of convivial chatter behind him.
“The Kellermans invited me over for a cocktail.”
“Over? Next door?” Charlotte’s mind reeled. “You need to come back right now,” she insisted, her voice sharp. “How could you keep Emma out so late?”
“Emma? She’s asleep. Ruthie said she’d watch her,” Grant’s voice floated disjointedly over the line. “I even peeked at the monitor half an hour ago—Emma was out like a light.”
The words were meant to soothe, but they fanned the flames of panic in Charlotte’s heart instead.
She pictured the little green light on the baby monitor.
Someone had turned the monitor off. How could he not sense the gravity of the situation?
The bitter taste of fear rose up, tightening her throat as images of Emma’s peaceful slumber battled with the stark emptiness of the crib.
“The monitor was off, Grant! That was half an hour ago. Our daughter is missing! Anything could have happened since then!” Her voice cracked, the thin veneer of calm splintering as she clutched the phone with white-knuckled urgency.
“Char, I’m sure there’s a reasonable—”
“Come home now, Grant!” The demand left no room for discussion.
There was a moment’s hesitation before the call disconnected. Charlotte’s hand hovered, then descended with decisive force.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
Her breath hitched, and she found herself momentarily lost in the enormity of the situation. But the image of Emma, her tiny chest rising and falling with each innocent breath, anchored her resolve.
“Please, you have to help me. My daughter … she’s missing.” Her voice, though laced with terror, bore the weight of a reality that had changed forever in the span of a single, unthinkable hour.
Tremors raced through Charlotte and she clutched the phone tighter, her knuckles blanching against the stark black of its casing. The quiet of the room pressed in on her, suffocating her.
“Ma’am?” The dispatcher’s voice was clear and expectant.
“Kidnapped,” Charlotte managed to choke out, the word tasting like poison on her tongue. “My daughter has been kidnapped.”
“Can you tell me your daughter’s name and age, please?” The voice was calm, trained to soothe the jagged edges of panic.
“Emma,” she breathed, “Emma Ellington. She’s only four months old.” The numbers felt surreal, facts about a life that suddenly felt distant.
“Is there any reason to suspect someone has taken her, ma’am?” There was a gentle insistence in the question, a push for details that could shape the response.
Charlotte’s mind spun, latching onto the last fragment of certainty she had.
“She is not in her crib! She is gone! Yes, I—I know who took her.” Her voice gained strength, a fire kindling from the embers of her fear.
“It’s—it has to be my stepdaughter, or possibly her mother, Maddie.
” Charlotte’s words spilled out like weeds from an unattended garden.
“Okay, Ms.—”
It struck her that she hadn’t given her name. “Charlotte Gray,” she said.
“We’re going to send officers over right now. Can you stay on the line with me until they arrive?”
“Of course,” she whispered, sinking to the floor, her back against the crib—the epicenter of her world now a void.
Every second stretched taut as she clung to the lifeline that crackled with static across the cell towers.
In the hollow of the night, she held on, waiting with the fragile hope of finding Emma.
Grant busted through the back door. She could hear his steps pounding up the stairs. “Charlotte, I swear she was sound asleep thirty minutes ago.” He smelled of booze. “Ruthie promised me she would keep an eye on her.”
Charlotte looked at this man, her husband, the father of her child, but did she know him?
No, she didn’t. How in the world had he allowed that rotten daughter of his to babysit their daughter?
“You monster! I told you not to leave Emma alone when Ruthie is here. The kid isn’t normal!
She’s insane just like her mother! How could you? ” she screamed.
Charlotte saw the flashing lights and hurried downstairs before Grant. Her heart hammered against her chest as she opened the door. Two officers entered, one giving their names. “I’m Officer Landers; this is Officer Rodriguez.”
Charlotte nodded. Officer Rodriquez turned to her, his notepad opened. The air in the room felt tight, pressing down on her with the weight of the situation. She wrung her hands together, a futile attempt to steady them, her gaze flitting around the familiar walls that suddenly seemed so alien.
“Ms. Gray, can you describe what Emma was wearing?” Landers asked, his voice a blend of professionalism and underlying urgency.
She drew in a sharp breath, the reality of her daughter’s absence crashing into her like a wave. “I—I can’t,” Charlotte stammered, the words sticking in her throat. “I left early this morning to go on an assignment in the Bronx. I haven’t seen her since then.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. She could feel the officer’s eyes on her, full of questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. It was Grant who broke the quiet, his voice cutting through the thick tension.
“She was in a onesie,” Grant said, his tone flat, devoid of the panic that was gnawing at Charlotte’s insides. “A light one, with little … uh, ducks, I think. Yeah, pale yellow with ducks.”
The specificity seemed to momentarily lift the fog of helplessness, offering a thread for the officers to grasp.
Small details mattered in cases like this, and Charlotte clung to that fact even as her mind raced, trying to picture the garment Grant described.
Emma in her crib, wrapped in soft cotton, safe—this was the image she needed to hold onto.
Yet this image now felt impossibly distant.
“Thank you, Mr. Ellington,” the officer said, nodding and scribbling down the information. “That’s very helpful.”
But even as Grant spoke, Charlotte couldn’t shake the cold dread that had settled in her stomach.
“We need to see her room,” Officer Rodriguez said.
“Of course,” Charlotte said. With each step toward the nursery, Charlotte felt her resentment towards Grant swell.
The very air around him seemed tainted with a negligence she couldn’t forgive.
She gripped the doorframe for a brief moment, steadying herself against the wave of anger that threatened to overwhelm her composure.
“Please, this way,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper as she motioned for the officers to follow her into the small pastel-hued room where her daughter should have been sleeping peacefully.
Grant trailed behind the group, a silent shadow in the wake of urgent footsteps.
His presence was like a looming specter, his silence an oppressive force that filled the space.
Charlotte refused to look at him, focusing instead on the empty crib that stood as a stark reminder of their current plight.
Her heart throbbed painfully against her ribs, each beat a staccato rhythm of fear.
The lead officer stepped inside. His eyes swept over the room—the crib with its bars casting long shadows in the dim light, the plush toys on shelves, the mobile slowly turning as if moved by a breathless sigh. He reached for his radio without taking his eyes off the scene.
“Dispatch, we need forensics at the residence,” he said, his voice cutting through the thick tension hanging in the air. The static crackle of acknowledgment was a jarring note in the quietude of the nursery.
Charlotte’s gaze fixed on the empty crib, her pulse hammering in her ears.
It felt like the room was spinning, each turn dragging her farther into a vortex of panic and disbelief.
Her stomach churned violently, a tangled knot of fear and nausea that threatened to undo her.
She wrapped her arms around herself, fingers digging into the fabric of her blouse as if to anchor her to reality.
It did little to stop the trembling that had taken hold of her hands, the visceral reaction to the nightmare unfolding before her.
She swallowed hard, bile rising in her throat.
Her body seemed to move on its own accord, inching backward until her back pressed against the cool wall.
There, in the soft glow of the night-light shaped like a friendly moon, Charlotte fought the overwhelming urge to succumb to the sickness roiling within.