confirm that my nightmare is real. I twist, looking wildly through the ever-moving crowd of people, but there are so many around us I can’t even see the edge. The world reels away and the lights are no longer bright and cheerful. The crowd around us is no longer happy and friendly, but terrifying and sinister.
“Cole!” I screech, searching blindly.
Ben leaves the stroller and strides away, pushing through the people too slow to get out of his way. His eyes scan the immediate vicinity, but there’s no way he can see through the mass of people.
I spot a uniformed officer and sprint to him. “Someone took my son.”
As the officer speaks into his radio, I fumble for my phone. I scroll through, find the photo Ben took while we were on the carousel and show the officer. “This is what he’s wearing. He was in the stroller, but some kids set off some fireworks and we turned away for one second and he was gone. He’s not even a year old yet; he doesn’t even know how to unbuckle the stroller.”
The officer has me send the photo to his phone and he distributes it to God only knows who. I remember to tell him to get in touch with Logan and then I mentally check out. Fear and hopelessness feed a sucking black hole inside of me where my heart used to be.
I watch numbly as Ben talks with the officer and a small crowd of them gather around the stroller. I’d fooled myself into thinking the shooting and the break-in weren’t related. I was an idiot to think we were finally safe in our own little family bubble. If nothing else, the catastrophic events of the past year should have taught me to expect the worst.
I go to Ben on auto-pilot, reaching out for a hold in a world which has begun to spin unsteadily underneath my feet. He turns to me, his face a mask of pain that pinches the areas around his eyes.
“Anything?”
I don’t even need to hear his answer.
The look on his face says it all.
I let myself into the house. Grimly, I go into my bedroom and unpack Cole’s baby bag. It’s a mindless, numbing task that I do without any real thought. I take my time, losing myself in the motions, hanging what was clean or unused back in the closet and separating Cole’s little clothes into two piles, one to put away and the other to wash. I spend a lengthy amount of time crying into his favorite stuffed dog, the one we found in the dirt ten feet away from his stroller.
I feed Hank, start a load of laundry, then I call the school. I’m sure someone has already told them, but the empty house feels like it’s pressing in around me and I need something to do to keep my mind preoccupied.
The receptionist answers, a temp that had started working there a few weeks before I’d taken off. “Lindsey, hi. It’s Olivia Walker. I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to come into work this week after all. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“I wouldn’t let you even if you begged!” Lindsey McIntosh exclaims. She’d had her own fair share of drama, I recall numbly. According to the rumor mills, she’d even been married to a genuine rockstar, until recently. “Sweetheart, I’ve been watching the news for the last hour, and I can’t believe you even considered it. No one would ever hold you to that. You don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m sorry,” was all I could think to say. What else was there to say?
“You don’t have a thing to be sorry about. You don’t worry about any of it. We’ll cover you until things are settled. Get some rest, you sound dead tired. Call me when you have word.”
“Of course. The detectives on the case were able to get a license plate and they’ve put out an APB and an Amber Alert. Ben, Cole’s father, has some contacts, so he’s doing whatever it is guys do in an emergency…”
When I trail off Lindsey clears her throat and says with false cheerfulness, “It’s good you have him on your side then. And we are all willing to help in any way we can.”
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am, thank you.”
With that taken care of, I look around for something else to keep my mind and hands busy. If I