––––––––
The baby’s toothless mouth was open, her face in an ugly grimace as she cried. Her little arms and legs were shaking angrily as she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“For Chrissakes, would one of ya shut that damned kid up!” the man barked as the infant was quickly calmed and quieted. “I don’t like this Gladys. Not one bit....”
“It’s just for today, Jerry.” The older woman said as she met the blue eyes of the dark-haired woman who was getting ready to leave. “Right?”
“I’ll be back tonight after my shift.” The woman said, adjusting the pink scrubs she wore and then putting on her jacket. “Thanks again for this.”
“And you’ll pay.....”
“When I come back. Ten thousand, like we agreed.” The woman said with a phony smile, which disappeared as soon as she laid eyes on the surly Jerry.
He was an asshole, but she hadn’t had a choice.
She hurried down the dimly lit hallway of the run-down building on Northern Boulevard and the corner of ninety-fourth street in Jackson Heights.
She could hear people arguing in Spanish, Chinese and a myriad of other languages as she pounded down the stairs and out the front door. She walked past a slew of cheap dollar stores, an enormous glass-front A.M.E. church and towards ninety-sixth street where she had parked her rental car.
Her purse buzzed as an incoming call came in and the woman rolled her eyes in annoyance. As it was, she had to pay this asshole ten grand of her cut to take care of the baby. But the fact that Gladys used to be a maternity ward nurse for a hospital here in Queens, was all that she needed to know to make an easy decision.
The baby would be fine.
Her purse buzzed again and she rifled through it to get the small pink cell phone and jab the button that would receive the call.
“What?!” she bit out savagely and then huffed as she got into her car. “It’s being taken care of. Look, I’ll call you later.”
She hung up the phone and threw it and her purse into the back seat of the car. It was just after two in the afternoon and if she was lucky, she’d be able to bypass all of the traffic that was just starting on the Grand Central Expressway. She had hated coming all the way out to Queens, but again, it couldn’t be helped. Tightening her lips, the woman sped up a bit as she headed towards the parkway. The last thing she needed was to be late for her shift when everyone was being watched so closely.
***
The security personnel of the hospital’s sole purpose was to make rounds, keep order and be sure that no one caused a disturbance. Yet, something as bizarre as an infant abduction had gotten past them and on his watch.
Charles Armbruster, the head of security, just couldn’t get it through his head how this could have happened under his watch.
Ten years as a guard at the hospital, plus another seven as head of security. Human Resources had torn him five new assholes, as well as the hospital’s legal department.
Basically, this whole thing was a nightmare.
He looked at the bank of screens in his office, shaking his head as he watched people all over the hospital just going about business as usual. He gave his guards strict orders to monitor their surroundings at all times and not to be lax in a way that would put the safety of the hospital grounds in jeopardy.
There was a sharp rap of knuckles against his door and Charles turned to see Constance Brooks standing there. The tall, willowy red-haired woman was a sight as she appeared nervous and visibly upset.
She was one of the best on his team, and had been with him for about six years now. Right now, she looked terrified as she came into his office.
“Got a minute?” she asked, as Charles nodded to one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk.
“What is it?”
“There’s something that I need to tell you and it’s not going to be easy.” She warned as his face mirrored hers now.
“Christ Almighty, Connie, what’s wrong?”
“It’s about Dave, the new guy?” she said, warily as she let out the breath she’d been holding. “We got a report that there was an issue in the server room this morning that compromised some of the video files we’ve been looking into for the Ashby case.”
“What do you mean?”
“Looks like the files have been screwed with. Maybe he tried selling them to TMZ or something. Who knows.” Connie said, shrugging.
“Dammit.” Charles swore, “I made it extremely clear to everyone not to get involved with the media with this. It’s a sensitive situation and we’re in enough trouble as it is for not securing maternity in the first place. Get him in here.”
Connie nodded and left the office.
A goddamned code pink had happened here and now he had some wet-behind the ears idiot trying to turn a quick buck.
Things had gotten past him once, but he’d be damned if he’d let it happen again.
The kid was young, he’d find another job, but it wouldn’t be under his employ.
“You wanted to see me?” Dave asked as Charles motioned him inside and told him to shut the door.
***
Bits of pink material lay on the floor as the young, blonde-haired man continued to peel the hospital scrubs away from Morgan’s body. She had picked the baby up from wherever she’d stashed it in Queens and told him to meet her at a motel out on Sunrise Highway.
He couldn’t believe she’d done something so stupid, but she hadn’t wanted to break character disguising herself as a member of the hospital staff. It would be noticed if she suddenly disappeared and he knew that she was right.
“I’ve missed you.” Zach murmured as his lips pressed against hers. He sighed as she kissed him deeply, groaning as he heard whimpers coming from the crib that she had rolled into the room before he’d gotten there.
Kid or not, he had to bust a nut.
Morgan helped him get the rest of his clothes off as they began frolicking on top of the mangy bed. Zach felt himself harden as she gripped the tip of his cock and pulled.
He liked it when she did that.
He liked it even better when she put her face down there and started pleasuring him orally.
He groaned again as that damned kid started crying, and he wished it would shut the fuck up.
“Over here.” Morgan said, turning his face towards hers as he glared over at the baby.
But soon it was forgotten as he got into the throes of hot and steamy sex with Morgan. He grunted as he pummeled away at her sex, and she screamed and took it all.
She rolled over on top of him a moment later, lustily riding him as her small breasts jiggled. She threw her head back as Zach clutched her firm buttocks, her cries rising in crescendo as she neared her release.
His breathing grew ragged as he felt his load build and he knew he was about to come.
And when he did, shooting it deep within her, she let out a scream to end all screams.
But it wasn’t because of her orgasm.
It was because the door had opened and the mousy-looking woman standing there had hit her in the head with a hammer, knocking her off of Zach.
The last thing Morgan ever saw was Zach smile at her as he sat up on the bed, right before Joan buried the claw of the hammer in the base of her skull.
***
Ryan pulled up to the gates of the wellness center and waited as the security guard approached him. Even though Carrie had told him she’d call him, he just hadn’t felt right about how they’d parted ways the other day.
“Hey, I’m here to see Carrie Ashby?” Ryan said as the guard nodded and activated the electronic gate.
Ryan drove through and parked near the entrance. He reached over to the passenger seat and picked up the bouquet of flowers he’d bought from a supermarket on the way there.
Roses.
Her favorite.
He made his way to the front desk, where he had to wait a few minutes while the nurse behind the desk finished up a phone call. He rolled his eyes in annoyance, wondering why they didn’t have someone else helping her cover the desk. He could have been well on his way already. Finally, the young woman hung up the phone and asked how she could help.
“I’m here to see Carrie Ashby?” he said, parroting his response to the guard.
“Ashby.....Ashby....” the girl murmured as she looked at her computer screen. “I’m sorry, what was the first name again?”
“Carrie.” Ryan said, leaning somewhat over the desk to try and get a better look at the screen. “She checked in two days ago, in the evening?”
The girl’s fingertips clipped the keyboard keys as she looked for Carrie’s information.
“I’m sorry, I don’t see her here.” She said, and then called over to another, older woman. “Dianne?”
Ryan watched as the two women continued to look, the trepidation in his heart growing as he hoped something bad hadn’t happened to his wife.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Dianne apologized, sincerely “But we have no one registered by that name.”
“Can you check.....”
“I checked for the past week, and in fact we have no record at all of anyone named Carrie Ashby ever being admitted here.”
***
“What do we got here?” Sandy asked as he and Millie made their way into the room of a seedy motel called the Dewdrop Inn out on Sunrise Highway in North Babylon two days later.
“Manager called it in when she wouldn’t answer the door.” The officer, Michael James, said nodding towards the unkempt looking man who was nosily peering into the room from outside. His balding head shone underneath the harsh sun glare of the early afternoon, his brown button-down shirt stained with some sort of greasy substance.
“I know this is out of your jurisdiction, but I think this has something to do with that case, you know, the one about the baby? We’ve been getting all calls about it, I tell ya.....”
“Let’s stay on task.” Millie barked, wishing he would just get on with whatever it was he had to tell them. Patience had never been her strong suit.
Officer James looked slightly offended, but he caught himself and got right back to business.
“Female. About thirty years old. Blunt force trauma to the head.” The cop reported as they stood over the naked body of a dark haired woman, her blue eyes open and staring vacantly at the ceiling.
On the shabby bed were a pair of pink hospital scrubs, a small suitcase containing infant clothing and formula and a pink iPhone. In one corner was a rolling crib, which was empty.
There was no sign of a disturbance having even taken place, as the room was in perfect order.
A seemingly finely calculated murder.
“Jesus Christ...” Sandy muttered with a shake of his head as Millie took a photo of the victim’s face with her cell phone. “How long ago do you think this happened?”
“Been dead a few hours, at least. I know you guys are working this case now...”
“Yeah, yeah...” Sandy said, nodding and then shaking his head again at the gruesome scene. “Car’s out in the parking lot, child’s car-seat in the back.”
“We have an I.D.?”
“Name’s Katherine Curtis, at least we think that’s her name.” the officer said.
“What do you mean?” Sandy asked, as Officer James handed him some papers.
“According to this, she’s a security guard at the hospital where that baby was stolen from the uh....” He said, snapping his fingers as if trying to remember the name.
“We know where it is. What else?” Millie interjected as she gave Sandy a look that told him Officer James was working her last nerve.
“No sign of the baby and the manager states that he never saw it when she checked in.”
Sandy took a good long look at the dead woman, realizing that it was the woman from the photo holding the baby. If she was here, then where was the Ashby baby?
“Anything on the phone?” Sandy inquired.
“Just one number, incoming a couple of times over the last forty-eight hours, and we’re putting a trace on it now to see whose it is. It keeps coming up as unknown.:”
“But why would she use her own phone? Most people would have gotten a burner phone....”Sandy pondered aloud.
Millie was staring at something just out of view on the stained carpet, underneath the hem of the ugly coverlet on the neatly made bed.
The object almost blended in with the nasty-looking carpet, and she’d barely seen it.
“You mean like this one?” she asked, squatting down and using her pen to move it from underneath the bed.
“Let’s get forensics on it.” Sandy said, “Probably belongs to the killer. Maybe we can get some prints off of it.”
Officer James nodded and headed outside and the manager took the opportunity to call into them.
Sandy noted that was a sad sack of a man, looking like the world was on his shoulders the way he stooped over as he moved closer to the doorway of the room. He had his eyes glued to Millie’s slender frame, a greasy smile appearing on his wrinkled face as he ogled her lustily. The minute she turned to face him, however, his entire demeanor changed.
“Hey, when are you guys getting out of here. It’s bad for business.” He snarled, peevishly.
Millie stared at him for the briefest of moments before a beguiling, but phony smile spread across her pretty face.
Sandy shook his head, exhaling heavily as he stared at the idiot manager who was about to get his ass handed to him on a platter.
“Since you have so much to say, Dwight.” Millie began, putting emphasis on the name she’d read on the plastic tag clipped onto his ratty shirt, “perhaps we can take a little walk to your office. We need to see your security footage and then we’ll be out of your...hair.”
“No way! I have to protect the privacy of my customers....”
“You mean the hookers that come through here every two hours whose pimp pays you to look the other way?” Millie asked, sweetly as the pudgy man’s face paled. “Maybe you’re right, I mean after all, we wouldn’t want to have to bring more attention to your motel now that the media is out there over the murder that just occurred here....”
“All right, all right....” The slimy guy said, grunting angrily as he muttered underneath his breath and gruffly ordered them to follow him.
Sandy and Millie followed the manager to the office, if you could call it that.
Old, yellowed glass surrounded the small building and inside was a beaten-up old counter surrounded by an iron cage-like structure to protect the occupant behind the desk. The floor was a black and white checkered design straight out of the sixties and looked as if it had been there as long. An old cigarette vending machine stood in one corner, a mangy old cat laying on the worn sofa next to it as it stared at them.
“She checked in a couple of days ago.” Dwight said, allowing them behind his counter and into the small room he used as an office to let them view his screen. “Told me she was staying just two days. Checkout’s promptly at eleven....”
“Anyone else with her?” Sandy interrupted brusquely, thinking of the baby clothes and formula.
Millie was starting to rub off on him.
“Nope.”
“Anyone unusual hanging around that you can remember?”
“No more unusual than normal, and I am familiar with most of my customers. Wait....there was this one couple.” The manager said, so very helpful where just moments ago he hadn’t been. “I’m not into all that girl-on-girl stuff, but I guess to each his own. Those two stood outside my front window for ages. I remember them now, because of the squalling brat they had with them. Got on my damned nerves.”
“What was so memorable about them?” Millie asked, impatiently, wishing that these people would just learn how to spit it out.
“They asked if they could wait for their ride inside because of the rain. Guess they were afraid that the kid would get sick.”
“Well, let’s have a look.” Sandy urged as the man nodded.
Dwight tapped a few keys as he searched for the video he was looking for.
“All up in each other’s faces...even with the baby there and all..ugh...” Dwight said, the disgust in his voice evident. “Just as I was about to tell them to take that shit somewhere else, some blonde guy pulled up in a black SUV and they all left.”
“When did all of this happen?” Sandy asked.
“Early this morning. Here we are.” Dwight said as the two detectives looked at the video of Joan Addams in a lip-lock with Carrie Ashby, who held her baby in her arms.
***
Sandy drove along the quiet street that Ryan and Carrie lived on and slowed down as he passed their house. Both cars were gone and the house was dark.
“Shit.” He hissed, as he drove on and parked on the corner, in the shadows before killing the engine.
“Want me to call it in?” Millie asked, as Sandy shook his head and sat back.
“Not just yet. I want to see if he’s going to come home. I dunno, Millie. Maybe the two of them orchestrated this. People sending in money and whatnot. That GoFundMe account is already in the one-hundred thousands. I checked. We both know that the Ashbys were having financial issues.”
“How do you think that?” she asked, her brow furrowing as she checked the passenger side-view mirror, “I don’t think the husband’s involved. Not if that video of Carrie Ashby is any indicator.”
“Maybe, but we talked to both of them at length and they appeared to be frantic parents, as would anyone who just had their child snatched.”
The blow to the victim’s head had been barely visible beneath her dark hair and there hadn’t been much blood. It was almost as if a professional had done it.
“What if he hired someone to do it.” Millie said, reading his very thoughts.
But before he could answer her, a grey Saturn VUE drove up to the Ashby house and turned into the driveway, slowly.
“It’s him, but I don’t see the wife.” Sandy said, pulling around the corner so that they could re-enter the block. He didn’t want Ryan to think that they’d been waiting for him.
Calm and cool.
They were just asking questions and seeing how much he knew.
He knew that this whole thing was going to get very nasty in the long run.
***
“Mr. Ashby.” Sandy called out as he approached the young man, who turned in surprise, “Can we have a moment of your time?”
“Detective Chandler?” Ryan said, relief on his face, “I am so glad you are here. I don’t know what’s happened to her....”
“To whom?” Millie asked.
“Carrie. Carrie is missing.” Ryan said, almost as if he couldn’t believe they didn’t know about it already. “That’s why you’re here right? I have been calling everyone we know to see if they’ve seen her. I get it. She needs her space, but I just want to be sure that she’s all right.”
“When did you see her last?” Sandy asked carefully, as Ryan sighed.
“Two days ago. We’ve been having....some....problems adjusting and she’s been under a doctor’s care. She left here Monday night, telling me that she was checking into some hospital. I just came from there and there’s no record of her.”
Sandy nodded thoughtfully, catching Millie’s eye.
“We’re definitely going to look into that, but we have some questions for you first. May we come in?”
“Sure.” Ryan said, leading the way as they all went inside the house.
He cut on the lights in the hallway and then went into the living room, turning a lamp on inside there as well. “Please.”
The detectives sat down on the sofa and he chose the loveseat across from them.
“You called us a few days ago and mentioned that Joan Addams moved away suddenly?”
Finally, Ryan thought, something is going to get done about her.
“She just vanished into thin air. We had no idea. My wife was very upset about that.”
“They were close friends, weren’t they?” Millie interjected.
“Pretty much.”
“What kind of relationship did you have with Ms. Addams?”
Ryan frowned as he shrugged in an off-hand manner.
“She was over here all the time, but mostly to visit Carrie. What’s going on with the search? She’s been gone for days now, no one’s telling me anything about our baby, and now my wife is God knows where!”
“Ryan, please understand that we are doing our best.” Sandy tried to assure him, using a gentle tone to show that they were trying to help him. “We have to get as much information as we can to help us get this taken care of.”
Ryan sighed heavily and was about to speak when Millie’s cell phone rang.
“Excuse me.” she said, answering it as she left the room and went into the hall. Sandy watched Ryan as he jiggled his leg nervously as he sat with his head in his hands.
The guy was a mess, and to the naked eye Ryan Ashby appeared to be a worried husband and father. He just couldn’t peg this guy for kidnapping his own daughter.
Primarily, they had checked out the bar that Ryan said he’d been at when Joan called him, so his alibi was solid.
A cafeteria worker confirmed that Joan had indeed been there buying coffee when the baby was moved from Carrie’s room to the nursery. That whole phone call in the stairwell thing was still sketchy though, and now they had no idea where Joan or Carrie were.
They needed to find the two women, and fast.
“Dee.” Millie called to him, ducking her head back into the room, her pretty blue eyes alight as Sandy nodded and stood up.
“We’ll keep you posted.”
“Please.” Ryan said, his eyes becoming moist as he shook his head. “I can’t lose them both.”
“I understand.”
Sandy heard the unmistakable sound of Ryan stifling his sobs as he left the Ashby house.