Chapter 8 - Lily’s AmbulanceMaya did not scream.
That would have been easier.
She simply walked toward the door like the rest of us had ceased to exist.
I caught her before she reached the hallway.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my daughter.”
“You don’t know where she is.”
“I know she’s scared.”
Her voice was flat.
Deadly.
I understood then that desperation and courage can look identical when a mother has nothing left to lose.
Naomi Price moved quickly.
“We have highway alerts out. License plate readers are scanning.”
“That means nothing if they changed plates,” I said.
She looked annoyed because I was right.
Frank pulled up the Northbridge security footage on his tablet.
The video showed a loading bay behind the pharmacy. Two private ambulances idled under harsh white lights.
One carried an infant transfer unit.
The other carried a child on a stretcher.
Lily.
Small.
Curly-haired.
A pink blanket tucked under her chin.
A woman in scrubs climbed in beside her.
I froze the image.
“Zoom on the nurse.”
Frank did.
Maya leaned in.
Her breath caught.
“That’s Carla.”
“Who is Carla?”
“My case coordinator at Northbridge.”
In the footage, Carla Pierce looked directly at the security camera.
Then she smiled.
Not nervously.
Not accidentally.
She smiled because she wanted to be seen.
Beside me, Evelyn Shaw tapped her cane once.
“That woman is not running.”
“No,” I said. “She’s delivering a message.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number again.
This time it was a photo.
Lily sitting upright in the ambulance.
Awake.
An oxygen mask over her mouth.
Her eyes red from crying.
Below the image was a text.
One child for one bottle.
Maya made a sound that barely qualified as breathing.
I looked at the bottle we had taken from the kitchen.
“What is in it?”
Naomi’s medical evidence tech held it up carefully.
“We need a lab.”
“No time.”
Sam, still cuffed in the corner, whispered, “It’s the catalyst.”
Everyone turned.
“What catalyst?” Naomi asked.
Sam looked at me.
“If I tell you, I need protection.”
I walked over and crouched beside him.
“Sam, you are in my home, beside a stolen infant, after pointing a gun at me. Protection is no longer something you negotiate. It’s something you earn.”
His eyes darted toward Ryan.
Ryan had been silent since Evelyn arrived.
That silence was strategic.
Sam lowered his voice.
“Voss’s treatment doesn’t work without it. The biologic stabilizes the lungs, but the catalyst makes the response permanent. At least that’s what he claims.”
“Why put it in a baby bottle?” Naomi asked.
“Because it had to be moved cold and unnoticed. Nobody questions a mother carrying milk.”
Maya looked sick.
“He used me.”
Ryan finally spoke.
“He used all of us.”
I looked back at him.
“No, Ryan. You volunteered.”
His face hardened.
The next message came to my phone.
A location pin.
Brooklyn waterfront.
Thirty minutes.
Come alone with Maya and the bottle.
I showed Naomi.
She shook her head immediately.
“No.”
Maya said, “Yes.”
Naomi turned to her.
“Mrs. Santos—”
“My daughter is six years old,” Maya said. “She sleeps with a stuffed rabbit named Buttons because she thinks it keeps monsters away. She cannot breathe when she cries too hard. So unless you can promise me she’ll survive your procedure, I’m going.”
No one spoke.
I took my coat from Malik.
“Not alone.”
Ryan laughed quietly.
Every eye turned to him.
“You still don’t get it,” he said.
He looked at me with something almost like pity.
“Voss doesn’t want Maya.”
My blood cooled.
May you like
Ryan smiled.
“He wants you.”
