Baby Rescue Mission
Autorzy
Lisa Childs
Lektury
15,7K
Rozdziały
21
ONE
“Help me...please, help me...”
The voice, little louder than a whisper, emanated from the speaker on Renae Potter’s work cell phone, the one used exclusively for her job as a Child Protective Services investigator. The plea surprised her. In her seven years on the job, she’d heard more people deny that they needed help than she’d had people ask for it.
“Who is this?” Her question echoed inside the vehicle the State Department provided for her to use during an investigation.
She was on the road trying to track down a child whose teacher had reported concerns that her student was being neglected at home. The parents must have known that report was coming because they hadn’t sent their child to school today, though that might have been because of their neglect. They also hadn’t answered their phone or their doorbell. From the number of cars parked in the gravel driveway, she suspected they might have been home, but she couldn’t force them to open their door. And she had no grounds to involve the police yet, since the teacher had confirmed there were no signs of physical abuse on the student. Renae had tucked her card in their screen door. Maybe the child had found it.
After steering the vehicle onto the gravel shoulder of the highway, she put the transmission into Park, pushed her curly dark hair over her shoulder and focused on her phone. The number on the screen wasn’t in her contacts, so she had no idea to whom it belonged, just that it had the same area code as her work phone, so it was also in Coral County in northern Michigan.
“Help me,” the voice murmured again.
Maybe the little girl had found her card in the door. But even though the voice was faint and hard to understand, Renae didn’t think it belonged to someone as young as the first grader she was looking for.
“How can I help you?” she asked. That was what she wanted most, was why she’d gone into this field. She wanted to help people who needed help. Something she wished she’d been able to do long ago.
“Going...to kill me,” the voice rasped out of the speaker in a disjointed whisper. “If I don’t...give up my baby.”
“Who’s going to kill you?” she asked, her pulse beginning to pound fast and fierce, as fear gripped her. Fear for her caller and the child. “Are you in immediate danger?”
“Yes.”
Alarm shot through her. “We need to call nine-one-one—”
“Too late.”
“No, tell me where you are,” Renae beseeched the woman. “Tell me who you are. I’ll get help. I’ll come—”
“Too late for me,” the voice interjected again.
Despite how soft the raspy whisper was, it sounded faintly familiar. Since the young woman had Renae’s cell-phone number, they had probably talked before. Unless she’d gotten the number off Renae’s business card that she handed out while doing interviews or when she was looking to track down someone, like the one she’d just left in the screen door of the first grader’s house.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“Save my baby...please. He’s... He’s...” The faint voice trailed off.
“He’s where?” Renae prodded. “Where are you? I need to know where you—” The soft hum of static was gone as the line went completely dead and the call was lost. Renae worried that the caller might be as well. At least lost to her...
She pressed the number on the screen, trying to call it back, but got the service provider message: This call cannot be completed at this time.
Was it the woman’s phone? Was she out of range?
Renae’s worked when, desperate to help the woman, she placed her own emergency call to 911, identified herself and explained what had just happened. “We need to find this woman right away.”
“I’m trying to reach the number you gave me,” the dispatcher said, “but the phone must be dead. I’m just getting the message from the service provider.”
“Can you somehow locate the cell phone?” With how poor the reception had been, the young woman must have been using one. Or her voice could have cut in and out because she was injured and struggling to stay conscious. “She might need an ambulance, too. She’s in grave danger. And she has a baby.”
The young woman had said he when she’d asked Renae to protect him. She had a baby boy. Finally, Renae realized why the voice had sounded familiar. She’d recently interviewed the young woman. Ella...
“Ella Sedlecky!” she exclaimed. “That’s who it was.” Someone had called CPS on the single mother with the complaint that the nineteen-year-old was leaving her infant alone while she worked and entertained men. They’d also accused Ella of abusing drugs.
Ella had willingly submitted to a drug test, which had come back clean of all substances. With home visits, pediatrician reports and interviews with people who knew Ella, Renae had thoroughly investigated the claim and had found no evidence of neglect or inappropriate behavior on the part of the young mother. The complainant who’d called Child Protective Services had refused to identify themselves or provide any corroborating evidence to support the statement they’d refused to make in person. The number that had called in the complaint had been traced back to a pay-as-you-go cell.
Unfortunately CPS received too many calls like that from people just trying to make trouble for other people, and CPS and the police departments were stretched too thin to pursue the prank callers. Renae had asked Ella if she knew who might have reported her, but the young mother had claimed to have no idea. Renae had tried to question the woman’s ex-husband, who’d filed for divorce when his young wife had told him she was pregnant. He’d wanted nothing to do with Ella or their son, who he claimed wasn’t his.
Even though Ella had told Renae that she hadn’t cheated, she hadn’t wanted to force her ex to take a paternity test. She hadn’t wanted any involvement with him.
That had concerned Renae. She’d thought that Ella’s ex may have threatened her, but the young woman had insisted she wasn’t in danger and that nobody was threatening her or her baby. But now...
That person must have showed themselves to Ella. And maybe even hurt her?
“I need an officer and...” Her voice cracked, but she had to consider the reason why that call had dropped. “Have an ambulance meet me at...” She opened her laptop and frantically typed in Ella’s name to pull up the report. The report she’d closed at the conclusion of her thirty-day investigation a month ago. She shouldn’t have closed it before she identified the person who made the anonymous report, before she found whoever had tried to make trouble for the young mother who was already struggling to raise a child all on her own. But when the number couldn’t be traced, and Ella had had no ideas, Renae had been forced to move on to new cases, to protect kids that were genuinely in danger. Ella’s little boy had been safe, or so Renae had believed.
Please, God, help me help her and her son.
“Here’s the address I have for her.” Renae read off the street number and name from Ella’s case file. “I’m not that far away.”
“Miss Potter, you have to wait for police,” the dispatcher advised. “You can’t go there alone.”
It was as if she knew exactly what Renae was thinking. Knew about the urge tearing her apart inside...
Please, God, make sure that Ella and her baby are all right.
“Maybe the phone just died,” Renae said, then panic clutched her, pressing on her lungs as she considered the horrible alternative—that the young mother might be dead. “Or she lost the cell signal. That could be the reason the call ended. Maybe she’s totally fine.” She wanted to convince herself of that as much as she wanted to convince the dispatcher.
Please, God, let it be true—let her and the baby be okay.
But Renae had a horrible feeling that no matter how fervently she prayed, it was too late for her prayer for Ella to be answered.
“Because she admitted to being in danger, you cannot go out to her house alone,” the dispatcher continued. “You need to wait for the police to arrive and make sure it’s safe before you start any of your interviews.”
As a Child Protective Services investigator, Renae spent a lot of time doing interviews, talking to kids, parents, witnesses—determining the level of the threat, or if there even was one. How had she missed this one?
Because of the anonymous complaint, she’d been looking for the threat that the young mother posed to her four-week-old baby, but she hadn’t found one. She’d found instead a young woman who fiercely loved her baby and wanted to provide for him and protect him. Now she realized she should have tried harder to find out who had called in that complaint to CPS. Maybe they had been the real threat.
Although often times in situations like this, the caller was just some busybody or a jealous ex, Ella had insisted that her ex hadn’t been jealous, that he’d just wanted nothing to do with her and their baby, and she was too proud to force him.
Ella had been determined to take care of her baby and herself all on her own, supporting them with the wages and tips from her waitressing job at a restaurant in the nearby inland lake community of Coral Creek. The northern Michigan town was popular for fishing in the summer and hunting in the winter. But even with her tips and an inheritance from her grandfather, Ella had been struggling to support herself and her child.
Renae had tried to help them out with a referral to the financial assistance department of Human Services to get help with expenses like food and utilities and childcare. After meeting with Ella and interviewing the people who knew her, Renae had figured that the only real help the young mother had needed had been financial.
Not this kind of help. Not protection from danger.
The dispatcher’s voice emanated from the cell speaker. “The closest available unit is a state trooper. His name is Sergeant Mayweather.”
Since transferring to this county a few months ago, Renae had gotten to know some of the state police officers, but that name didn’t ring a bell.
“How close is he?” Renae asked. She typed the address from the report into her cell’s maps app. The address was for a mobile home that had been part of Ella’s inheritance, an old fishing “cabin” that her grandfather had retired to and where he’d raised Ella after her single mother died in a traffic accident.
“Fifteen minutes.” The voice came from the app on Renae’s phone, not from the dispatcher.
“Twenty,” the dispatcher said, but she was obviously referring to how long it would take the state trooper to reach the address Renae had given her. “You need to wait for Sergeant Mayweather, Miss Potter.”
Five minutes...
With a child in danger, those five minutes might be critical. They could be the difference between life and death. If he was left alone, he could choke on something, aspirate or, if he wasn’t alone, he might be in even more danger.
Ella’s last words to Renae echoed in her mind. Save my baby.
Frantic with worry for him and his mother, Renae quickly skimmed through the report on her laptop, trying to find the baby’s name. Simon Sedlecky.
Ella had named her baby after her beloved grandfather, and when Renae had interviewed her a month ago, the young woman had made it very clear how much she’d loved her baby, so very much that she would do whatever she could for him. If he was in danger, like his mother feared, Renae had to do whatever she could to save him, even if she had to break protocol.
When the radio call came in, Clark was farther away than he would have been if he hadn’t had an emergency of his own and had to sign out of service for a couple of hours. With his mom in the hospital from a fall at his house, he would have taken a personal day for the rest of the day—should have—but the local police post was already short-staffed. His mother, knowing that he was needed on patrol, had insisted he didn’t need to stay, that between his stepdad and her sister, she had everything covered. But leaving her and his young daughter...
While leaving them had been hard for him to do, it didn’t compare to what he’d done two years ago...when he’d buried his wife. His mom’s broken ankle wasn’t that serious, but he was still shaken over her getting hurt, especially because she’d been alone with his daughter at the time. Hopefully, this call was nothing, just a social worker being overly cautious.
He didn’t blame her. Miss Potter. That was the name the dispatcher had given him. He hadn’t met her before, but then he’d only been back on the road for a few weeks. After working as an instructor at the nearby state police training center the past two years, he’d been asked to resume patrol duties a few weeks ago due to the department being so short-handed. Miss Potter had probably started with Child Protective Services after Clark had made the switch to instructor.
CPS investigators tended to come and go, either because they got burned out with all the emotions and frustrations of trying to protect kids, or they got scared off because of the threats. Their job was sometimes more dangerous than his. At least he could carry a weapon and defend himself from an attack. CPS workers weren’t allowed to carry firearms or even pepper spray during their investigations. If they suspected they would be in danger during an interview or home visit, they had to request law enforcement to accompany them. To protect them.
Some were understandably cautious, while others took risks they shouldn’t. Risks like his late wife had taken. But Ann had been a police officer; she’d been armed and able to defend herself. She just hadn’t had time. The minute she’d stepped out of her vehicle to respond to a domestic-violence call, the suspect had fired at her, striking her in the head. She’d died immediately there in a driveway, while her backup had taken cover as the suspect fired at them before turning the gun on himself.
Clark’s heart ached, as it always did, when he thought of her, of the wonderful woman he’d lost. The mother that their nearly three-year-old daughter wouldn’t even remember, except in pictures from the past. He carried one of them, their engagement photo, in his wallet. Not their official one, but one of the outtakes where they were both laughing so hard at one of their inside jokes. They’d been friends so long that they’d had many of them. When Ann died, Clark hadn’t lost just his wife; he’d lost his best friend.
He blinked to clear his vision and peer harder through the windshield of the state police SUV. This far out in the country, the street signs were hard to find through all the overhanging branches and weeds growing up alongside the rural Michigan roads. But as he studied the area, he noticed a sign dangling from a bent post. On it was the name of the street he was trying to find. He released a shaky sigh as he turned onto the gravel road, past the mailboxes all bunched at the end of it. From the number of boxes, it was fair to conclude that there were five properties along the private drive, all set back from the road too far for him to see beyond the trees to the home.
There were a lot of areas like this in Coral County, places where old mobile homes that had originally been used as vacation properties were now inhabited year-round, despite not having enough insulation to hold up to the brutal Michigan winters. At least winter was a couple of months away yet, but the CPS investigator hadn’t requested law enforcement to accompany her while she evaluated a child’s living conditions.
According to the dispatcher, someone had called Miss Potter to request her help, had begged the CPS investigator to save the caller’s child. An ambulance had also been notified, but there weren’t many in the area, so it was definitely going to take longer to arrive. Hopefully, nobody needed more medical attention than his first-aid skills and kit could provide.
Clark wasn’t sure what the situation was. The dispatcher had said that Miss Potter only had her caller’s word that she was in danger. No proof. Maybe the call had just been a prank. Or something else...
A reason to lure her out here. There had been speculation that was the case with the domestic-violence call that had claimed Ann’s life. That the caller had just wanted to lure the cops to their death since nobody else had been found at the scene.
This area would be the perfect place for an ambush. It was so desolate he couldn’t even identify which driveways went with which properties, because there were no numbers, either on the trees or the posts near the road. Hoping his GPS was right, he followed its direction and turned into a driveway that was more dirt and deep ruts than gravel. What appeared to be fresh tires marks wound down it. He followed them to a sedan that was so covered with dust and dirt that it was hard to determine if it was black or gray or even navy blue. It was parked near a rusted-out metal mobile home. He must have found the right address, because beneath the layer of dust on the vehicle was a State Department logo on the door, and the equally dust-covered license plate was also State Department, so the CPS investigator had probably driven it here.
Clark peered through his windshield and through the sedan’s dust-covered windows. The vehicle was empty. Where was she?
Dispatch had advised her to wait for him. CPS workers went through training, so she had to know that was the protocol in situations like this. Where there was the possibility of danger, she had to wait for law enforcement to arrive first at the scene. Even when the police arrived first, like Ann had, it was sometimes still dangerous for everyone, including law enforcement.
Why hadn’t Miss Potter waited for him? Didn’t she know she could be risking her life? Maybe she hadn’t been on the job long enough to have had a close call, to know how dangerous a profession it could be.
He touched the radio on the collar of his dark-blue uniform shirt, reported that he’d arrived at what appeared to be the correct address and then pushed open the door. Just as he slid from beneath the steering wheel, a scream rang out, shattering the eerie silence of the rural countryside.
Since the dust-covered sedan was the only one here, that scream might be from the CPS investigator. Maybe she was alone. Or maybe she wasn’t alone, and she’d screamed because someone was hurting her. Clark unclipped his holster and withdrew his weapon as he started toward the rickety steps leading up to the door of the rusted mobile home.
He hoped he wasn’t too late...just as Ann’s backup had been too late to protect her, to save her.
He hoped he wasn’t too late to protect and save Miss Potter.
