Page 59 of The Guilty Trial

She felt the blood drain from her face, felt the lobby tilt slightly before she forced herself to stay upright. It was an effort to keep her voice steady as every nerve in her body ignited at once. “My brother,” she repeated, and the words tasted foreign in her mouth.

She opened her mouth to say something, to scream, to demand they call the police immediately, but the young woman spoke again.

“And someone called for you just a moment ago. They’re still holding on the phone in the back office. They said it was urgent.”

Sarah stared at her for a beat that felt like an eternity. The lobby seemed to narrow around her, the cheerful murals on the walls and the tiny cubbies with children’s jackets becoming set pieces in a nightmare.

“Where?” she managed.

“Down the hall there, last door on the left.”

Sarah moved without any feeling in her legs. The narrow hallway stretched ahead of her, its walls lined with children’s artwork taped at varying heights, crayon suns and stick-figure families smiling down at her as she passed. Her heels were too loud on the tile floor, each step echoing in the confined space. Her heartbeat was thrumming in her ears as she stepped into the small administrative office. It was barely large enough for a desk and two filing cabinets, and the phone sat off the hook on the desk’s surface, its cord curled like a snake.

She snatched it up and pressed it to her ear. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end was calm and detached, stripped of any identifiable emotion or accent. “I have Lucas.”

Sarah gripped the edge of the desk. Her knuckles whitened around the phone’s receiver. “If you hurt him, I swear to God I will find you and I will end you.”

“Walk out the back door.” The man continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “There is a car waiting in the alley. You will get in the car. When you do, I will release your son. He will be returned to the daycare unharmed.”

Her mind swam dizzily. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“You have fifteen seconds to get in the car, or your son is dead. Do not test me.”

The line went dead.

Sarah stood frozen, the phone still pressed against her ear even though there was nothing left to hear. The dial tone hummed against her skin. She could feel her pulse hammering in her throat, could feel the room shrinking around her as the seconds began to tick away in her mind like a countdown she could not stop.

She looked toward the back door, a plain metal fire exit with a push bar, and then turned to look back down the hallway toward the lobby. Through the narrow corridor, she could see the edge of the front desk, and beyond it, through the glass entrance, the dark shape of the marshals’ SUV sitting in the parking lot. Two armed federal officers, trained for exactly this kind of situation.

All she had to do was run to them.

But all she could hear was the indifferent voice saying fifteen seconds, and all she could see was Lucas’s face, his dark eyes and the gap where he lost his first tooth last month. She could feel the way he curled into her side on the couch while they watched cartoons, the way he said “Mama” when he was scared, always drawing the word out into two long syllables that broke her heart every time.

Sarah turned and pushed through the back door.

The alley behind the daycare was narrow, flanked by dumpsters and the blank rear walls of adjacent businesses. A dark sedan idled ten feet away and its windows were tinted so black that the interior was invisible. The exhaust curled upward in thin wisps that dissolved into the evening air.

Sarah’s hands were shaking as she approached. Every instinct she had, every year of legal training that had taught her to evaluate risk and weigh options and never make decisions under duress, screamed at her to stop, to turn around and get the marshals. But the voice had said fifteen seconds, and she had already used them up.

She reached for the rear door handle and pulled it open.

The back seat was empty. A dark barrier, some kind of opaque partition, separated the rear compartment from the driver’s seat. She couldn’t see who was behind the wheel. The interior was clean and devoid of any personal effects. The leather seats were cold beneath her hand as she steadied herself and climbed in.

The moment she was inside, she heard the front passenger door open. Through the narrow gap where the partition met the seats, she caught a glimpse of small sneakers, a blue jacket, and dark hair. Lucas climbed out of the front seat and dropped to the pavement, and the door closed behind him.

Sarah lunged for her door, but it wouldn’t open. She pulled the handle again and again, slamming her palm against the window, but the locks held firm and the glass didn’t give. She tried the window controls, pressing every button within reach, but nothing responded. The child locks had been engaged, the windows disabled, the entire rear compartment sealed like a cage.

Through the tinted glass, she could see her little boy standing in the alley, small and bewildered, with tears running down his cheeks. He was looking around and turning in confused circles, searching for her. His mouth was moving, and though she couldn’t hear him through the glass, she knew what he was saying.

“Lucas!” She pounded on the window with both fists. “Lucas, go inside! Go to the door, baby, go inside!”

The car pulled forward in an unhurried manner, as if the driver had all the time in the world. The sedan rolled down the alley toward the street, and through the rear window, Sarah watched her son grow smaller, a tiny figure in a blue jacket standing alone in the fading light, his face crumpled and his arms reaching toward a car that was already gone.

She screamed his name until her voice broke, until the alley disappeared behind a corner and the sedan merged into traffic and Lucas was no longer visible, and even then she kept screaming, her fists growing raw against the glass.

Chapter Thirty-Four