I entered my home to a wall of sound—the ear-splitting, inconsolable wail of my newborn son, Logan. My wife, Abby, sat at the kitchen island, her head buried in her hands.
“All day,” she sobbed. “He’s been crying all day. I’ve checked his diaper, fed him, bathed him, burped him. I even took his temperature. Nothing works!”
I took her hand and led her toward the nursery. “Let’s go together,” I whispered. “Maybe Daddy can figure this out.”
Approaching the crib, the solid wooden frame hid Logan from view. I detoured to close the blinds, thinking the light was bothering him. I started humming a soothing tune and prepared a game of peek-a-boo to distract him.
“Where’s my little nugget?” I chirped, stepping toward the crib and throwing my hands open. “There he—”
The words died in my throat. The crib was empty. In Logan’s place sat a dictaphone and a folded note. I hit ‘stop’ on the device, and the recording of Logan’s cries vanished instantly.
“What did you do?” Abby called out. “How did you stop him?”
With trembling hands, I opened the note. “I warned you that you’d regret being rude to me. If you want to see your baby again, leave $200,000 in the luggage storage lockers near the pier. If you go to the police, you’ll never see him again.”
My mind flashed back to the maternity hospital—a janitor I had snapped at after tripping over his broom. He had hissed, “You’ll regret it!”
“It’s the janitor,” I told Abby. We tried to go to the police, but as we pulled up, a text hit my phone: “First and last warning. Enter that station, and your kid goes into the bay.”
The kidnapper was watching us. Panic-stricken, Abby suddenly grew ill, vomiting on the station steps. I rushed her home and promised to handle the ransom. I went to the bank, but instead of real cash, I filled the bag with fake bills. I wasn’t going to let this criminal win.
At the pier, I dropped the bag in the locker and watched from a distance. I saw the janitor in his distinctive flashy shirt grab the bag. I followed him through the city into a bus station, where I finally pinned him against a locker.
“Where is my son?” I roared.
“I was paid $100 to pick up a package!” he pleaded. “I don’t know anything about a baby!”
Looking into his eyes, I realized he was telling the truth. He was just a pawn. I checked the locker he’d just used—it had a hole cut in the back. The real kidnapper had already taken the money and vanished.
Defeated, I returned home, only to find the house eerily silent. Upstairs, Abby’s side of the closet was bare. Even her hand lotion was gone. It hit me like a physical blow: the “kidnapping” was a setup. Abby’s sudden illness, her insistence on the ransom—she was the one who had taken Logan.
Determined to find my son, I raced back to the maternity hospital. I bribed a doctor to call Abby with a fake medical emergency. “Mrs. Taylor,” the doctor said into the phone, “we found a rare genetic condition in Logan’s records. He needs treatment immediately or it could be life-threatening.”
The bait was set. Within an hour, my brother James walked into the hospital lobby with Logan in his arms, Abby right beside him. Before they could reach the desk, FBI agents I had tipped off swarmed them.
“You’re under arrest!” they shouted.
Abby shrieked, “My son is sick! He needs help!”
“No, he isn’t,” I said, stepping into view. “There’s nothing wrong with Logan.”
As the police restrained a fuming Abby and my treacherous brother, I finally reached out and took my son into my arms. The “crying” that had started this nightmare was finally over.
