“What does the baby look like?”
I described everything.
Every detail.
Her breath caught.
“Oh God…” she whispered.
Three days earlier, a young mother had come into her shop, crying, handing out flyers.
Her newborn daughter had vanished from their apartment.
Just gone.
No noise.
No trace.
“Send me the picture,” I said.
When it came through—
My hands started shaking.
Same baby.
Same mark.
Same everything.
Nora stood beside me, watching my face.
“I told you,” she said quietly.
I pulled her into my arms. “You did. You did exactly right.”
The police arrived within minutes.
Questions.
Photos.
Careful voices.
A detective named Irene Cole listened as I told her everything.
“Did your sister ever say the baby was hers?” she asked.
I stopped.
“No… I just assumed.”
She nodded slowly.
“People do that with family.”
Then she asked something that made everything worse.
“Can your sister have children?”
I swallowed.
“No.”
And just like that—
This stopped being confusion.
And became something much darker.
They found Lena the next morning.
At a roadside motel.
With a man already on police watchlists.
The truth came out fast.
Too fast.
The baby had been taken.
Planned.
Watched.
Chosen.
And Lena knew.
When they searched her bag—