Cradle of Lies

Blind Spots

Detective Sarah Chen rubbed her eyes and stared at the hospital floor plan spread across the conference table. Red X’s marked every camera location. Blue circles showed the blind spots. There were too many blue circles.

“Tell me again how a hospital loses a baby,” Detective Mills said from across the table. He’d been on edge since they’d arrived at St. Catherine’s that morning, his usual calm demeanor replaced with barely contained frustration.

“They didn’t lose her. Someone took her.” Chen tapped the floor plan. “The question is how they knew exactly where not to be seen.”

They’d been at it for six hours now, reviewing footage, interviewing staff, trying to piece together how a newborn had vanished from a locked maternity ward without triggering a single alarm.

“Walk me through what we know,” Mills said.

Chen flipped open her notebook. “Andrea Martinez, born Friday at 9:04 PM. Seven pounds, eight ounces. Mother is Maya Martinez, nineteen, no family support, father not involved. Baby was cleaned and examined, returned to mother around 9:30. At approximately 11:15 PM, someone claiming to be a nurse told Martinez they were taking the baby to the nursery. Martinez fell asleep. When she woke Saturday morning around 8 AM, no baby.”

“And the bassinet never left the room.”

“Right. Which means whoever took Andrea was carrying her. Probably wrapped in a blanket, looked like any other hospital worker moving around.”

Mills leaned back in his chair. “The mother’s story keeps changing. First she said they wheeled the baby out, now she’s not sure what she heard.”

“She’d just given birth. She was exhausted.” Chen had seen it before—witnesses whose memories shifted under stress, filling in gaps with what made sense rather than what actually happened. “Doesn’t mean she’s lying.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s not.” Mills pulled up something on his laptop. “Look at this. Social media posts from six months ago. She’s talking about how scared she is, how she doesn’t think she can do this, how she wishes she’d made different choices.”

Chen looked at the posts. They painted a picture of a terrified young woman, alone and overwhelmed. But that didn’t make her a criminal. “Lot of pregnant women have doubts. Doesn’t mean they hurt their babies.”

“But it gives us motive. Young, alone, no support system, publicly expressing regret about the pregnancy.” Mills closed the laptop. “We have to consider the possibility that she did something to that baby and staged an abduction.”

“With what body?” Chen countered. “We’ve searched the hospital top to bottom. Her room, the bathrooms, the trash, everywhere. No sign of the baby, no sign of harm. If she did something to Andrea, where is she?”

“Could have had help. Someone could have taken the body.”

“At 11 PM on a Friday night? Who? She doesn’t know anyone here. No friends, no family.” Chen shook her head. “I think someone saw an opportunity. Young mother, alone, vulnerable. Perfect target.”

A knock on the conference room door interrupted them. A uniformed officer stuck his head in. “The charge nurse is here. Rachel Morrison. You wanted to talk to her?”

“Send her in.”

Rachel Morrison was in her fifties, with sharp eyes and the no-nonsense demeanor of someone who’d spent decades in healthcare. She sat down across from the detectives with her arms crossed.

“I’ve been a labor and delivery nurse for twenty-eight years,” she said before they could ask a question. “Never, not once, have we lost a baby. This is a nightmare.”

“Walk us through your security protocols,” Chen said. “How does someone take a baby from this ward?”

“They shouldn’t be able to.” Rachel’s voice was tight. “Every baby gets an ankle monitor the moment they’re born. If they’re moved past certain checkpoints, alarms go off. Plus we have cameras, badge access, staff IDs. It should be impossible.”

“But it happened.”

“Yes. It happened.” Rachel looked down at her hands. “I’ve been trying to figure out how. The ankle monitor on Andrea Martinez was found in her bassinet. Someone removed it.”

Mills leaned forward. “Who would know how to remove it without triggering the alarm?”

“Any of the nurses. It’s not complicated—you just press two buttons simultaneously. We do it all the time when we’re moving babies for procedures.” Rachel’s expression darkened. “But we’re also trained to never, ever leave a baby unmonitored. If we remove the ankle tag, someone has to have eyes on that baby at all times.”

“So we’re looking for someone with medical training,” Chen said. “Someone who knows the protocols.”

“Not necessarily. Anyone could watch us do it and figure it out. Visitors, family members in other rooms. It’s not exactly classified information.”

Chen made a note. “Tell me about the staff who were working Friday night. Specifically, blonde female nurses in their twenties or thirties.”

Rachel frowned. “There weren’t any. We had two nurses on the maternity ward during the night shift—me and Keisha Washington. I’m brunette, she’s Black with red hair. Neither of us match the description Martinez gave.”

“What about earlier in the evening? Who was working the day shift?”

“Let me think.” Rachel pulled out her phone and checked something. “Day shift ended at six. We had Dorothy Bishop and Lisa Warren on maternity that day. Dorothy’s blonde—well, light brown hair. And she’s in her early thirties.”

Mills wrote down the names. “Tell me about Dorothy Bishop.”

“She’s been here about six years. Good nurse, reliable, knows the protocols inside and out.” Rachel paused. “She’s also very pregnant. Due any day now, actually. Friday was probably her last shift before maternity leave.”

Chen and Mills exchanged a glance.

“She was working Friday?” Chen asked. “She was here when Maya Martinez came in?”

“Maya came in around three PM, so yes, Dorothy would have been here for her admission and initial labor. But Maya didn’t deliver until after nine, and Dorothy’s shift ended at six.”

“Did Dorothy assist with the delivery at all?”

“No, she would have been long gone by then. Keisha and I handled it.”

“We’ll need to confirm exactly when Dorothy left the building,” Mills said.

“Is Dorothy a suspect?” Rachel’s voice was concerned. “I can’t imagine—she’s always been so professional. And she’s about to have her own baby.”

“Right now we’re just gathering information,” Chen said. “Was there anything unusual about Friday? Anyone who seemed out of place?”

Rachel thought for a moment. “Nothing that stood out. It was actually a pretty quiet day until Maya came in. We had one other delivery earlier in the afternoon, but that was routine.”

“Did Dorothy spend much time with Maya Martinez during her shift?”

“I’d have to check the charts, but probably. She would have done the initial intake, checked vitals, gotten her settled. Standard procedure.”

After Rachel left, Chen and Mills pulled up Dorothy Bishop’s employee file and badge access records.

“Says here she clocked out at 6:14 PM Friday,” Mills said, reading from the system. “Used her badge to exit through the staff entrance at 6:22 PM. And that’s the last recorded use of her badge that day.”

“So she left and never came back.”

“According to this, yes.”

Chen stared at the screen. “But Martinez said a blonde nurse took her baby around 11 PM. Rachel just told us there were no blonde nurses working the night shift. And Dorothy—the only blonde who matches the general description—left at 6:22.”

“So either Martinez is confused about what the person looked like—”

“Or someone who wasn’t supposed to be here came back. Without using a badge.” Chen pulled up the security footage. “Let’s look at everyone who entered the building Friday evening without badge access.”

They spent the next hour reviewing visitor logs and footage. Dozens of people came and went—family members, friends, delivery people. At 9:47 PM, a figure in street clothes entered through a side entrance that someone had propped open. The person was wearing a jacket with the hood up, face obscured.

“There,” Chen said, pausing the footage. “No badge swipe. They just walked in.”

They tracked the figure through the hallways. The person clearly knew where they were going, avoiding main corridors, staying in areas with poor camera coverage. At 10:31 PM, the figure appeared in the maternity ward, now wearing scrubs.

“They changed clothes,” Mills noted. “Somewhere off camera.”

“Someone who knows this hospital. Knows where the blind spots are.”

They kept watching. At 11:17 PM, the person entered Maya Martinez’s room. Four minutes later, they emerged carrying something bundled against their chest.

Chen paused the footage, studying the figure. “Look at the profile.”

Mills leaned closer. “What am I looking for?”

“The stomach. The way the jacket fits.” Chen pointed. “This person isn’t pregnant.”

Mills squinted at the screen. “You’re right. Even with the loose jacket—if she was nine months pregnant like Dorothy Bishop, you’d see it. This person has a flat stomach.”

“So it’s not Dorothy.”

“Unless she already had her baby.”

Chen checked the date on the footage. “This is Friday night. If Dorothy just had her baby, she’d be in a hospital somewhere. Not walking around stealing someone else’s.”

“True.” Mills sat back. “So we’re looking for someone who knows the hospital layout, knows the protocols, matches Martinez’s description of a blonde nurse—but isn’t actually pregnant.”

“Could be a former employee. Someone who used to work here and still knows the routines.”

“Or someone who’s been observing. Learning the patterns.”

They continued tracking the figure through the footage. The person moved quickly toward a stairwell—no cameras. Then emerged on the ground floor, back in street clothes, the bundle still held close. At 11:34 PM, they left through the same side entrance they’d used to enter.

“Can we get a better angle on the face?” Chen asked.

Mills worked with the footage, enhancing what he could, but the person had been careful. Hood up, head down, face always turned away from cameras.

“Height and build?” Chen suggested.

“Average. Maybe five-five, five-six. Slender build. Definitely not pregnant.”

Chen made notes. “So Dorothy Bishop is probably not our suspect. But she was here Friday afternoon. She met Maya Martinez. She might have seen or heard something useful.”

“Still worth talking to her.”

“Agreed. But let’s also pull records for former employees. Anyone who left in the last year or two who might still have access or knowledge of the building.”

They spent the next hour interviewing the other nurses. Lisa Warren, who’d worked alongside Dorothy on Friday, said everything had seemed normal.

“Dorothy was tired, but we all are at the end of a shift. Especially when you’re nine months pregnant.” Lisa twisted her hands in her lap. “She was excited about maternity leave starting. Talked about finally getting the nursery finished.”

“Did she interact with Maya Martinez?”

“Yeah, she did the intake. I remember because Maya was so young and scared, and Dorothy was really sweet with her. Told her she’d be fine, that lots of women do it alone.”

Chen wrote that down. “Did Dorothy seem particularly interested in Maya’s case?”

“No more than usual. I mean, we’re nurses—we care about all our patients.”

“And she left at her normal time?”

“Yeah, right at six. I saw her clock out. She was complaining about her feet hurting—you know, pregnancy stuff.”

“Did you notice anything unusual that evening? Anyone who seemed out of place?”

Lisa thought for a moment. “Not really. It was pretty quiet until Maya came in. Then it was just the normal chaos of labor and delivery.”

After Lisa left, Mills pulled up a list of former employees. “Twenty-three people have left the maternity ward in the last two years. Twelve of them were nurses.”

“Start with the nurses. See if any of them match the general description—blonde, female, late twenties to thirties.”

Mills scrolled through the files. “Here’s one. Jennifer Cole. Left eight months ago. Blonde, thirty-one, worked here for four years.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Doesn’t say. Just that she resigned.”

“Let’s find out where she is now. And pull footage from Friday—see if she’s our mystery visitor.”

Chen stared at the frozen image on the screen—the hooded figure carrying a bundle out of the hospital. Somewhere out there was a stolen baby. And somewhere out there was a woman who knew exactly how to make a newborn disappear.

“We’re missing something,” Chen said quietly. “This was too clean. Too well planned. Whoever did this has been thinking about it for a while.”

“Premeditated.”

“Definitely.” Chen turned back to the computer. “Let’s keep digging. Someone out there knows this hospital. Knows these protocols. And took Andrea Martinez for a reason.”