Mine

Laura blinked. Her mind rejected the last three words. 'What? Taken him where?'

'From the hospital,' Ramsey repeated. 'Our people are checking all the exits right now. I want you to think carefully and tell me what this woman looked like.'

'She was a nurse. She said she worked on weekends.' The blood was roaring in Laura's head. She heard her voice as if at the far end of a long tunnel. I'm about to faint, she thought. Dear God, I'm really about to faint. She squeezed the nurse's hand and was met by forceful pressure.

'She wore a nurse's uniform, is that correct?'

'Yes. A uniform. She was a nurse.'

'Her first name was Janette. Did she tell you that?'

'It was… it was… on her name tag. Next to the Smiley Face.'

'Pardon me?'

'The… Smiley Face,' Laura said. 'It was yellow. A Smiley Face button.'

'What color was the woman's hair and eyes?'

'I don't -' Her thinking was freezing solid, but there seemed to be pulsing heat trapped in her face. 'Brown hair. Shoulder-length. Her eyes were… blue, I think. No, gray. I can't remember.'

'Anything else about her? Crooked nose? Heavy eyebrows? Freckles?'

'Tall,' Laura said. 'A big woman. Tall.' Her throat was closing up, dark motes spun before her eyes, and only the pressure of the nurse's hand kept her from passing out.

'How tall? Five nine? Five ten? Taller?'

'Taller. Six feet. Maybe more.'

Bill Ramsey reached under his coat and pulled out a walkie-talkie. He clicked it on. 'Eugene, this is Ramsey. We're looking for a woman in a nurse's uniform, description as follows: brown shoulder-length hair, blue or gray eyes, approximately six feet tall. Hold on.' He looked at Laura again, whose face had gone chalky except for red circles around her eyes. 'Heavyset, slim, or medium build?'

'Big. Heavyset.'

'Eugene? Heavyset. Got a name tag that identifies her as Janette, last name begins with an L. Copy?'

'Copy,' the voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.

'The button,' Laura reminded him. She was about to throw up, the nausea hot in her stomach. 'The Smiley Face button.'

Ramsey clicked the walkie-talkie on again and gave Eugene the extra information.

'I'm going to be sick,' Laura told Kathryn Langner, tears burning trails down her cheeks. 'Would you help me to the bathroom, please?'

The nurse helped her, but Laura didn't make it to the bathroom before she expelled her lunch. Laura, cold as death, slipped from the woman's grasp and fell to her knees onto the floor, and when she splayed there she felt the raw pain of the stitches tearing between her thighs. Someone was called to clean up the mess, Laura was returned to bed shivering and dazed with shock, and Ramsey allowed her mother back into the room with Miss Kingman. The young nurse had already told Laura's mother what was happening, and Ramsey sat beside the bed and directed more questions at both of them. Neither could recall the woman's last name. 'Lewis? Logan?' Ramsey prompted. 'Larson? Lester?'

'Lester,' Laura's mother said. 'That was it!'

'No, it wasn't that,' Laura disagreed. 'It was something close to Lester.'

'Think hard. Try to see the name tag in your mind. Can you see it?'

'It was Lester!' the older woman insisted. 'I know what it was!' Her face flamed with anger. 'Jesus Christ, is this your way of running a hospital? Letting crazy people come in and steal babies?'

Ramsey paid her no attention. 'See the name tag,' he told Laura while the nurse pressed a cold washrag against her forehead. 'Look at the last name. Something like Lester. What is it?'

'Lester, for God's sake!' Miriam insisted.

Laura saw the name tag in her mind, white letters on a blue background. She saw the first name, and then the last name came clear of its fog. 'Leister, I think it was.' She spelled it out. 'L-e-i-s-t-e-r.'

At once Ramsey was on his walkie-talkie again. 'Eugene, Ramsey. Call down to records and have them check a name: Leister.' He spelled it, too. 'Get me a printout when it's done. Metro on the way?'

'Double quick,' the disembodied voice answered.

'I want my baby back,' Laura said, her eyes deep with tears. Her mind wasn't truly registering what was happening; this had to be a gruesome, hideous joke. They were hiding David from her. Why were they being so cruel? She hung to sanity by the pressure of a nurse's hand. 'Please bring my baby back. Right now. Okay? Okay?'

'You'd better find my grandson!' Laura's mother was right up in Ramsey's face. 'You hear me? We'll sue your asses off if you don't find my grandson!'

'The police are on their way.' His voice was brittle with tension. 'Everything's under control.'

'Like hell it is!' the older woman shouted. 'Where's my grandson? You people had better have a damned good lawyer!'

'Be quiet,' Laura rasped, but her voice was lost in her mother's anger. 'Please be quiet.'

'What kind of security do you have around here? You don't even know who's a nurse and who's not a nurse? You let just anybody off the street come in here and take babies?'

'Ma'am, we're doing the best we can. You're not helping things.'

'And you are? My God, there's no telling who's got my grandson! It could be any kind of lunatic!'

Laura began to cry, hopelessly and in great pain. Her mother raged on as Ramsey took it with a tight-lipped stare and rain slashed at the window. His walkie-talkie beeped. 'Ramsey,' he said into it, and Miriam stopped shouting.

The voice said, 'Need you down in the laundry, pronto.'

'On my way.' He clicked the walkie-talkie off. 'Mrs. Clayborne, I'm going to have to leave you for a little while. Is your husband in the hospital?'

'I don't… I don't know…'

'Can you get in touch with him?' he asked her mother.

'We'll take care of that! You just do your job and find that baby!'

'Stay with them,' Ramsey told the two nurses, and he hurried out of the room.

'Get away from my daughter!' Laura heard her mother command. The nurse's grip relaxed and fell away, leaving Laura with an empty hand. Her mother stood over her. 'It's going to be all right. Do you hear me, Laura? Look at me.'

Laura lifted her face and looked at her mother through blurred and burning eyes.

'It's going to be all right. They'll find David. We're going to sue this damned hospital for ten million dollars, that's what we're going to do. Doug knows some good lawyers. By God, we'll break this hospital, that's what we'll do.' She turned away from Laura and picked up the telephone, dialing the house on Moore's Mill Road.

The answering machine came on. Doug wasn't home.

Laura lay on the bed and pulled herself into the fetal position, grasping a pillow against her. 'I want my baby,' she whispered. 'I want my baby. I want my baby.' Her voice broke, and she could speak no more. Her body, a hollow vessel, ached for her child. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out all light. Darkness filled her. She lay at the mercy of God, or fate, or luck. The world spun with her curled up in a tight, hurting ball and her baby stolen from her, and Laura struggled to hold back a scream that she feared might shred her soul to bloody ribbons.

She lost.

Part III – Wilderness of Pain

1: Pigsticker

You're absolutely certain you've never seen the woman before?

'Yes. Certain.'

Did she speak your first or last name?

'No, I don't… no.'