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“This is my house. I’m the father,” I said.
The officer didn’t look entirely convinced. Looking past him my eyes fell on Bella through the open front door pacing the living room. I called out to her.
Bella looked at me, her eyes large and wet, her cheeks soaked with tears as she rushed toward me. She pushed past the officer and ran into my arms.
“Gabe,” she sobbed into my shoulder.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m here now,” I said.
The officer reluctantly stepped out of our path and let me enter my house.
Bella walked me back into the living area, the rest of the house was blocked off. Ava was sitting on a couch alongside Lana, the nanny, and the rest of the staff was there too.
“What happened?” I asked no one in particular. I didn’t want Bella to relive the nightmare again. I held her close to me, her face buried in my chest as I stroked her hair.
It was Ava who answered and explained what had happened. How the babies were in their cribs asleep one minute, and without making a peep on the monitor, somehow disappeared from the house without anyone noticing.
“The police have questioned all of us,” Ava said, her eyes wet with tears. “But they aren’t telling us anything either.”
“The cameras, did anyone check the cameras I have set up?”
“The cops have those,” Bella reassured me, lifting her head up to look me in the eyes. “They’ve taken everything and have made them unavailable for us to view now too. They say it’s part of the investigation.”
“They haven’t told you anything?” I asked the room.
Everyone shook their heads.
“They say they will talk to us once they have something to share. They assured us they’re on the case.”
“They’re moving too slow,” Bella said, staring me in the eye. “They refuse to listen to me. Gabe, I know it’s my mom, she’s the one that kidnapped our girls, I know it. Our last phone call, she said she was going to start all over. This is what she meant.”
“You told them this?” I asked.
“I did, and they said they’ll look into it, but I don’t think they’ve sent anyone out to look for her. I know my mom, Gabe, she can just disappear and be a whole other person with a new identity, and we will never be able to find her.”
Her eyes bore into mine.
“You’re right,” I said. “And they haven’t sent anyone to investigate her?”
“Not that I know of, they just keep telling me that they’re handling it, but they don’t think she’s a suspect.”
“They don’t think a woman who kidnapped her first child was a suspect for kidnapping more children?”
“They don’t seem to believe me that I was kidnapped, since there’s no investigation or anything. I tried to explain, but they kept cutting me off.” Bella’s voice raised in anger and her normally pale skin was turning pink. She motioned toward the police officers standing in the hallway. “They seem more concerned with keeping us locked away here than actually finding our children.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I kissed Bella before stepping into the hallway and heading for the door.
The officer that hadn’t wanted to let me in was there, ready to stop me again. His nameplate read “Beekman.”
“You tried to stop me from entering and now you’re going to stop me from leaving?”
“We need to ask you some questions.”
“I wasn’t even in the state when my children were taken,” I said. I pushed past the officer and headed for my car. I expected other officers to follow me, and Beekman tried to stop me, but he wasn’t fast enough. I made it to my car and pulled out of the driveway with him shouting for me to come back.
If they weren’t going to check out Bella’s mom, I would do it myself.
Bella’s mother lived just south of the city. It had saddened me that even though she lived so close, she had never once visited Bella, not throughout the entire pregnancy or even afterward. I can’t imagine being a parent, living so close to your children, and not even coming over to visit when they had a baby, or in our case, four.But I reminded myself, she was likely not Bella’s real mother.
