The Waiting Room

by Emily Bleeker

  When the line went quiet and Veronica was alone again, waiting for the officers that would soon be at her door with lights and guns and answers, her foot hit something wet, her toes sinking farther into the expensive Oriental rug, immersed in the wetness. Instinctively, she picked her foot up and yanked it back, and it fell into the slat of light that illuminated the whole scene grotesquely.

  Blood. Her foot was covered in it.

  She held back a gasp and wrapped her arms around her midsection, her stomach lurching. Was that her mother’s blood? Veronica slapped her foot back down on the carpet and wiped as if she were trying to get dog poop from her shoe, but there was more there, a circle of blood on the carpet about the size of an orange, and a trail of crimson leading down the hardwood of the hallway.

  “Ma?” Veronica shouted. “Ma? Where are you? You okay?” She ran to the foot of the stairs and called again. “Ma! You up there?” She dialed her mother’s phone number and held the phone to her ear. The trill of her mother’s ringtone sounded upstairs.

  She dashed up the stairs, but as she rounded the top, the ringer went silent and the phone went to voicemail against her ear. Veronica skidded to a stop in front of her mother’s bedroom door. The room was empty—no missing daughter, no blood trail, and no mother. She raced into the bathroom and Veronica’s bedroom . . . but her mother was gone.

  What the hell? Where was her mother? Why was there so much blood? Holding the phone to her chest, Veronica leaned against the doorjamb of her mother’s room and let the panic roll over her. The police would be there soon, and they’d have questions, more than the operator had asked, and Veronica wouldn’t have very many answers. There were really only three things she knew for sure right now. First, her baby was missing, second her mother was gone, third there was blood on her floor and a lot of it . . . What would they think?

  She’d heard of triage, taking the man with a severed finger before the kid with a broken arm. Missing baby before missing old lady. She had to move fast.

  Veronica pushed off of the wooden door frame and slipped the phone into her bra. With a quick shift of a couch and some baby wipes for the droplets of blood in the hall, she could hide it until her mom came home and the police started to search for the stranger who had taken Sophie and not focus on Veronica, the only one in her family left standing.

  CHAPTER 13

  Veronica toggled the rewind tab again and pulled it backward, making the numbers on the screen flash by in reverse order. A uniformed officer watched the camera’s video recording over her shoulder as the sound of flashes popping echoed throughout the house. They’d been there for two hours already.

  She told them that Sophie was missing from her bed this morning, about leaving her mother to care for Sophie the night before. They had her run through every detail of her night and returning home and then waking in the morning to the empty crib. Then she tried to explain why her mother was missing in action. She told them about the fight and even about telling her mom to leave but left out the physical confrontation and the blood on the carpet. She’d considered making up a story but decided instead to be as honest as possible, while leaving out any details that might make the officers lose focus. Veronica was heartsick about her confrontation with her mother, but she wasn’t going to let an argument get in the way of getting help for her child.

  But it wasn’t easy to keep the investigation on track. When they found her mother’s car missing but her purse and phone by her bedside, she could feel the tone in the house shift. None of it looked very good, even without the blood spot just waiting to be discovered under the loveseat in the front room. Not to mention that the most recent recordings from Sophie’s room were blank and no alarm, inside or outside, had been triggered that night.

  Veronica tried to tell the investigators that she’d turned the camera’s recording function to live feed when she’d been reviewing the recordings from the break-in so that the footage wasn’t automatically overwritten. And then she spelled out the details of the alarm, explaining it wasn’t set for the night, because Veronica was supposed to have put in the code when she got home from her night out. But after a while, no matter what she did or said, there was always a barely veiled tone of suspicion lacing every question.

  There were only two people Veronica knew for sure had nothing to do with Sophie’s disappearance and that was her mother and herself, and she could already tell that the police had both of them on the top of their suspects list.

  At least they were finally taking pictures of Sophie’s room and lifting fingerprints. Maybe they’d get lucky and find one that didn’t match the samples they’d taken from Veronica and from her mother’s room. In an effort to keep the focus on who took her child, Veronica was trying to show Officer Burdick the anomaly on the recording from Sophie’s room on the day the alarm went off, since it was the only recent recording they had to investigate. As her frantic mind was tossing the pieces together the best it could, it kept landing on this moment in time as being significant.

  “Here it is!” She hit pause and gestured for the officer to look over her shoulder. The black-and-white image of an empty nursery sat frozen in front of them. She set the speed to half time and then pressed play. At first there was nothing but the slow-motion flicker of the curtains nipping at the frame. But then it happened . . . a bright flicker of light off in the corner coming from the other side of the room where the door stood open just off screen. It was brief even in slow motion, but after rewatching what she’d thought was the sun playing off the mirror hanging in the crib, it started to look like something else—something familiar—a camera’s flash.

  “I still don’t see anything,” the officer muttered, and started to stand up.

  No one was listening to her. No one seemed interested in the fact that an alarm had gone off in her baby’s room just four days earlier. They wanted to know if she’d seen Sophie in the crib last night; where her mother was; when she moved to town; where they could find a copy of Nick’s death certificate, Sophie’s birth certificate, hospital records; and other totally useless information. And of course they also wanted to know why there were open bottles of alcohol on the counter. She’d tossed them a box of documents she’d collected over the year and then convinced Officer Burdick to follow her to the computer, which they’d probably take into evidence soon enough, but she didn’t trust them to look at the videos closely enough without her being there to help. He’d been on babysitting duty ever since the rest of the house got turned upside down.

  “Right here,” she said as she jabbed at the screen with her stubby nail. With a quick rewind and play, she showed the same scene again in half speed. At exactly 3:54 p.m., a flicker of light spread across the screen and then receded just as quickly. “A flash, like from a camera. Someone was taking pictures in my baby’s room.”

  Officer Burdick squinted and leaned in closer. Veronica’s confidence swelled. She finally had his attention. She toggled the bar back one more time and pressed play, this time reducing the speed another quarter. The film quality wasn’t strong enough to show much detail in slow-mo, but the flash came through nice and clear.

  “Well,” he said, clearing his throat and standing up to full height, hands on his hips. “There was some light there, but I’m not sure . . .” He looked at Veronica and then at the door to the office. “Let me go see if we can get someone with more experience to look at that file.”

  Finally. They were going to listen to her.

  Veronica rewound the film three more times, once taking it one frame at a time. It was a camera’s flash; she was sure of it. She shifted in the chair, the faux leather speckled in paint stuck to her nearly bare thighs sticking out of the dress she still wore from the night before. She probably looked like a huge mess, but she didn’t care. Where was Sophie? Was she hungry? Who took her? Did they have diapers or bottles or blankets? Did they care if she was crying? Was she already dead?

  Her brain spun in a thousand directions to consider every p
erson she’d ever encountered as a possible kidnapper—like the babysitter she’d interviewed a few weeks ago or the cable guy who’d installed a receiver in her mother’s room two months ago. Both knew the layout of her house. Both knew the age and sex of her baby. Both made comments about her daughter that seemed innocent and friendly at the time but maybe were a spark of something more. Something dangerous.

  She would give anything to take back the past seven months of dysfunction and hold her baby right now, comfort her cries, nurse her, pat her back till she burped. “Please, God,” she closed her eyes to the screen and the frozen flash and prayed, not sure whom she was even praying to, “Please let me see her again. Let me have another chance. Please.”

  Two officers entered the room, one tall, slender man with a buzzed haircut and one official-looking woman in a tailored uniform, bulletproof vest, and low ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her hand rested on her gun. Behind them was Officer Burdick. Veronica took them in, glancing at their faces for a clue as to whether she really was getting help. But the hard set of the female officer’s jaw and the nervous shuffle of the tall officer’s feet set a lump of cold coal in her stomach. They hadn’t come to see the video.

  “Mrs. Shelton, can you come with us?” The stern female officer yanked her head toward the door.

  Two hours earlier when the officers showed up after her initial 911 call, just one at first and then a few more trickling in, finally it felt like half the squad was there, but they all had one thing in common: this sad, pitying look on their faces. It didn’t help that Veronica was nearly hysterical, most words coming out in halting phrases with deep sobs between.

  It wasn’t until the first responders had gotten her a drink of water and a soft-voiced female officer in plain clothes explained the importance of clear and concise communication that Veronica was able to get her terror under control and explain what had happened with some sort of coherence. But even when she’d calmed down and started to explain the events of the past twelve hours and found the composure to take out her phone with shaking hands and pull up the most recent picture of Sophie, that look of pity didn’t leave. They pitied her because they knew that if they didn’t find her baby soon, that was the last picture she’d ever take of her baby. They didn’t think she’d ever see Sophie again. She hated that look.

  But Veronica now realized there was something worse than their pity. Because now that look of compassion was gone and something else was in its place. It was hard to put a finger on it, but it scared her.

  “Is it Sophie?” She half stood up behind the desk, hope adding some buoyancy to her movements.

  The officer put up her hand and patted the air. “No, no. I’m sorry, we just need to ask a few more questions. That’s all.”

  Veronica took a deep breath and blinked rapidly, her contacts sticking to her eyeballs after being slept in. She could hardly hold back her frustration. Any distraction, any red herring would take them away from finding her daughter.

  “Officer Burdick wanted me to show you something on my computer. Come here. I’ll show you.” Veronica waved her hand, the anxiety growing inside her, her skin humming as if it were charged with electricity, panic building in her back and chest.

  The female officer nodded. “Yes, you can leave it there and we will definitely look.” She took a step forward and put out her hand aggressively. “But you’ll need to come with us now. Please.”

  Veronica looked at the screen and then back at the officers, then back at the screen, her hands balling up on the paper-covered desktop, defeat pouring over her like a bucket of cold water. She glared at Officer Burdick, but he was staring at the floor. They weren’t going to look. Damn it.

  “Fine.” She slammed one of her closed fists on the table, grabbed her phone, and stood up, a shower of white papers cascading to the ground. With the computer still open and screen paused, Veronica walked into the group of stiff and stern-faced law-enforcement officers, hoping that one of them would get curious enough to watch. Burdick passed Veronica, entering the office as she was leaving it. He tried not to look at her, but she didn’t break her stare, hoping she could compel him to continue the path they’d started on together, hoping she could pull one person to her side. But then he did meet her gaze, and any thoughts of having a like-minded helper in this man disappeared. All she saw there was disgust.

  What the hell is going on?

  “Did you find my mom yet? She was here last night. She knows more than I do. I was out at . . .” She almost said, “at a bar,” but then thought better of it. They already asked about the bottle of wine on the counter and how many drinks she’d had at dinner the night before. “I was out at dinner with my friend Gillian.”

  They didn’t respond, just walked behind her in silence as she went down the hall, passing Sophie’s taped-off room and descending the stairs. There was a palpable tension in the dining room, and nearly a dozen eyes focused on her when she walked in. The number of official-looking people seemed to multiply exponentially, a fact that should have brought relief, but for some reason the more investigators and detectives that poured into her house, the higher her pulse jumped. The anxiety she was already fighting with every weapon in her arsenal was now sitting on her shoulders like an invisible specter that grew with every set of eyes that stared her down. She didn’t trust that monster; that monster hurt her mother and made Veronica act irrationally. She had to shake it off, stay calm, do it for Sophie.

  “Mrs. Shelton, so nice to meet you.” A heavyset man in a tan suit with a bad comb-over stretched his hand out to Veronica. There was no going back; the uniformed officers that had escorted her to the dining room made a wall behind her, and the doorway into the kitchen was behind the detective. She felt like that coyote from Gillian’s husband’s story, injured, rabid, scared, and trapped. “I’m Detective Perry. I’m heading up the investigation here. Maybe we could find somewhere quiet to talk. What do you think?”

  “I . . .” Her mouth went dry, and she had to swallow before trying again. She didn’t want anything to do with this man. He didn’t want to help find Sophie, at least not in any way that would actually work—she could tell that already. He had his own story in his mind, and she wasn’t going to change it. “I already talked to Officer Burdick. I was trying to show these officers some . . . uh . . . a video of my daughter’s room. There was a home invasion earlier this week, or I think there was because the alarm went off in Sophie’s room, and then on this video . . . I can show you.” She pointed toward the top floor of the house and tried to take a step back but ran into the tall officer.

  “I would love to, Mrs. Shelton, but first I’d like to chat.” His voice was calm and gentle, as though he were talking to a five-year-old who didn’t want to go into kindergarten for the first time. “I have a few questions that Officer Burdick didn’t ask you. I’m really hoping you can help me out.”

  She had no other choice. They briefly passed the living room, where it seemed the slightly askew furniture and the bloodstain underneath it hadn’t been noticed—yet. One positive, but the only one she could identify, and by the time she reached the overstuffed couches, Veronica was shaking.

  “You should sit down,” Detective Perry said, pointing to the love seat as though he had lived there his whole life and Veronica was just visiting. “I’m sure this has been a very difficult day for you, but there are a few items we are finding very difficult to understand. Perhaps you could clarify a few details.”

  Veronica kept her feet planted and grasped her hands in front of her, her phone clasped between, to hide the shaking. They found the blood. They found it and now they thought terrible things about her. They thought she hurt her mother and maybe even her baby.

  “Listen, this is getting ridiculous. You need to listen to me right now. Someone has taken my daughter. It’s not my mom. It’s not me.” Her voice caught in her throat momentarily at the thought of her mother. Triage, she reminded herself mentally. Sophie first, then Barb. She cleared her
throat, refocused, and continued. “That person was in my house five days ago taking pictures of her room. Probably preparing for this crime.”

  There wasn’t an ounce of real concern in the detective’s eyes, only a suspicious look that lingered there like the smoke over a cake after the birthday candles had been blown out. He walked past her and found his own place on the couch that was kitty-corner to the love seat he kept pointing to.

  “You can tell me all about it when you calm down.” He talked to her like he already knew every bad thing she’d ever said or done. He pointed at the seat again. “Come. Sit.”

  She would break that condescending finger if he kept pointing it at a seat she was never going to sit in. She stomped her foot, tired of being “calm,” tired of being the only one who seemed to give a shit that there was an empty nursery upstairs.

  “I won’t sit down. All of you are sitting down on the job right now.” She raised her voice, hoping the clump of useless detectives and officers in the dining room could hear her. “My daughter is getting farther and farther away from me! I called you to help me, not to have a coffee break in my dining room. I’ve yet to hear anything about an Amber Alert or . . . or . . . closing down roads or . . .”

  She didn’t know much about child abductions, but she certainly expected more urgency than she’d seen so far. They were getting distracted by all the wrong things; she knew it. They had to stop looking at her mother and start looking at the recordings and interviewing all the random people in her life that might have something to do with this crime.

  Detective Perry nodded his head slowly like he was trying to process her explosion and then placed his hands on his thighs, his calm demeanor only stoking Veronica’s volatile emotions further.