Walter returned home from work to the piercing cries of his baby son. His wife, Abby, sat at the kitchen table, her face etched with frustration, clearly overwhelmed by Logan’s relentless wails.
“Oh, honey,” he said, wrapping his arms around her from behind. “How long has he been crying?”
“I’ve tried everything, Walter!” Abby sobbed. “He’s been fed, changed, bathed, and burped! I even checked his temperature! Nothing works—he just won’t stop!”
Parenthood had turned their lives upside down since Logan’s birth a month ago, and nothing unsettled Walter more than their son’s cries.
“Let’s figure this out together,” he suggested gently, leading Abby to the nursery.
Approaching the crib, Walter expected to find their son, but instead saw a dictaphone playing the sound of a baby crying, accompanied by a note lying nearby. Stunned, he pressed the stop button, silencing the cries. Abby rushed in, confusion written on her face.
“What did you do?” she asked. Walter was too focused on the note he had just picked up. As Abby grabbed it from his hands and began to read, horror washed over them.
“I warned you—you’ll regret being rude to me. If you want to see your baby again, leave $200,000 in the luggage lockers by the pier. If you involve the police, you’ll never see him again.”
Abby gasped. “Oh my God! What does this mean? Who would do this? Was I rude to someone? Were you?”
Walter’s mind raced back to an incident at the hospital. He had lashed out at a janitor after accidentally breaking a gift for Abby—a cute bear-shaped pot. In his anger, he had yelled insults, and the janitor had warned, “You’ll regret this!”
“We need to go to the police,” Walter said, shaking off the memory. “It must be him.”
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