Her words were still coming at me in a rush, tumbling over each other. “You could still call the police on your own phone. Right now. I’m going to talk as long as I need to, and what with technology these days, I’m sure they could find me. But I have your baby in a sling, tied to me. Can you hear him breathing? We’re going to stay this close, me and him, until you and I are done. You do everything right, I’ll give him back. But if sirens or lights come on behind me, I will finish this here and now. I’ll break his flimsy neck. When I get where we’re going, if they breach my door or throw in a gas canister, I’ll twist his little head right around backward.”

I was swamped in so much fear and hatred then that I could barely breathe. My whole body yearned toward an unknown place where my baby was in a moving vehicle, bound to her body.

“I didn’t call the police.” Talking to her made me feel so cold. My teeth wanted to bang together. “Can you please at least put him in a car seat?”

She ignored that. “Who did you call.”

Not a question. Did she know, or was she guessing?

“Are you watching me?”

“My daughter has eyes on you.” I blinked, surprised she would tell me that. It was too bold, almost careless, like the way she’d stared into the camera. I didn’t want the woman who had my baby to be careless. I was even more surprised to hear her say “my daughter.” She was a mother? What mother could do this to another parent? “Who have you talked to?”

“I called a friend to take my girls. I didn’t tell anyone about you, I swear. Is Robert all right?” I could barely pull air into my twisted-shut lungs. I needed to become another woman, one who wasn’t too afraid to breathe. One who could think and be so careful and make all the right decisions.

“Please,” I said, and I meant a thousand things. Please give him back. Please tell me he’s okay. Most of all, Please don’t hurt him.

“He’s fine. Sleeping.” Then she added, “He’s . . . a good baby.”

Her words were grudging, but it almost sounded as if she liked him, or at least liked babies. And now I knew she was a mother, like me. This was good, a good thing to know about her. It might be hard for a mother to actually hurt him. I wanted to believe, so much so that it was dangerous, that it would be much harder than she’d made it sound when she talked about his fragile neck. I appealed to the only part of her that I could fathom.