Then I notice a familiar face in the crowd. Bobby Cilia has shown up. He’s organizing a dragnet throughout the hospital. We’ve been here before: janitor closets, pharmacies, bathrooms, ORs, ERs, supply closets.

Maybe it’ll work this time. Who knows? Maybe Bobby Cilia knows more about the whole situation than…Shit! In my brain everyone looks anywhere from shifty to evil to guilty, except, of course, me.

“Make sure we have enough men both in the basement and on the roof,” Cilia says. He talks into his cell phone. He seems to be saying “Okay” and “Got it” a lot.

Organizational decisions of who will do what and who will tell who are made. Officers get their instructions and disperse, but they’re soon replaced by new and different people. Officers, G-men, emergency medical techs.

From the far end of the nursery a nurse who is holding a clipboard yells, “People, people, we’re missing a baby. We’re missing Harman, six pounds, five ounces.” The nurse stops talking, pauses for a few seconds. Then she shouts, “We’re short one baby.”

The phrase “We’re short” feels as sharp as poison in my ear. The words. The word choice. It sounds so foolish, so much like We’re short of cash, We’re short of coffee, We’re short of paper. So simple. So stupid. I’ve got to hold it together. Now is definitely not the time to be a crazy person. My mind isn’t quite working right.

Maybe the baby who Keesha thinks is the Fontaine baby is actually the Harman baby. But with the Morabito baby missing…Why the hell is this sounding like a hideously unfunny riddle? Why is my head throbbing? Why are my eyes burning?

My confused thoughts are interrupted by one of the police officers. He thrusts a cell phone toward me and says, “It’s Detective Blumenthal. He wants you.”

I say, “Yes,” and Blumenthal starts jabbering.

“Listen, I’m going to loop you in on everything I know. I feel that I owe it to you.”

“No argument about that,” I say.

Damn it. I didn’t mean to be pouty or petulant. I meant to sound grateful. Wait, I meant to sound professional. No time to stop and explain.

“Listen,” he says.

Why does he always begin something he’s going to say to me with the word listen? And why the hell should I care? “I’m listening,” I say.

“Tracy Anne’s former boyfriend showed up here a half hour ago. He was busting to talk. He knows a lot more shit than even Troy knows. According to the boyfriend, Tracy Anne kicked him out of her life last month, so he’s in a big get-even mood.”

“What’d you find out from him?” I ask, even as I’m wondering if Blumenthal can hear my voice over the siren of his car.