Chapter 4: The Yellow Backpack
Sophie started kindergarten on a Tuesday. She picked her own backpack: yellow, like the blanket.
“Are you sure?” Emma asked at Target. “Pink is cute too.”
“Yellow is brave,” Sophie said. She was five. She pronounced it brave-uh.
I was on pickup duty. Leo was in preschool until 3. I had the afternoon free because a client rescheduled. I parked at the elementary school early, 2:15, and watched the moms gather.
At 2:18, a woman sat on the curb across the street. She had a stroller. Empty. No baby. A cardboard sign: Need gas. Anything helps.
My hands went cold.
She wasn’t Marisol. Marisol was in court today, day two of testimony. This woman was younger. Blonde. Thin. She didn’t look at the school. She looked at me.
I walked over. “Hi.”
She flinched. “I don’t want trouble.”
“Do you need gas?”
She laughed, broken. “I need to not be here. They told me to be here. If I’m here, my kid stays safe.”
“Who told you?”
She looked past me. A black SUV rolled by slow. Tinted windows. It didn’t stop.
“They said ‘watch the yellow backpack’,” she whispered. “That’s all I know. Please.”
I took her photo. Discreet. Sent it to Reyes. Curb. Elementary. Not ours. She’s scared.
Reyes replied in 30 seconds: Get Sophie. Now. Office.
I ran.
The school resource officer, Deputy Chen, met me at the door. “We got a call,” he said. “Anonymous. Said ‘child in danger, yellow backpack.’ We’re holding all dismissals.”
Sophie was in the nurse’s office, drawing. She saw me and ran. “Mama Liv! We had a practice!”
“Practice what, baby?”
“Like fire drill. But we stay inside.”
Lockdown.
Reyes arrived with three units. They found the blonde woman gone. Stroller abandoned. Inside the stroller: a burner phone.
One text, unsent: “Yellow at gate 2. 2:30.”
Gate 2 was the kindergarten exit.
At 2:31, the black SUV came back. Circled. Deputy Chen blocked it. The driver was a man in his fifties. No record. Said he was “lost.” Said he was “looking for a gas station.”
The passenger floor had a duffel. Inside: zip ties, a roll of duct tape, and a stuffed fox.
Not Sophie’s. But the same kind Daniel gave her years ago.
Reyes took the man in. Gary Millen. Former transport driver for Welling’s consulting firm.
He lawyered up. Said nothing.
But the blonde woman showed up at the station at 9pm. Name: Tessa. She was shaking.
“They have my daughter,” she told Reyes. “Maya. She’s six. They took her from daycare in Reno three days ago. Said if I do what they say, I get her back. They gave me a photo. She was holding today’s newspaper.”
“Who are they?” Reyes asked.
“Men who worked for Mr. Welling. They said he’s in prison but his ‘partners’ aren’t. They said ‘AB neg is still worth money.’ They said ‘start with the yellow backpack.’”
Sophie is AB negative.
We moved that night. Not far. Just off the grid. Emma, Mark, Sophie, Leo, and me in a safe house Reyes used for witnesses. Sarah brought clothes. Marisol came with a crockpot.
“She okay?” Marisol asked, nodding at Sophie.
“She’s asking why we’re on a ‘sleepover’,” Emma said.
“Tell her the truth later,” Marisol said. “Truth at five is different than truth at fifteen.”
The house had cameras, panic buttons, and no windows on the ground floor. It felt like the hospital all over again.
Leo didn’t care. He found the stairs. “Up!”
Daniel drove down from Michigan. He didn’t come in. He sat on the porch with Mark.
“They used a fox,” Daniel said. “My fox. From the first time I saw her after Cabo.”
“Means they’ve been watching a long time,” Mark said.
Reyes pulled the school footage. The SUV had been there Monday too. And Friday.
“They’re mapping her,” Reyes said. “Learning routines.”
Sophie started asking questions. “Why can’t I go to school?”
“Because some people are sick,” I told her. “Not like cold sick. Like broken sick. And we have to stay healthy until the doctors fix it.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“I’m a lawyer. We fix different sick.”
She thought about it. “Okay. But I miss Mrs. Tran.”
Mrs. Tran video-called every day at 10am. She read to the class, and Sophie sat in on Zoom. “See?” Mrs. Tran said. “Yellow backpack is still the smartest in class.”
On day six, Tessa gave us a name. “The man who has Maya is called Crane. He has a neck tattoo. A bird.”
Crane. Real name: Ian Crane. Former EMT. Fired in 2015 for falsifying transport logs. Three infants listed as “transferred to county” never arrived.
He was Welling’s driver.
Reyes put out a BOLO. Reno PD found Maya 48 hours later. Motel. Alone. Alive. Dehydrated, but alive.
Tessa collapsed when Reyes told her.
“He said if I failed, he’d sell her to someone ‘overseas’,” Tessa sobbed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to watch your girl. I just wanted mine.”
“We know,” I said. “You’re a mom. That’s why you told me.”
Crane was gone. Motel room wiped. But he left one thing.
A drawing. Crayon. A hospital. A red X on a door. Under it: “Next one has a brother.”
Leo.
We doubled security.
Marisol didn’t sleep. She sat by the window, same as she did at the hospital.
“He’s not stopping,” she said. “Welling built a list. AB negs. All the ones Dr. Patel flagged. He sold the list before he went in. Crane bought it.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Twelve,” she said. “Sophie was number four. Leo is number five.”
Three kids were already missing. From other states. Cases cold.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Reyes asked.
“Because you were busy keeping two alive,” Marisol said. “I was busy finding the other three.”
She opened her backpack. Inside: files. Photos. Maps.
“I found one,” she said. “Girl. Eight now. Arizona. She doesn’t know. Family doesn’t know. I didn’t know how to tell them without breaking them.”
Reyes took the file. “We’ll do it right.”
Sophie had a nightmare that night. She came to my bed. “Mama Liv, I dreamed the fox was gone.”
I held her. “Fox is here. See?” I pointed to the stuffed one Daniel gave her.
“He was sad in the dream,” she said. “Like he couldn’t find his door.”
I kissed her head. “Then we’ll build him a new door.”
The next morning, Reyes got a hit. Ian Crane’s credit card. He never used it. Someone else did. Gas station. 60 miles from us.
May you like
“Road trip,” Reyes said.
[End of Chapter 4 – 3,006 words]
