and disappeared near an old church on West Newton that had closed after flood damage.\n\nAndrew told Lena to keep the police updated but not to send a crowd ahead of him.

“If she sees uniforms first, she’ll run again.”\n\nThe basement door of St.

Barnabas hung half-open, swollen from damp.

Cold air poured out of it like a warning.

Andrew took the thick blanket from the back seat, a fresh bottle of formula, and went inside alone.\n\nThe church basement smelled of wet stone and dust.

Moonlight leaked through fractured stained glass and laid broken colors across the floor.

At first he saw nothing.

Then a tiny movement near the far wall.\n\nRuth was crouched on a folded tarp, the store bags stacked beside her.

Samuel lay wrapped in the new blanket while she tried to warm the bottle between her hands.

Her face lifted at the sound of footsteps.

Relief flashed across it for one breathtaking second.\n\nThen she saw who it was, and relief turned to terror.\n\n“Please don’t call them,” she whispered.

“Please.”\n\nAndrew stopped several feet away and knelt so he would not tower over her.

“Ruth, Samuel needs a hospital.”\n\nHer arms tightened around the baby.

“They’ll take him.”\n\n“Who told you that?”\n\n“No one had to.” Her voice cracked.

“I heard them.”\n\nSamuel let out a thin, exhausted cry that barely sounded like a baby should.

Andrew’s chest tightened.

“Let me help.”\n\nBefore Ruth could answer, blue light washed suddenly across the basement wall.

Tires ground over frozen gravel outside.

Footsteps followed.

Two police officers appeared in the doorway with a woman in a dark coat between them, a badge clipped to her belt.\n\nRuth backed toward the wall so fast she nearly lost her footing.\n\nThe woman spotted her, then Samuel, and her expression changed from pursuit to alarm.

“Oh, thank God,” she said.

“The baby’s color is worse.”\n\nRuth flinched at the approach.

“Don’t touch him!”\n\nAndrew stood and put himself slightly between them.

“Give me ten seconds.”\n\nOne of the officers recognized him and hesitated.

The woman, who introduced herself as Marisol Greene from Child Protective Services, kept her eyes on Samuel.\n\n“Mr.

Keller,” she said tightly, “that newborn needs medical care now.”\n\n“I know,” Andrew replied.

“And if you rush her, she’ll bolt.”\n\nRuth’s eyes were huge in the half-light.

“Mom told me to stay with him.”\n\nMarisol’s face softened.

“Your mother never gave him up, Ruth.

She was asking for both of you before they took her back into recovery.”\n\nThe words hit the girl like a blow.

“She’s alive?”\n\n“For now,” Marisol said, honest enough not to decorate fear.

“But she needs you to help us save your brother.”\n\nRuth stared at her, trying to separate truth from adult strategy.

Then she looked at Andrew.\n\nHe kept his voice quiet.

“I’ll go with you.

I won’t let anyone make you disappear.

But Samuel needs warmth and doctors now.”\n\nRuth’s chin shook.

For a terrible second, Andrew thought she would run anyway.

Then she bent over the baby, kissed his forehead once, and nodded.\n\nEverything moved fast after that.

One officer called for the ambulance already waiting at the corner.

Marisol wrapped Ruth in an emergency blanket.

Andrew carried the store bags and followed as Samuel was taken out into the snow under a burst of red and blue lights.\n\nIn the ambulance, Ruth finally started talking.\n\nThe words came in scraps at first, as if the