Newborn Baby Cries All Day No Matter What Parents Do until They Check His Crib – Story of the Day

Walter returns home from work one day to find his wife, Abby, weeping in the kitchen while their newborn son cries in his crib. Abby has tried everything to get the baby to stop crying, but nothing works. Walter checks the crib and is shocked by what he finds there.

An ear-splitting wail echoed through the house as Walter entered from the garage. The cry's inconsolable heartache and raw desperation sent shivers down his spine. He'd never realized a baby could cry like that.

"Abby?" Walter set his laptop bag down on the hall table and jogged to the kitchen in search of his wife.

Abby was sitting at the kitchen island with her head in her hands. She was still in her PJs. A bowl of partly peeled potatoes sat near her elbow, and the eggs sat out on the counter nearby. Milk had spilled on the floor, and coils of smoke from the pot on the stove filled the room with the scent of burned broccoli.

"Oh, honey," Walter said as he turned off the stove plate. "How long has Logan been crying like that?"

Abby looked up at him. Her face crumpled, and her lower lip wobbled. Breathless sobs shook her body.

"All day," she wept. "He's been crying all day, and I've tried everything! His diaper is clean, he's eaten, I've bathed him and burped him." She reached for the roll of paper towels and blew her nose. "I took his temperature... I don't know what to do anymore! Why won't he stop crying?"

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Walter's heart shattered as Abby broke down in front of him. He rounded the kitchen island and put his arms around her. He held Abby tightly and tried to soothe her, but he was keenly aware of Logan's continued wails from the nursery. The child's cries distressed him on a level he hadn't known existed until he became a father one month ago.

"Come." Walter offered Abby his hand. "We'll go together and see if we can figure out what the little guy wants."

Abby sniffed and nodded. She blew her nose again and let Walter lead her to the nursery. He'd painted the room himself in the cyan, sky blue, and golden yellow color scheme Abby had picked out. As a surprise, he'd also put up a wall decal of brightly colored balloons drifting through clouds and a dragonfly mobile.

Walter put his hands over his eyes as he took the final step toward the crib.

"Where's my little nugget?" Walter asked cheerfully. He flipped his hands open in classic peek-a-boo style and cried: "There he is!"

But all Walter saw in the crib was a dictaphone and a note. Logan was gone.

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Walter reached out in a daze and pressed the stop button on the dictaphone. Logan's cries were immediately cut short.

"What did you do?" Abby called from behind him. "How'd you get him to stop crying like that?"

Walter picked up the note with shaking fingers. He felt distant from himself, as though he were watching a scene in a movie and not actually living this moment. He was only dimly aware of it when Abby came to stand beside him.

She spoke to him and shook him by the shoulder, but Walter was staring at the folded piece of paper in his hand. He could vaguely make out the shape of words through the crisp, white page, but he couldn't bring himself to open it and see what it said.

There was no telling how long he stood there before Abby pried the page from his fingers and flipped it open. A message printed in large, bold letters filled the center of the paper:

I warned you that you'd regret being rude to me.

If you want to see your baby again, leave $200,000 in the luggage storage lockers near the pier.

If you go to the police, you'll never see him again.

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"This can't be real," Abby said. "What does it even mean? Was I rude to someone? Were you?"

Walter turned and stared into Abby's confused brown eyes. He wanted to tell her it had to be a mistake, that he'd never wronged anyone badly enough to warrant such a vile act of revenge, but then he remembered the janitor.

"There was this guy… a janitor at the maternity hospital," Walter admitted. "I was going to visit you and Logan the weekend after he was born..."

Abby frowned. "The time you tripped over the broom and bruised your chin? But you told me it was an accident and everything was fine."

Walter hung his head. "I didn't want to upset you. I'd brought you flowers in this cute little ceramic teddy bear pot. It broke when I tripped over that broom and the flowers went everywhere... it was meant to be a special gift, and it was ruined."

"I... I called him some pretty bad names and then I threw the flowers and the broken bits of the pot at him." Walter cringed at the memory of his awful behavior. "I was just so mad... he said I'd regret it, the janitor, but you don't think he would've taken Logan, do you?"

"That's exactly what I think!" Abby shoved at his chest. "This is all your fault, Walter! Our son has been kidnapped because of you!"

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Walter and Abby argued from one end of the house to the other. They screamed and cried, and when their emotions eventually ran dry, they found themselves back in the kitchen, staring at the note.

"We have to go to the police," Walter said. He cautiously reached out to place his hand over Abby's. "They're our best chance of getting Logan back."

"How can you say that?" Abby glared accusingly at him. "The note says we'll never see him again if we go to the police. We should just pay the ransom."

"We don't know if he'll return Logan if we do that. Think about it, honey. This guy is a janitor... there's no way he'd know if we went to the police, and since we know where he works, they might be able to go straight to the maternity hospital, arrest him, and bring Logan home to us."

Abby shook her head and released a heavy sigh. "I don't know. I don't want to take any risks with Logan's safety."

"Neither do I." Walter tightened his grip on Abby's hand. "That's why I think it's best if we let the cops handle it. They'll bring in the FBI, and those guys are top-notch. They know how to handle situations like this."

"Okay, we'll try it your way, Walter," Abby frowned at him and slid her hand free of his, "but only if you agree to play it safe. We pay the ransom, if it comes to that, agreed? No matter what the cops say. $200,000 is nothing compared to Logan's life."

Walter nodded. "I promise."

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Walter parked at the curb right across from the police station. He was about to march across the street when his phone chimed. He took it from his pocket, glanced at the notification, and froze.

"Is it them?" Abby asked.

Walter opened the message and leaned over so she could also read the words on the screen:

Abby gasped and clenched her hand tightly around Walter's arm. He stared at the message in disbelief, then glanced at the street. A few cyclists whizzed past, and a handful of shoppers were at the nearby thrift store. The other cars parked along the road all looked empty. How the hell was the janitor keeping tabs on them?

"You promised me, Walter." Abby leaned over to look him in the eye. Tears flowed freely down her face. "He's watching us. There’s no way we can get the cops involved now. We have to pay the ransom."

Walter nodded. "I know. I'm going straight to the bank. There's a branch a few streets away."

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Abby started to cry harder as Walter pulled out into traffic. He glanced at her with concern as she started hyperventilating.

"Pull over." Abby placed one hand over her mouth and the other on her belly.

Her whole body convulsed as she started retching. Walter wasn’t lucky enough to find an open parking space on the street twice in one day. Instead, he had to detour and pull into a parking garage. The moment he stopped the car, Abby threw her door open and leaned out.

She shook and made the most terrible sounds, but nothing came out. Walter leaned over to rub her back. Abby was clearly starting to crack under the stress of Logan's kidnapping. After a few minutes, Abby sat up pale-faced and breathing hard.

"I know you won't want to hear this, honey, but I think you should go home," Walter said. "I'll take care of the ransom exchange."

Abby nodded. "I think you're right. I… I can't handle this. I just keep remembering the way Logan was crying on that recording and wondering what that man is doing to him. Does he even know anything about caring for a newborn?"

Walter said nothing. The same thoughts had been circling in the back of his mind, except he'd been wondering if Logan was receiving any care at all. The horror playing out in his imagination was of his son lying on the floor in a dark, dirty room while he bawled in hunger or cried for help that never came.

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Walter took Abby back home. They'd moved to one of the more popular residential neighborhoods in San Francisco when they decided to start a family. It had good schools, plenty of parks, and many other families lived in the area. But with a $200,000 ransom hanging over his head, Walter didn't think they could afford to stay there anymore.

He made one stop on his way to the pier. Half an hour later, Walter walked up to the storage lockers with the bag of money and placed it inside. Too many people were roaming around the area for him to spot the janitor, but Walter knew he must be somewhere nearby, watching him.

He returned to his car, drove a short distance, then turned around and parked near the lockers again. Hopefully, that trick had been enough to fool the kidnapper. Walter pulled a baseball cap down low over his face as he watched the luggage storage lockers with a hawk eye.

The janitor opened the locker. Walter sat up straighter, but then a tourist group walked past, hiding the janitor from view.

"Move it!" Walter snapped.

Painful minutes stretched out as the tourists headed toward one of the statues. After the last few people in the group eventually passed the lockers, Walter swore. The janitor had disappeared.

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Walter barely dared to breathe as he scanned the crowd. The man had been wearing the sort of flashy shirt sold in the more eclectic, hippie-themed stores, so he shouldn't have been hard to spot.

There! A wave of relief washed over him as Walter spotted the janitor crossing the road. He was carrying the bag of money Walter had placed in the locker. Walter leaped from his car and followed him.

The man led him around a parking lot, past a variety of restaurants and several museums before he turned into a bus station. Walter was hot and tired but broke into a jog and entered the station just a few steps behind the janitor. He frowned as he watched the man walk toward the row of lockers near the entrance.

The janitor placed the bag inside a locker. When he turned around, Walter was waiting for him. He shoved the janitor up against the lockers and held him there with his forearm.

"Where is my son?" Walter demanded.

"How the hell must I know?" The janitor narrowed his eyes. "I know you from somewhere..."

"Don't play dumb with me!" Walter slammed his fist against a locker behind the man, close enough to his face to get his point across. "You took him! And I've done everything you asked, you jerk, now return Logan to me!"

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The janitor raised his hands in surrender. "Hey man, I don't know anything about all of that. I was offered $100 to take a package from the pier and put it in one of these lockers. That's all I know."

"You're lying." Walter shook his head. "It has to be you!"

"I swear, I'm telling the truth! I don't know anything about your son."

"Then who paid you to deliver the package?" Walter asked.

"Some guy." The janitor shrugged. "I ran into him in the parking lot after work one day, but he was standing with the light behind him so I didn't see his face."

"You must know something!"

Walter shook the man, and his head banged against the lockers behind him. The janitor flinched and covered his face with his hands.

"I know nothing, man, I promise you. I'd never hurt a kid. I've got two of my own. Please, man! I haven't done anything wrong!"

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Something inside Walter cracked at the sight of the janitor cowering before him. He stepped back and lowered his arms. The man didn't even look at him before he ran from the bus station as though the hounds of hell were behind him.

Walter let out a sigh and then opened the locker where the janitor had placed the bag. It wasn't there. The locker was empty, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened to his bag because somebody had cut a hole into the back.

Walter jogged around to the back of the lockers. The hole was covered from the back with a thin steel plate, loosely secured by two screws. There was nobody around carrying a bag like the one he'd placed the money into.

In his heart, he knew it was a waste of time, but he searched the bus station anyway. After almost an hour, he was forced to admit the kidnapper had outwitted him and escaped.

He walked back to his car with a heavy heart and headed home. He kept waiting for his phone to chime with a message from the kidnapper telling him where he could pick up his son, but it never happened.

Walter didn't know how he would break the news to Abby. It had taken two years for them to fall pregnant. They'd been thinking of seeing a specialist when suddenly, Abby started getting morning sickness. Logan was their little miracle. Walter couldn't give up on him yet.

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Walter entered his home with the weight of the world on his shoulders. The place felt empty without the sound of Logan's happy gurgles or cries for attention.

"Abby?" Walter walked through the kitchen and peeked into the sitting room. His wife wasn't there.

He called her name again as he strode toward Logan's nursery. He thought she might be there, seeking comfort in the familiar scents and sights of the room. But she wasn't. The room seemed strange, too. Walter paused on the threshold. Goosebumps formed on his arms once he realized what was off about the room.

All the diapers stored on the shelf beneath the changing table were missing. The dragonfly mobile that ought to have dangled above the crib was gone, too. Walter screamed for Abby as he rushed over to open the dresser drawers. All of Logan's onesies, hats, and booties were missing.

Walter fell to his knees. The kidnappers had obviously returned while they knew he was out delivering the ransom. They'd stolen all of Logan's things, and it seemed like they'd taken Abby as well. His heart thumped like a drum in his chest as panic washed over him.

Who could have done this, and why? The janitor clearly wasn't to blame, but who else could want to hurt him like this?

Walter slowly rose to search the room for another ransom note. There was nothing on the bed or the nightstands... Walter frowned. His dog-eared sudoku book and reading glasses were on his nightstand, but Abby's tub of jasmine-scented hand lotion, her romance novel, and the little crystal vase she'd inherited from her grandmother were missing.

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An awful suspicion wormed through Walter's thoughts. He opened the closet and immediately realized all of Abby's clothes and her yellow luggage set were missing, too. Her jewelry had been taken from the safe, and her beauty products were missing from the bathroom.

Walter leaned against the wall and struggled to breathe. A sickly horror invaded his body as his mind struggled to process the situation he found himself in. Logan was gone. Abby was gone, too, but so was everything she owned. He tried calling her, but her phone just rang and rang.

Although his brain shot out various situations in which the kidnappers might have forced her to pack up her and Logan's possessions, deep down, he knew they were all ridiculous. The only plausible scenario was the most hurtful one: Abby was behind the kidnapping all along.

Now that he thought about it, she'd been a little too willing to come home when she'd started feeling ill in the car. It was all an act. While he was confronting the janitor, she must've stolen the ransom from the locker.

She had insisted on paying the ransom from the start. And Abby was with him when he went to the police. She must have an accomplice who'd sent him that ominous text about drowning Logan in the bay and paid the janitor to transfer the bag of money from one locker to the other.

All the pieces clicked into place, and the picture they formed was of a devastating betrayal. He tried calling Abby again, but it rang only once this time before going to voicemail. It happened again with his next attempt to call.

Abby had blocked his number. Walter sank down to the floor and set his phone down beside him. His only consolation was the knowledge that the ransom money was fake. As he sat there in his empty house, Walter realized there might be a way he could use that knowledge to get Logan back.

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Walter ran into the maternity hospital where Abby had given birth. He scanned the doctors and nurses bustling about until he noticed a doctor standing alone near the vending machine. The stern look in his eyes and the mean way his mouth pinched together suggested he might be exactly the sort of person Walter needed to help him.

"Hi," Walter said as he approached the doctor, "I hope you can help me. I need someone to call my wife—"

"I'm not a phone service," The doctor replied shortly.

The doctor studied Walter through narrowed eyes. He slowly started to smile as Walter explained his situation and told him what he wanted the doctor to tell Abby.

"Talk about trouble in paradise," the doctor remarked. "Let me see the money."

Walter removed his wallet and furtively showed the doctor the dollar bills inside it. The man nodded.

"Okay, we have a deal. Come with me."

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Walter followed the doctor to a nurse's station on the second floor. All the nurses were currently checking on their patients, judging by the activity in the hallways. Nobody took much notice as the doctor lifted the phone and dialed Abby's number.

"Good morning, Mrs. Taylor; this is Dr. Jones from the maternity hospital. I'm calling to inform you that we just discovered something very serious in one of the routine tests we performed on your son after he was born. He needs to come in for treatment immediately."

Walter heard Abby's emotional outcry from the other side of the nurse's station but couldn't make out her exact words. Dr. Jones calmly picked at his cuticles while he listened to her.

"I'm sorry, but I can't go into the details over the phone. All I can say for now is that he has a rare genetic condition. I'm sure he does seem fine now, but that could change at any moment. He's at a higher risk for SIDS and several other life-threatening conditions. You really need to bring him in today, Mrs. Taylor."

Dr. Jones ended the call a few minutes later and showed Walter a thumbs-up.

"She's going to bring the baby in asap." Dr. Jones held out his hand and wriggled his fingers. "I did my bit, now it's time for you to pay up."

Walter paid the doctor and went back downstairs. He wandered around for a few minutes before his phone started ringing. Walter's lip curled in disgusted satisfaction when he checked the caller ID.

"You have some nerve to phone me after what you did, Abby," Walter said. "Where is Logan? I demand you bring him back."

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"Says the man who doesn't even care enough about him to pay the ransom!" Abby shrieked. "That money was all fake, you tight-fisted jerk. Logan needs to see a doctor urgently and I can't take him because of you. Where's the real money, Walter?"

"In my account, where it’s been all along. What's wrong with Logan, or is this just another scheme to get my money?"

Abby swore at him solidly and began crying. "I told you; he's sick! You've got to send me the money so he can receive treatment. He'll die without it."

"Please!" Abby wailed. "If you don't do this and Logan dies then it will be all your fault, Walter. His blood will be on your hands."

Walter let out a heavy sigh. "I'll transfer the money to you."

He ended the call and sank into one of the visitor's chairs nearby. Hearing Abby confirm she was behind Logan's kidnapping broke his heart all over again. It took a few minutes before he pulled himself together enough to send her an immediate payment via his money transfer app.

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Walter had done everything he could to emotionally prepare himself for the moment when Abby entered the hospital with Logan. He'd even considered the possibility that her accomplice was some man she was having an affair with. All the walls he'd built around his heart to brace himself crumbled to the ground when he recognized the man at Abby's side.

Tears trailed down Walter's cheeks and into his open mouth at the sight of his little brother, James, holding Logan against his chest while Abby spoke to the receptionist. It seemed like everything was moving in slow motion as the police officers and FBI agents came forward and surrounded Abby and James.

"You're under arrest for kidnapping!" An FBI agent called out. "Hand the child over, nice and slowly, and raise your hands."

"Get away from us!" Abby shrieked as she moved to stand between the FBI agent and Logan. "My son is sick. He needs to see a doctor."

"No, he isn't," Walter called out as he approached the group. "There's nothing wrong with Logan at all."

Abby's gaze locked onto him. Walter watched as the fear and uncertainty in her eyes shifted into red-hot fury. She rushed forward as though to attack him.

"You tricked me!" She screamed.

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The police tackled Abby and soon had her in handcuffs. James stood uncertainly at the reception desk with Logan in his arms. The boy had started to cry and wave his tiny fists in the air.

"Give him to me, James," Walter said.

James glanced at the cops surrounding him with a wary eye. He didn't dare to look Abby or Walter in the face as he handed Logan over to one of the police officers. The cop immediately brought him over to Walter.

Logan wrapped his tiny fingers around Walter’s tie and tugged on it. Tears of joy filled his eyes as he stared at his little boy’s face. He was so happy to be reunited with Logan that Abby’s backstabbing and deceit almost didn’t matter.

Walter headed toward the hospital exit as the law enforcement officers arrested his brother and read him and Abby their rights. As he passed Abby, she lunged toward him.

"You idiot!" She snarled. "You think you've won? Everything you did was for nothing, Walter. Logan isn't even yours, you fool. You couldn't get me pregnant, remember? But whatever's wrong with you clearly doesn't run in the family."

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Walter stopped dead. He looked down at the crying baby boy in his arms, then slowly turned to stare at his brother.

"That's right." Abby let out a cruel cackle. "James and I have been going behind your back for years. The only reason I tolerated you, boring, average-at-everything, Walter, is because of your money."

James still wouldn't look at him. His avoidance might've been interpreted as guilt on another man, but Walter knew better. James had always been the golden boy. Walter had seen him avoid taking responsibility for his actions too many times over the years not to recognize what was happening now.

"It doesn't matter," Walter said as he turned to face Abby. "You're both going to jail, and I won't let Logan end up in the foster care system. He's my son in every way that matters. I'll adopt him if that's what I need to do, and while I'm tucking him into bed, reading him stories, and watching him grow up, you'll be stuck behind bars without him."

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