Never mind my eyes. Someone was already at my side. "Young Master Heath, what do you need?"

"Your eyes... let me get water to rinse them."

"No. Seal every exit in this hotel, right now. No one leaves."

"Yes, Young Master Heath."

For this life, I'd brought a lot of my own men in ahead of time.

Once they cleared out, I tilted my face up into the water from the sprinklers and washed my eyes clean.

Even so, the burn kept stinging through.

The whole floor was chaos.

Somewhere in the crowd I saw my sister, searching in a panic.

I pushed toward her fast. The moment she saw me the tears started down her face. "Curt, Emily's gone."

I dragged in a breath. I should have seen it coming. If Nanny Lawrence meant to steal my niece, of course she wouldn't have prepared just one plan.

She'd fallen back on her backup.

Which meant my earlier guess was right. There'd been something in the formula Emily drank.

Sleeping pills, most likely, mixed straight into it.

Craig was shouting too. "Search everywhere, I want my daughter found—"

"Sis, Craig, calm down. My men have already sealed every exit. Not a fly gets out of here now."

At that, some of the panic drained out of them both.

"Also, Sis, call the police."

"Craig, get someone on Nanny Lawrence now. And send people after a hotel janitor. His name's Anthony Chavez."

They both stared at me, confusion on their faces.

I cut in fast. "No time to explain. Just do what I said."

The crowd was still frantic.

Still running everywhere.

I grabbed a microphone. "Everyone, I'm Mr. Heath, of the Heath Group. I've already had it checked. There's no fire. Someone hit the alarm by accident. Everything's fine."

I knew the one thing I couldn't allow was chaos in this room.

Chaos was exactly what Nanny Lawrence and her people needed to slip out in the confusion.

"Really?"

"Of course it's real. Do you smell any smoke anywhere?" I said.

People sniffed the air. It seemed to satisfy them.

Then I called over the hotel manager.

He came right up. "Mr. Heath, we've swept everything. No problems."

"If there's no problem, then we'd like to leave," someone said.

"Right, I don't want to stay here. I want to go home."

"Please, don't rush off. My niece is missing. I believe someone has kidnapped her. I'm asking all of you to stay and cooperate with the investigation."

That set the room off again.

"Don't worry. Cooperate with me, and afterward every one of you will receive a gift as compensation."

Once the crowd had settled, my sister came over and told me she'd called the police. Officers would be here soon.

I gave a short nod. Not long after, Craig came back with Nanny Lawrence, and he told me, "Curt, we couldn't find that Anthony Chavez you mentioned."

My chest dropped at that. Anthony was the key man in Nanny Lawrence's kidnapping.

He could not be allowed to get away. But he'd worked here for years and knew every corner of this hotel. Finding him would be anything but easy.

"No. We have to find Anthony Chavez."

The baby wasn't with Nanny Lawrence, I was sure of it. She'd handed Emily off to Anthony the moment the chaos hit.

And now Nanny Lawrence was playing frantic and pitiful. "It's my fault. I failed you. I didn't keep the little miss safe."

"I was wrong, I'm to blame! Punish me, please."

She came forward confessing, tears spilling out on cue.

"Someone shouted fire and I got scared and ran. I should have carried the little miss out with me."

Her sobbing swelled louder as she spoke.

It drew every eye in the room straight to her.

Everyone turned to stare in her direction. "Poor Nanny Lawrence. And really, you can't blame her for this. In a moment like that, everyone thinks of saving themselves first."

"Exactly. In that situation I was terrified that if I ran a second too late, I'd burn to death."

My sister and Craig looked at Nanny Lawrence in that state.

Their faces went grave.

They glanced instinctively at me. I felt no pity at all. "Nanny Lawrence, I'm not going to waste words with you. Tell me right now, where is Anthony Chavez?"

"Anthony who? I don't know anyone by that name." Nanny Lawrence looked utterly blank.

I grabbed her wrist. "Don't play dumb with me. Anthony helped you carry the baby off."

The instant she heard it, she burst into loud sobs. "Oh God, oh Lord, Young Master Heath, you can't accuse me like this. I've worked for the Dickersons for twenty years. Even if I've earned no credit, I've at least paid my dues."

"I've always treated the little miss like my own granddaughter. Ever since she was born I've cared for her with the greatest care, and Mr. and Mrs. Dickerson have seen it with their own eyes."

Her shrill crying rang out through the hall, and at once it drew no small amount of sympathy.

"Young Master Heath, I don't think you have any reason to target Nanny Lawrence. She's the last person here with a motive to take the child."

"That's right. Nanny Lawrence has worked for the Dickersons all these years. How could she take the child away? I really think you should look in another direction."

The crowd was all urging me to stop.

Craig spoke up too. "Curt, could there be some misunderstanding in all this?"

"Absolutely not. She worked with an outsider to take Emily." I said.

The memory of my past life is one I'll never forget. After Emily vanished, it destroyed the lives of my sister's whole family.

Myself included. I ended up in a wretched fate of my own.

"Nanny Lawrence, I'll give you one last chance…"

She didn't answer at all, just kept on crying.

I called the hotel manager over. "Pull the security footage. And find Anthony Chavez, your employee, right now."

The manager acknowledged it and quickly sent people to search.

As I spoke, I noticed Nanny Lawrence showed not a trace of panic.

Before long the manager came running back, his face awkward. "Mr. Heath, the footage is dead. And Anthony Chavez is gone too."

Nanny Lawrence had schemed all of this out with painstaking care.

If the child had been drugged with sleeping pills again, she couldn't even cry now, which made pinpointing her location that much harder.

Just then the hall doors I'd had sealed swung open, and the police came in with their people.

The crowd let out a breath the moment they saw the police.

What I didn't expect was for Nanny Lawrence to suddenly stand and run toward them, screaming that she'd been wronged. "Officers, you have to clear my name. He's been slandering me this whole time. I'm begging you, give me justice."

She reached them in a rush and threw herself onto one of the officers, wailing and carrying on, pulling everyone's eyes her way.

The scene dissolved into chaos in an instant.

And it was right then that I seemed to catch a figure slipping out. Thin and bony, he was pushing a trash cart. I strode forward, and from the side of his face I knew him at once. It was Anthony Chavez.

My heart leapt. Found him.

I roared, "Anthony Chavez, stop right there!"

He didn't pause for a second at my voice. He just kept pushing the cart forward.

I shouted urgently, "Someone stop him! My niece is inside that trash cart!"