Snatched

Part 47 - Amelies apartment in New Haven

Telling Rory and Logan that their baby wasn't coming back to them after all had to be one of the hardest things Amelie had ever had to do. But what made it even harder was that she had absolutely no clue what had happened. She'd booked Antoine and Maddie on a flight as soon as she'd told them about Rory, but she hadn't heard from them since. She didn't even know if they'd recieved the flight confirmation.

Amelie walked into the small kitchen in her apartment and reached for a glass, a bottle of gin and a can of tonic. She poured the gin generously. After the day she'd had, she definitely needed it. As Amelie lay back and settled into her settee, she realised that she was hungry. She definitely deserved a treat after all the time she'd spent anxiously messaging backwards and forwards with Rory and Logan. Logan mostly, as Rory was apparently far too shaken up to text coherently.

Amelie picked up her phone and ordered a pizza via a mobile app. She normally tried to eat a lot more healthily, but she didn't have the energy to cook anything and just needed a quick fix. Before she'd clicked checkout on her meal, she dialed Antoines number for the 41st time. But this time, to her surprise, he finally picked up.

'What the hell Antoine!' She didn't even address her brother in the normal friendly way she always did. 'You best be calling to tell me that your flight was delayed by a couple of hours and that you've just landed in Hartford and needed me to pick you up from the airport'.
There was silence for a moment before Antoine spoke. 'Not quite' he said, 'listen Amelie, I have something to tell you'.
'Well you best have some sort of an explanation for this absolute mess' she shouted, 'I have a poor young mother too emotionally distraught to even talk to me right now!'
'I know and I feel so bad about that.' Antoines voice was monotonous, so she couldn't tell anything about his expression. 'But somethings happened Amelie. She's gone again. Odettes dissapeared and we have no clue where she is!'
'How does that change anything?' Amelie was frustrated now, 'I thought you'd already lost track of her. Why couldn't you just take..'
Antoine interrupted her. 'She took Daniel as well'.
Amelie finished the glass of gin she was holding and walked into the kitchen to refill it. This time she didn't bother about tonic and began drinking the gin straight. This gave her time to process what she had just been told, before she answered her brother again.
'Wwhat happened?' Amelie noticed the stutter in her own voice. She'd thought that hearing some sort of an explanation would make her feel less anxious, but right now it was just stirring her up even more.
'After we'd finished speaking to you before' Antoine begun, 'we walked into the living room and Daniel was gone'.
'Wwhat do you mean gone?' Amelie asked.
'We'd left him on the living room floor. He hadn't moved for hours. He was in some sort of protest over his mum, but when we got off the phone to you, we got in there and he'd just dissapeared.' Amelie just gasped at this, but she let her brother finish before she asked any more questions. 'So after we'd checked through the house, we went outside and got in the car. We were sure we'd manage to chase her, but she was nowhere to be seen. And then we saw a man carrying Daniel down the street. We started chasing him. I even managed to trip him over to buy us a bit of time. Maddie had a hold of Daniel, but he escaped from her arms and started running away from us. Then before we knew it a van had appeared from around the corner and someone reached out and grabbed him.'

When her brother had finally finished speaking, Amelie took a sharp intake of breath and went over to grab the gin bottle. This time she decided just to bring it back into the living room. Amelie could barely string her words together, but there was one burning question she had to ask.
'So why has it taken you so long to call?! Antoine, you haven't been in touch for the last 9 hours!' Antoine paused for a while. Clearly he was contemplating something.
'Amelie, we've been trying to sort this whole thing out. Calling around to people in the local area. I even spoke to the guy who took Daniel, but apparently she'd just handed him over to him, without saying a word. And remember, we had our own two boys to think about.'
'Fair enough' Amelie said, 'I have to hang up the phone now and sort this mess out.'

As Amelie pressed the hang up button, she heard her brother trying to say something. But she didn't have time for it. She didn't know what, but something didn't add up about her brothers story. There was no time to think about that now though. There was another tough conversation to be had. Amelie scrolled through her recent calls and dialed Logans number.