A working mother seeks the help of a young girl to babysit her son until he goes missing. She contacts the police when the babysitter returns home with an empty stroller and soon receives a message from a person claiming they have her son. “Get rid of the police!” the stranger warned. What will she do now?
“Hi, Lisa!” Sarah opened the door for her son’s babysitter. “Jacob has been waiting for you for so long.
Sarah first met 20-year-old Lisa in the neighborhood park a few months ago. At the time, Sarah was looking for a part-time nanny for her son, and Lisa was hunting for an opportunity to earn money while she attended college. That day, Sarah hired Lisa to look after little Jacob, unaware that she would soon regret her decision.
The working mother hired a student instead of a professional nanny to save money. Lisa offered her a reasonable hourly price and seemed like a responsible girl who could look after little Jacob for a few hours. However, things took a turn for the worse when Sarah sent Lisa to the park with her son one day.
“I have to attend an important online meeting today, Lisa,” Sarah said as her fingers quickly moved over her laptop’s keyboard. “I think you should take Jacob to the park today because the meeting will take more than an hour.”
“Okay, I’ll take him for a walk,” Lisa said. “Come on, baby! Let’s go watch kids play in the park.”
Lisa slid the 1.5-year-old baby into his stroller and walked outside the door with him. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she said before slamming the door behind her.
Once they left, Sarah quickly tied her hair into a neat bun before joining her work meeting. Meanwhile, Lisa parked Jacob’s stroller in the corner of the park and slid her phone out of her pocket
She talked to her friend on the phone while Jacob looked at the world around him. He was fascinated to see so many new things he hadn’t seen before―squirrels hopping on tree barks, cats walking on the grass, and children climbing on the monkey bar.
An hour later, Lisa decided to return home. She turned the stroller towards the exit while talking on the phone. “I’m going to end the call soon, okay?” she told her friend.
Back home, Sarah was done with her online meeting earlier than expected and eagerly awaited her son’s return. A few minutes later, she rushed towards the door when she heard the doorbell ring.
When several people claimed they saw a man carrying a boy that matched Jacob’s description, they decided to check the footage of the nearby CCTV cameras.
However, her heart pounded against her chest when she opened the door and saw the stroller. Everything looked fine except for one thing―her son was missing.
“WHERE’S JACOB?” Sarah screamed in panic.
Lisa squinted her eyes while pulling out the earphones from her ears. The girl had no idea she had been pushing an empty stroller all this time
“What do you mean?” Lisa asked before moving forward and looking inside the stroller.
“Where did Jacob go, Lisa? Where is my baby?” Sarah covered her mouth with her hands.
“He was here… I mean, he was with me,” Lisa was horrified upon learning that Jacob was not in the stroller. “I parked the stroller near the bench and kept an eye on him. Where could he go?”
“That’s what I’m asking you, Lisa!” Sarah shouted while a wave of fear grew inside her heart. “WHERE IS MY SON???”
Lisa’s mind kept recalling what happened in the park, but she couldn’t remember seeing anyone come close to the stroller. Meanwhile, Sarah sat on the sofa and cried. She thought she would never get to see her son again.
“Okay, wait…” Lisa said. “Let’s call the police. I’m sure they will help us find Jacob.”
The young girl quickly dialed 911, and soon, a team of police officers arrived at Sarah’s residence. Lisa told them everything that happened at the park.
“I have no idea how Jacob disappeared from his stroller,” Lisa explained in a shaky voice. “I was sitting beside him talking to my friend on my phone.”
After questioning Lisa and Sarah, the police asked the young babysitter to take them to the park. “I’ll come with you,” Sarah said.
“I parked his stroller right here,” Lisa pointed towards a corner of the park.
The police officers went in different directions to search for Jacob while Lisa and Sarah called his name, hoping he would respond.
“Jacob? Where are you?” Sarah yearned to hear his voice as she walked from one corner of the park to the other.
“Mommy’s waiting for you, baby!”
Meanwhile, the cops questioned several passersby and learned that a few saw a homeless man carrying a boy in his arms. “The boy didn’t look like the man’s baby,” one of the witnesses said.
When several people claimed they saw a man carrying a boy that matched Jacob’s description, they decided to check the footage of the nearby CCTV cameras. Meanwhile, Sarah prayed that her baby was safe.
After watching multiple CCTV footage, the police managed to track the man’s trail. However, they didn’t find Jacob with the homeless man when they spotted him in a stranded alley.
“Where’s the boy?” One cop held the homeless man by his collar while demanding answers. “Where’s the boy you kidnapped from the park?”
“He’s not with me! He’s not with me!” the beggar shielded himself with his hands. “I handed him over to his father!”
Sarah was horrified to read the message but kept a straight face so the cops wouldn’t suspect something was wrong.
“His father?” Sarah was shocked. “That’s impossible!”
“An angry man approached me and snatched the boy from me,” the homeless man recalled. “I didn’t resist because the man claimed he was the boy’s father. I let him go.”
Sarah burst into tears after learning that her son was now with someone the police couldn’t trace. She collapsed on the ground while Lisa rubbed her back and said, “I’m so sorry for everything. It happened because of me!”
“Please sit inside the car,” a police officer interrupted. “We will drop you both back home.”
As Sarah sat inside the police car, she heard her phone ring once. Thinking it must be some promotional message, she unlocked her phone and saw a text from an unknown number. It read:
“We have your child, but you have to pay us money to get him back. But before that, get rid of the police. All instructions later.”
Sarah was horrified to read the message but kept a straight face so the cops wouldn’t suspect something was wrong. She knew the kidnappers got her number from Jacob’s jacket. For her son’s security, Sarah had recently sewn tags with his name and her number on his clothes.
She was relieved that her trick worked but felt terrified upon learning that Jacob was with kidnappers who could hurt him. She decided not to tell the police about the message because she feared the kidnappers might hurt her son.
“We will help you trace your son. Our correspondents are looking for him everywhere,” one cop told Sarah. “Please don’t panic. We will keep you updated.”
The police dropped Sarah back at her residence. When she stepped out of the police car with Lisa, she wanted to shout at the girl for losing Jacob, but she thought it wouldn’t help. Sarah quietly walked inside her house before she received another message from the same unknown number. It read:
“$100,000. That’s Jacob’s price. Put the money in a bag, bring it to the same park where you lost your son, and place it underneath the bench where the stroller was parked. We will drop Jacob back at your house an hour after we receive the money.
Remember, you only have one day. Time is running out. Be quick!”
Sarah gasped upon reading the message. She had no idea how to arrange such a huge sum and didn’t have enough money in her bank account.
“What should I do? Where should I get the money from?” she wondered.
Then she opened the locker in her closet and took out all her gold jewelry. “This won’t give me a hundred thousand dollars! I need to find another way!” she said.
It suddenly hit her that she could ask her friends for money without telling them about Jacob. She called one friend after the other and the other until she convinced all of them to lend her a few thousand dollars. She told them it was a family emergency and promised to return their money soon.
Then Sarah took her jewelry to the pawn shop and exchanged it for a few thousand dollars. Within a few hours after the ransom message, the determined mother had collected enough money to get Jacob back.
“The money is ready. Tell me when to drop it at the park
” she messaged the kidnappers.
A few minutes later, she left the house after the kidnappers gave her a green signal. Holding a bag full of money, she rushed towards the park and placed the bag under the bench. She looked around but didn’t see anyone nearby.
“Now leave!” the kidnappers sent her a message a few seconds after she placed the bag under the bench. Frightened for her son’s safety, Sarah quickly left the park and didn’t look back.
A few minutes later, a man wearing a T-shirt with ripped jeans entered the park. He kept looking left and right to ensure no one was watching him. Then he walked towards the same bench and sat on it, pretending to use his phone
Once he was sure no one was watching him, he bent forward and slid the money bag from under the bench. He quickly opened it, checked the money, and walked towards the exit.
Meanwhile, Sarah was hiding beside a shop near the park, watching the man from afar. When she saw him exiting the park, she quickly rushed home, hoping the kidnappers would bring Jacob there.
Upon reaching home, Sarah kept walking from one end of the house to the other, hoping the kidnappers would bring Jacob back. Her heart felt restless, worried if she made the right decision by not involving the police. “What if they don’t return Jacob? What if they harm him?” she wondered.
“Call the police! Hurry up!” the homeless man told her.
Suddenly, a soft knock on the door interrupted her negative thoughts. She rushed towards the door and opened it to see her son standing on the porch.
“Oh, Jacob!” she exclaimed before her eyes welled up. “Come here! Come to Mommy!”
As Sarah walked towards her son, she heard a man scream from the corner of the street. Feeling frightened, she wrapped her arms around Jacob and walked outside the house with him to see what happened.
Following the man’s scream, Sarah stumbled across the same homeless man from the park. He was struggling to detain the man who came to pick up the bag of money.
“Call the police! Hurry up!” the homeless man told her. “I can’t hold him for long.”
A few minutes after Sarah dialed 911, the police arrived and handcuffed the kidnapper. It turned out that the homeless man felt suspicious when he saw Sarah place the money bag under the bench in the park. He knew something was wrong, so he waited and later followed the kidnapper.
“I know where the rest of his partners are!” the homeless man told the police. “I can take you there.”
With the beggar’s help, the police raided the kidnappers’ hiding spots and arrested the gang. The criminals had been kidnapping children and asking their parents for money for a few months, and Sarah was their tenth victim.
“We wanted to tell you what happened at the park. We watched the CCTV footage,” a cop told Sarah. “Lisa was so busy talking on the phone that she missed it when Jacob got out of his stroller. Your son walked towards a cat sitting nearby, escaping from Lisa’s sight. She had no idea that Jacob was not sitting in the stroller because she had her back towards it.”
A few days later, Sarah got her money back after the kidnappers were sent to jail. She thought Lisa should be held accountable for being irresponsible, but she let it go because she didn’t want to ruin the young girl’s life.
However, Sarah did not allow Lisa to babysit Jacob anymore. Instead, she paid a few extra bucks to hire a professional nanny with a proper license, unlike Lisa.
“I won’t ever babysit anyone’s child,” Lisa promised Sarah. “I will take up other jobs to earn money, but I won’t ever risk a child’s life. Babysitting is not for careless people like me. I won’t do it unless I’m ready to take responsibility.”
