At the same time, hospital security guard Jon Atherley was winding his way to the store, asking neighborhood residents if they had see a woman and a baby.

Just inside the store's front door, Atherley found Alarid on a patio bench swing, rocking the baby. The baby was unharmed.

"She said it was her niece's baby," said Atherley, who didn't try to take the child from Alarid. "I did not want to make a big scene. She was not hostile or anything like that. And she wasn't hurting him. She was cuddling him."

The Archuletas say they are not related to Alarid and do not know her.

"It couldn't have worked out any better," Baird said of the situation, adding that every available police officer within earshot raced to the Avenues to aid in the search.

Towns said to her knowledge, Tuesday was the first time a newborn had been taken from the hospital. The Code Pink alert, she said, worked as it should.

The code triggers a series of much-practiced and not-talked-about activities to secure the hospital and try to find the newborn. Staffers keep Code Pink procedures quiet to avoid helping someone circumvent them, said hospital spokesman Jess Gomez.

The doors in the maternity unit lock and more detailed information, like a description of a suspect, is quietly disseminated throughout the hospital. A pager-alert system is also activated. Every hospital in the state has some sort of Code Pink system, tailored to meet its own geography and needs. University Hospital, for instance, practices often and "every time, after, we review what went well and what didn't," said Phil Sahm, a hospital spokesman. "Refinements are constantly being made to the drill."

Other hospitals report much the same thing about security: Frequent drills (no hospital contacted by the Deseret Morning News said it has fewer than four a year), some announced and some a surprise. A review and some tweaking, if needed.

The hospital employees who had followed the woman were later given the privilege of returning Zackaria to his parents, Towns said.

Did the Archuletas cry harder when the baby was missing or when he was returned?

"Both," a beaming Anthony Archuleta said.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com; jdobner@desnews.com