Chapter 1
I came home early and found my mother-in-law pinning my six-year-old daughter to the bathroom floor while cutting off chunks of her hair. When my little girl screamed, “Mommy!” I grabbed that woman by the hair before she could touch her again.
I had left work early because my afternoon meeting was canceled.
My husband, Ethan, thought I wouldn’t be home until six.
His mother, Linda, was babysitting our daughter, Sophie.
The moment I opened the front door, I heard crying upstairs.
Not normal crying.
Terrified crying.
“Grandma, please stop!”
I dropped my purse and ran.
The bathroom door was half open.
Sophie was on the floor with Linda holding her down by one shoulder.
A pair of scissors was in Linda’s other hand.
Chunks of my daughter’s long brown hair covered the tile.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Linda spun around.
Sophie screamed, “Mommy!”
I rushed forward and pulled my daughter away from her.
Sophie wrapped both arms around my waist, shaking so hard I could feel it through my clothes.
Linda stood up like she had done nothing wrong.
“She needed to learn a lesson.”
“A lesson?”
“She cut one of my silk scarves, so I cut something she loves.”
I stared at her.
“She’s six years old.”
“And spoiled because you never punish her.”
Sophie touched the uneven pieces of hair around her face and started sobbing again.
That sound broke something inside me.
I handed Sophie my phone and told her to lock herself in my bedroom.
Then I grabbed Linda by the hair.
She screamed and tried to hit me.
I dragged her toward the toilet and forced her down against the closed lid.
“You held my daughter down while she begged you to stop.”
“Get your hands off me!”
“You wanted her helpless?”
Linda clawed at my arms.
Then she suddenly smiled.
“You have no idea what that little girl did.”
I froze.
“What are you talking about?”
Linda pointed toward the pieces of hair on the floor.
Something small was lying between them.
A tiny black device.
I picked it up.
Sophie appeared in the doorway behind me and whispered, “Mommy, Grandma found the recorder.”
My stomach dropped.
“What recorder?”
May you like
Sophie looked at Linda, then back at me.
“The one Daddy told me to hide because he said Grandma must never know we heard what she was planning to do to you.”
