Chapter 3
Daniel arrived twenty-two minutes later.
He didn’t come alone.
A woman in a navy jacket followed him through the door.
She introduced herself as Special Agent Maya Torres.
That was when I understood Daniel’s job was more serious than anyone had told me.
Maya looked at me once and immediately said, “You need medical attention.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I need to know who is watching my baby.”
“And you’ll be more useful alive and conscious.”
Ethan grabbed my coat.
“We’re going.”
Daniel lifted a hand.
“Before you leave, tell us exactly what happened today.”
Ethan told them about Linda.
Every word made him angrier.
The scrubbing.
The rag.
The medication.
The paperwork.
Then he showed Daniel the photographs from the safe.
Daniel wore gloves before touching them.
Maya photographed everything.
When she reached the paternity report, she frowned.
“This lab exists,” she said.
Ethan looked at her.
“You recognize it?”
“I recognize the name.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means whoever made this didn’t invent a random company.”
She took a photograph.
“Does your mother have access to this house?”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Apparently more than I realized.”
“A key?”
“Yes.”
“Alarm code?”
“Yes.”
“Safe code?”
“No.”
Maya looked at him.
“Are you certain?”
“I’ve never told her.”
“Could she have watched you enter it?”
Ethan didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Daniel turned to me.
“Did Linda know about the anonymous photograph?”
“She knew about the calls.”
“Not the photograph?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did anyone else?”
“Emily. You. My doctor.”
Maya looked up.
“Your doctor?”
“I was having contractions from stress when the envelope arrived. I showed her because she asked why my blood pressure was high.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dr. Karen Bell.”
Maya wrote it down.
Daniel looked at Ethan.
“Any cameras inside the house?”
Ethan nodded.
“Doorbell. Driveway. Back patio. Nursery camera.”
“No kitchen?”
“No.”
Linda had convinced us indoor cameras were invasive.
That detail suddenly felt less innocent.
Daniel walked toward the stairs.
“I want the nursery camera recordings.”
Ethan opened the app on his phone.
He scrolled.
Then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“The history is gone.”
“All of it?”
“Last seven days.”
Maya came over.
“Was it working?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last check?”
“Yesterday.”
My chest tightened.
“I checked it at three in the morning.”
Ethan stared at me.
“You did?”
“Noah made a noise. I looked before getting up.”
Maya took the phone.
“Who has access to the account?”
“Rachel and me.”
“Anyone else ever had the password?”
Ethan shook his head.
Then slowly stopped.
“My mother helped install it.”
Daniel muttered something under his breath.
My phone buzzed.
It was Emily.
I answered immediately.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m with Daniel.”
Her voice trembled.
“Rachel, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should have told you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Told me what?”
There was silence.
Then Emily began crying.
“Linda came to see me four days before you gave birth.”
I looked at Ethan.
He could hear Emily through the speaker.
“What did she want?”
“She asked about Daniel.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to know what kind of government work he did. She said Ethan was worried because Daniel had been getting too involved in your marriage.”
Ethan’s face darkened.
“I never said that.”
“I know that now.”
“What else?” Daniel asked.
Emily inhaled sharply when she heard his voice.
“She asked if Daniel had ever taken Rachel anywhere alone.”
“Emily.”
“I didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Just tell us.”
“I mentioned the day he picked Rachel up after that strange phone call.”
Maya and Daniel exchanged a look.
“What exactly did you tell Linda?” Daniel asked.
“That Rachel had been scared someone was watching her. I said Daniel thought the call might be part of a scam.”
“And the photo?”
“No.”
“Hospital paperwork?”
Emily hesitated.
“I might have mentioned that Daniel told Rachel to use his number as an emergency contact.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“That’s how she knew.”
Linda hadn’t discovered the document by accident.
She had been looking for it.
“Anything else?” Maya asked.
“Yes.”
Emily’s voice dropped.
“She asked something weird.”
“What?”
“She asked if newborn DNA could be collected from a pacifier.”
Nobody spoke.
I stopped breathing.
Maya looked at the bassinet upstairs.
“Rachel,” she said carefully, “has Linda been alone with Noah?”
Every day.
That was the answer.
Every single day.
Sometimes while I showered.
Sometimes while I slept.
Sometimes while I cried in the bathroom because I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open.
“Yes.”
Ethan looked like he might be sick.
Daniel stepped away to make a call.
Maya continued questioning Emily.
“Did Linda explain why she was asking?”
“She said she was watching some crime documentary.”
Ethan slammed his palm against the wall.
“She planned this.”
“Ethan,” Maya warned.
“She took his DNA.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“I do.”
“No. You suspect it. Let us establish facts.”
The doorbell rang.
Everyone froze.
Ethan checked the camera.
Two police officers stood outside.
“Did you call them?” he asked Maya.
“No.”
Daniel returned.
“I didn’t.”
Ethan opened the door.
The officers asked for Rachel Carter.
That was me.
One officer looked uncomfortable.
“Ma’am, we received a report of domestic violence.”
I stared at him.
“Against who?”
“Your husband.”
Ethan actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the timing was insane.
“Who made the report?”
“We can’t disclose that.”
Maya showed her credentials.
“Was the reporting party Linda Carter?”
The officers exchanged glances.
That told us enough.
The complaint claimed Ethan had come home, found me injured, then threatened both me and Linda.
It said I was afraid to speak freely while Ethan was present.
Linda had turned my injuries against her own son.
“She made me clean,” I said.
One officer looked confused.
“She forced me onto the kitchen floor.”
I explained everything.
The officers separated Ethan and me anyway.
I understood why.
Domestic violence reports had to be taken seriously.
But standing in the living room answering questions while blood soaked through my clothes made everything feel unreal.
Then the officer asked the question that changed everything.
“Did your husband push you down the stairs three nights ago?”
“No.”
“Did he strike you in the abdomen?”
“No!”
“Did he threaten to take your baby?”
“No.”
The officer looked at his notes.
“Do you have bruising on your left arm?”
I looked down.
There was a dark bruise near my elbow.
Linda had grabbed me there yesterday when I tried to take Noah from her.
“That wasn’t Ethan.”
“Who caused it?”
I looked toward Maya.
Then Daniel.
“Linda.”
The officer’s expression changed.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t give me my son.”
Ethan heard that from across the room.
His face went white.
“What?”
I hadn’t told him.
I hadn’t told him because Linda had returned Noah thirty seconds later and laughed.
I had convinced myself I was overreacting.
Now I saw what silence had done.
“She said I was holding him too much,” I whispered. “I asked for him back. She squeezed my arm and told me mothers who were emotionally unstable shouldn’t be trusted with babies.”
Ethan took one step forward.
The second officer stopped him.
“Sir.”
“That’s my wife.”
“Stay where you are.”
Ethan obeyed.
Barely.
Maya crouched beside me.
“Rachel, did Linda ever threaten to take Noah away?”
I remembered a dozen comments.
You’re too sensitive.
Ethan needs a strong wife.
Some women aren’t made for motherhood.
If you can’t handle a little cleaning, how will you handle a child?
Then I remembered something worse.
“Three days ago she told me courts usually favor grandmothers when mothers have postpartum mental problems.”
Daniel’s head snapped toward me.
“What exactly did she say?”
“That.”
“Had you ever discussed court with her before?”
“No.”
“Postpartum depression?”
“No.”
I felt cold.
“She kept asking whether I heard voices.”
Maya stood.
“How often?”
“Every day.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you ever tell her you did?”
“No.”
“Did she ask if you wanted to hurt yourself or the baby?”
My eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Ethan whispered my name.
“She was building something,” Maya said.
Daniel nodded.
“A narrative.”
The baby cried upstairs.
I started toward the stairs.
Maya stopped me gently.
“Ethan can get him.”
He went immediately.
A minute later, we heard him shout.
Not an angry shout.
A terrified one.
“Daniel!”
Everyone ran upstairs.
Ethan stood inside the nursery.
The bassinet was empty.
For one impossible second, my mind refused to understand.
Then I saw the window.
Open.
The screen had been removed.
My scream came from somewhere I didn’t recognize.
“Noah!”
Maya ran to the window.
Daniel pulled his weapon.
The officers rushed through the house.
Ethan tore open the closet.
I looked under the crib even though a newborn couldn’t hide.
“Noah!”
Then a sound came from the bathroom attached to the nursery.
A tiny cry.
Ethan reached the door first.
Inside, Noah was lying in his portable changing basket on the floor.
Alive.
Wrapped in his blanket.
I collapsed beside him.
I picked him up.
His little face was red.
His body warm.
“He’s okay,” I sobbed.
Ethan dropped to his knees beside me.
But Maya wasn’t looking at Noah.
She was looking at the bathroom mirror.
Someone had written four words across the glass in red lipstick.
SHE CANNOT PROTECT HIM.
Daniel checked the open window.
“No entry marks.”
Maya looked at Ethan.
“Whoever did this may have already been inside the house.”
The officers began searching every room.
Ten minutes later, one of them called from the basement.
We followed.
He stood beside a storage closet.
The door had been hidden behind shelving.
Ethan frowned.
“That wasn’t there.”
“What?”
“That lock.”
A new padlock had been attached to the closet door.
Daniel cut it.
Inside were three cardboard boxes.
The first contained copies of my medical records.
The second contained photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Me.
Ethan.
Noah.
Daniel.
Emily.
Our house.
Our cars.
The hospital.
The third box contained baby supplies.
Pacifiers.
Blankets.
A bottle.
And a small clear evidence bag with a used cotton swab inside.
Maya stared at it.
“Possible DNA sample.”
Then Ethan noticed something taped to the inside of the closet door.
A calendar.
Dates had been circled.
My prenatal appointments.
Noah’s due date.
The day I went into labor.
And tomorrow.
September fourth.
May you like
Beside tomorrow’s date, someone had written:
TRANSFER.
