Chapter 1 - THE BABY BURNING IN MY ARMS
“Why is my son burning up?”
My voice cracked across the kitchen as I slammed the thermometer onto the marble island. A spoon jumped against a glass, and my mother took one startled step backward.
Noah barely cried against my chest. My six-week-old son was wrapped in a pale blue blanket, his face red, his tiny breaths weak and shallow.
I had found him alone upstairs with a temperature of 104.1.
My wife stood behind the island with one hand covering her mouth. Elena wore the same gray nursing shirt she had worn during our video call the previous night. Her brown hair was tangled, her cheek was swollen, and a purple shadow had begun forming beneath her left eye.
Her phone lay shattered near the refrigerator.
My mother folded her arms.
“She exaggerates everything,” Diane said.
I looked from her to Elena.
Four days earlier, I had flown from Ohio to Chicago for a merger negotiation. My mother offered to stay at our house and help with the baby. She called me every evening and said Elena was emotional but fine.
Elena had sent only short messages.
Tired. Going to sleep.
Noah’s okay. Focus on work.
I had believed them.
Now Elena’s hands were trembling so badly she couldn’t lower them from her face.
“Who touched my wife?”
My mother blinked slowly. “Don’t start making accusations.”
“Elena?”
She looked at Diane before looking at me.
“They wouldn’t let me call anyone.”
My stomach turned cold.
Mother stepped toward Noah. “Give him to me. You’re upset.”
I turned my body, keeping my son beyond her reach.
“Do not touch him.”
Her face tightened with offense.
“I raised two children. Elena panics every time the baby makes a sound.”
“She has a black eye.”
“She slipped.”
Elena shook her head.
The movement was tiny, but I saw it.
My younger sister, Chloe, stood near the hallway in sweatpants and an oversized college sweatshirt. She was twenty-four, not a child, but she looked terrified.
“Tell him,” Elena whispered.
Chloe’s eyes filled with tears.
Mother snapped, “There is nothing to tell.”
I noticed my travel bag beside the door, then the small black security camera mounted above it.
Two months earlier, after several break-ins in our neighborhood, I had installed cameras throughout the first floor. The system uploaded automatically to an off-site server.
Mother knew about the cameras.
She did not know about the backup.
I pulled out my phone with one hand while keeping Noah supported with the other.
Mother’s crossed arms loosened.
“What are you doing?”
I opened the security application.
The screen loaded.
Elena followed my gaze toward the camera.
For the first time since I entered the room, hope appeared in her face.
Mother saw it.
All the color drained from hers.
She moved toward my phone.
I pulled it away.
May you like
“The cameras heard you,” I said.
Behind her, Chloe began to cry.
