Chapter 1 - The Laugh Behind Her Crying
Ryan Mercer heard his daughter screaming before he reached the family room.
Not fussing. Not the irritated little cry Emma used when she was hungry or tired.
Screaming.
He came through the doorway carrying a paper grocery bag against his hip and stopped so abruptly that a carton of strawberries rolled across the hardwood floor.
Vanessa had Emma under the arms.
Nicole stood six feet away with both hands out.
“Again,” Nicole said, laughing. “She cries every time.”
Before Ryan understood what he was seeing, Vanessa made a fast, reckless arm-to-arm pass that sent eight-month-old Emma through the small space between them.
Nicole caught her securely against her chest.
Emma’s face was red and wet with tears.
Vanessa laughed harder.
“She needs to learn nobody comes running every time she cries.”
Ryan dropped the groceries.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Nicole’s smile disappeared first.
Vanessa reached for Emma as if this were still some harmless game. Nicole passed the baby back, too quickly again, and Ryan crossed the room before Vanessa had fully settled her against her chest.
He took Emma from her.
The instant she felt him, Emma grabbed a fistful of his navy shirt.
Her crying changed.
Still loud, but broken now by the desperate little breaths of a baby trying to bury herself against someone familiar.
Ryan carried her to the portable bassinet beside the bookcase, lowered her carefully inside, and locked the side rail.
Then he turned.
Vanessa put both palms up.
“Ryan, seriously—”
He shoved her backward.
Nicole stepped between them.
“Don't touch my sister.”
Ryan's open hand caught Nicole across the cheek.
The sound made everybody stop moving.
For the first time Ryan remembered that other people were in the house. His mother Patricia stood near the kitchen entrance. His cousin Mark had half-risen from the couch. Vanessa's aunt stared down at the paper plate in her hands.
Nicole pressed her palm against her face.
“You hit me.”
Ryan stared at her, breathing hard.
“You were throwing my daughter around.”
“We caught her every time,” Nicole snapped.
Every time.
Ryan heard those words.
Not once.
Not a stupid joke that had gotten out of hand.
Every time.
Vanessa folded her arms.
“You're making this disgusting when it wasn't.”
Emma cried from behind him.
Ryan stepped backward until his calf touched the bassinet.
Then he noticed the phone on the shelf.
It wasn't lying flat.
It was upright in a small clamp Ryan had never seen before, its camera pointed directly toward the center of the room.
A red recording indicator glowed on the screen.
Ryan walked over and picked it up.
Vanessa moved immediately.
“Give me that.”
Ryan turned his shoulder away and looked at the screen.
The recording had stopped when he touched it. Under the video preview was a draft project Nicole had apparently prepared before he walked in.
Mean Stepmom Teaches Spoiled Baby a Lesson.
Ryan read it twice.
Then he looked at Vanessa.
Her face changed.
Not guilt exactly.
Calculation.
Nicole said, “It's content. People know this stuff is staged.”
“Emma doesn't.”
Nobody answered.
Ryan's thumb moved over the screen. There were more drafts beneath the one they'd just filmed.
He saw dates.
Different clothes.
Different rooms in his house.
Emma crying in every thumbnail.
Ryan stopped breathing for a second.
Vanessa finally said his name.
Quietly this time.
“Ryan.”
He looked at his wife of six months, then at the woman beside her, then back at his daughter.
“How many times?”
Vanessa's eyes shifted toward Nicole.
Ryan saw it.
“How many times have you done this when I wasn't home?”
May you like
And Nicole, still holding one hand against her cheek, whispered something that made the question worse.
“Vanessa, don't answer him here.”
