Chapter 2 - THE MESSAGE SENT BEFORE THE SCREAM
The paramedics arrived in seven minutes.
Rachel remembered every second.
Emma cried when they examined her.
Rachel had never been so grateful to hear crying.
At the hospital, doctors confirmed that Emma had sustained a concussion but no skull fracture or internal bleeding. She would need close monitoring, rest, and immediate reevaluation if certain symptoms appeared.
Rachel sat beside her daughter’s bed while Eric paced.
Vanessa was not there.
Margaret was not there.
Neither had been invited.
Rachel looked at the message again.
DON’T LET EMMA SIT IN LILY’S CHAIR TODAY.
It had been sent twelve minutes before Vanessa entered the kitchen.
Rachel showed Eric.
He stared at the timestamp.
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe somebody saw Vanessa upset.”
“Twelve minutes before?”
Eric rubbed his forehead.
Rachel continued.
“Your mother tried to take my phone.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Stop saying that.”
Eric’s shoulders tightened.
“What do you want me to say?”
“That something is wrong.”
His eyes dropped.
Something had been wrong for years.
Rachel simply had not been willing to call it that.
Vanessa had always treated Lily differently from Emma.
At Christmas, Lily received an elaborate dollhouse from Margaret.
Emma received pajamas.
At Easter, Lily got the personalized basket.
Emma got a plastic bucket from the drugstore.
At family dinners, Margaret saved “Lily’s chair.”
Rachel used to laugh.
Every family had quirks.
Every grandmother had favorites.
Then, six months earlier, Emma had reached for one of Lily’s cookies.
Vanessa slapped Emma’s hand away.
“Those aren’t for her.”
Rachel had objected.
Margaret had replied:
“Don’t turn everything into a competition.”
Rachel had backed down.
Now Emma was lying in a hospital bed.
Eric sat beside her.
“My family has always been weird about Lily.”
“Weird?”
Rachel looked at him.
“Your sister just attacked our two-year-old over a chair.”
Eric flinched.
“She lost control.”
“Did she?”
Rachel held up the phone.
“Someone knew enough to warn me before it happened.”
Eric stared at the message.
Then something changed in his face.
Rachel saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Eric.”
He stood.
“I just remembered Mom asking this morning whether Emma was coming.”
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
“What exactly did she ask?”
Eric hesitated.
“Whether we were definitely bringing her.”
Rachel looked toward Emma.
“And you didn’t think that was strange?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she asks about the kids.”
But his voice had lost conviction.
Rachel opened the unknown number’s contact details.
No name.
No profile.
Just a local Massachusetts number.
She called it.
A phone began ringing.
Not in the hospital room.
Inside Eric’s jacket pocket.
They both froze.
May you like
Eric slowly reached inside.
He pulled out a second phone Rachel had never seen before.
