Chapter 3 - THE VOICE ON THE BABY MONITOR
Tessa found me alone in the family restroom ten minutes later.
I was sitting on the closed toilet lid, staring at my phone while Noah’s baby-monitor app loaded and froze.
“The hospital Wi-Fi is terrible,” she said gently.
“I need the recordings.”
She closed the door behind her. “What recordings?”
“Our monitor saves motion clips. Marianne said she left before nine, but she came back before I called 911.”
Tessa handed me her phone charger. “Try the outlet.”
The app reopened.
Most of the clips showed an empty nursery. At 8:36, I carried Noah to his crib. At 10:52, a shadow moved across the hallway outside his door.
Marianne.
She entered the nursery wearing her gray coat.
She leaned over the crib, reached into her purse and removed something too small for the camera to capture clearly. Then she walked out.
There was no sound because I had muted the nursery microphone earlier that evening.
My stomach dropped.
“That proves she went back in,” I said.
“It proves more than she told the police.”
I scrolled backward.
The living room monitor had audio.
At 7:18, while I was upstairs showering, Marianne sat in the rocking chair with Noah. Her phone rested on the side table, speaker on.
Daniel’s voice came through clearly.
“Is he fighting sleep?”
“A little,” Marianne answered.
“Use what I put in the side pocket.”
There was a pause.
“The same amount you used Tuesday?” she asked.
My thumb froze over the screen.
Daniel replied, “A couple of drops. No more than that. He slept five hours last time.”
Marianne laughed softly.
“And Emily still thinks her new bedtime routine is working.”
The restroom seemed to tilt around me.
Tessa reached for my arm.
The recording continued.
“She’s falling apart,” Daniel said. “If the baby sleeps, everybody’s life gets easier.”
“What if she sees the bottle?”
“She never checks my work bag.”
I covered my mouth.
This had not started that night.
Daniel had been drugging Noah on evenings when I believed my husband was taking over bedtime so I could rest.
The nights Noah slept unusually long.
The mornings he seemed sluggish.
The times Daniel told me to stop worrying because he was a paramedic and knew what normal babies looked like.
Every memory rearranged itself.
Tessa’s face had hardened. “Send these files to yourself. Then don’t touch the originals.”
There was one more clip.
At 10:46, Marianne called Daniel again.
“He’s too quiet,” she said.
“What did you give him?”
“What you told me.”
“How much?”
“The dropper slipped.”
Daniel swore.
Then his voice became cold and precise.
“Go back to the house. Get the bottle. Wipe down the kitchen counter. If Emily wakes up, say you forgot your purse.”
My hands began shaking.
That was why Marianne had been standing in the hallway when I screamed.
She hadn’t returned to help us.
She had returned to remove evidence.
I sent the clips to Tessa, to my sister and to an email account Daniel didn’t know existed. Then Tessa called Detective Alvarez.
Daniel found us before the detective arrived.
He looked from my face to the phone in my hand.
“What did you hear?”
Not what are you watching?
What did you hear?
“All of it.”
His expression collapsed.
“Emily, I can explain.”
“You drugged our baby.”
“It was an over-the-counter sleep aid. I knew the dosage.”
“He is six months old.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“No. You were trying to silence him.”
Daniel lowered his voice. “You weren’t functioning. The house was a wreck. You cried every day. Mom said you needed space.”
“So you gave our son medication behind my back?”
“I gave him a tiny amount twice. He was fine.”
“Twice?”
He looked away.
That told me the number was higher.
The door opened. Detective Alvarez entered with another officer.
Daniel stepped toward me. “Don’t do this. We can keep our family together.”
I stood so quickly that the chair struck the wall.
“You already decided what our family was worth.”
May you like
I handed my phone to the detective.
Daniel watched it leave my hand, and for the first time since I had known him, he looked afraid of me instead of for me.
