Chapter 2 - Unit 117
The ambulance came first.
Then the police.
The marks were photographed.
Marlene stood in the hallway telling an officer the same story over and over.
"The baby was coughing. I panicked. I picked her up wrong."
Noah stared at her like he had never seen her before.
"You picked her up by both ankles?" he asked.
Marlene's jaw tightened. "You weren't there."
"I saw the marks."
"Claire made those when she grabbed her."
I stepped toward her.
The officer stepped between us.
"Ma'am, don't."
Marlene pointed at me. "She's unstable. She has been since the baby was born."
Noah's face hardened.
"Stop."
She blinked.
It was the first time in nine years I'd heard my husband tell my mother to stop.
The police asked Marlene to leave the house while they investigated. She did, but not before looking at the rusted key in the evidence bag.
"No fracture. No head injury," the doctor said.
"I will."
That night, Sofia finally slept against Noah's chest.
I searched my email.
My father had died twelve years earlier in what police called a single-car accident. Three days before his death, he had sent me one strange message:
If anything happens to me, don't let your mother clean out the old storage place.
Marlene told me the unit had been emptied.
I believed her.
Now I typed the storage company's name into a search bar.
The place still existed.
At eight the next morning, I called.
"Do you have a Unit 117?"
The manager was quiet.
"We do."
My heart kicked.
"Who rents it?"
May you like
More silence.
Then he said, "According to our records, your father does."
