Chapter 1 - The Open Window
Vanessa Morgan threw a nine-day-old baby out a window. Then she held up a deed and said, "Sign over the house. Before midnight."
Claire had just stepped through her front door. Her sister stood beside the open living-room window, arms extended, the pale-yellow blanket gone. The curtains snapped in the cold wind.
"Bye-bye, baby," Vanessa said.
"EMMA!"
Claire ran. A sharp pain pulled across her abdomen, still raw from childbirth, but she hardly felt it. The bassinet was empty. She tried to shove past Vanessa.
Vanessa blocked her. "You'll get what you want when I get what I want."
Claire hit her sister hard enough to knock them both against the sofa. She reached the window and looked down.
The old green canvas awning over the side porch sagged strangely. One corner had torn loose. In the deep fold of fabric lay a small yellow shape, completely still.
"Emma," Claire whispered.
She stumbled toward the back door, but Vanessa caught her cardigan. "Listen to me. I have until eleven fifty-nine. After that, neither of us can fix this."
Claire twisted free. "You killed my baby!"
"I didn't say that."
Outside, their neighbor Mr. Ellis was already climbing the porch steps. He had been fixing his garden hose when he heard the scream. He spread his arms beneath the sagging awning.
"Don't touch the ropes!" he shouted. "It's tearing!"
Claire reached the porch just as the first metal hook pulled away from the wall. The canvas dropped. Mr. Ellis lunged, caught the bundled weight against his chest, and fell backward onto the grass.
For one horrible second, nobody heard anything.
Then a thin, furious cry cut through the air.
Claire dropped to her knees. "Emma? Sweetheart?"
Mr. Ellis looked at the baby's face, then at Claire. "Call an ambulance. Right now."
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Claire reached for her phone and remembered it was on the kitchen counter. Through the window, Vanessa picked it up, smiled, and walked out of sight.
And the cry in Mr. Ellis's arms abruptly stopped.
