Chapter 3 - A Complaint Written Early
At the children's clinic, Daniel watched Noah sleep under a pale-blue blanket. The pediatrician found no injury. Daniel should have felt relief. Instead he kept seeing the iron moving toward the crib.
Ortiz called while he waited for discharge papers.
"Vanessa's complaint says Maria frightened Noah with household equipment and then tried to disable the nursery monitor to hide it."
"That's backward. Maria plugged it back in."
"The complaint is timestamped eleven oh six. Did anything happen then?"
"Nothing I know about."
"You should know that your wife has a lawyer already."
When Daniel returned home with Noah, Maria had packed one small bag.
"I'm not leaving because I did anything wrong," she said. "I'm leaving because I don't know what she can do next."
Daniel stood aside so she could see that the front door was unlocked. "You can leave. I'll still pay you. But I need you to know I believe you."
"You didn't yesterday."
"I know."
He offered her the guest room far from the nursery until arrangements could be made. She declined and took a ride to her sister's apartment. Before leaving, she gave Daniel a folded grocery receipt covered in neat blue handwriting: dates, times, and short notes.
"I've kept this for three weeks," she said. "I didn't know who else to tell."
One line read: CAMERA OFF, 2:18. BABY CRIED. V SAID HE MUST LEARN.
Another: V TOLD ME TO SIGN SAFETY STATEMENT. REFUSED.
Daniel felt sick. He had mistaken a quiet house for a safe one.
He checked the office computer. The nursery feed showed only the minutes after Maria reconnected the power. On the hallway camera, however, he found Vanessa entering the nursery carrying the iron. She checked both directions before closing the door almost all the way.
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At the bottom of the screen, a notification appeared from his email: YOUR DOCUMENT HAS BEEN SIGNED.
Daniel hadn't signed anything that day.
