Chapter 1 - The Slipped Secret
I stopped breathing as the silence in our living room grew incredibly heavy.
The milk dripping from my son’s blanket suddenly felt like ice against my skin.
“What do you mean, again?” I demanded, my voice shaking with sudden fear.
Ryan’s face drained of color as he realized the magnitude of his terrible mistake.
Linda immediately dropped her hands to her sides and began to weep violently.
“He is just stressed from work, Sarah,” she sobbed, clutching her chest theatrically.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, I was just trying to feed my ungrateful grandson.”
I ignored her fake tears and took a menacing step toward my husband.
“Look me in the eye and tell me what your mother did before.”
Ryan swallowed hard and quickly looked away from me.
“It is nothing, Sarah, I just meant she used to lose her temper when I was a kid.”
I knew he was lying to my face.
Husbands do not look at their mothers with that specific brand of terror over a simple childhood memory.
I noticed his eyes dart nervously toward the locked mahogany desk drawer in the corner of the room.
He had fiercely forbidden me from ever opening that exact drawer since the day we brought Noah home from the hospital.
I held Noah tighter to my chest and walked backward toward the hallway.
“I am giving my son a warm bath, and she needs to be out of this house by the time I am done.”
“Please be reasonable,” Ryan pleaded, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
I slapped his hand away just as hard as I had slapped his mother.
“If her bags are not packed in twenty minutes, I am calling the police.”
I turned and locked myself inside the nursery, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs.
I stripped Noah out of his milk-soaked clothes and gently wiped his face with a warm washcloth.
He finally stopped crying, cooing softly as I wrapped him in a fresh, dry towel.
While I rocked him to sleep, my eyes drifted to the hallway door.
I could hear Ryan and Linda whispering fiercely just outside the nursery walls.
I quietly laid Noah in his crib and opened the door just a fraction of an inch to listen.
“You promised me you would never touch him,” Ryan hissed angrily.
“The boy needs strict discipline, just like the other one did,” Linda snapped back.
“If Sarah manages to open that desk drawer, we are both going to spend the rest of our lives in prison,” Ryan whispered.
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My blood ran completely cold.
I had to find out what was inside that drawer tonight.
