Chapter 13 - LAUREN GOES HOME
Lauren refused to return to the house.
Good.
But she wanted clothes.
Baby supplies.
Her grandmother’s jewelry.
Police escorted us.
Brent had moved temporarily to his brother’s apartment under court order.
The house looked normal.
That disturbed me.
Nursery painted pale green.
Bassinet assembled.
Tiny onesies folded by size.
A man can prepare a nursery and hurt the woman carrying the child who will sleep there.
Again.
Contradiction.
Lauren stood in the kitchen.
Touched the island.
“This corner.”
I looked.
No blood.
No dramatic crack.
Stone.
Ordinary.
She opened a drawer.
Her old phone sat inside.
“What’s that?”
“Brent bought me a new one after he threw this.”
“When?”
Twenty-seven weeks.
The old device still worked.
Cloud backup.
Messages.
Photographs.
Voice memos.
Lauren had been documenting more than she realized.
At twenty-nine weeks, she sent herself a photograph of bruising.
Subject:
In case.
I stared at her.
“You knew.”
She started crying.
“I knew enough to save things.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
May you like
“Because saving evidence felt smaller than leaving.”
I understood more than I wanted to.
