Chapter 1 - THE DOLL
I heard Michael’s briefcase hit the kitchen floor before I could open my eyes.
The sound came from far away.
Everything did.
Lily was curled against my chest, her floral pajamas damp with whatever had spilled beside us. Her little fingers were still wrapped around Miss Button, the stained rag doll she had slept with since she was two.
I could feel her breathing.
Barely.
That was the only reason I had not let myself disappear.
“Clara?”
Michael’s voice broke.
Then louder:
“Lily!”
Footsteps crossed the kitchen.
Evelyn answered before I could.
“Oh, please. Clara is perfectly fine. She’s just being lazy.”
My mother-in-law sounded irritated.
Not frightened.
Not surprised.
I forced my eyelids apart.
Michael stood near the doorway in his business shirt, rain still shining on his shoulders.
His briefcase lay open behind him.
Evelyn held the mop.
For one terrible instant, nobody moved.
Then Michael ripped it from her hands.
“What happened?”
Evelyn reached for it.
“Give me that.”
Michael swung.
The wooden handle struck her shoulder and cracked against the counter.
The mop snapped in half.
Evelyn screamed.
“Michael!”
He dropped the broken piece immediately.
His face changed when he saw Lily.
He knelt beside us.
“Baby?”
Lily made a faint noise.
Michael touched her neck, then looked toward the table.
A bowl had overturned.
Food lay across the tile.
The pantry door behind him had a brass padlock through the handle.
He looked at it.
Then at Evelyn.
“Where is the pantry key?”
“She doesn’t need food every time she whines.”
Michael stood halfway.
“What?”
I gripped his sleeve.
I had almost no strength.
“Michael…”
He leaned close.
“Clara, stay with me.”
“The doll.”
“What?”
I lifted Miss Button an inch before my arm failed.
“The doll.”
Sirens sounded outside.
Evelyn stepped backward.
“No one needs an ambulance. They’ve both been dramatic all day.”
Michael stared at her.
“Lily isn’t breathing right.”
“She’s tired.”
Paramedic Cole entered with another medic.
He pushed Michael aside gently.
“Let us work.”
Oxygen.
Gloves.
Blood pressure.
A monitor.
Words I could not follow.
Cole checked Lily first, then me.
He looked at the spilled food.
Then the locked pantry.
“Any medications in the house?”
Michael answered.
“Only normal prescriptions.”
Evelyn said:
“Clara takes anxiety pills.”
“I do not.”
My voice sounded like paper tearing.
Cole looked at me.
“What happened?”
I swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
That was true.
I remembered weakness.
Lily crying from hunger.
A bitter smell.
The pantry lock.
Evelyn telling me Michael would understand when he got home.
Then the kitchen floor.
Michael picked up Miss Button.
“I’m throwing this out.”
Cole grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t.”
Michael froze.
Cole pointed toward the doll’s dress.
An oily stain darkened the cloth near one arm.
“Whatever touched them is on that doll.”
Evelyn’s breath changed.
I heard it.
Cole placed the doll inside an evidence bag he carried for contaminated personal items.
But part of the seam had already torn.
Michael felt something beneath the fabric.
“Wait.”
Cole started to stop him.
Michael pulled out a tiny black device.
A light blinked once.
Then again.
A camera.
Evelyn went completely pale.
Michael stared at it.
Then at his mother.
“What are you afraid I’m going to hear?”
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward me.
Not Michael.
Me.
That told me more than her answer would have.
Because I knew exactly why the camera was inside Miss Button.
I had put it there twelve days earlier.
May you like
And before I lost consciousness again, I remembered one thing with absolute clarity.
That morning, Evelyn had discovered the seam was loose.
