They had known.
“What else?” I asked.
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Ryan said something on the call.”
“What?”
Daniel looked at Nathan, then back at me.
“He said, ‘By next week, Emma won’t be a problem anymore.’”
The room went silent.
Ethan made a tiny sound in his sleep.
I felt my mother’s letter beneath my hand. Mother-in-lawgifts
When the day comes that Ryan shows you who he is, do not explain it away.
Outside, somewhere beyond the hospital walls, Ryan Parker was still free.
But now I understood the true horror.
He had not merely abandoned me.
He may have been waiting for me not to survive.
And just as that realization settled over me, Detective Bennett appeared in the doorway.
Her face was hard.
“Emma,” she said, “we found something in Ryan’s car.”
Nathan stood up.
“What?”
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“A hospital-grade sedative vial. Empty.”
My blood turned to ice.
“I was never given a sedative at home,” I whispered.
Detective Bennett’s eyes locked onto mine.
“We know.”
Then she opened her folder and placed a photograph on my blanket.
It showed a tiny puncture mark on the inside of my arm.
A mark I had not noticed.
A mark hidden beneath bruising and IV tape.
Detective Bennett spoke quietly.
“Emma, we no longer believe Ryan left you to die.”
She paused.
“We believe he made sure you couldn’t call for help before he walked out the door.”
And at that exact moment, my phone lit up on the bedside table.
A blocked number.
One new message.
Nathan picked it up before I could.
His face changed as he read it aloud.
You should have stayed dead.
A cold numbness passed through my entire body.
I imagined him standing inside the nursery.
Calling out for me.
Seeing the carpet.
Realizing everything too late.
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