Chương 9
“Or Chloe.”
I opened the family group thread Mark had exposed to me and scrolled through the photographs again.
There were hundreds of messages.
Most were ordinary.
Birthday reminders.
Restaurant recommendations.
Complaints about airlines.
Pictures of Mark’s dog wearing a Halloween costume.
Then the tone changed shortly before Liam was born.
My mother wrote that Maya had become “very emotional lately.”
Chloe answered with a joke.
Mark mostly stayed out of it.
A week later, my mother wrote that I was exhausted from “managing Maya’s anxiety.”
I had never said that.
Another message claimed Maya was refusing help.
Another said she was spending recklessly.
Another said she had become possessive of Liam.
Each one was small enough to sound plausible.
Together they built a person I did not recognize.
I searched my own name.
The results were worse.
Mom says David is worried but doesn’t know how to tell her.
David apparently asked Mom to take over the finances.
David agrees that Maya needs boundaries.
David thinks she’s becoming dependent on him.
I handed the phone to Maya.
She read three messages before pushing it back.
“I can’t.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I knew she disliked me.”
Her voice stayed level.
“I didn’t know she was creating a version of our marriage for people.”
Neither had I.
That part embarrassed me in a way I could not fully examine.
My mother had been borrowing my authority as casually as she borrowed money.
She did it because she expected nobody to verify with me.
Apparently, for years, nobody had.
At nine fifteen, Officer Patel called.
Two patrol officers were at the apartment with Mrs. Alvarez.
They had located two more devices.
One was behind a row of books in the living room.
The other was attached beneath a wall shelf in the nursery.
The third was still missing.
“Were they recording?”
I asked.
“We cannot confirm that yet.”
“Can you take them?”
“They can document and secure what your neighbor found, but how the devices are handled from here depends on what they are, whether they contain local storage, who owns them, and what the circumstances show.”
I hated every careful word.
I also understood why she used them.
“What should I do?”
“Do not log into them or try to access memory cards.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know who purchased them?”
“No.”
“Can you check purchase records without altering anything?”
“Probably.”
“Do that.”
After we hung up, I searched our shared household email.
Nothing.
Then my own.
Nothing.
Maya watched me from the bed.
“Try your mother’s Amazon account.”
“I don’t have access.”
“You used to.”
I looked at her.
“She ordered your dad’s birthday gift last year and made you check whether it shipped.”
I remembered the password only because it was the name of a childhood dog followed by my father’s birth year.
The login worked.
I felt strange entering it.
Not guilty exactly.
More like I had stepped into a room I was not supposed to know existed.
The purchase history loaded.
For several months, there was nothing unusual.
Kitchen storage containers.
Skin cream.
A humidifier.
Christmas lights.
Then, on December twentieth, three miniature wireless cameras.
I stared at the order.
They had been delivered to our building.
Not my mother’s house.
Ours.
Maya whispered, “She bought them.”
“Yes.”
“Before Liam was born.”
“Two days before.”
The order contained three identical devices.
No fourth.
At least the numbers matched.
I took screenshots and logged out.
My hands had started shaking again.
Maya watched them.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“David.”
I sat.
She shifted carefully and held Liam against her chest.
The nurse had brought him back after a pediatric check, and he looked warmer now, bundled in two hospital blankets with only his face visible.
Maya touched his eyebrow with one finger.
“What was she trying to catch me doing?”
I did not answer because every possible answer sounded cruel.
Sleeping?
Crying?
Taking medication?
Losing patience with a newborn?
Failing some invisible test?
Maya looked at me.
“She was building a case.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Against you?”
“Maybe.”
I thought about the messages claiming she was unstable.
The warnings to Mrs. Alvarez.
The disappearing objects.
The secret photographs.
My mother telling people I was concerned about Maya’s behavior.
It was not proof of a specific plan.
But it was not random either.
At ten, the surgical team examined Maya again.
Her temperature had dropped under one hundred.
The attending physician said that if the trend continued and her blood work improved, they might consider discharge the next day with oral antibiotics and close follow-up.
Maya asked whether she had caused the infection by moving too much.
The doctor shook her head.
“You had major abdominal surgery.”
Then she glanced at me.
“Rest matters, but infections have multiple causes.”
Maya nodded.
The physician added, “You did not fail recovery.”
That sentence silenced Maya in a way medical information had not.
After the team left, she stared at Liam for a long time.
“I hate that I needed her to say that.”
“Why?”
“Because I should have known.”
“You were being told otherwise every day.”
“I still should have known.”
I started to answer and stopped.
Maybe the kindest thing was not correcting every wound immediately.
At eleven thirty, I went home.
Maya did not want me to.
Neither did I.
But we needed clothes, documents, and an exact inventory before the police report could move beyond assumptions.
Mrs. Alvarez met me in the lobby wearing leopard-print slippers and holding a mug that said WORLD’S OKAYEST AUNT.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The new key felt unfamiliar in the lock.
That unsettled me more than I expected.
Our apartment looked almost exactly as I had left it hours earlier.
The ramen cup was still on the kitchen table.
My suitcase was still by the door.
The refrigerator note was gone because I had taken it to the hospital.
May you like
Everything ordinary had become suspicious.
I found the first hidden camera on the dining table inside a clear plastic evidence bag the officers had left after documenting it.
