Chương 3
The officer crouched near me.
“Keep it with you for now.”
“It has to stay charged.”
“We'll make sure it does.”
“Please don't lose it.”
“We won't.”
“You don't understand.”
My voice rose, and I hated how desperate it sounded.
“He'll say I'm lying.”
The officer glanced toward the doorway.
“Right now I'm listening to you.”
An ambulance siren grew louder.
Marlene started talking behind us, fast and indignant, telling the other officer that I had experienced emotional problems during pregnancy.
Daniel told her to shut up.
She told him not to use that language with her.
For one strange second, they sounded like any mother and son having an argument in a grocery store.
Then Marlene said, “We were feeding her because she refused to eat.”
I turned.
The officer beside Daniel looked at her.
Daniel whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Marlene realized too late what she had admitted.
The ambulance stopped in front of the house.
Red light swept across the porch, the lawn, Daniel's face, then mine.
Two paramedics came through the gate carrying equipment.
One of them asked my name.
“Rachel Mercer.”
“How many weeks pregnant are you, Rachel?”
I told her.
She asked whether I was bleeding, whether I had abdominal pain, whether I had fallen.
I answered as carefully as I could.
When she asked what I had been given, I shook my head.
“I don't know.”
“That's okay.”
“They called it different things.”
“Do you know when you last had something?”
“Tonight.”
Her eyes moved toward the house.
“What kind of something?”
“I don't know.”
I swallowed.
“They put it through the tube.”
She did not ask me to explain on the porch.
She simply nodded to her partner.
“We're transporting.”
Marlene pushed past Daniel.
“You cannot take her without her medical records.”
The paramedic looked at her.
“Who are you?”
“Her mother-in-law.”
“Are you her medical decision-maker?”
Marlene hesitated.
“No, but—”
“Then give us some room.”
I almost smiled.
It was not funny.
Nothing was funny.
But watching somebody interrupt Marlene without fear felt so unfamiliar that my body did not know what emotion belonged there.
They helped me onto the stretcher.
As the wheels locked into place, I caught sight of the attic window above the house.
From outside, it looked small.
Ordinary.
Dark.
I had spent seven months believing the entire world ended at that glass.
The younger officer walked beside me.
“Rachel, the phone.”
My hand tightened around it.
He noticed.
“I'm not taking it.”
I breathed again.
“Can you unlock it?”
“Yes.”
“Don't do it now.”
He gave me a business card.
“At the hospital, when you're safe, an investigator will speak with you about preserving what's on there.”
I stared at the card without reading it.
“Will they go upstairs?”
“We're going to figure out what happened.”
“They need to go now.”
“We have officers here.”
“The bags.”
“What bags?”
“Trash.”
I tried to sit up.
The paramedic pressed a hand gently near my shoulder.
“Easy.”
“They throw things away after.”
The officer's expression sharpened.
“After what?”
“The sessions.”
Daniel was watching from the doorway.
I looked directly at him.
“The tubing, containers, whatever they used.”
Daniel stepped backward into the house.
The officer stood.
“Stay here.”
He turned toward his partner.
I did not hear everything he said.
I heard enough.
Preserve the upstairs.
Separate them.
Nobody removes anything.
The ambulance doors opened behind me.
For seven months, my survival had depended on silence.
Now every useful word I spoke changed what happened next.
As they lifted the stretcher, Daniel called from the porch.
“Rachel, please.”
I looked at him one last time.
He seemed genuinely frightened.
Once, that would have made me want to comfort him.
Instead, I raised the phone where he could see it.
His face answered the question I had been carrying down the stairs.
He knew exactly what was on it.
The ambulance doors closed between us.
Inside the ambulance, the paramedic cut away the tape securing the tube and stopped when I flinched.
“We don’t have to do everything at once,” she said.
Her voice was low and practical.
I stared at the ceiling lights and tried to follow them as the vehicle moved.
Each bump in the road traveled through my spine.
The phone stayed in my left hand.
The paramedic noticed I would not put it down.
“You can keep it.”
“I need a charger.”
“We’ll get one.”
“Before it dies.”
“We’ll get one.”
I looked at the battery again.
Seventeen percent.
The number made my chest tighten.
The paramedic wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm.
“My name’s Carla.”
I nodded.
“That’s my partner, Evan.”
Evan glanced back from the front and lifted two fingers without turning fully around.
Carla asked whether I had any allergies.
I answered.
She asked whether I had received prenatal care recently.
“No.”
“How long?”
I counted backward and stopped.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“That’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine.
Nothing that mattered seemed to have an exact answer anymore.
Time upstairs had been measured by footsteps, meals, recordings, arguments, and the changing shape of my body.
Carla asked whether I knew the name of my obstetrician.
I gave it to her.
The doctor had called during the first weeks after I disappeared from appointments.
Daniel had told me later that he had handled it.
He had said the office knew I was on bed rest.
At the time, I had been grateful because I was still trying to understand why the attic door had started locking from the outside.
Now I wondered what exactly he had told them.
My stomach tightened.
I touched it quickly.
Carla saw.
“Pain?”
“Pressure.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know.”
She checked the monitor again.
“Tell me if it happens another time.”
I nodded.
The phone buzzed suddenly.
I nearly dropped it.
A notification filled the screen.
Daniel Mercer: Please don’t do anything until we talk.
I stared at the message.
May you like
Carla glanced at my face.
“You know who that is?”
