Chapter 1 - The Baby Beneath the Lid
My daughter was three weeks old when I heard a scream from behind the downstairs bathroom door.
Not her hungry cry.
Not the offended little squeak Lily made during diaper changes.
A scream.
Sharp.
Terrified.
I had been in the laundry room for less than five minutes.
Linda had offered to hold Lily while I moved a load of onesies into the dryer.
“You look exhausted,” she said.
“Go do something without a baby attached to you.”
Linda Carter was my husband’s stepmother.
She had been married to Ryan’s father for twelve years.
Controlling?
Yes.
Difficult?
Sometimes.
Dangerous?
I had never imagined it.
I ran down the hallway and shoved open the bathroom door.
Linda stood over the toilet.
Both hands were pressing down on the lid.
Something underneath it was screaming.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Linda released the lid.
I threw it open.
Lily was curled inside the bowl, still wrapped in her pale receiving blanket, one side of it soaked.
My legs nearly gave out.
Before I could trust my shaking hands to lift her, footsteps thundered down the stairs.
Ryan appeared.
He looked at Linda.
Then the toilet.
Then Lily.
“What did you do to my baby?”
He pushed past us, lifted Lily carefully beneath her head and shoulders, and held her against his chest.
She was crying.
Moving.
Breathing.
Thank God.
Linda reached toward her.
“Give her to me.”
Ryan twisted away.
“Don’t touch her.”
Something changed in Linda’s face.
She shoved past me toward the hallway.
Her shoe hit the wet tile.
She slipped.
Her cheek struck the metal edge of the towel rack.
Blood appeared above her eyebrow.
“Call 911,” Ryan said.
Linda’s panic changed instantly.
“No.”
Ryan stared.
“No police.”
“Linda—”
“This is family.”
I grabbed my phone.
Linda seized my wrist.
“They’ll misunderstand.”
I tore free and dialed.
By the time paramedics arrived, Lily had been moved into the living room, stripped from the wet blanket, and examined beneath warm towels.
A police officer separated us.
He asked:
“Who had the baby immediately before this happened?”
“Linda.”
“That’s not true.”
Her voice came from behind me.
Fragile.
Almost trembling.
I turned.
Linda stood beneath the hallway light with blood beside her eyebrow.
Then pointed at me.
“Emma put Lily in the toilet.”
Everything went silent.
“I caught her.”
Ryan stared at his stepmother.
Linda touched the wound on her face.
“She attacked me when I tried to stop her.”
The officer looked at Linda’s blood.
Then at me.
Then at my newborn daughter.
For one horrible second, I understood what Linda had created.
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Her lie had evidence.
And mine seemed to have only disbelief.
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