Everything Started Making Sense
I replayed the footage with shaking hands, and suddenly every strange moment from the past several months came rushing back.
Late meetings. Locked phones. Business dinners that somehow stretched past midnight. And one night when I went downstairs for water and found Mark texting someone in the dark kitchen. The second he saw me, he locked his screen.
“Who’s that?” I’d asked.
“Lauren from work,” he answered too fast. “Client issue.”
I’d trusted him.
Now my whole body went cold.
I called Miss Greenwood back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know whether to send the footage, but your husband never mentioned another adult being there that morning.”
“She’s Lauren. His coworker,” I said.
She hesitated. “Ava seemed very comfortable around her in the clip. That’s partly why something felt wrong to me.”
Comfortable.
Which meant this wasn’t their first meeting.
I watched the footage again and noticed things I’d missed the first time. The way Mark kept checking who was nearby. The way Lauren avoided looking directly at the cameras. How he hurried her away before any teachers could approach.
He wasn’t hiding her from the daycare.
He was hiding her from me.
