I gave her everything I had. Times. Days. The baths. The phase. The pinch marks. The needle. The gold eye. The pincushion.

She wrote it all down.

-Where’s your mother-in-law now?

-She was escorted to the waiting room. I don’t know if she’s still there.

-Where’s your husband?

-At home. In bed. Asleep. Or pretending to be.

-Pretending?

-When our daughter started screaming, he told me to quiet her down. He said he had a big presentation in the morning. He pulled the blanket over his head and turned his back.

Officer Whitfield’s pen stopped.

-He didn’t get up?

-No.

-Did he see her back?

-I don’t know.

-Have you called him?

-No.

-Why not?

I looked at Chloe. She was asleep now, finally, on her stomach on the exam table, with an IV in her small hand and a blanket over her legs. The antibiotics were running. Her breathing had slowed. Her cheeks were still flushed with fever.

-Because I don’t know which side of this he’s on yet.

Whitfield studied me for a long moment.

-That’s a hell of a thing to say about your husband.

-It’s a hell of a night.

She went back out into the hallway.

I sat beside the exam table and held my daughter’s small hot hand and watched the IV drip.

Then I took out my phone.

I didn’t call anyone.

I opened the Nanit app.

Eight weeks ago, when Chloe’s nightmares started, we’d moved her small wooden bed into our room. I’d mounted a baby camera on the wall above it. The kind with night vision and sound detection. It saves short video clips to the cloud every time it picks up motion or noise above a certain threshold. So you can check them in the morning.

Christopher had hated it. He said it made him feel watched in his own bedroom. He said it was paranoid. He said it was the Air Force talking.

Gertrude had hated it more. She said cameras in bedrooms were for criminals.

Two weeks ago, Christopher had told me he’d turned off the daytime recording. To give his mother privacy when she put Chloe down for naps. I’d said okay.

I hadn’t checked.

I opened the event log for tonight.

There were three clips.

1:47 AM. Sound event. Crying detected.

1:44 AM. Motion event.

1:31 AM. Motion event. Sound event.

1:31.

Sixteen minutes before Chloe screamed.

I pressed play.

The image was in black and white. Night vision. Grainy. The edge of Chloe’s little bed. The corner of the nightstand. Part of the main bed behind it, with a lump under the covers that was me.

A figure stepped into the frame.

Tall. Pajama pants. Bare chest.

Christopher.

He was standing over Chloe’s bed. He was holding his phone. The screen light glowed white in the night vision, washing out his face.

He bent down. He lifted the back of Chloe’s pajama shirt. Slowly. Carefully. He held the phone flashlight close to her skin.

Chloe whimpered in her sleep.

Christopher held still until she settled. Then he straightened up.

He put the phone to his ear.

He was whispering. The camera’s microphone was right above him. It caught every word.

-Mom. It’s me. Are you awake?

A pause.

-It’s worse. It’s bright red. It’s hot. I can feel it from here. The whole spot’s swollen.

A pause.

-I don’t know. A fever, I think. She’s burning up.

A longer pause. He rubbed the back of his neck.

-No. Listen to me. If Cass sees that, it’s over. She’ll take her to the ER. They’ll X-ray it. They’ll find it.

A pause.

-I told you to stop with the needle thing. I told you two weeks ago. I told you it was going to go wrong.

My hand went cold around the phone.

-I don’t care. I don’t care what she did. You can’t. She’s three.

A pause. His voice dropped even lower.

-Fine. Get dressed. Take her to Marsh. His clinic opens at six but he’ll come in if you call him. He can get it out and write it up however you want. Tell him it happened at Cass’s watch. Tell him whatever. Just get it done before she wakes up.

A pause.

-I’m not going. I’m not dealing with this. It’s not my kid, Mom. That was your whole point. Remember? I’m not losing this house over somebody else’s kid.

He ended the call.

He stood over Chloe’s bed for another few seconds. Looking down at her.

Then he walked out of frame.

The clip ended.

I sat very still in the plastic chair.

The IV pump clicked. The monitor beeped. Chloe breathed.

It’s not my kid.

Somebody else’s kid.

I watched it again.

And again.

On the third time, I took a screenshot of the timestamp. 1:31:04 AM. I took a screenshot of Christopher’s face washed out by the phone light. I took a screenshot of his hand lifting Chloe’s shirt.