I watched every movement.
I watched every expression on the doctor’s face.
Finally, she looked at me.
“The baby is stressed, but still stable.”
I closed my eyes.
A sound escaped my mouth that I didn’t recognize.
A mixture of relief and exhaustion.
My baby was still fighting.
So was I.
Hours later, a detective came into my room.
He introduced himself as Detective Hayes.
He placed a folder on the chair beside my bed.
“We found something at the house.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation scared me more than anything.
“What is it?”
He opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
Not of me.
Not of the backyard.
Of another woman.
A young woman.
A woman I had never seen before.
“Do you know her?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Detective Hayes looked at the photo again.
“That’s what we thought.”
“Why?”
He turned the picture around.
On the back was handwriting.
My husband’s handwriting.
And one sentence:
“This is what happens when they don’t obey.”
My blood ran cold.
“Detective…”
He didn’t look away.
“Your husband may not have done this only to you.”
I stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
He opened the folder wider.
Inside were several more photographs.
Different women.
Different dates.
Different locations.
And then I saw the final page.
A report.
A missing person’s report.
Filed two years earlier.
The name at the top made my heart stop.
Because I knew that name.
Everyone in town knew that name.
It belonged to the first wife of the man I married.
And underneath her name…
Someone had written a note.
Three words.
Three words that changed everything.
“She never left.”
