Ma’am,” he said, turning to me with a devastatingly professional calm. “Did the baby fall? Did he have an accident in his carrier?”
“No,” I said, my voice rising. “He’s two months old. He barely wiggles. He’s never left his parents’ sight—or mine.”
“This is a hepatic hemorrhage,” Dr. Patel stated. “In layman’s terms, his liver is bleeding internally. The pattern suggests a high-pressure squeeze. It’s as if someone gripped his midsection with immense force.”
The word ‘squeezed’ felt like a physical blow to my stomach. I felt the room tilt. “Are you saying… someone did this on purpose?”
“I’m saying that babies this age do not sustain internal organ damage from natural movements. We are legally required to notify Child Protective Services immediately.”
I collapsed into a chair. My son, Daniel, was a high school teacher. Megan was a pediatric nurse, for heaven’s sake. They adored this child. They had waited four years to conceive him.
But as the doctor walked out to make the call that would tear my son’s life apart, a memory flickered in the back of my mind—a shadow of something I had seen when I arrived at their house that morning. A person I hadn’t thought twice about until this very moment.
Before I could process the thought, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Daniel. His voice was frantic, but it wasn’t the voice of a worried father; it sounded like the voice of a man who was hiding a secret.
Chapter 3: The Phone Call from the Dark
