Chapter 2 - The Smile Disappeared
Claire’s smile died so quickly it was almost a physical thing.
For one second nobody moved.
Lily stood behind my leg, gripping my pants with one hand and her bunny with the other.
Claire looked from me to the television.
“That looks terrible,” she said.
“It sounds worse.”
“Ethan, listen to me.”
“I am listening.”
“It’s not what you think.”
The oldest sentence in the world.
I replayed the clip.
“You tell him again, and next time I won’t leave the door unlocked.”
Claire folded her arms. “She had a tantrum. She threw detergent. I put her in the laundry room for maybe thirty seconds so she’d calm down.”
Lily whispered, “No.”
Claire’s eyes cut toward her.
Just a glance.
But Lily flinched.
I stepped between them.
“Don’t look at her like that.”
Claire’s face hardened. “Like what?”
“Like you expect her to shut up.”
“This is insane.” She laughed once, breathless. “You’re letting a four-year-old rewrite reality because she’s jealous.”
My jaw tightened.
“Go upstairs,” I said.
Claire stared at me. “Excuse me?”
“Pack a bag.”
“You’re kicking me out because a child misunderstood discipline?”
“I’m telling you to leave because my daughter is afraid of you.”
Claire’s eyes filled instantly.
A year ago, those tears would have broken me.
Tonight they made me angry.
She marched upstairs.
I locked the front door behind her ten minutes later and called my sister Nora. She lived twelve minutes away and arrived in nine.
While Nora sat with Lily, I downloaded every security clip from the previous thirty days.
Most were boring.
Breakfast. Deliveries. Lily dancing in the kitchen. Claire answering the door.
Then I found something strange.
Every weekday between 3:30 and 5:00 p.m., the hallway camera had missing segments.
Not random gaps.
Exactly fourteen minutes each.
Someone had manually disabled recording.
I checked the administrator log.
My password had been used.
Only I knew that password.
At least, I thought I did.
Nora came up behind me.
“Ethan,” she said quietly, “you need to see what Lily just gave me.”
She held out a folded piece of paper.
It was a drawing of our house.
On the basement door, Lily had drawn a black X.
May you like
Under it, in shaky block letters, she had written one word.
MOM.
