Chapter 7 - The Hallway ChairAlex was sitting in the hallway chair, head bowed over a paper cup of coffee. He had slept there because he knew I woke up scared.

"Someone says not to trust you," I told him.

He read the message without flinching. "Then we don't meet anybody alone."

That was my brother. He didn't demand belief. He made a plan that left room for doubt.

We gave the number to Detective Bell. She warned us not to respond until she could assess it. The hospital adjusted my visitor list, and Dana helped arrange a place to stay after discharge.

But I couldn't stop thinking about the photograph. Someone inside the house wanted the papers to get out. Nicole? Richard's secretary? The woman who came to clean every Tuesday and always avoided making eye contact with Trent?

At lunchtime, Mrs. Alvarez called Alex. A package had been pushed under her garden gate. No return address. Inside was a flash drive wrapped in a restaurant napkin and a handwritten note: ASK WHY THE CAMERAS WENT OFF AT 4:52.

My mind raced. The power hadn't died until 5:08. At 4:52, Trent had been upstairs dragging me out of bed.

"He turned the cameras off before he started," I said.

"Or somebody else did," Alex answered.

Detective Bell collected the drive rather than letting us open an unknown device. Later she called with cautious news: it contained extracts from a home-security log and photographs of financial documents, but the files still needed authentication.

One photograph showed a transfer authorization for Mom's building. Another showed a deposit to North Cedar Holdings.

The third photograph was different. It was a maternity clinic invoice in my name, paid through an account I had never seen. Across the bottom, someone had written: REPRODUCTIVE FILE — RETAIN FOR LEVERAGE.

I stopped breathing for a second.

"What does that mean?" Alex asked.

I remembered Helen insisting on choosing my doctor. I remembered appointments being canceled without explanation. I remembered the first ultrasound print disappearing from my purse.

I placed my hand on my stomach.

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"I think they were planning this before I got pregnant."

I asked whether my brother was angry at me for staying so long. He looked genuinely surprised. 'I'm angry at what happened to you,' he said. 'I can be angry about that without making you responsible for it.' I stared at the coffee stain on the table. That distinction was new to me. For months, every conversation at home had ended with somebody explaining why a thing Trent chose to do had actually been something I caused.