Chapter 1
I found my seven-year-old daughter unconscious beside the trash cans while my in-laws watched from the porch. When I screamed for someone to call 911, my mother-in-law said, “Don’t bother.”
I had only been gone for two hours.
My husband, Daniel, was working downtown, so his parents had offered to watch Emma while I went to a doctor’s appointment in Nashville.
When I pulled into their driveway, I immediately knew something was wrong.
Emma’s backpack was lying open near the garage.
One of her shoes was in the grass.
Then I saw her.
My daughter was curled on the concrete beside two garbage cans, completely motionless.
“Emma!”
I dropped my purse and ran toward her.
Her face was damp with sweat, and she barely reacted when I touched her shoulder.
“Baby, open your eyes.”
Nothing.
I looked toward the house and saw my mother-in-law, Linda, and father-in-law, Robert, standing on the porch.
Neither of them moved.
“What happened to her?” I screamed.
Linda folded her arms.
“She needed to learn a lesson.”
I stared at her.
“What did you do?”
“She threw a tantrum at lunch,” Linda said. “So I sent her outside.”
“It’s almost ninety degrees!”
Robert finally spoke.
“Sarah, lower your voice.”
I grabbed my phone and called 911.
Linda stepped down from the porch.
“Don’t bother. She’s pretending.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“My daughter is unconscious!”
As I gave the dispatcher their address, Emma suddenly made a weak sound.
I leaned closer.
“Mommy…”
“I’m here.”
Her fingers wrapped around my wrist.
Then she whispered something that made my blood run cold.
“Grandma wouldn’t give me my medicine.”
I looked up at Linda.
For the first time, her confidence disappeared.
“What medicine?” I demanded.
Linda said nothing.
Emma had a severe medical condition, and her emergency medication was always inside her backpack.
I ran to it and ripped open the front pocket.
The medication was gone.
“Where is it?”
Robert turned toward his wife.
“Linda?”
She backed toward the porch.
Then I noticed something sticking out of her pocket.
It was Emma’s medication.
But before I could reach her, Emma whispered one more sentence.
“Grandma said Daddy told her to hide it.”
I froze with my hand inches from Linda’s pocket.
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Then my phone rang.
Daniel’s name appeared on the screen.
