Chapter 8
I called 911 first.
Then I called Mia.
She was in the kitchen making coffee.
I held the phone out to her, my hand shaking so bad I could barely hold it.
She read the texts.
Her face went white.
“Stay here,” she said. “Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone except the cops. I’m calling Elena. I’m calling the detectives. I’m calling everyone.”
She ran into the other room.
I looked down at Lila.
She was still asleep.
Blissfully unaware.
I couldn’t let Vanessa get to her.
I couldn’t.
I grabbed the baseball bat Mia kept by the front door.
I stood in front of Lila’s crib, bat raised, waiting.
The cops showed up ten minutes later.
Sirens blaring.
Guns drawn.
They cleared the apartment.
No Vanessa.
The texts had been sent from a burner phone.
She wasn’t there.
But she was out.
That was the only thing that mattered.
Detective Alvarez showed up twenty minutes later.
He looked tired.
Angry.
“Her uncle posted bail an hour ago,” he said. “Judge lowered it to a million. Her family paid it in cash. She’s out pending trial. We’re putting a tail on her, but she’s slippery. If she contacts you again, you call me immediately. Day or night. No exceptions.”
He left two uniformed cops outside the apartment.
“For your protection,” he said.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I sat in the chair next to Lila’s crib, the bat in my lap, watching her breathe.
Every time a car drove past the window, I jumped.
Every time the floor creaked, I tightened my grip on the bat.
Mia sat with me.
She didn’t say anything.
She just held my hand.
The next morning, I had to go to the house.
Elena said we needed to get all of Lila’s things.
Her birth certificate.
Her social security card.
The baby clothes and blankets I’d bought before she was born.
Mia said she’d come with me.
The two cops followed us in their squad car.
We pulled up to the house.
It looked the same.
Same white paint.
Same blue shutters.
Same flower beds I’d planted last spring, now overgrown with weeds.
Mia got out of the car first.
She checked the front door.
Locked.
She unlocked it with my key and pushed it open.
The house was quiet.
Dark.
Cold.
The air smelled like dust and old coffee.
“Stay here,” Mia said to the cops. “We’ll yell if we need you.”
We walked inside.
I went straight to the nursery.
It was exactly how I’d left it.
Pink walls.
Winnie the Pooh mobile hanging above the crib.
Stacks of diapers on the changing table.
I grabbed the file folder with Lila’s important papers from the dresser.
I started shoving clothes into a duffel bag.
Mia was in the master bedroom, grabbing my jewelry and important documents.
I was zipping the duffel bag closed when I heard it.
A floorboard creak behind me.
I turned around.
Vanessa was standing in the nursery doorway.
She was wearing jeans and a black hoodie, her hair messy, her eyes red-rimmed and wild.
She was holding a kitchen knife in her right hand.
The blade was at least six inches long.
Shiny.
Sharp.
“Hello, Rachel,” she said.
Her voice was slurred.
She’d been drinking.
I stepped between her and the crib, the duffel bag falling from my hand.
“Get out,” I said. My voice was steadier than I felt. “The cops are right outside. They’ll be in here in two seconds.”
Vanessa laughed.
It was a high, crazy sound.
“Let them come,” she said. “I don’t care anymore. I’ve lost everything. Ethan is dead. The money is gone. Daniel won’t return my calls. It’s all your fault. You took everything from me.”
She took a step into the room.
The knife glinted in the light from the window.
“You had the perfect life,” she said. “The husband. The house. The baby. It was supposed to be mine. I was supposed to marry Ethan. I was supposed to have his babies. I was supposed to be the one everyone loved. But he had to ruin it. He had to find out about the money. He had to turn me in. So I fixed it. I fixed him. And then Daniel was supposed to be my consolation prize. He was supposed to take care of me. Love me. But you were always there. Always in the way. Always his perfect little wife with your perfect little pregnancy.”
She took another step.
“I pushed you down those stairs, you know,” she said. “I wanted you dead. I wanted that thing inside you dead. It should have worked. You should have died. And then Daniel would have had to take care of me. He would have had no one else.”
I felt the anger rise in my chest.
Hot.
Burning.
She had called my baby a thing.
She had tried to kill her.
“You’re insane,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “But I’m not going down alone. If I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail, you’re not going to have your happy ending either. I’m going to kill you. And then I’m going to kill that little brat in the crib. And then Daniel will have nothing left but me. He’ll have to choose me then. Won’t he?”
She raised the knife.
She lunged.
I dove to the side.
The blade sliced through the air where my head had been a second before.
It hit the wall with a loud thud.
Vanessa screamed and pulled it free.
She turned to me, her face twisted with rage.
“Bitch!” she screamed. “I’m going to cut your heart out!”
She lunged again.
I grabbed the heavy wooden lamp off the dresser and swung it as hard as I could.
It hit her in the shoulder.
She grunted and stumbled back.
The knife clattered to the floor.
I kicked it across the room, under the crib.
Vanessa screamed and threw herself at me.
We hit the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
She scratched at my face.
She pulled my hair.
She bit my shoulder.
I screamed and punched her in the stomach as hard as I could.
She wheezed and rolled off me.
I scrambled to my feet and put myself back between her and the crib.
Lila was crying now.
Loud, terrified screams that broke my heart.
“Stay away from her!” I shouted.
Vanessa stood up, holding her stomach.
She was bleeding from a cut above her eye.
She looked more animal than human.
She opened her mouth to say something.
Then the nursery door burst open.
Daniel stood there.
He was holding Lila’s birth certificate in his hand.
He’d come to get it, he later told me.
He’d been on his way to Elena’s office to sign the custody papers.
He took in the scene.
Me, bleeding from a scratch on my cheek, standing in front of the crib.
Vanessa, wild-eyed, bleeding, standing across from me.
The knife on the floor under the crib.
Lila screaming.
“Vanessa,” he said. His voice was quiet. Deadly. “What have you done?”
Vanessa’s face crumpled.
“Daniel,” she sobbed. “She attacked me! She pulled a knife on me! She tried to kill me!”
Daniel looked at me.
He looked at the scratch on my face.
He looked at the bite mark on my shoulder.
He looked at the knife under the crib.
He looked at Lila, red-faced and screaming.
He walked over to Vanessa.
She held her arms out to him, sobbing.
“Take me home,” she said. “Make this go away. You promised you’d always take care of me.”
Daniel stopped in front of her.
He didn’t hug her.
He didn’t comfort her.
He grabbed her by the wrists and held her arms behind her back.
“Get off me!” she screamed. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
“Cops!” Daniel shouted. “Get in here now!”
The two uniformed cops burst into the room, guns drawn.
They took one look and cuffed Vanessa.
She screamed and kicked the whole way out.
She screamed that Daniel was dead to her.
That she’d tell the cops he’d helped her kill Ethan.
That he’d held Ethan down while she set the fire.
No one believed her.
The paramedics came and checked me out.
The bite on my shoulder needed stitches.
The scratch on my face would leave a scar.
Lila was fine.
Just scared.
Daniel sat on the nursery floor, his head in his hands, while they stitched me up.
When they left, he looked up at me.
His eyes were red.
“I heard everything,” he said. “Everything she said. About Ethan. About pushing you. About Lila. I’m so sorry, Rachel. I am so, so sorry. I will sign every paper Elena puts in front of me. Full custody. All the money. The house. Everything. It’s all yours. I just… I just want one thing. Please. Let me be in Lila’s life. Even if it’s just supervised visits. Even if it’s just once a month. She deserves to know her dad. Please.”
I looked at him.
The man I’d loved.
The man who’d broken my heart a hundred times.
The man who’d just saved my daughter’s life.
I looked at Lila, fast asleep in my arms now, exhausted from crying.
“Okay,” I said. “Supervised. Once a month. At Mia’s. With a social worker present. If you’re late, if you’re drunk, if you so much as mention Vanessa’s name, it’s over. Forever. Do you understand?”
Tears ran down his face.
“I understand,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
He stood up and walked out of the room.
I sat down in the rocking chair and held Lila tight.
May you like
It was over.
Finally.
