Chapter 3: What Donna Heard
Her name was Donna.
I didn't know that yet.
I only knew her as the woman who had slipped a phone into a pack of baby wipes and driven away without asking for anything in return.
But she had stayed parked at the end of the street for forty minutes, her engine idling, her phone pressed flat against the steering wheel so the call wouldn't drop.
She heard everything.
The next morning, there was a knock at the front door.
Not the attic door — the main door downstairs.
I heard my mother-in-law's voice first, sharp and clipped the way it got when she was performing calm.
"We're not receiving visitors."
"I'm not a visitor." A pause.
"I'm a delivery driver.
I have a package that requires a signature."
"Leave it on the step."
"I can't do that, ma'am.
It's medical.
It needs to go directly to—" Another pause.
"To the patient upstairs."
I pressed my ear to the floor.
My mother-in-law's voice dropped.
"There is no patient upstairs.
You have the wrong address."
"I have the right address." Donna's voice didn't waver.
"And I have the right name.
And I have a phone in my pocket that's been recording this conversation since I rang your bell."
The silence that followed was the longest I had ever heard in that house.
Then my mother-in-law said, very quietly, "What do you want?"
"I want to speak to her.
Alone.
Right now.
Or I make a call."
My husband appeared at the attic door two minutes later.
His face had the look it got when he was calculating — not angry yet, just measuring.
"There's someone here for you," he said.
"Keep it short."
He said it like he was doing me a favor.
I walked down the stairs for the first time in eleven days.
My legs felt strange on the steps.
Donna was standing in the hallway, a small woman in a blue jacket, a delivery bag over one shoulder that I was fairly certain held nothing medical at all.
She looked at me the way people look at someone they've been worried about.
"You okay?" she said.
"No," I said.
She nodded like that was the answer she expected.
"I've got everything from last night saved to a cloud account.
Audio.
The stream screenshots.
The comments." She glanced toward the kitchen, where my mother-in-law had gone very still near the counter.
"I also called a friend of mine last night.
She's a family law paralegal.
She wants to talk to you."
My mother-in-law moved then.
Fast, for a woman her age.
"This is a private family matter," she said, stepping into the hallway.
"Whatever she has told you, she is not well.
She has been under psychiatric supervision—"
"I haven't told her anything," I said.
"She heard you."
My mother-in-law's mouth closed.
Donna reached into her jacket pocket and placed a business card on the hallway table.
"Her name is Grace Alderton.
She's expecting your call today." She looked at me, not at my mother-in-law.
"You don't have to make any decisions right now.
Just call her."
My husband appeared at the top of the stairs.
"I think it's time for you to leave."
Donna picked up her empty delivery bag.
"I'm leaving." She looked at him the way you look at something you've already decided about.
"But I'll be back.
And next time I won't knock."
The door closed behind her.
My husband came down the stairs slowly.
My mother-in-law turned toward me, and the smile from the night before was completely gone.
"Give me the phone," he said.
"What phone?"
"The one she gave you."
I held my hands open.
Empty.
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he looked at my mother-in-law.
She said, "Check the wipes."
They went upstairs together.
I stood in the hallway alone, the business card already tucked inside the waistband of my maternity pants, pressed flat against my skin.
Grace Alderton.
May you like
Family law paralegal.
I had memorized the number before Donna's car had left the street.
