Chapter 8: The Screenshots
I showed Daniel the message.
He read it twice.
"Do you know this number?"
"No."
He took the phone and looked at it carefully.
"It's a local area code."
I typed back: *Who is this?*
The reply came within a minute.
*My name is Donna.
I'm in Patricia's book club.
I've been uncomfortable for a long time.
After what happened at the mall yesterday — someone told me what she did — I decided I couldn't stay quiet.*
I looked at Daniel.
He said, "Ask her what she has."
I typed: *What kind of screenshots?*
*A group chat.
Patricia, some of the women from book club, and two of her friends from church.
She talks about your daughter in there.
Regularly.
I have eight months of messages.*
My hands were steady.
I was surprised by that.
*Can you send them?*
*Yes.
But I want you to know I'm not doing this to cause trouble.
I'm doing this because I have a granddaughter the same age.
And what I've read in that chat — no child should be talked about that way.*
The screenshots arrived in batches.
Twelve images.
I opened the first one.
The group chat was called *Family First.* Patricia was the administrator.
I read the first visible message.
Then the second.
Then I put the phone face-down on the table.
"What?" Daniel said.
I picked it up and handed it to him.
He read.
His face changed slowly, the way weather changes — not all at once, but steadily, until the sky looks nothing like it did before.
The messages spanned eight months.
In them, Patricia referred to Mia as *the outsider child.* She told the group that Mia wasn't "really" a Harmon because she didn't carry the family's features.
She said Daniel had been "stolen" by a woman who used a pregnancy to trap him.
She discussed, in detail, her plan to ensure that Mia would feel like a guest in the family rather than a member of it.
She wrote, in one message from three months ago: *If the child grows up feeling like she doesn't belong here, she'll stop coming around.
And then maybe Daniel will remember who his real family is.*
Daniel set the phone down.
He didn't say anything for a long time.
"She planned it," he finally said.
"It wasn't carelessness.
She planned for Mia to feel like she didn't belong."
"Yes."
"For years."
"Yes."
He stood up.
Sat down.
Stood up again.
"Daniel." I kept my voice quiet.
"I need you to stay here with me right now.
I need you to not call her."
"I wasn't going to call her."
"I know.
But I needed to say it."
He looked at me.
His eyes were dry now.
Something harder had replaced the grief from earlier.
"What do we do with these?" he said.
"We send them to the lawyer.
Along with the garage footage.
Along with what Mia told us this morning." I paused.
"And we call Robert."
He nodded.
I messaged Donna: *Thank you.
You may have just protected my daughter.
I mean that.*
She replied: *I'm sorry it took me this long.
I should have said something sooner.
If you need me to speak to anyone officially, I will.*
I saved her contact.
Then I forwarded all twelve screenshots to my email, to Karen, and to the cloud folder.
Daniel was watching me.
"You've been preparing for this," he said.
It wasn't an accusation.
It was something closer to recognition.
"I didn't know what I was preparing for," I said honestly.
"I just knew something was wrong.
I knew it for a long time.
I kept telling myself I was imagining it."
"You weren't."
"No."
He reached across the table and took my hand.
"I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner."
"You see it now."
He squeezed my hand once.
Then he picked up his phone and called Robert.
May you like
Robert answered on the first ring.
"I was wondering when you'd call," he said.
