Chapter 2
I shoved the door open so hard it banged against the wall.
Linda stumbled backward.
For a second, I thought she had hurt him again.
Then I saw Ethan on the floor.
Not because she had pushed him.
Because he had collapsed.
His wet knees were tucked under him.
Both of his hands clutched his throat as he coughed and coughed, trying to pull air into lungs that had nearly lost it.
I dropped beside him.
“Ethan, breathe for me.”
Linda grabbed my arm.
“Get out of my house.”
I ripped free.
“Call 911.”
“He is fine.”
“He is not fine.”
Ethan made a sharp, frightening sound.
A thin wheeze.
His eyes widened with panic.
I turned him slightly forward and patted his back.
Not too hard.
Just enough to help him clear the water.
He coughed again.
Water spilled from his mouth onto the tile.
I felt my stomach twist.
“Linda, call 911 now.”
She stood over us with her hands curled at her sides.
Her mask was gone.
All that pretty warmth had disappeared.
“If you call anyone,” she said, “you will regret it.”
I looked up at her.
“Are you threatening me while this child is choking?”
Her face changed again.
Fast.
A flash of calculation.
Then she began to cry.
Not real tears.
Dry sobs.
“Oh my God,” she said loudly. “He slipped. Grace, why did you push past me? Why are you scaring him?”
I stared at her.
Even then, she was building her story.
Even then, while Ethan shook on the kitchen floor, she was preparing to save herself.
I unlocked my phone and dialed.
Linda lunged for it.
I turned my body away.
The operator answered.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My neighbor’s seven-year-old stepson was held under water in a kitchen sink,” I said. “He inhaled water and is coughing badly. We need police and an ambulance.”
Linda screamed.
“You liar!”
Ethan flinched so hard he almost fell sideways.
I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Stay with me, sweetheart.”
Linda ran to the counter and grabbed her own phone.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll call David.”
She pressed the screen with furious fingers.
I heard it ring.
Once.
Twice.
“David,” she sobbed when he answered. “You need to come home now. Grace broke into our house and attacked me.”
My head snapped up.
“She what?” I heard David say faintly.
“She is crazy,” Linda cried. “She scared Ethan. She is accusing me of hurting him.”
I grabbed my phone tighter.
The operator was still on the line.
“I need you to note that she is making false accusations right now,” I said.
Linda glared at me.
Then she turned her back.
“Please hurry,” she whispered into her phone. “I’m scared.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the performance was so sick I could not breathe.
Ethan reached for my sleeve.
His fingers were cold.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered.
My eyes burned.
“I’m not leaving.”
Linda heard him.
Her face went white with rage.
“Ethan,” she said.
Just his name.
Nothing else.
But that child recoiled like she had raised a hand.
The operator asked me if Ethan was conscious.
“Yes. He’s conscious. He’s coughing. He’s terrified.”
“Keep him sitting upright,” the operator said. “Emergency services are on the way.”
I did exactly what she told me.
Linda paced.
She cried whenever she thought someone might be listening.
She glared whenever she thought no one was.
I looked around the kitchen for clues.
A small step stool was overturned near the sink.
A wet towel lay crumpled beside it.
Three plates were broken on the floor.
One of them had a smear of something red.
Jam, maybe.
Not blood.
I prayed it was jam.
On the refrigerator, I noticed drawings held up by magnets.
One was signed Ethan.
A house.
A sun.
A stick figure man with dark hair.
David.
Another stick figure was smaller.
Ethan.
There was no Linda in the drawing.
Instead, in the corner of the page, drawn faintly in gray crayon, there was a rectangle with bars.
A cage.
My throat tightened.
Outside, sirens grew louder.
Linda heard them too.
She rushed to Ethan and dropped to her knees.
“Baby, listen to me.”
I moved between them.
“Don’t touch him.”
She whispered around me.
“You tell them you slipped. Do you understand? You tell them you made it up.”
Ethan began shaking harder.
I held my phone up again.
“I am recording.”
Linda froze.
The sirens stopped outside.
Red and blue light flashed across the kitchen window.
Linda stood, smoothed her wet blouse, and became someone else.
A frightened wife.
A caring stepmother.
A victim.
Two paramedics came in first.
Then two police officers.
I gave them my name.
I explained what I saw.
Linda cried over every word.
“She hates me,” Linda said. “She was Rachel’s friend. She never accepted me.”
“I was not Rachel’s friend,” I said. “I was a neighbor. And I recorded what happened.”
The officer turned to me.
“You have video?”
“Yes.”
Linda’s crying stopped.
The kitchen became silent except for Ethan’s rough breathing.
I handed my phone to the officer.
He watched.
His expression changed before the video ended.
The paramedic looked over his shoulder and whispered something I could not hear.
The officer looked at Linda.
“Ma’am, step away from the child.”
Linda’s mouth trembled.
“I can explain.”
Before anyone could respond, tires screeched outside.
A truck door slammed.
David burst through the back door, face pale, work boots muddy, eyes wild.
Linda ran to him.
“David!”
She threw herself against his chest.
“She attacked me,” she sobbed. “She tried to take Ethan.”
David looked at me.
Then at Ethan.
Then at the officer holding my phone.
“What is going on?” he demanded.
The officer did not answer right away.
He simply turned the phone screen toward David.
David watched the video.
I watched his face break.
First confusion.
Then disbelief.
Then horror.
Then something worse.
Recognition.
Like part of him had been afraid of this all along.
Linda grabbed his arm.
“David, please. It is not what it looks like.”
David pulled away from her slowly.
His eyes moved to Ethan.
Ethan sat on the floor with a blanket around his shoulders, too afraid to cry.
David took one step toward him.
“Buddy?”
Ethan stared at him.
May you like
Then he whispered five words that froze everyone in the room.
“She said Mommy deserved to die.”
