Chapter 3

Maribel made me go upstairs to lie down. Luke stood at the bottom of the stairs until I closed the bedroom door. I waited until his boots moved toward the kitchen, then I sat on the floor with my back against the bed and pulled the monitor out from under my apron.

The small screen was cracked in one corner but still lit. I fumbled through the menu until I found the clips. The timestamps were wrong, set to factory time, but I could hear everything.

At 5:12, Luke’s voice: “You stumbled. Say it.”

At 5:19, Maribel: “Make sure she takes the blue ones.”

At 5:31, Luke again, lower, closer to the monitor in his pocket: “The blue capsules are sedatives. She won’t remember the welfare check.”

I pressed my hand over my mouth. The baby rolled under my ribs, restless. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But the only road out was a sheet of ice, and Luke had my phone and the truck keys, and Walter couldn’t be left.

I listened again. At 5:44, Maribel’s voice came through the speaker, tinny but unmistakable. She was on the phone with someone, coaching them.

“Write that she left the stove on. Write that she accused Luke of poisoning her. You’re family, Rhonda. Write what I told you.”

Rhonda. The home-health nurse. The only outsider who came to the farm. The only person I’d thought might believe me.

My hands started shaking. I scrolled back and found another clip, 5:52. Maribel again, this time on my phone. “This is Cora Danforth,” she said. “I’m afraid I might hurt my baby.”

I turned the monitor off and sat in the dark. The ice ticked against the window. Downstairs, Maribel’s voice murmured. Luke’s boots crossed the kitchen. I had proof, but proof was a thing you had to survive to use.

I crept down the back stairs to the mudroom, where Maribel had left her nurse’s tote. The kitchen was empty. I unzipped the tote and felt past gauze packs and blood-pressure cuffs until my fingers closed on a clinic-labeled box. Temazepam. Fifteen milligrams. The label said Walter Danforth, but Walter had never taken temazepam in his life. His pills were in the weekly dispenser, and I filled them myself.

Inside the box were blister packs of blue capsules. The same blue as my prenatal vitamins.

I took two capsules and slid them into the pocket of my jeans. Then I went back upstairs and lay on the bed with the monitor under my pillow. The red light pulsed against my palm like a second heartbeat.

At 6:30, Maribel called the judge’s clerk again. I heard her through the floor vent.

“Yes, tonight,” she said. “The ground’s icing. No one can get out. It’s the perfect time for a welfare check.”

The clerk’s voice was too faint to hear, but Maribel’s answer was clear.

“Thank you. I’ll have the paperwork ready.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the house settle. Luke was still downstairs, moving from room to room. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I knew he hadn’t found it yet.

The monitor was in my hands. The card was still inside. And for the first time since Luke’s backhand, I had a plan.