Chapter 6 - THE PERSON INSIDE OUR HOUSE
Detective Chen took the package immediately.
The handwriting appeared similar to Patricia’s, but she could not have mailed it from jail.
Someone had either sent it before her arrest or delivered it on her behalf.
Security footage showed a man in a baseball cap leaving the package at the front desk.
The camera never captured his face clearly.
I recognized his jacket.
It belonged to my cousin Mark.
Mark was Patricia’s sister’s son.
He had spent most of his life defending my mother.
Whenever Claire challenged Patricia, Mark called her ungrateful.
Whenever Hannah complained about Patricia’s behavior, Mark insisted she was trying to break apart the family.
Detective Chen called him.
He denied delivering anything.
Then she informed him that hospital cameras had recorded his license plate.
His story changed.
Patricia had contacted him before her arrest, he claimed.
She told him the package was a gift and asked him to deliver it if she could not visit the hospital herself.
“He didn’t look inside?” I asked.
“He says he didn’t.”
I did not believe him.
Neither did the detective.
But the package contained no explicit threat.
Only a disturbing message.
For the moment, Mark was released after questioning.
Hannah was discharged the next afternoon.
She did not want to return to our house.
Neither did I.
Claire offered her apartment, but it had only one bedroom.
Instead, we checked into a quiet extended-stay hotel under different names.
The company I worked for granted me emergency family leave after I explained what had happened.
For the first time since Owen’s birth, I handled every nighttime feeding I could.
Hannah needed rest.
Real rest.
Not the forced isolation Patricia had called help.
At three in the morning, I sat beside the hotel window with Owen against my chest.
His tiny fingers wrapped around mine.
I kept thinking about the photograph.
He is mine.
Patricia did not see my son as a person.
She saw him as another chance to create someone who would never leave her.
Hannah stirred beneath the blankets.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s perfect. Go back to sleep.”
She opened her eyes.
“You don’t have to stay awake all night.”
“I know.”
“But you’re going to.”
“Yes.”
A faint smile touched her lips.
It was the first smile I had seen since coming home.
Then my phone rang.
Detective Chen.
“We found something at your house,” she said.
“What?”
“A recording device.”
My body stiffened.
“Where?”
“Inside the smoke detector in your bedroom.”
Hannah sat upright when she saw my expression.
The detective continued.
“It transmitted audio and video to a private online account. We traced the account to an email address created six months ago.”
“Was my mother watching us?”
“It appears so.”
For six months, Patricia had been able to see inside our bedroom.
She had watched Hannah during the final months of pregnancy.
Watched private conversations.
Watched our arguments.
Watched our son’s first nights at home.
I felt physically ill.
“Who installed it?”
“We’re still determining that. Did your mother ever have access to the house without you present?”
“She had a key.”
Hannah looked away.
I had given Patricia the key after she claimed she needed access in case of an emergency.
I had ignored Hannah’s objections.
Again.
Detective Chen asked us to come to the station the following morning.
The online storage contained dozens of video clips.
Most showed ordinary moments.
Hannah folding baby clothes.
Me assembling the crib.
The two of us arguing over whether Patricia should be allowed in the delivery room.
One recording showed Hannah saying:
Your mother doesn’t respect me.
My response came from off camera.
She’s trying. You take everything she says personally.
I wanted the floor to open beneath me.
Another showed Patricia entering the bedroom while we were away and searching Hannah’s drawers.
She found the bank statement.
Photographed it.
Then placed it back.
The most important recording had been captured the day before my business trip.
Patricia stood alone in our bedroom speaking on the phone.
“The infection will make her look unstable,” she said. “She has already missed doses. By the time Ethan gets home, the house will be a disaster.”
A man’s voice replied through the speaker.
“You said nobody was supposed to get seriously hurt.”
Patricia’s face hardened.
“She won’t die. Women exaggerate these things.”
The voice belonged to Mark.
Hannah covered her mouth.
Detective Chen paused the recording.
“This indicates your cousin knew at least part of the plan.”
I stared at the frozen image of my mother.
“She planned the infection?”
Dr. Grant had explained that Hannah’s condition likely began as a postpartum uterine infection.
The missing antibiotics had allowed it to progress.
Patricia might not have caused the original infection.
But she had deliberately made it worse.
“She knew Hannah was sick,” Detective Chen said. “And she intended to use the illness to support a neglect allegation.”
The next recording showed Mark entering the house through the back door.
He carried tools.
Twenty minutes later, the exterior lock appeared on our bedroom door.
Mark had installed it.
He had helped imprison my wife.
Police arrested him that afternoon.
At first, he blamed Patricia.
Then he blamed me.
“She said you needed help getting rid of Hannah,” he shouted as officers led him through the station. “She said you were too afraid to admit it.”
“That is a lie.”
“She said the family would thank me!”
Hannah stood behind the observation window, shaking.
I moved toward her.
“I’m taking you back to the hotel.”
Before we could leave, Detective Chen stopped us.
“We found one more recording.”
It showed Patricia speaking to Mark on the morning I returned home.
Mark asked what would happen if Hannah told me the truth.
May you like
Patricia looked directly toward the hidden camera.
“She won’t,” she said. “And if she does, I’ll make sure Ethan loses both of them.”
