Chapter 4 - THE CAMERA IN THE GUEST ROOMJames came downstairs while I was still on the phone.
I showed him the photograph.
He zoomed in.
"That's not a baby monitor."
Dad heard him.
"I didn't think so either."
"Where is it now?" James asked.
"Gone."
I felt sick.
"Who put it there?"
Dad lowered his voice.
"Lauren said she was filming a parenting video."
Of course she was.
James searched Lauren's public accounts.
For twenty minutes, we found nothing.
Then I saw a saved story.
A crying baby behind a closed door.
Across the screen were the words:
SOMETIMES LOVE MEANS NOT REWARDING MANIPULATION.
My hands started shaking.
"That's Emma's cry."
James looked at me.
"Are you sure?"
A mother knows her child's cry.
"Yes."
The clip had been posted the same afternoon Dad found Emma alone.
James saved everything.
Then my cousin Megan called.
"I was waiting for you to call."
"You recorded Christmas?"
"Not on purpose. I was filming Grandma opening the ornament. My phone kept recording."
"Send it."
Twenty seconds later, the video arrived.
It showed everything.
Lauren reaching for Emma.
Emma crying.
The slap.
The silence.
James standing.
But the video didn't end when we left.
The camera kept recording.
May you like
Then my mother spoke.
And what she said after we walked out was worse than anything Lauren had posted.
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