Chapter 12 - Thirty Days of Secrets
Cassandra obtained the security backup before Deborah could touch it.
We reviewed the footage in my hospital room.
Most of it was ordinary.
Television.
Meals.
Arguments about groceries.
Then we reached footage from five days before my labor.
Deborah and Travis were sitting in the living room.
I had been upstairs sleeping.
Deborah placed a credit-card statement on the table.
“I need twenty thousand.”
Travis stared at her.
“I don't have twenty thousand.”
“Natalie does.”
“That’s the babies' emergency money.”
Deborah rolled her eyes.
“She has plenty.”
“I can't just take it.”
“You're married.”
“What belongs to her belongs to you.”
“That’s not how the account works.”
Deborah leaned closer.
“After everything I sacrificed for you?”
Travis rubbed his face.
“I’ll replace it before she notices.”
I felt physically sick.
Cassandra paused the video.
“That explains the transfer.”
“Keep going.”
I said.
Three minutes later, Richard entered.
Deborah told him about the money.
He did not object.
Instead, he asked one question.
“How quickly can you put it back?”
Travis answered.
“After my annual bonus.”
Richard nodded.
“Then she doesn't need to know.”
I stared at the screen.
All three of them had known.
But the worst recording came two nights later.
Deborah and Lauren were alone.
Lauren asked why her mother hated me.
Deborah's answer chilled me.
“I don't hate Natalie.”
“I hate what she did to Travis.”
Lauren frowned.
“She married him.”
“Exactly.”
“He listens to her now.”
“He spends holidays with her.”
“He asks her before making decisions.”
“That isn't marriage.”
Deborah said.
“That’s theft.”
Lauren looked uncomfortable.
Then Deborah said something even stranger.
“When those babies come, she'll control him completely.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Deborah smiled.
“Remind him where his loyalty belongs.”
Cassandra stopped the footage.
Neither of us spoke.
That was why the mall mattered.
It wasn't about a handbag.
The handbag was simply the weapon Deborah used to prove she still came first.
My labor had become a loyalty test.
My children's lives had been collateral.
Detective Ortiz watched the recordings later that afternoon.
She took notes.
Then she asked for copies.
The attempted camera tampering suddenly made perfect sense.
Deborah knew what she had said.
She had been trying to erase it.
But before police could question her again, Deborah disappeared.
Her attorney claimed he didn't know where she was.
Richard claimed the same.
Lauren called me that night.
Her voice trembled.
“Natalie.”
“What happened?”
“Mom called me.”
“From where?”
“I don't know.”
“What did she say?”
Lauren began crying.
“She said she’s going to fix everything.”
My skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
Then Lauren whispered the part that terrified me.
May you like
“She asked what day the babies are being discharged.”
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