Chapter 4 - THE CAMERA IN THE GUEST ROOM

James came downstairs while I was still on the phone.

I showed him the photograph.

He zoomed in on the small black camera beside Emma's bassinet.

"That's not a baby monitor," he said.

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."

I closed my eyes.

Of course she was.

"Did she film Emma crying?"

Dad hesitated.

"I don't know."

James was already searching Lauren's public accounts.

For almost twenty minutes we found nothing.

Then I saw a thumbnail from an older story saved under a highlight labeled REAL LIFE.

A baby crying behind a closed door.

Text across the screen read:

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.

"Yes."

The clip lasted eight seconds.

It had been posted the same afternoon Dad found Emma alone.

No face was visible, but I recognized the guest-room wallpaper.

James saved a screen recording.

"Do not contact her."

"I want to destroy her."

"I know. But right now we save everything."

I had no idea what she meant until I looked at her post again.

Several people who knew James had commented asking why she had left out the part where she struck an infant.

One was my uncle Frank.

His comment was simple.

I was there. Lauren hit the baby. James did not threaten her.

Below it, someone else had written:

I have video.

I clicked the profile.

It belonged to my cousin Megan, who had been sitting near the tree during dinner.

I called her immediately.

She answered in a whisper.

"I was waiting for you to call."

"You recorded it?"

"Not on purpose. I was filming Grandma opening the ornament you made. My phone kept recording when Emma started crying."

I stopped breathing.

"Megan, send it to me."

She did.

The video arrived twenty seconds later.

It showed everything.

Lauren reaching for Emma.

Emma crying.

The slap.

The silence.

James standing.

But the video did not end there.

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After we walked out, the camera kept recording.

And what my mother said next was worse than anything Lauren had posted.