Chapter 4 - THE DETECTIVE Detective Miller had seen obsession before.
He had seen stalking.
Threats disguised as affection.
Domestic violence hidden behind respectable suburban doors.
But there was something about David's story that made him uncomfortable.
He studied the photographs.
The blanket.
The dried leaf.
The messages.
The security footage.
Then he looked directly at David.
"Tell me everything."
David hesitated.
"Everything?"
"Start at the beginning."
So David did.
He talked about his mother.
About Leah.
About the pregnancy.
About the incidents he had spent years dismissing.
About the fear.
When he finished, Miller leaned back.
"You believe your mother is trying to hurt your wife."
"I know she is."
Miller's expression hardened.
"Knowing and proving are different things."
David nodded.
"I have proof."
He opened the folder.
Miller examined every photograph.
Then the medical reports.
Then the recordings.
Finally, he asked the question David had been avoiding.
"Why?"
David stared at him.
"I don't know."
Miller studied him for several seconds.
"Then find out."
Those words followed David home.
That night, he couldn't sleep.
At 3:04 a.m., he walked into the kitchen.
The house was silent.
He looked toward the nursery.
Toward the crib.
Toward the tiny stuffed rabbit Leah had placed beside it.
Then he remembered his mother's obsession with family.
Blood.
Legacy.
Possession.
And for the first time, David wondered whether there was something in his childhood he had never been told.
Something buried.
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Something dangerous.
Something connected to the baby growing inside Leah.
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