Chapter 3

I didn't sleep. By the next night I'd decided I wasn't going to just take it.

The fever was a lie. A hundred and four, all night, no hospital? No mother sits on that. I was going to make her prove it.

I went next door. Cole's truck was in her driveway. Of course it was.

Renee opened the door already crying. She was good at it. The tears were there before the door was.

"Mara, please. Lily's finally asleep. Please don't do this here."

"You told Cole she ran a hundred and four all night." I lifted my phone. "Let's find out."

I started dialing, slow, in front of both of them. "Nine. One. One. An untreated high fever in a child is an emergency, Renee.

If it's real, they'll admit her tonight. If it's not, it's a false report. Either way, we finally know."

Renee's face came apart. For one second the crying stopped and I saw it—the panic of someone about to be caught.

I had her. I actually had her.

Then Cole stepped between us.

"Enough."

He put himself in front of her, one arm back, shielding her from me.

"Look at yourself, Mara. Look at what you're doing. You'd threaten to take a sick child from her mother just to win a fight with me?

She is terrified of you. You are standing in her home, doing this to her."

"She has no one. She actually needs me—do you even know what that feels like, to be needed? You've never needed a soul in your life.

I never wanted to hurt you. I just couldn't keep being nothing in my own house."

Renee grabbed his sleeve, sobbing, apologizing to me. "I never wanted any of this.

Please—I'll go, I'll take Lily and go, just don't call them, please don't take my baby—"

Every word was an apology. Every word took something from me.

And I watched it work.

Cole wasn't lying to me. He believed every word. Behind his eyes he was a good man protecting a frightened woman from his cold, jealous wife.

And I was the one holding a phone like a weapon over a sleeping child.

I lowered it.

There was nothing to win here.

He'd already handed the whole street, the whole hospital, the only version that would travel: Mara finally snapped.

Mara threatened a sick kid. Poor Renee.

I was right about all of it. And I still walked out that door the villain.

Behind me I heard him comforting her. Soft. Patient. The voice he used to use on me.