Chapter 2 - The Hospital Warning
Ryan didn't answer his mother.
He simply opened the front door and guided me outside.
Twenty minutes later, I was lying beneath fluorescent lights in the maternity unit while two monitors tracked my heartbeat and our baby's.
Ryan sat beside me with one hand wrapped around mine.
The doctor studied the screen.
“You're having contractions.”
My throat tightened.
“Is the baby coming?”
“Not necessarily.”
She checked another reading.
“Severe stress can trigger uterine activity.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
The doctor looked directly at him.
“Whatever happened today needs to stop happening.”
“It will.”
His voice was almost a growl.
When she left, silence settled between us.
I finally looked at Ryan.
“Why did you come home early?”
He stared at the floor.
“My meeting was canceled.”
“Just canceled?”
“No.”
He hesitated.
“I received an email from you.”
My stomach tightened for a completely different reason.
“What email?”
Ryan pulled out his phone.
The message had been sent from my address at 5:12 that morning.
It contained only three sentences.
I can't do this anymore.
Your mother was right.
When you come home, I'll be gone.
I stared at the screen.
“I didn't send that.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because you never say ‘I can't do this anymore.’”
Despite everything, tears filled my eyes.
Ryan squeezed my hand.
“The email felt wrong.”
“So you came home?”
“I took the first flight.”
He looked toward the monitor.
“If I hadn't…”
Neither of us finished the sentence.
Then Ryan opened the email details.
My address had sent it.
But the login location wasn't ours.
It was Charlotte.
His mother's neighborhood.
Ryan's jaw tightened.
“She got into your account.”
I shook my head.
“She doesn't know my password.”
“Maybe she doesn't need to.”
I remembered something.
Three weeks earlier, Diane had insisted I log into my email from her laptop because she wanted me to print baby shower invitations.
My skin went cold.
“I used her computer.”
Ryan immediately understood.
“She saved your login.”
A nurse entered carrying a plastic bag.
“Mrs. Carter?”
“Yes?”
“Your husband asked security to retrieve your purse from his mother's house.”
She placed it on the chair.
Ryan frowned.
“I didn't ask them to do that.”
The nurse looked confused.
“A woman identifying herself as your mother-in-law brought it downstairs.”
Ryan reached for the purse.
Inside were my wallet, keys, and phone.
And beneath them sat something that had not been there before.
A small silver flash drive.
A piece of tape had been wrapped around it.
One handwritten word appeared across the tape.
RYAN.
He stared at it.
“That isn't mine.”
I looked at him.
May you like
“Then who put it there?”
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