“She is exaggerating! She does this when she wants attention!”
I opened my eyes inside the ambulance.
The paramedic beside me looked furious.
Not at me.
At him.
“Ma’am, don’t worry. We heard everything.”
I stared at her.
“Everything?”
She nodded.
“The recordings.”
My eyes filled with tears.
Not because I was relieved.
Not yet.
Because I suddenly realized something.
The recordings were enough to prove what happened outside.
But they weren’t enough to explain why it happened.
And I needed the answer.
Because my husband hadn’t just woken up one morning and decided to bury his pregnant wife in the backyard.
Something had changed.
Something had made him believe he could get away with it.
At the hospital, doctors checked the baby immediately.
Those were the longest minutes of my life.
I watched the monitor.
I watched every movement.
I watched every expression on the doctor’s face.
Finally, she looked at me.
“The baby is stressed, but still stable.”
I closed my eyes.
A sound escaped my mouth that I didn’t recognize.
A mixture of relief and exhaustion.
My baby was still fighting.
So was I.
Hours later, a detective came into my room.
He introduced himself as Detective Hayes.
He placed a folder on the chair beside my bed.
“We found something at the house.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation scared me more than anything.
“What is it?”
He opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
Not of me.
Not of the backyard.
Of another woman.
A young woman.
A woman I had never seen before.
“Do you know her?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Detective Hayes looked at the photo again.
“That’s what we thought.”
“Why?”
He turned the picture around.
On the back was handwriting.
My husband’s handwriting.
And one sentence:
