***
A few minutes later, the video arrived.
My hands shook as I opened the message and pressed play.
Initially, everything looked normal.
Mark helped Ava out of the car at the daycare while she held her stuffed rabbit against her chest.
Then a woman stepped into the frame. She was tall, brunette, and wearing a cream-colored coat.
She smiled at my daughter as if she already knew her.
I frowned immediately.
My hands shook as I opened the message.
The woman crouched down and handed Ava a bottled drink with a café label on it. My daughter smiled and took it happily.
Then the woman touched Mark’s arm. Not casually, but intimately.
My stomach dropped.
They guided Ava inside before the footage continued.
My husband smiled before walking back to his car with the woman.
I rewound the clip and tried cropping the frame to zoom in. My phone nearly slipped out of my hands because I recognized her immediately.
Lauren.
Mark’s coworker!
Then the woman touched Mark’s arm.
Lauren was the same woman I’d met once at my husband’s company Christmas party the previous year. The same woman whose name started appearing on his phone late at night, before he suddenly became protective of it.
The air left my lungs painfully.
Crying, I screamed, “Oh my God, what is happening?! What was she doing at Ava’s daycare? No… this can’t be true… I knew this wasn’t an accident!”
My hands shook as I replayed the footage.
The same woman I’d met once.
Suddenly, every strange moment from the past several months came rushing back.
- Late meetings.
- Locked phones.
- Business dinners that somehow lasted until midnight.
And one night, when I walked downstairs for water, I found Mark texting someone in the dark kitchen.
The second he saw me, he locked his screen.
“Who’s that?” I’d asked.
“Lauren from work,” he answered too fast. “Client issue.”
I’d trusted him. Now my whole body went cold.
“Who’s that?”
***
I needed answers, so this time I called Miss Greenwood.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know if I should send the footage, but your husband never mentioned another adult being there that morning.”
I swallowed hard.
“She’s Lauren. His coworker.”
My late daughter’s teacher hesitated.
“Ava seemed very comfortable around her in the clip,” she admitted quietly. “That’s partly why I felt something wasn’t right.”
Comfortable.
Which meant what I suspected: this wasn’t their first meeting.
I needed answers.
After we hung up, I replayed the footage again.
And this time, I noticed details I’d missed before.
The way Mark kept checking who was nearby.
The way Lauren avoided looking directly at the cameras.
How my husband hurried her away before any teachers approached.
He wasn’t hiding her from the daycare.
He was hiding her from me!
I noticed details I’d missed before.
***
Mark came home around 7 p.m., carrying takeout bags neither of us would eat.
The second he saw me sitting in the dark living room holding my phone, he froze.
“Emily?”
I stood slowly.
“What was Lauren doing at Ava’s daycare?”
The color drained from his face instantly.
For several seconds, he didn’t answer.
Then he quietly set the food on the table.
He saw me sitting in the dark living room.
“How do you know about that?” Mark asked, looking skittish.
“That’s your concern right now?”
“Emily, listen—”
“No. You need to listen to my question and answer truthfully.” My voice cracked. “Why was your coworker with my daughter the morning she died?”
My husband rubbed both hands over his face.
And suddenly, I knew.
Not suspected.
Knew.
Because innocent people don’t react like that.
