Chapter 4 - What Was Missing From the Safe
Megan swore under her breath.
I could not speak at all.
Detective Cole stayed calm.
“When did you last see the gun?”
“I never saw it out of the safe.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I tried to remember.
Eric had opened the closet safe two months earlier while looking for our passports.
I had been folding baby clothes on the bed.
The black case was inside.
“About two months ago.”
“Did Janice know the safe combination?”
“I don’t know.”
Megan looked at me.
“Would Eric have told her?”
“Yes.”
I hated how quickly I answered.
Janice knew everything Eric knew.
Sometimes she knew before I did.
Cole made another call from the hallway.
When he came back, he told us officers were looking for Janice.
“She left the hospital?” I asked.
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Did she know about the order?”
“She was told not to contact you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Cole understood.
“We don’t know whether she knew officers were going back to the house.”
I looked at Megan.
She looked worried in a way that made my fear feel more real.
“Could she have taken the gun?”
Cole did not speculate.
“We’re treating it as an unsecured missing firearm until we know more.”
That phrase did nothing to calm me.
I spent the next six hours jumping every time someone opened the hospital door.
A security officer was posted at the entrance to the unit.
The nurses changed the privacy settings on my chart.
My name was removed from the public patient directory.
Melissa arranged for Miles and me to go to a confidential domestic violence residence when he was discharged.
Megan wanted us to leave the state with her.
I wanted that too.
But my lawyer had not even been hired yet.
There were court orders to obtain.
There were medical follow-ups.
There was an investigation.
Running felt simple.
Leaving legally was not.
By afternoon, I was allowed to hold Miles for longer periods.
He drank two ounces of formula without trouble.
I cried while feeding him.
Not because he was struggling.
Because he wasn’t.
His tiny mouth closed around the bottle.
His eyes drifted shut.
And for the first time, nobody was standing over me complaining about how much the formula cost.
Megan sat beside us.
“He looks peaceful.”
“I forgot feeding him could feel peaceful.”
She looked at me but did not answer.
I knew what she was thinking.
How long had this been happening?
How much had I hidden?
I was beginning to ask myself the same questions.
The missing gun changed the atmosphere around the hospital.
Security moved me to a room farther from the public elevator.
A nurse placed a note on the door instructing staff not to confirm my presence to callers.
Another nurse asked whether I wanted a different name used on the visitor board.
I chose my middle name.
It felt absurd and frightening at the same time.
Megan sat in the chair beside the bed with her coat still on.
“You should sleep,” I told her.
“So should you.”
“I can’t.”
“Neither can I.”
We listened to Miles’s monitor beep in the next room.
After a while, Megan said, “I keep trying to remember when I stopped asking harder questions.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“The bruises.”
“You asked.”
“I accepted stupid answers.”
“I gave you stupid answers.”
“I should have pushed.”
I shook my head.
“Then I would have pushed you away.”
She looked at me.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Because I remembered how fiercely I had defended Eric when anyone got too close.
I remembered telling Megan she was dramatic when she asked why he called me six times during dinner.
I remembered laughing when my father called his jealousy controlling.
I remembered protecting the marriage from people who might have helped me escape it.
Megan wiped her face.
“I hate him.”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“You don’t have to know.”
That was another new idea.
I did not have to organize my emotions before I acted on danger.
I did not need to hate Eric enough.
I did not need to stop loving the version of him I had married.
I only needed to know he was unsafe.
That answer was already clear.
That evening, Melissa introduced me to an attorney named Naomi Pierce.
Naomi worked with a legal aid program connected to the shelter.
She was small, direct, and spoke quickly.
She did not waste time asking me why I stayed.
She asked what Eric controlled.
“Joint checking.”
“Credit cards?”
“Most of them.”
“Mortgage?”
“Joint.”
“Car titles?”
“Mine is in both names.”
“Cell phone plan?”
“His account.”
“Health insurance?”
“Through his employer.”
“Your paycheck?”
“Direct deposit into joint checking.”
Naomi stopped writing.
“Change that tomorrow.”
I nodded.
“Do you have a separate account?”
“No.”
“Open one.”
“I don’t have my wallet.”
“It’s still at the house?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll arrange a police escort for essential property.”
The thought of going back made my chest tighten.
“I don’t want to see him.”
“You won’t.”
“What about Janice?”
“We’ll verify who is there before you enter.”
Naomi looked at the bruises on my face without staring at them.
“Also, do not discuss the case with either of them.”
“I won’t.”
“Not by text.”
“I won’t.”
“Not through relatives.”
“I won’t.”
“Not even if they apologize.”
I looked at her.
“You think they will?”
“I think people become very creative when consequences appear.”
She was right.
At 8:14 that night, Megan’s phone buzzed.
She glanced at the screen.
Then at me.
“What?”
“It’s a message from an unknown number.”
She handed me the phone.
There were only seven words.
Tell Hannah to stop destroying this family.
My hands went cold.
A second message arrived.
Eric is willing to forgive her lies.
Megan’s face changed.
“Forgive you?”
Another message came.
If she keeps this up, she will lose Miles.
Naomi was still in the room.
She held out her hand.
“Don’t reply.”
Megan gave her the phone.
Naomi took screenshots and forwarded them to Detective Cole.
“Could that be Janice?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Could it be Eric?”
“Maybe.”
“I hate that answer.”
“Get used to hating uncertainty.”
Naomi handed the phone back.
“Then learn to document it.”
The next morning, officers found Janice’s car parked outside a cousin’s house across town.
She told police she knew nothing about the missing handgun.
She also insisted Eric had never given her a safe combination.
The gun was not in her car.
It was not in the cousin’s house.
It was not found on Eric.
For the moment, it had simply disappeared.
Eric was released from detention later that afternoon after prosecutors filed assault-related charges and a judge imposed strict no-contact conditions pending a fuller hearing.
I learned about his release from Naomi.
“He cannot come near you.”
“What about Miles?”
“The current protection order includes the baby.”
“For how long?”
“Until the hearing.”
“When is that?”
“Three days.”
Three days suddenly sounded terrifyingly short.
“What happens then?”
“We ask the court to extend it.”
“And he asks for what?”
Naomi’s silence answered before she did.
“He may request temporary parenting time.”
I stood so quickly that pain shot through my side.
“No.”
“Hannah.”
“No.”
“We will oppose it.”
“He strangled him.”
“I know.”
“He turned blue.”
“I know.”
“How can this even be a conversation?”
“Because he has not been convicted.”
I hated that sentence almost as much as I hated Eric’s excuses.
Naomi held my gaze.
“That does not mean the judge will hand him the baby.”
I sat down slowly.
“We need medical records, the 911 recording, photographs, police reports, and anything else that shows pattern and risk.”
“The monitor clips were deleted.”
“Deleted does not always mean gone.”
As if summoned by the sentence, Detective Cole called.
Naomi put him on speaker.
“The monitor company responded.”
I stopped breathing.
“They recovered several deleted event files from server backup.”
My hand closed around the edge of the table.
“How many?”
“Twenty-six.”
Megan whispered, “Oh my God.”
Cole continued.
“Most are routine crying alerts.”
“And the rest?”
“There are four clips we need to review carefully.”
“Why?”
A pause.
“One is from last night.”
My stomach dropped.
“Does it show him hurting Miles?”
“Not clearly.”
I felt hope collapse.
Then Cole added, “But another clip is from eleven days ago.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered eleven days ago.
Eric had screamed because Miles went through six diapers in one afternoon.
He had taken the baby into the nursery and shut the door.
When I tried to follow, Janice blocked me in the hallway and told me to let Eric learn to be a father.
I had heard Miles crying behind the door.
Then suddenly the crying stopped.
I had convinced myself Eric had calmed him.
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“What’s on that clip?”
Cole did not answer immediately.
When he finally spoke, his tone had changed.
May you like
“Hannah, I need you to prepare yourself.”
