Chapter 4 - The Babysitter's Real Secret
I did not sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Miles lying on the carpet.
Not crawling toward me.
Not smiling.
Just staring.
I replayed every afternoon I had come home and accepted Hailey's explanations.
A busy day.
A missed nap.
Teething.
A growth spurt.
Each memory felt like an accusation.
At three in the morning, Colin found me sitting on the nursery floor beside Miles's crib.
He crouched beside me.
"Come back to bed."
"I can't."
"He's okay."
"Tonight."
Colin didn't respond.
That was the problem.
Miles was okay tonight.
What about all those other days?
I looked through the crib bars.
"I left him with her."
"We both did."
"He couldn't tell us."
Colin's jaw tightened.
"Don't do that to yourself."
"Do what?"
"Take responsibility for something another person chose to do."
I looked at him.
"He was trying to tell me in the only way he could."
"Emily—"
"He was exhausted."
My voice broke.
"I saw it."
Colin sat beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
At eight the next morning, Officer Daniels called.
"Do not communicate with Hailey beyond preserving any messages she sends."
"I won't."
"We're working on locating the driver."
"Can you do that?"
"Your package tracking information should identify the route."
I opened my delivery app while she spoke.
The diapers had been delivered by a regional contractor.
A first name appeared beneath the delivery confirmation.
Marcus.
No last name.
But it was something.
Police contacted the company.
By noon, Marcus had agreed to speak with investigators.
Daniels asked whether Colin and I wanted to be present for part of the conversation.
I said yes before she finished the sentence.
We met at the police station that afternoon.
Marcus looked uncomfortable without his cap.
He was taller than I remembered.
Probably forty-five.
Maybe fifty.
When he saw us, he stood.
"Your baby okay?"
That was the first thing he asked.
I almost cried.
"He's okay."
Marcus exhaled.
"Good."
"Thank you."
He shook his head.
"I should've done something sooner."
My pulse quickened.
Officer Daniels sat across from him.
"What did you notice?"
Marcus rubbed both palms against his jeans.
"It started a couple months ago."
Colin leaned forward.
"What started?"
"Your trash."
I frowned.
Marcus explained.
Our trash cans sat close enough to the driveway that, on windy days, the lids sometimes blew open.
One afternoon, while carrying packages to the porch, Marcus saw several small medicine containers on top of the garbage.
He didn't think much of it.
Families used medicine.
Then he noticed the same kind of containers again.
And again.
"That still wouldn't have meant anything," he said. "But I kept seeing your babysitter."
"What was she doing?"
"Throwing stuff away right after I came up."
I looked at Colin.
Marcus continued.
"Sometimes she'd meet me at the porch even when I didn't knock. Like she was watching for me."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
He paused.
"Then about three weeks ago, I delivered a package and saw your kid through the front window."
My chest tightened.
"He was in one of those little playpens."
"Yes."
"He was sitting up when I arrived. I put the package down. Then the sitter came into the room. She gave him something from a dropper."
Colin went still.
"You saw her?"
"Through the window."
"What happened?"
"Kid laid down maybe ten minutes later."
Marcus looked miserable.
"I told myself it was medicine."
I understood.
Because I had done the same thing.
We had all chosen the innocent explanation.
Marcus continued.
"The next week, I saw the same thing. That's when I started trying to talk into the camera."
My eyes burned.
All those silent recordings.
They hadn't been jokes.
They had been warnings.
"What were you saying?"
"Usually something like, 'You should ask what she's giving your baby.'"
I covered my mouth.
Colin stared at the floor.
"Why didn't you knock?"
"I did once."
My head snapped up.
"When?"
"Last Tuesday."
"What happened?"
"The sitter answered. I asked if one of the parents was home."
"And?"
"She said no."
"Did you tell her what you saw?"
"No."
Marcus looked embarrassed.
"I asked if the kid was sick."
"What did she say?"
"She said he had allergies."
Miles did not have allergies.
Marcus leaned forward.
"Yesterday, I saw the trash lid open again. There were more bottles. That's when I wrote the sign."
"Why those four words?"
He shrugged.
"I figured if I wrote more, you might not see it clearly on the camera."
Four words.
Check your trash can.
Four words that changed everything.
Officer Daniels asked Marcus to describe the containers.
His description matched what we had found.
Then he mentioned something else.
"There were people coming by."
"What people?" I asked.
"Different cars."
My stomach tightened.
"When?"
"Middle of the day."
"How many?"
"I noticed maybe three times."
"Did they enter the house?"
"Sometimes."
Colin stood abruptly.
"We need to go."
Daniels raised a hand.
"Sit down."
"Strangers were entering our home while our son was drugged."
"We don't know that yet."
"Then what do we know?"
"We know enough to investigate."
Her calmness kept the room from exploding.
That afternoon, detectives obtained Hailey's employment records from previous families.
Two references she had provided turned out to be legitimate.
The others were not.
One phone number belonged to a friend.
Another had been disconnected.
A third belonged to a former employer who initially refused to speak.
Then she called back.
Her name was Rebecca Ward.
She lived thirty minutes away.
She had hired Hailey two years earlier to care for her daughter.
Rebecca agreed to meet us at a coffee shop.
The moment she heard Miles's symptoms, she began crying.
"My daughter did that."
I stared at her.
"What?"
"She slept all the time."
Rebecca's hands trembled around her coffee cup.
"I thought something was medically wrong. We went to doctors. Tests. Everything."
"What happened?"
"One day I came home early."
She looked at me.
"Hailey wasn't there."
"Where was your daughter?"
"Asleep in her crib."
"Alone?"
Rebecca nodded.
I felt physically sick.
"Where was Hailey?"
"Shopping."
Colin stared at her.
"You didn't call the police?"
"I fired her."
"That's it?"
Rebecca's face tightened.
"I had no proof of anything else."
"Did you ever suspect she gave your daughter something?"
"No."
She wiped her eyes.
"Not until you called."
I understood something then.
This was how someone could keep doing terrible things.
Not because nobody noticed.
Because everyone noticed one small piece.
One parent saw unusual sleepiness.
Another saw unexplained absences.
A delivery driver saw medicine bottles.
Nobody had the whole picture.
Until now.
Police searched Hailey's apartment that evening after obtaining a warrant.
They found medications.
Receipts.
Multiple old phones.
And notebooks containing schedules.
Our schedule.
Miles's nap times.
My office hours.
Colin's work schedule.
Days my mother visited.
Days she did not.
But the discovery that frightened me most was simple.
A list of addresses.
Seven families.
Ours was number seven.
Three names were crossed out.
Beside two addresses were notes.
MOM HOME EARLY.
CAMERA INSTALLED.
Beside ours, Hailey had written:
E + C TRUST COMPLETELY.
I stared at the photograph Daniels showed us.
Trust completely.
It felt like being punched.
Colin's expression changed.
"Why would she need to know when we were gone?"
Daniels didn't answer.
Not yet.
But the investigation was moving quickly.
Phone records revealed that Hailey had been leaving our house during Miles's naps.
Sometimes for fifteen minutes.
Sometimes thirty.
Sometimes nearly an hour.
She had never told us.
She had also allowed strangers inside.
Most were people buying items Hailey advertised online.
Designer handbags.
Electronics.
Baby equipment.
At first, detectives thought Hailey had simply been running a resale business from our house while Miles slept.
Then they discovered some of the items being sold did not belong to her.
A tablet from another family.
Jewelry reported missing by a former employer.
A camera lens.
Cash.
Small valuables that parents might misplace before realizing they were stolen.
It began to make sense.
She wasn't sedating children because she enjoyed hurting them.
She wanted uninterrupted time.
Time to leave.
Time to search bedrooms.
Time to photograph valuables.
Time to meet buyers.
Children sleeping deeply were easier to control.
The explanation was almost worse because it was so calculated.
At six that evening, Daniels called again.
"We have enough to charge her."
I closed my eyes.
"Where is she?"
"She came in with an attorney."
"Did she confess?"
"No."
Of course not.
"What happens now?"
"That depends on the prosecutor."
I looked at Miles playing on the rug.
He knocked down a tower of blocks and laughed.
The sound nearly broke me.
Then the doorbell rang.
Colin immediately stood.
His entire body tensed.
I checked the camera.
A woman stood outside.
Mid-thirties.
Brown hair.
Holding a toddler.
I didn't recognize her.
She held up her phone to the camera.
On the screen was a photograph.
Hailey.
I opened the door cautiously.
"Can I help you?"
The woman looked at Miles behind me.
Then back at me.
"My name is Sarah."
Her voice shook.
"I heard the police contacted families who employed Hailey."
My heart dropped.
"Yes."
Sarah looked down at the child in her arms.
"This is my son, Ethan."
She swallowed.
"And I think she did the same thing to him."
That was when I realized firing Hailey was no longer enough.
If we stopped now, another family might someday trust the wrong person for exactly the same reasons we had.
I looked at Colin.
He already knew what I was thinking.
"We're going all the way with this," I said.
He nodded.
"Whatever it takes."
And for the first time since Thursday, fear turned into something stronger.
May you like
Anger.
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