Then another officer came outside carrying a phone in an evidence bag.
“Found this inside the house.”
I recognized it immediately.
Lena’s phone.
The officer looked at me.
“We’ve been trying to reach the mother.”
“She isn’t answering?”
“No.”
That was the first moment I understood that the baseball bat might not be the only thing we needed to worry about.
At the hospital, Noah was taken for X-rays.
I sat beside the bed, holding his good hand while Derek waited in the hallway.
For the first time since the phone call, everything became quiet.
No traffic.
No sirens.
No officers asking questions.
Just my son breathing beside me.
Then he looked up.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Mom told me not to tell you.”
My chest tightened.
“What did she tell you?”
Noah stared at the blanket.
“She said Travis gets mad when people tell.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
The door opened, and Derek stepped inside.
His face told me something had happened.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at me, then at Noah.
“The police found something else at the house.”
“What?”
Derek lowered his voice.
“A second phone.”
I stared at him.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Then Derek handed me the one thing the officer had allowed him to bring from the house.
A folded piece of paper.
My name was written across the front.
Not my address.
Not my phone number.
Just my name.
And underneath it was a date from two weeks earlier.
I opened it.
There were only six words written inside.
“Take Noah away from this house.”
I looked at Derek.
“Who wrote this?”
He shook his head.
“We don’t know.”
Then my phone rang.
It was the police officer handling the case.
His first sentence made me sit up straight.
“We need you to come back to the station.”
“Why?”
There was a pause.
