I came home from work and found my wife, who had given birth five days earlier, scrubbing the kitchen floor while my mother stood over her saying, “You live here, so you work.”

The next week was the happiest of our lives.

The restraining order was official. The new birth certificate arrived in the mail. CPS closed their case permanently. Tom, the CPS worker my mom had bribed, was fired and arrested. Maria Gonzalez was given probation in exchange for her testimony. My mother was charged with perjury, falsifying evidence, and bribery. Her trial was scheduled for six months later.

We were free.

Or so we thought.

On Tuesday night, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize.

It was my dad.

I hadn’t spoken to him in ten years. Not since he’d left my mom for another woman and moved to California. I’d hated him for years, for leaving me alone with her, for never calling, never coming to visit.

“Daniel?” he said, his voice rough. Like he’d been crying.

“Dad?” I said, confused. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s your mom,” he said. “She’s missing. Her landlord called me yesterday. No one’s seen her since the court hearing last week. Her car is gone, her apartment is empty. The police are looking for her, but they don’t have any leads. Daniel… she left a note. It says you and Sarah took everything from her. That she has nothing left to live for. I’m scared, son. I’m scared she’s going to do something stupid.”

My blood ran cold.

I thought of the restraining order. Of her cold eyes when the judge sentenced her. Of her screaming that she’d kill Sarah.

“I have to go,” I said, hanging up.

I ran upstairs to the bedroom. Sarah was in bed, reading, Emma asleep next to her.

“Sarah,” I said, my voice tight. “We need to check the cameras. Now.”

She sat up, alarmed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“My mom is missing,” I said. “Dad says she hasn’t been seen since the hearing. She left a suicide note blaming us.”

Sarah’s face went pale.

We pulled up the security camera footage on my laptop, going back a week.

Nothing.

No sign of her.

Until we got to three nights ago.

2:17 a.m.

The backyard camera picked up a figure in dark clothes, creeping along the fence line. It was too dark to see her face, but the way she walked—shoulders hunched, head down—I’d know it anywhere.

My mother.

She’d climbed the fence.

She’d been in our yard.

I rewound the footage, fast-forwarding, watching her. She’d stayed in the shadows by the back fence for almost an hour, just staring at the house. Then she’d climbed back over and left.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The next night.

1:42 a.m.

She was back.

This time, she carried a small bag. She walked to the side of the house, under the nursery window, and disappeared from view for ten minutes. Then she came back, the bag lighter, and climbed over the fence again.

“What was she doing?” Sarah whispered, her hand over her mouth.

I didn’t answer.

I ran upstairs to the nursery.

I turned on the light, looking around. Everything looked normal. Emma’s crib, the changing table, the rocking chair, the bookshelf.

Then I saw it.

A tiny black dot on the ceiling, in the corner above the crib. Almost invisible.

I climbed up on the changing table, reaching for it.

It was a camera.

A tiny, hidden, wireless camera.

Pointed straight at Emma’s crib.

I ripped it off the ceiling, throwing it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered.

Sarah was in the doorway now, crying.

“She was watching her,” she sobbed. “She was watching our baby sleep.”

I called the police immediately.

They were at the house in ten minutes. Two officers, one tech guy. They searched the entire house, top to bottom. They found two more cameras—one in the vent above our bed, one in the smoke detector in the living room. They were all connected to a Wi-Fi signal coming from a motel twenty minutes away, in Irving.

“We have her location,” one of the officers said, pulling out his radio. “Units en route to the Royal Inn, room 214.”

I grabbed my jacket.

“I’m going with you.”

The officer hesitated. “Sir, it’s better if you stay here with your family—”

“No,” I said. “She’s my mother. I’m going. End of discussion.”

He nodded.

We drove to the motel with lights and sirens off, creeping into the parking lot slowly. Four police cars were already there, officers hiding behind their doors, guns drawn.

A sergeant came over to our car.

“Room 214,” he said. “We can see movement inside. We’re going in on my count. Stay back, Mr. Carter. Let us do our jobs.”

I nodded, my heart hammering.

“One,” the sergeant said. “Two. Three.”

They kicked the door open.

“Police! Don’t move!”

I heard screaming.

My mother’s voice.

Then silence.

The sergeant came out a minute later.

“We have her in custody,” he said. “She’s not hurt. But, Mr. Carter… you need to see what’s inside.”

I walked into the room.

It was small, messy. Empty fast-food containers on the floor, clothes piled on the bed. And on the desk, in the middle of the room…

A bank of monitors.

Four of them.

Showing live feeds from our house.

The nursery. Our bedroom. The living room. The front door.

Next to the monitors was a notebook.

I opened it.

It was a journal.

Every page was about Emma. What she’d eaten that day, when she’d napped, when she’d cried, what she was wearing. My mother had been watching her for days. Writing down every single thing.

And on the last page, written in big, messy letters:

Tomorrow, I take my baby back.

We leave for Mexico. No one will ever find us.

I stared at the words, my blood turning to ice.