I stood near the window, silent unless asked a direct question.
When Dr. Bennett finished, Emily turned to me.
“I need my apartment.”
Marcus, who had remained by the door, looked at me.
“What apartment?” I asked.
Emily’s cheeks colored with humiliation. “A sublet in Astoria. It was all I could get after the landlord issue.”
“You were in Astoria?”
Her eyes sharpened. “Don’t sound like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like someone failed to report a weather condition to you.”
I absorbed that.
“You’re right.”
She seemed surprised I did not argue.
“I need the blue notebook,” she said. “It’s hidden there.”
“Marcus can get it.”
“No.” She tried to sit straighter and winced. “I need to know it is the same one. I marked it.”
“You can’t leave.”
“I know that.”
The frustration in her voice was not stubbornness. It was fear.
“What’s in the notebook?” I asked.
Emily looked at Marcus, then back at me.
“Dates. Names. Things your mother said. Copies of letters. Screenshots I printed at the library because my phone kept losing files.” Her hand tightened over the blanket. “And something from my old doctor’s office.”
Dr. Bennett had mentioned little to no prenatal care.
“What thing?”
“A voicemail transcript. Someone called pretending to be me and canceled my first appointment. The receptionist recognized something was off and saved the recording.”
Marcus stepped closer. “Do you remember where it’s hidden?”
Emily nodded. “Behind the loose tile under the bathroom sink.”
“Who knows about it?”
“No one.”
The answer should have relieved me.
It did not.
Marcus left with two men I trusted more than most blood relatives. Emily watched him go, then leaned back, exhausted by the short conversation.
For several minutes, the only sounds were the monitor and the city waking below the window.