The baby in that freezer could be Craig. Again.
Terror crawled up my spine. Every hair on my body stood on end.
Then I spotted him—lurking in the crowd, wearing a mask of innocent curiosity. The neighbor's kid.
I moved before I could think, crossing the distance in three strides and seizing his wrist.
"Tell me. Was it you?"
His name was Harold Lambert. A textbook case of a child born wrong—cruel streak a mile wide, zero conscience to speak of.
He yanked free of my grip, his face crumpling into wounded confusion.
"Ma'am, what did I do? Why are you grabbing me?"
Only then did I register the stares. Every single person in the crowd was watching me like I'd lost my mind.
I didn't care.
"You know exactly what you did," I spat. "The police are on their way. I suggest you turn yourself in while you still can."
That was a human life. A baby—frozen to death in a commercial ice box.
Even if it wasn't my Craig, I couldn't pretend this hadn't happened.
Harold's mother appeared, shoving through the onlookers. The moment she saw me gripping her son, she charged over and shoved me backward.
"What the hell do you think you're doing to my boy, you crazy bitch?"
"He killed someone," I said flatly. "What do you think I'm doing?"
Something flickered in Margery Matthews' eyes. Panic, quickly smothered.
She denied it immediately—called me delusional, accused me of making up stories.
I grabbed her arm and hauled her toward the freezer.
"Open your eyes and look."
Margery glanced at the tiny blue-tinged body. Just once. Then she looked away.
"What proof do you have that my son did this?" she demanded. "Stop spouting nonsense."
I held her gaze, my expression carved from stone.
"The store has security cameras. How do you think I know?"
A bluff. There were no cameras—the system had been broken for months.
But Margery seemed to know my shop better than I did. She called my bluff without flinching.
"Don't try to fool me. I know there aren't any."
She knew. She knew there was no evidence.
Before I could respond, the door crashed open.
Fergus Floyd stormed in, his face ashen, his movements frantic. He grabbed my shoulders hard enough to bruise.
"Where is he? Where's our son?"
His voice cracked. "I told you not to take him on a trip alone. I told you, and you didn't listen!"
I stared at him, utterly lost.
His reaction mirrored my previous life perfectly—the accusations, the blame. But the baby in that freezer wasn't Craig. I knew that for certain.
So why was Fergus already convinced it was?
I didn't correct him. Instead, I played along.
"Aren't you supposed to be on a business trip?"
"I finished early. Is it a crime to worry about you handling things alone?" His voice rose to a raw scream. "And I was right to worry—you got my son killed!"
Tears streamed down his contorted face as he whirled on my parents.
"My son is dead, and it's YOUR fault too! You let this happen!"
My parents went white. It had never occurred to them that the frozen infant might be Craig.
When Fergus's words sank in, my mother collapsed against my father, sobbing so violently I thought she'd pass out. My father stood frozen, unable to process any of it.
"Give me back my son!" Fergus howled at them.
Then he turned on me, eyes bloodshot, voice serrated with rage.
"You're the one who killed him. If you hadn't dragged Craig back to your parents' house, would this have happened?!"
Strangely, his hysteria steadied me.
I watched him—really watched. The theatrical despair. The perfectly timed tears. Every gesture calculated for maximum impact.
Something was wrong. My gut screamed it.
Who was the baby in that freezer?
Craig was safe with my sister. So where had Harold gotten an infant to put in there?
I tilted my head, studying my husband with new eyes.
"You haven't even looked at the body," I said quietly. "How do you already know it's our son?"
