Chapter 7: Sledgehammer Therapy

I didn't wait for permission. I didn't wait for Ben to check the structural integrity or for Cousin Mark to come back with a cease-and-desist order. I walked out to my truck, my boots crunching on the gravel, and grabbed the ten-pound sledgehammer from the bed.

The weight of it was comforting. Simple. Physics didn't lie. If you hit something hard enough, it broke.

"Sarah," Ben said when I walked back into the dining room. He was still staring at the monitor, at the ghostly image of the crib. "You can't just—"

"Watch me," I said.

I swung the hammer.

The first blow hit the plaster with a dull *thud*, spiderwebbing cracks across the smooth surface. Dust puffed out like smoke.

"Sarah, stop!" Ben grabbed my arm. "The vibration—if that ceiling isn't braced properly—"

I shook him off. "It's been sealed for thirty years, Ben. It's not going anywhere."

I swung again. And again.

The adrenaline that had been simmering in my gut since I found the rattle boiled over. I wasn't just hitting a wall. I was hitting Edith. I was hitting the cancer eating my son. I was hitting every polite, smiling lie the Sterlings had ever told me.

*CRACK.*

A chunk of plaster the size of a dinner plate fell away, exposing the lath underneath. I swung harder.

*CRUNCH.*

The lath splintered. I saw insulation—pink fiberglass, ancient and dusty.

I kept swinging until my shoulders burned and my lungs were heaving against the N95 mask. The hole grew, a ragged wound in the perfect dining room wall.

Finally, I hit something solid that gave with a satisfying *snap*. A stud. I levered the hammer handle, popping the wood free.

Light from the dining room spilled into the void.

I dropped the hammer. My hands were shaking.

"Flashlight," I rasped.

Ben handed it to me without a word. He looked pale, his professional detachment gone. We were trespassers now. Archaeologists of a family crime scene.

I stepped through the jagged opening.

The air inside was still and cold. It smelled like baby powder, old cedar, and something else—something metallic and sharp. Fear.

I swept the beam around the room. It was smaller than it looked on the monitor, claustrophobic. The plush carpet swallowed my footsteps.

I walked to the crib. It was pristine white, the finish unmarred. Inside, a yellow blanket was folded into a perfect square.

I touched the rocking chair. It didn't rock. It was frozen in time.

Then I turned to the changing table.

The diaper bag Ben had seen on the monitor was there. It was a navy blue canvas bag with leather trim, the kind they sold at high-end boutiques in the eighties. It looked heavy.

I reached out and unzipped it.

The zipper hissed, a sound that seemed too loud in the dead silence.

I shined the light inside.

It wasn't packed for a day trip. It was packed for a life.

There were stacks of onesies, still in their plastic wrappers. A can of formula, the label faded but readable—expiration date: *September 1989*. A thick envelope of cash, the bills old and soft.

And nestled at the bottom, wrapped in tissue paper, was a pair of baby shoes. White leather. Never worn.

I picked them up. They were tiny. Impossibly small.

Underneath the shoes was a manila folder.

I pulled it out. The tab was labeled in Clara's erratic, looping handwriting.

*For the road.*

I opened it. Inside were maps. Not of the local area. Maps of Canada. Maps of Vermont. A brochure for a safe house in Montreal.

And a birth certificate.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I held the flashlight steady with both hands.

It wasn't the one I had found in the lockbox. That one had my name on it.

This one was blank.

But next to it was a set of footprints. Tiny, ink-black ridges on heavy cardstock.

I stared at them. I knew those footprints. I had a copy of them in my own baby book, the one Edith kept on the shelf in the library.

But the date on this card wasn't June 15th.

It was June 14th.

"Ben," I whispered. "Look at this."

He leaned over my shoulder, his breath warm on my neck. "What is it?"

"A go-bag," I said. "Clara wasn't just building a nursery. She was planning to run."

I looked around the sealed room. The furniture, the supplies, the bag packed and waiting. This wasn't the work of a crazy woman building a shrine to a delusion. This was a safe house. A bunker.

Clara hadn't been hiding a fantasy. She had been hiding a child.

And judging by the maps and the cash, she had known exactly who she was hiding from.

I looked back at the changing table. There was one more pocket on the side of the bag. I unzipped it.

It was empty, except for a single, small object.

A pacifier.

I picked it up. It was blue.

And on the plastic shield, written in permanent marker that had barely faded, was a name.

*Leo.*

The floor seemed to tilt under my feet. Leo. My son's name.

But I hadn't named him after anyone. I had picked it from a book of baby names because it sounded strong.

I looked at the date on the footprint card again. *June 14, 1988.*

Thirty years before my son was born.

Clara had named the baby Leo.

And Edith had stolen that, too.