Chapter 2: The Second Stream
I said: "I've been recording everything.
And this feed has been live on a different channel for the past three weeks."
The room went silent.
My husband's smile disappeared.
His mother grabbed his arm.
"She's lying," she said.
"She doesn't have a phone.
I checked."
But I held up the baby wipes pack — and pulled out the small phone the grocery driver had hidden inside it.
My mother-in-law's face changed in a way I had never seen before.
Not anger.
Fear.
"Turn it off," my husband said quietly.
"Turn it off right now."
"I can't," I said.
"I'm not the one controlling it."
That was the truth.
The grocery driver — a woman named Patrice — had been managing the second stream from outside.
She had the timestamps.
She had the comments.
She had the names of everyone who had watched and said nothing.
My husband reached for my phone.
But before he could touch it, his own phone lit up on the dresser.
An unknown number.
He looked down at the screen.
And whatever he read made him take one step back.
His mother whispered, "Who is that?"
May you like
He didn't answer.
He just looked at me like I was someone he had never met before.
