Chapter 3: The Name I Didn't Recognize
My mom was already in the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt.
I stood at the driver's door, phone in hand, staring at the screen.
The message was short.
Four words and a name.
*Tell him I know.*
The name at the top of the message was "Cassie."
I didn't know anyone named Cassie.
I got in the car.
I didn't say anything to my mom yet.
I just sat there with the engine running, reading those four words again.
"Are you going to drive?" my mom asked gently.
"In a second."
I typed back: *Who is this?*
Three dots appeared immediately.
Then:
*His coworker.
We need to talk.
Not over text.
Can you meet me tomorrow?*
My hands were steady but my chest wasn't.
I put the phone face-down on my lap and pulled out of the driveway.
Behind us, through the front window, I could see Derek standing in the hallway with one of the boys against his shoulder, his face still white.
I didn't look back.
My mom didn't ask about the phone until we were ten minutes down the road.
"Who messaged you?"
"Someone named Cassie.
She says she's Derek's coworker."
My mom turned in her seat.
"What did she want?"
"To meet.
She said she knows something." I kept my eyes on the road.
"She said to tell him she knows."
My mom was quiet for a moment.
Then: "How long has she had your number?"
That was the question, wasn't it.
I hadn't thought of it that way until she said it.
Cassie hadn't messaged Derek.
She'd messaged me.
Which meant she'd had my number already — or had gone out of her way to find it.
"I don't know," I said.
We drove the rest of the way to my mom's house mostly in silence.
The boys' overnight bags were in the back seat.
I'd packed enough for three days — formula, diapers, the small stuffed bears they slept with.
I'd been planning this for almost a week.
The message from Cassie was not part of the plan.
My mom made tea when we got inside.
I sat at her kitchen table and stared at my phone.
Derek had called four times.
I let every call go to voicemail.
Then a text: *This is insane.
Come home.
The boys need you.*
I put the phone face-down again.
"You should sleep," my mom said.
She set a mug in front of me.
"Whatever Cassie knows, it'll still be true in the morning."
She was right.
I knew she was right.
But I messaged Cassie back before I went to bed.
*I can meet tomorrow.
You choose where.*
Her reply came in under a minute.
*Coffee shop on Birchwood.
10am.
Come alone.
And don't tell Derek.*
I read that last line twice.
*Don't tell Derek.*
Not "I'd rather you didn't." Not "it might be easier." Don't tell Derek.
Like she already knew what he would do if he found out.
I set an alarm for eight and lay down in my mom's spare room, listening to both boys breathing in the travel cot beside me.
They'd gone down easily.
They always did when they were somewhere new — too much to take in, too tired to fight it.
I stared at the ceiling.
Derek had called a fifth time.
No voicemail this time.
Just a missed call notification sitting there on the screen.
Then, just before midnight, one more text from him.
*I can't do this.
I don't know what I'm doing.
One of them won't stop crying.*
I read it.
I set the phone down.
May you like
I didn't reply.
That was the first night in five months I slept more than three hours in a row.
