Chapter 4 - The Crimson Nursery
"Don't move," I told Megan, my voice dropping into a flat, dead whisper that didn't sound like it belonged to a human being. "Stay with the officer. Don't leave this room."
I slammed the receiver down and sprinted out of the trauma ward, the uniform officer shouting behind me as he tried to keep pace. I didn't wait for the elevator; I threw myself down the concrete stairwell three steps at a time, my boots echoing like gunshots against the stone walls.
Marcus, my assistant from the hardware store, was waiting in the parking lot in our delivery van, having just brought a change of clothes for me. I tore the driver's side door open, shoving him into the passenger seat before he could even register the look of pure madness on my face.
"Jake! What the hell is going on?" Marcus yelled, clutching the dashboard as I threw the van into reverse, the tires screaming against the asphalt.
"My mother is at the apartment," I said, my teeth grinding together so hard a sharp pain shot up into my jaw. "She’s in the nursery."
The drive from the hospital to Pilsen usually took fifteen minutes through the heavy Chicago traffic. I made it in six. I ran three red lights, the horn of the delivery van blaring as I wove through the crowded lanes, the image of our small, yellow-painted nursery flashing in my mind like a crime scene before it had even happened.
When I slid the van to a halt outside our brick building, two police cruisers were already parked at the curb, their blue and red lights painting the brick facades in rhythmic streaks of color.
I threw the door open and sprinted up the three flights of stairs, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. The front door of our apartment was wide open, the lock shattered inward from a police battering ram.
Inside, the living room was a disaster area. The small table where I left Megan’s morning lemonade was overturned, the glass shattered across the linoleum.
I pushed past two officers who were standing in the hallway, their weapons drawn, their faces tense.
"Mr. Miller, stay back!" one of them shouted, reaching for my vest.
I ignored him, tearing my shoulder free and stepping into the small bedroom we had spent the last three months converting into a nursery.
Helen was sitting in the wooden rocking chair I had spent three weekends sanding and painting by hand. She was holding the small, white wool blanket Megan’s grandmother had knitted for our baby. In her right hand, she held a large, rusty framing hammer she had taken from the hardware store storage unit.
The walls—the soft, sunny yellow walls Megan had picked out from the paint catalog—were ruined. Helen had used the claw of the hammer to gouge deep, violent scars into the drywall, tearing away the plaster until the dark lath beneath looked like exposed ribs. And written across the main wall in thick, industrial black grease-marker were the words: THE SEED OF A WHORE.
"Jacob," Helen said, looking up from the rocking chair with a bright, pleasant smile that didn't reach her cold, dead eyes. "You're late. I was just preparing the room for the new arrival. A mother must ensure the environment is honest, don't you think?"
"Get out of the chair, Mom," I said, my voice dropping so low it was barely a vibration in the room.
"This chair is quite comfortable," she said, her fingers tracing the white wool of the baby blanket. "Though it’s a shame your father didn't live long enough to see how foolish you’ve become. He always said you were too soft for this world, Jacob. Too willing to believe a pretty face instead of the blood that made you."
One of the detectives, Alvarez, stepped into the room behind me, his weapon lowered but his posture ironclad. "Helen Miller, stand up slowly and put the hammer down. You are under arrest for aggravated domestic battery, corporate burglary, and felony intimidation."
Helen looked at the detective, then at the gun, and finally back at me. She let out a soft, melodic laugh that sent a shudder straight down my spine.
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"An arrest?" she said, setting the hammer down on the small white crib beside her with a gentle, metallic click. "Don't be absurd, Officer. A mother cannot be arrested for cleaning her own house. Jacob knows that. Don't you, Jacob?"
As the officers stepped forward to pull her hands behind her back, the metal handcuffs clicking shut over her wrists, Helen didn't struggle. She kept her eyes fixed entirely on mine, her smile never fading, her voice whispering a final, toxic promise as they led her down the narrow hallway: "She’ll never hold that baby, Jacob. I’ve already made sure of it."
