Chapter 3

The instant my mother-in-law's message popped up, I froze.

【Fred, Molly just had the baby. You should spend more time with her.】

【Don't worry about Fern. I can help you keep it from her.】

Staring at those two lines, my eyes blurred over.

This was the woman who kept saying she'd treat me like her own daughter.

And she'd known all along, and helped her son hide it from me for a year and a half.

I scrolled through every last message between the two of them.

By the end I was slumped in the chair, boneless.

So it had all started with that sudden, serious illness.

The whole thing was a trap, built to make me believe.

I backed up every chat log and sent it to my phone.

Then I wiped the tears from my eyes and, like a detective, went hunting.

One by one, I dug through Fred's other social accounts.

And finally, I found the trail of syw.

The livestream channel Fred kept liking was hers.

None of her videos showed all of him on camera.

But the wedding ring on his left ring finger, the scar below his throat, the tear mole at the corner of his eye.

Every one of them proved that the rich, attentive, gentle, devoted man in her videos was my husband.

I scrolled back to her earliest video, dated March 21st, a year and six months ago.

She was cutting a ribbon in front of my dowry wedding house, cradling red roses.

The caption was simple: 【Grateful for the love my husband and mother-in-law can actually show me.】

At the end of the video, she and her husband and her mother-in-law were grilling around a fire pit in the little yard.

Even though she'd deliberately blurred the footage,

I still recognized the one bustling around the table, waiting on everyone.

It was the mother-in-law who at the time was supposedly bedridden, unable to care for herself, needing me to nurse her hand and foot.

She was even wearing the jade bracelet I'd given her, and a blue hospital band on her wrist.

After I'd watched all of the videos, oddly enough, my chest didn't ache anymore.

Instead a cold came over me, wave after wave.

That was when the phone rang.

It was Fred.

"Fern, Mom's had another attack. I can't come home tonight, I have to stay with her."

Right on cue, my mother-in-law's message popped up.

【Fern, my chest hurts, I can't catch my breath. Fred's here with me. He's taking me to the hospital in a bit.】

To make me believe it, she followed up with a video.

In it, she lay on the sofa, face pale.

Fred was carefully taking her blood pressure.

I stared at the exchange in his chat window with his mother, the one that had come up ten minutes ago.

【Relax. As long as I say I'm sick, she'll never suspect a thing.】

【Come to the old house and pick me up first. If she checks up on you, just video-call her.】

【Once you've reported in to her, take me to Molly's. I miss my sweet grandbaby.】

When I didn't answer, Fred got anxious.

"Honey, are you listening? Mom's getting worse and worse. I need to get her to the hospital fast."

Through the earpiece came my mother-in-law's heavy, labored breathing.

"Fern, sweetie, Mom can't catch her breath. I have to go to the hospital."

I steadied myself and said flatly, "Let Fred take you. Don't worry about me."

To keep me convinced, Fred kept soothing me over and over.

Twenty minutes later he even sent me a hospital registration slip.

I opened the map. City Women's and Children's Hospital.

Right near 11 Cloud Ridge Lane.

So once they'd cleared away my doubts,

the two of them couldn't wait to head out.

Just as I was fretting over when I should go see that other home of Fred's,

a purchase record handed me my chance.