Part 3I Found His Murder Plan Online

I don't remember the drive. I practically fell out of the elevator.

When I reached the PICU doors, the attending doctor was already walking out to meet me, a clipboard clutched to his chest.

"Nina. Her vitals took a catastrophic dive," he said, his face grim. "We're doing everything we can, but I need you to sign this critical condition waiver. Now."

"But she was getting better!" My voice tore through the quiet hallway, loud and ragged. "You said she was stabilizing!"

The doctor hesitated, his eyes dropping for a fraction of a second. "There are some... sudden fluctuations we can't fully account for. Please, just sign."

I scribbled my name, my knees buckling. I slid down the cool plaster wall, hitting the floor.

I sat there, gasping for air, staring blindly into the room. And then, I saw it.

Sitting innocuously on the edge of the rolling bedside table was a tiny, clear, half-melted plastic capsule shell.

My chest seized. I crawled up, walked into the room, and picked it up. It was a gel casing, the kind used for powdered supplements. There was a faint, chalky white residue clinging to the inside.

Before my brain could even process the horror, my hand was already diving into my pocket. I pulled out my phone and ripped open the forum.

A new post. Uploaded fourteen minutes ago.

It’s done. Holy shit, it actually worked this time!

The doctors just hit her with the critical condition notice. LMAO, my wife has to give up now, right?

I scrolled down. The poster had attached a photo to prove it to the doubters.

It was slightly out of focus, taken hastily. But there was no mistaking the sterile white blanket, the metal tray, and the tiny, clear plastic capsule resting exactly where I had just found it.

Gravity ceased to exist. The air in the room was sucked into a vacuum.

My husband. David. The man I had slept next to for five years. He was the monster on the internet. He was actively, methodically murdering our daughter for a son.

A wave of pure, toxic rage flooded my veins, hot enough to burn away the panic. I opened my phone dialer, my thumb hovering over 9-1-1.

But then I heard footsteps sprinting down the hall.

I hesitated. The forum was completely anonymous. If I called the police right now, he could claim the pill was medication the nurses left. He could delete the app. He could slip away.

"Nina! Nina!"

David rounded the corner, skidding to a halt. His face was ashen, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He looked even more destroyed than I did.

"What happened?!" he gasped, dropping to his knees right in front of me in the hallway. "She was fine when I left! I just came by to drop off the blanket you forgot, she was fine!"

He collapsed forward, burying his face in his hands, and let out a guttural, agonizing sob.

"Nina, I'm so sorry! I should have stayed! I'm such a piece of shit father, I'm so sorry!"

He actually pressed his forehead to the linoleum, weeping with such cinematic, heartbreaking intensity that a woman in the waiting area down the hall covered her mouth, her eyes watering in sympathy.

I looked down at the man sobbing at my feet, and my whole body began to vibrate with a rage so profound it felt holy.

I should have known. The forum. The timing.

My maternal instincts had been screaming at me for days, and I had silenced them. Because he cried. Because he played the perfect, sensitive husband, I had left my three-year-old alone in a room with a man trying to kill her.

"Baby, hit me. Scream at me, please," he wailed, his voice echoing tragically down the corridor.

My hands curled into fists so tight my nails broke the skin of my palms. I wanted to kick his teeth down his throat. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until his eyes popped.

Not yet, a cold, razor-sharp voice whispered in my head. If you spook him, he deletes everything. You need hard, irrefutable proof.

I forced my lungs to expand. I reached down, my hands trembling violently, and gripped his shoulders, pulling him up from the floor.

"Stop it," I whispered, injecting a hollow, desperate tremor into my voice. "Crying won't save her."

He looked at me, his eyes brimming with crocodile tears, and nodded frantically. "You're right. God, I'm sorry. As long as you don't hate me, Nina. I swear on my life, I will never leave her side again."

I met his gaze, keeping my face a blank canvas of shock.

"Go wash your face," I told him gently. "I'm going to find the chief of medicine. I want her transferred to Johns Hopkins. They have the best neuro-specialists in the country. They can fix this."

"Yes. Absolutely. Whatever you want."

The second he disappeared into the men's restroom, I pivoted and grabbed his leather messenger bag from the waiting room chair. I ripped the zipper open.

His phone was in the front pocket. The screen lit up as I moved it.

Right there, glaring on the lock screen, was a push notification from the forum app.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a jackhammer. I swiped up. He hadn't changed his passcode. It was Sophie's birthday.

I opened the app. The browsing history loaded instantly. The top search inquiry sat there, damning and cruel:

How to make my wife try for a boy?