Part 3My Dashcam Caught The Fake Miscarriage

I turned on my heel and walked back to my desk. The hum of my computer booting up felt like the only sane sound in the room.

At 10:30 AM, I was elbow-deep in a spreadsheet when Chelsea drifted over, a thermal lunch bag dangling from her wrist.

"Nina, I'm really craving that spicy Thai place downtown for lunch."

I didn't look away from my monitors. "Cafeteria is on the second floor."

"I can't stomach the smell of the grease down there."

"Then starve."

She carefully placed the thermal bag next to my keyboard. "My husband said you drive too aggressively. I got dizzy the second I got in your car yesterday. Tomorrow morning, you need to take that air freshener out of your vents. It's too chemical. Pregnant women shouldn't breathe that stuff."

My fingers stopped typing. I waited two full beats before I reached out and shoved the thermal bag right back toward her.

"When did I ever agree to drive you tomorrow?"

"Greg already talked to you, didn't he?" She pointed a manicured finger toward the manager's office. "Don't make this difficult for yourself, Nina."

"Difficult for me?"

She leaned in, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, a cruel little smile playing on her lips. "You're terrified of losing that Team Lead spot, aren't you?"

She enunciated the next words with agonizing slowness. "If you're scared, learn to be obedient."

I stared at her, letting the silence stretch until it became suffocating.

Unfazed, she pulled a slip of paper from her folder and dropped it onto my desk. "Oh, and run an errand for me at lunch. Go to the pharmacy down the street and pick this up. It's my hormone prescription. You have a car, it'll be quick."

I pinched the corner of the paper. It was a poorly photocopied prescription slip, blurry around the edges.

"Quick?"

"Yeah. You're going out for lunch anyway, right?"

I folded the paper precisely in half, and then in half again, and tucked it into the breast pocket of her cardigan.

"You're pregnant, Chelsea. You're not royalty."

Her face crumpled. She clutched the slip, spun around, and stormed off.

Halfway down the aisle, she froze, grabbing the partition of the nearest cubicle.

"Ugh—"

The trash can was practically thrown at her this time. The office erupted into motion. She bent double, her shoulders shaking violently.

Beth patted her back, shooting daggers at me over Chelsea’s trembling shoulders. "Nina, do you have to antagonize her?"

I shoved my AirPods into my ears and clicked back to my spreadsheet.

At 12:05 PM, I grabbed my keys to head down to the parking garage. I needed to grab my sunglasses.

As I stepped out of the elevator into level B2, I saw it from fifty feet away: my passenger side door was wide open.

Chelsea was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of my car, her feet resting on the door jamb, leaning over the center console, rummaging through my glove compartment.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

She heard my heels click against the concrete, turned, and froze. But only for a second. She quickly recovered her poise, holding up my expensive Le Labo car diffuser.

"This smell is way too overpowering," she announced. "I'm doing you a favor and taking it out."

I closed the distance in five strides and grabbed the door, yanking it open to its widest limit with a loud clack.

"Why the hell are you in my car?"

"You left it unlocked." She lifted her chin, pointing toward the center console. "I was just looking for a tissue, but your car is a complete mess."

My eyes dropped to the seat. Beneath her dangling feet, a sticky puddle of spilled iced coffee was pooling on my floor mat. Shoved into the door pocket was a half-empty plastic cup, condensation dripping down its sides, a straw bent awkwardly against the plastic.

"Who told you that you could bring that trash into my car?"

"I was going to leave it on my desk, but Beth said I should just bring it down here to save time."

"Beth told you to shove a leaking cup of coffee into my door panel?"

She rolled her eyes, an exaggerated, teenage sigh. "Nina, seriously, can you stop being so petty? It's just a coffee."

I reached past her, grabbed the sweating cup, and chucked it into the concrete trash bin against the concrete pillar. It landed with a hollow thud.

"Get out."

"I'm already sitting down! Just drive me to the Women's Clinic down the street so I can pick up some bloodwork."

"Get. Out."

She unbuckled the seatbelt with agonizing slowness. As she swung her legs out, she deliberately dragged the muddy heel of her boot across the fabric of the passenger seat, leaving two dark, ugly streaks.

"You have such a nasty temper," she sneered. "No wonder you don't have a man to take care of you."

I grabbed the handle of the door.

"Walk."

The moment her boots hit the concrete, I slammed the door shut with enough force to make her flinch backward.

"Tomorrow morning. 7:30. At the gate," she called out, a mocking lilt in her voice.

At 2:00 PM, the auto detailing guy sent me photos on my phone. The floor mats, the door panel, the seat fabric—the stains were worse under the shop lights.

"Deep clean, extraction, and odor removal. $150. Gave you the returning customer discount," he texted.

I looked across the office. Chelsea was sitting at her desk, delicately eating pre-cut melon from a Tupperware container, taking tiny, bird-like sips of a yogurt drink.