“Decaf,” he said, setting the mug on the placemat. “You were tossing and turning until three.”
Emma sat down slowly, her hand going to her silver wedding band, twisting it twice around her finger. “My back was aching.”
Michael adjusted his black leather watch strap, pulling it one notch tighter. “We cannot have you wearing yourself out with only two weeks left.”
“I know,” Emma said. “The baby was just restless.”
“I heard you walking around,” he said, his voice flat and measured. “I do not want you using the stairs in the middle of the night without waking me.”
“I wanted some water,” she said.
“Keep a glass on your nightstand,” Michael said, taking his keys from the magnetic hook by the door. “I want you resting today. I will check on you at noon.”
He stood over her for a moment, his hand resting on the back of her chair, before he took his briefcase and walked out to the garage.
By ten o’clock, the house was entirely quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator. Emma climbed the stairs to the nursery, carrying a stack of folded green washcloths.
The yellow paint, which had cost forty-five dollars, smelled clean and new under the morning light. She set the washcloths in the wicker basket on the changing table and turned to leave.
Her foot caught on a tiny spiral of shaved wood lying on the hallway floor.
She looked down, then up at the cream-colored doorframe on the hallway side of the nursery entrance. Two inches above the brass latch, three clean, deep holes had been drilled into the solid wood, with fresh silver screws left sitting in a small plastic dish on the floor.
There was no reason to put hardware on the outside of a baby’s bedroom door.
She touched the raw wood around the holes, her mind searching for a normal explanation. Michael was meticulous about home safety, and he had probably planned to install a decorative latch or a heavy-duty baby gate to keep their retriever out of the room.
Yet the holes were positioned at shoulder height, far too high for any standard child safety gate.
