Chapter 6: Rain Against The Windows, Silence Inside The Room
The storm pressed against the nursery windows hard enough to make the glass tremble. Rain ran down the panes in silver sheets, erasing the grounds beyond them and any chance of seeing whether someone waited outside. Inside, the room had narrowed to Leo’s breathing, the green camera light above the door, and the sealed storage bag lying on the changing table.
I kept one hand beneath Leo’s head and watched his chest rise. His skin had stopped turning blue, but the color remained wrong around his mouth. The cotton sleeper was damp beneath his neck. I used the corner of a clean cloth to wipe him, then checked his lips, his fingers, and the soft place beneath his jaw. Each movement had to be small. Each pause felt like a question I could not answer.
Alessio stood near the door with the pistol lowered at his side. He had not put it away. Rain darkened his white shirt at the shoulders, and his rolled sleeves showed the tension in his forearms. His eyes moved from Leo to the bag, then to the camera. He looked like a man waiting for the room to accuse someone.
I pointed toward the weapon without speaking. After a moment, he placed it on the floor beside the door, muzzle turned away from both of us. He did not step back from it. That choice helped, but it did not make him safe. A loaded pistol within reach was still part of the room’s evidence, and his decision to leave it there could mean caution, fear, or control.
The lock clicked when he turned it. The sound was ordinary and final. I watched the latch settle into its plate, then looked at the camera again. Its green light remained steady. No alarm came. No voice came through the speaker. The storm swallowed every smaller sound.
I moved to the crib only long enough to pull the blanket away from the mattress. The pacifier clip remained where it had been left, beside the changing table, its beads catching the overhead light. I did not touch it. The recovered bead sat separately in the reversed bag, dark residue visible along one edge. The distance between the two objects was less than the length of my hand, yet their positions carried no explanation.
Leo stirred. His mouth opened, and I brought the penlight close without touching his face. His throat was clear. I held my breath until he swallowed, then lowered the light. Alessio watched my hands. I could feel his suspicion returning each time Leo moved, as if care itself could be mistaken for concealment.
The room’s phone showed no completed outside call. The storm had turned the nursery into a sealed pocket, and the locked door made that delay physical. If Leo worsened, waiting would cost him. If help arrived later, the same waiting could be used against me. A nanny who had been alone with a choking infant would have to explain every minute, every object, every decision. My employment could vanish before anyone examined the bag.
I looked at the clock. It had advanced, but the camera’s green light gave no answer about what it had recorded. I tried to place the last interval in order: the bead on the rug, the clip near the changing table, Alessio at the door, Leo in my arms. One detail refused to settle. When I had first knelt beside the crib, the clip had not been beside the changing table. I remembered seeing it closer to the rug, but I could not tell whether that memory belonged to before the bead dropped or after.
Another thunderclap shook the windows. Leo startled, then quieted against my shoulder.
May you like
Alessio bent and picked up the pistol, not raising it. He carried it to the far side of the room and set it beneath the window, away from the door and the evidence. Then he returned to stand beside the crib. We faced the same child, the same sealed bead, and the same silent camera.
Neither of us touched the lock. Neither of us trusted the silence. The missing seconds stayed between us, waiting for the storm to release them.
