“What are you talking about?” Lydia snapped, her smirk vanishing. A flicker of genuine uncertainty crossed her eyes.

“I know you go through my things, Lydia,” I said, my chest heaving, her first name feeling like a weapon in my mouth. “I know you pick the lock on my door.

You think I’m stupid? You think I’d leave the only proof I have of what you do to us sitting under a mattress?”

I turned to Officer Davis, my eyes burning with defiance.

“Every night at two in the morning, after I finally got the babies down, I wrote in that journal. And every single night, I took pictures of the pages with my phone.

And I emailed them to a secure account on my aunt’s tablet.”