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I pull back the covers on the bed, trying not to think about what Howard and Ainsley might’ve done on those sheets. I slide my hand behind the headboard, feeling the velvet for discrepancies. I find a hard lump in the far corner. I slide my knife from my wrist. Gotcha.
I cut open the material and pull out a slim, leatherbound journal.
A hidden diary.
Like mother, like daughter.
The diary feels like lead in my hands. I know I’ve found another of Malloy Manor’s secrets. I prop my phone on the bed to give me enough light, open the book, and start reading.
It’s… a lot. Ainsley Malloy is the epitome of a vapid, rich housewife. In the childish scrawl of a woman whose sum total of handwritten discourse was signing her prenup, she details page after page of petty drama – which friend’s husband is sleeping with a new mistress, some nonsense about their holiday bookings being canceled, and how she got the manager at the golf club fired after he brought her a vodka martini instead of gin. And then, a gap of three months, and…
She announces she’s pregnant.
With twins.
I clutch my fingers to my smooth, flat stomach as I scan the entries. Ainsley Malloy records her pregnancy here in lavish detail – the midwife appointments, the health supplements, the pre-natal yoga and designer stroller purchases. Ainsley Malloy was excited about raising her two baby girls to be the envy of Emerald Beach society. Until this entry:
Howard says I’m not allowed to tell any of my friends that we’re having twins. He wants me to pretend we’re having only one child. I’m only to purchase one crib, one stroller, one changing table. “I want to surprise them all,” he says, with that familiar glint in his eye.
It makes no sense. It’s not practical to buy one crib when we need two. It means I’ll have to rush around getting everything after the birth. But I know that glint. It says, ‘do what I say, or you’ll get the weed killer again.’ So I do what he says.
At least he’s given me a new credit card for the baby things. Shopping spree!
I know I should stop reading, but I can’t. I can’t tear my eyes from what I know is coming.
The next few entries are lists of items purchased for the new baby. Ainsley must’ve burned through her black card pretty quick with Gucci pacifiers and Versace onesies. How is she not questioning Howard’s demand she pretends they’re having one child, not two?
I guess when weed killer is used as a threat, you develop some sick coping skills.
Or maybe it’s better to live in luxurious ignorance than to risk losing everything. I’m glad I didn’t have you as a mother, I want to scream into the diary. You didn’t even try to save me.
Finally, I reach it – an entry dated a few days after my birthday.
We arrived home from the clinic today. Howard is being lovely, fussing over Mackenzie, counting her ten tiny toes. He had the nursery decorated while I’ve been away. An adorable border of dancing teddy bears. He even put together the crib. Everything is absolutely perfect.
Except… except it’s not.
Except, I remember two heartbeats. Two sets of tiny onesies. Twenty little fingers and twenty little toes.
They keep telling me it’s the drugs, that of course I only had one baby. My friends tell me I’ve only ever talked about one baby, I only purchased clothes for one baby. But when I look back through these pages, I see it’s not true.
Howard may have forced me to set the stage for my own deception, but he doesn’t know about this diary. He doesn’t know I kept a record.
I know what he’s done.
I gave birth to twins. And my daughter – my other daughter – she’s disappeared.
She didn’t know. She wasn’t in on it.
Tears pool in my eyes. I don’t know why I’m crying. This changes nothing. I don’t give a shit about Ainsley Malloy. From everything I read in Mackenzie’s diary, her mother could be just as cruel, just as evil, as Howard. I was the lucky one to be sold to the Augusts.
But I can’t wipe the tears away fast enough. I have to blow my nose on the corner of the sheet before I can read the next page.
Howard sold my baby girl.
I don’t have any proof. Nothing that I can use to go to the police. But my baby is missing and he’s dancing around the house, talking about a deal that will make our fortunes.
I want to scream. I want to smash his face in. But I can’t do a thing. He won’t hesitate to kill me.
