“Daddy… Mommy’s boyfriend hit me with a baseball bat. He said if I cry, it’ll hurt more…”

A dull thud echoed behind him, as if something had fallen or been pushed against a wall.

My mind tried to imagine the scene, but each image was worse than the last, so I closed my eyes as I drove.

“Ethan?” I asked, my voice breaking. “Do you see it?”

There was a pause that was too long, filled with small sounds: footsteps, something crawling, a faint moan that I couldn’t identify at first.

“I found it,” Marcus finally said, more quietly. “It’s in the hallway.”

My heart was pounding so hard that I had to loosen one hand on the steering wheel to avoid losing control of the car.