Her eyes darted to mine, wide and filled with an absolute, paralyzing terror. “What are you talking about? Nothing. Just give me the baby. I need to take her back. He said I shouldn’t have dropped her off.”
She tried to push past me into the house, but David was suddenly there, blocking the doorway.

He looked at Jennifer, his eyes filled with a heartbreaking mix of anger and overwhelming pity.
“You can’t take her, Jen,” David said gently. “The police are three minutes away. Paramedics are coming with them.”

Jennifer let out a sound that I can only describe as a dying animal. Her knees buckled right there on the porch. She collapsed against the siding of the house, burying her face in her hands, sobbing so hard her entire body convulsed.
“He hates when she cries,” she gasped out between ragged sobs. “He just wanted her to stop crying. I tried to stop him… I tried. He said if I left him, or if I told anyone, he would take her away from me.”

I dropped down to the porch floor and wrapped my arms tightly around my sister, pulling her into my chest as she fell apart. I looked down the street. The dark sedan was still idling. Then, the distant wail of sirens began to cut through the quiet Saturday morning air.
As soon as the sound of the sirens reached our street, Mark’s brake lights flashed. The sedan suddenly accelerated, tires screeching against the asphalt as he sped around the corner and disappeared from sight.
He didn’t even check to see what was happening. He just ran.

Two minutes later, an ambulance and three police cruisers swarmed our driveway. The paramedics rushed inside to examine Lily, while two officers began gently taking Jennifer’s statement on the porch. Another cruiser immediately sped off in the direction Mark had fled.
The paramedics confirmed what David and I had feared.

The bruises were fresh, likely from the night before, and clearly the result of someone forcefully grabbing the infant to shake or move her aggressively.