My son and his wife asked me to watch their two-month-old baby while they went shopping. But no matter how much I held him and tried to soothe him, he wouldn’t stop crying inconsolably. I immediately sensed something was wrong. When I lifted his clothes to check his diaper… I froze. There was something… unimaginable. My hands were shaking. I grabbed him and rushed to the hospital.

“Mom? Where are you? We’re home and the house is empty. Megan is hysterical!” Daniel’s voice crackled through the receiver.

“I’m at the hospital, Daniel,” I said, my voice as cold as ice. “I found a bruise. Noah has internal bleeding.”

Silence. A long, suffocating silence that lasted until I could hear the wind whistling through the hospital’s vents.

“Bleeding?” he finally whispered. “That’s… that’s impossible. He was fine when we laid him down.”

“The doctor says someone squeezed him, Daniel. They’re calling the authorities.”

“Mom, listen to me,” he said, his voice dropping to a panicked hiss. “You can’t let them do that. Megan and I… we would never. You know us!”

“I thought I did,” I replied, a tear finally escaping and trailing down my cheek. “But someone hurt this baby. If it wasn’t you, then who was in that house today?”

I heard a muffled conversation on the other end. Megan was sobbing in the background. Then, her voice came on the line, sharp and defensive.