“What is it?” Daisy asks.
“Nothing.”
“Well, who sent ‘nothing’?”
“Just a junk text. Spam.” He doesn’t meet her gaze.
“Jon?”
“What?”
“We don’t hide things. We’re not that couple. Not anymore.”
“Jesus, Daisy. It was spam, okay? Relax.”
“Can I see it?”
“What?”
“Can I see the spam?”
“I deleted it.”
She regards him steadily, recalling how quickly she deleted her own troll messages without even thinking. Just reflexively. Why can’t she just believe him? Why is she mistrusting everything right now? She hears Vanessa’s words again:
Pregnancy can even make you fearful, or paranoid.
“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay.”
Daisy realizes she’s clutching the letter opener like a dagger in her fist. She carefully resumes opening the manila envelope, but her heart is hammering. An image slices through her brain like a piece of glass—the GIF. In her mind she sees the knife stabbingup down, up down, up down. She can almost feel herself holding it, jabbing it into white flesh.
Jon’s phone pings again. This time he doesn’t check it in front of her. He says he needs to send a work email. He excuses himself and takes his wine up to his office.
Jaw clenched, Daisy slices the plain brown envelope open. An A4-size glossy photo slides out and falls onto the table.
It’s an image of a bloody Chucky doll. Knife in fist.
Daisy drops the letter opener with a small gasp.
Beneath the image are the words:
I KNoW WHaT YOU aRE.
I KnOW WhAT YoU DId.
I wilL DEStROY yOU.
DIeDiEdIeDIEBaBYdiE
Daisy can’t breathe. Her baby kicks. In slow motion she turns over the envelope to see what’s written on the front. She was so absorbed with Jon she never checked.
No name.
No address.
Nothing.
