I only have two hundred followers, and in my entire two years on Twitter, I’ve never had more than twenty replies or fifty likes on a single post. This is insane. Yet suddenly, thanks to the Crimson Cryer, I’m “popular” enough to be threatened.

If this is Jake getting back at me for accusing him of cheating—and of fathering the #CliffordBaby—I’m going to kill him. If this isn’t Jake, and it really doesn’t feel like something he’d do, then I have an even bigger problem.

I want to comment and tell everyone that it isn’t my baby, but I’m afraid that feeding the trolls will only result in more trolls. So I turn off my notifications again and get dressed.

Mom is in the kitchen when I come out for breakfast. She’s staring into her coffee mug like it holds the secret of life, and I can’t tell if she’s already up or still up.

“You okay?” she asks, and I nod, because whether she’s talking about the fact that I found a dead baby yesterday or the fact that I’m now being accused of having birthed and abandoned that baby, the answer is much the same.

Life sucks, but I’m fine.

I drop a Pop-Tart in the toaster and pour a glass of juice.

My mother sips from her mug. The nearly empty pot says it’s not her first cup.

“So, I have to ask,” she says, and I groan inside. “Is it your baby, Beckett?”

“Seriously?” My temper flares like a fresh log thrown on a campfire, shooting sparks inside me. “Why, exactly, do you need to ask me that?”

“Because if my daughter was pregnant, and I didn’t notice, that’s on me.” Guilt swims in her eyes, and it’s uncomfortable for me to look at. “What kind of mother would I be?”

The kind who’s never here. But I can’t say that. It’s not like she stays out late partying. Cops work long hours.

“No, it’s not my baby. You saw me in a halter top and black leggings yesterday morning, Mom. Did I look pregnant to you?”

“No, but there are legitimate cases of women who don’t show until they’re seven or eight months along.” She shrugs. “The coroner says the baby was only at thirty weeks’ gestation or so. Which means it’s unlikely, but possible, that the mother wasn’t showing much. Or at all, depending on her body type and clothing choices.”

The toaster pops, and I grab my Pop-Tart, hissing when it burns my fingers before I can drop it on a paper plate.

“Did he say how it died?”

“No. That’ll take longer. But he said there was no obvious external trauma.”

I blow on my breakfast to cool it. “Boy or girl?”