I had just given birth when my eight-year-old daughter, Lily, came to visit me at St. Mary’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

My son, Noah, was sleeping in the clear plastic bassinet beside my bed, wrapped in a blue blanket, his tiny mouth opening and closing like he was dreaming of milk. My husband, Daniel, had gone downstairs to move the car because the hospital parking meter was about to expire. I remember thinking that after thirty hours of labor, one emergency C-section, and two hours of shaking from anesthesia, nothing could scare me anymore.

Then Lily walked in.

She was still wearing her yellow raincoat, even though it had stopped raining. Her curls were damp around her face. She didn’t run to hug me. She didn’t ask to hold the baby. She just looked over her shoulder into the hallway, stepped inside, and quietly pulled the curtain closed.

“Mom,” she whispered, her voice trembling, “hide under the bed right now.”

I tried to sit up. Pain shot across my stomach.

“Lily, honey, what are you talking about?”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t cry. She grabbed my wrist with both hands.

“Please,” she said. “He’s coming.”

Before I could ask who, she was already tugging at my arm. I slid down from the hospital bed, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream from the pain. Lily helped me lower myself to the floor. I could barely move. My gown twisted around my legs. The IV line stretched tight from my hand to the pole.

“Under,” she whispered.

I crawled under the bed, my body shaking. Lily squeezed in beside me, so small and stiff that she felt like a doll pressed against my ribs.

Then the footsteps came.

Slow. Heavy. Familiar.

They stopped outside my room.

Lily clamped her hand gently over my mouth.

Through the gap beneath the curtain, I saw a pair of black shoes enter.

A man stood beside my empty bed.

He was breathing hard.

Then he said my name.

“Rachel?”

My blood turned cold.