My 5-Year-Old Son Blurted Out That Our New Nanny Always Locks Herself In My Bedroom – So I Came Home Early Without Warning

Three weeks. And every single day, according to my five-year-old, the hide-and-seek game was still going on.

I sat up in the dark and made a decision by morning: I wasn’t waiting three weeks for anything.

I went through the motions. Watched my husband back out of the driveway, coffee mug in hand, humming something low and easy. I dropped Mason at school, drove to the office, and sat at my desk.

I wasn’t waiting three weeks for anything.

At noon, I packed up my bag, told my boss I was running a fever, and walked to my car.

On the drive home, I called my husband. He answered on the third ring, his voice slightly distracted. And underneath it — music, and a woman laughing in the background.

“Hey! Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I just wasn’t feeling well. Are you in the middle of something?” I asked, listening more to the background than to him.

On the drive home, I called my husband.

“Kind of. You need anything?”

“No. Sorry to bother you.”

I hung up and held the steering wheel with both hands. My mind ran straight to the worst place it could go. I knew I shouldn’t let it. I went there anyway.

By the time I turned onto our street, my hands were steady, and my mind was made up: I was going to find out exactly what was happening in my own home.

I knew I shouldn’t let it. I went there anyway.

Alice’s car was sitting in the driveway like it owned the place. I parked down the block, walked up to the front door, and let myself in without making a sound. The house was completely still.

Mason was at the kitchen table, tongue between his teeth, working on a drawing with great seriousness. He looked up, and his eyes went wide.

I pressed a finger to my lips and held out a candy from my bag. He took it carefully, watching my face.

“Is she hiding again?” I mouthed silently.

I pressed a finger to my lips.

Mason nodded, slow and solemn. “She said I have to count to 100 this time.”

I straightened up and walked down the hallway.

The bedroom door was locked. From behind it, I heard music, soft and deliberate. A woman’s low laugh. Then a man’s voice, just beneath the music, murmuring something I couldn’t catch.

My chest went hollow.

I’d been so certain I already knew whose voice that was.

“She said I have to count to 100 this time.”

I’d been building an entire case against my husband. Standing in that hallway, with that music playing and that laugh seeping under the door, I was completely convinced.