“She sounds wise.”
“She was tired more than wise. But sometimes tired people know the truth.”
He nodded slowly.
At the door, he paused.
“Emma, I won’t make decisions for you.”
I wanted to believe him.
“I may remind you of that.”
“I expect you will.”
Then he left.
For the first time all day, I was alone.
The apartment was quiet in a way that did not demand anything from me. I washed my face carefully, wincing at the bruise blooming along my cheek. I changed into the soft sleep shirt Marcus had somehow found in my suitcase without disturbing anything else. Then I sat on the bed and took out the ultrasound.
The baby’s tiny shape floated in gray and white.
I touched the image.
“Today was a lot,” I whispered.
The room gave no answer.
I placed my mother’s photograph on the bedside table beside the ultrasound and tried to sleep.
Instead, I dreamed of the cemetery.
Vanessa’s white coat.
Daisies in the mud.
Damon’s voice across the fog.
And my mother standing by her grave, not dead but young again, wearing the blue dress she used to save for church. She looked at me with sad, urgent eyes and held out the wildflower bracelet.
When I woke, morning light filled the room.
For several seconds, I could not remember where I was.
Then my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
I sat up quickly.
The message came from an unknown number.
Miss Harper, this is Celia Caldwell. I found something among Vanessa’s papers after she left for her father’s house. You need to see it before Damon does.
My heart began to pound.
A second message arrived.
It concerns Elise Cross.
Then a photograph appeared.
Not of Vanessa.
Not of Damon.
It was an old hospital bracelet, yellowed slightly with age, photographed against a dark wooden desk.
The printed name made my breath stop.
BABY GIRL CROSS.
Date of birth: March 14.
Five years ago.
My hand shook so badly I almost dropped the phone.
Because beneath the hospital bracelet, half hidden in the corner of the photograph, was a second bracelet.
Newborn Harper.
My last name.