Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Grace reached the apartment twenty-three minutes later.
Adrian came with her.
She had objected twice.
He ignored her twice.
Two police officers stood in the hallway while Noah waited outside their apartment wearing jeans, sneakers, and the gray university sweatshirt Grace had bought him for Christmas.
At nineteen, Noah was tall enough to make Grace forget sometimes that he was still her little brother.
Tonight he looked twelve.
He hugged her immediately.
“You’re okay?” Grace asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Did you touch anything?”
“Just the picture.”
One officer approached.
“Ms. Bennett?”
Grace nodded.
“We found signs of forced entry at the rear window. Whoever entered appears to have searched specific areas.”
“Specific?”
“Your bedroom and a storage cabinet.”
Adrian remained several feet away.
The officer recognized him.
His posture changed.
Grace pretended not to notice.
“Can I see the photograph?”
The officer handed her a clear evidence sleeve.
Grace looked through the plastic.
Her knees nearly gave way.
Eleanor Bennett stood outside Grand Central Terminal.
Gray coat.
Brown purse.
Dark auburn hair streaked with silver.
The same gentle face Grace remembered.
The photograph was grainy but unmistakable.
Her mother.
Alive.
Grace turned it over.
A timestamp had been printed at the bottom.
THURSDAY, 4:16 P.M.
Yesterday.
“No.”
Noah stood beside her.
“That’s her.”
“No.”
“Grace—”
“She died.”
“I know.”
“I identified her.”
Grace remembered the hospital.
The white sheet.
Her mother’s hand.
The tiny scar near her thumb.
Cancer had reduced Eleanor to almost nothing during the final months.
Grace had sat beside her until the monitors became silent.
There was no mistake.
Adrian took the photograph.
He studied it.
“This wasn’t printed yesterday.”
Grace looked at him.
“What?”
“The timestamp was added later.”
“How can you know?”
“The camera model leaves a different date format.”
The officer frowned.
“You know cameras?”
“I know people who fake photographs.”
That answer did not improve the officer’s expression.
Grace stared at Adrian.
“So it’s fake?”
“The date probably is.”
Relief came first.
Then anger.
“Someone wanted me to think she was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Adrian handed the photograph back.
“To make you stop trusting your own memories.”
Noah folded his arms.
“Who are you?”
“Adrian Moretti.”
Noah blinked.
Then looked at Grace.
“The Adrian Moretti?”
Grace sighed.
“Apparently.”
“Why is he here?”
Adrian answered.
“I’m engaged to your sister.”
Noah stared at Grace.
Grace closed her eyes.
“Please don’t.”
“What?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You went to work single.”
“I’m still single.”
Adrian almost smiled.
Noah pointed between them.
“I feel like I missed several chapters.”
“So do I.”
The police finished their initial inspection shortly after midnight.
Nothing valuable had been stolen except Eleanor’s wooden box.
That was precisely what frightened Grace.
Whoever entered had known exactly what to find.
When the officers left, Adrian examined the broken rear window.
“Professional?”
Grace asked.
“No.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“Why?”
“A professional would have made this look like ordinary burglary.”
He pointed to the undisturbed television.
“This was a message.”
Noah sat on the couch.
“What was in the box?”
Grace told him.
The photograph.
The bracelet.
The tapes.
Noah frowned.
“I remember the tapes.”
Grace turned.
“What?”
“Mom played one once when she thought we were asleep.”
“When?”
“I was maybe ten.”
“What did you hear?”
“A woman crying.”
Grace sat beside him.
“Anything else?”
Noah concentrated.
“She kept saying something about the river.”
Adrian turned from the window.
“What river?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exact words matter.”
Noah closed his eyes.
“She said, ‘If anything happens, take Abigail across the river.’”
Grace felt Adrian become still.
“You recognize that?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
He hesitated.
“My mother used almost exactly those words the night she disappeared.”
Grace stared at him.
“Your mother disappeared?”
“For nine months.”
“When?”
“1998.”
The year written on Victoria’s photograph.
Adrian sat across from them.
His usual composure had changed.
“My father had business ties to Richard Whitmore. Legitimate ones and others I didn’t understand at twelve. My mother, Sofia, discovered financial records connecting Whitmore International to a private adoption organization called Haven House.”
Grace’s pulse accelerated.
“Adoption?”
“Officially.”
“And unofficially?”
“Children were being moved between wealthy families without proper records.”
Noah whispered, “Sold?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“In some cases.”
Grace thought of Victoria.
“Was Abigail one of them?”
“I don’t know.”
“But your mother knew?”
“She found something. Then she vanished.”
“What happened when she returned?”
“She refused to talk about those nine months.”
“Did she know Eleanor?”
“Yes. She kept one photograph.”
Adrian removed his phone and opened an image.
Two young women stood outside a diner.
One was unmistakably Sofia Moretti.
The other was Eleanor Bennett.
Grace touched the screen.
Her mother looked twenty-five.
Happy.
“Where was this?”
“Ohio.”
Grace looked up.
“My mother lived in Ohio her whole life.”
“Which is why I noticed your name when Belmont House hired you.”
“You knew who I was?”
“I suspected.”
“Yet you never spoke to me.”
“I didn’t know whether you knew anything.”
Grace stood.
“You’ve been watching me?”
“From a distance.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Noah leaned forward.
“Why did your mother need Grace’s mom?”
Adrian looked at him.
“Eleanor was a nurse.”
Grace nodded.
“She worked pediatric care before I was born.”
“She also volunteered at Haven House.”
Grace stared.
“My mother never told me that.”
“She had reasons.”
The next morning Grace called in sick.
Nathan informed her she no longer had to bother.
Belmont House had terminated her employment.
Grace stared at the phone after the call ended.
There went Noah’s tuition.
Noah immediately said he could take a semester off.
“No.”
“Grace—”
“No.”
“You can’t pay rent and tuition without the restaurant.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You always say that.”
“Because I always do.”
Adrian stood near the kitchen counter drinking coffee.
“I’ll cover it.”
Both siblings turned.
Grace laughed.
“No.”
“It’s tuition.”
“I know what tuition is.”
“You’re pretending to be my fiancée.”
“Pretending.”
“Fiancées occasionally allow each other to pay bills.”
“Not this one.”
Noah raised a hand.
“For what it’s worth, I’m open-minded.”
Grace glared at him.
He lowered his hand.
At eleven, someone knocked.
Grace stiffened.
Adrian checked the peephole.
Victoria Whitmore stood outside.
Alone.
Grace opened the door.
Victoria wore jeans, a camel coat, and sunglasses.
Without the emerald gown and diamonds, she looked younger.
More vulnerable.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Grace said.
“I know.”
Victoria entered.
Her gaze found Adrian.
“You.”
“Victoria.”
She removed her sunglasses.
“I remembered something.”
Grace waited.
“A song.”
“What song?”
“I don’t know the title. A woman used to sing it when I was frightened.”
Victoria hummed four notes.
Grace stopped breathing.
Noah stood.
“That’s Mom’s song.”
Victoria stared at him.
Grace felt goosebumps rise across her arms.
Eleanor had sung those same four notes every night when Grace was a child.
Victoria whispered, “Who was your mother?”
Grace brought out an old family album.
She found Eleanor’s photograph.
Victoria touched it.
Then she began crying.
“I know her.”
Grace’s throat tightened.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Victoria pressed both hands against her temples.
“I see a kitchen. Yellow walls. She gives me apple slices. She tells me I’m safe.”
Adrian crouched beside her.
“How old are you?”
“In the memory?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe five.”
“What happens next?”
Victoria’s breathing quickened.
“A man comes.”
“Who?”
“I can’t see him.”
“What does he say?”
Victoria squeezed her eyes shut.
“He tells Eleanor she has no right to keep me.”
Grace whispered, “Keep going.”
“She argues with him.”
“What does she say?”
Victoria suddenly opened her eyes.
“She says, ‘Richard, she remembers her real mother.’”
Silence.
Victoria’s face collapsed.
“My father was there.”
Grace sat beside her.
“We don’t know what it means.”
Victoria wiped her eyes.
“Yes, we do.”
“No.”
“I’ve spent my entire life being told my childhood memories were caused by trauma.”
She looked at Grace.
“What if the trauma was him?”
Her phone rang.
Richard.
Victoria rejected the call.
It rang again.
She rejected it.
A message appeared.
COME HOME. NOW.
Then another.
YOU ARE NOT SAFE WITH HER.
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“He means you.”
Adrian looked at Grace’s window.
“No.”
Grace followed his gaze.
“What?”
“He means someone else.”
A black sedan had stopped across the street.
A man stepped out.
Adrian’s expression changed.
“Everybody away from the windows.”
Noah moved first.
Victoria froze.
“Who is that?”
Adrian watched the man enter the building.
“Someone who worked for my father.”
Grace heard footsteps outside.
They stopped at her door.
Three knocks followed.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Adrian reached inside his jacket but did not draw anything.
Grace stared at the door.
A man’s voice came from the hallway.
“Ms. Bennett, I have something Eleanor asked me to give you.”
Grace’s heart slammed against her ribs.
The voice continued.
“She told me you’d recognize the password.”
Grace approached despite Adrian’s warning.
“What password?”
Silence.
May you like
Then the stranger said:
“Abigail crossed the river.”
