Chapter 2 - The Name on the Envelope
I couldn't speak.
The contact photograph on my screen showed my mother laughing at a Fourth of July barbecue seven summers ago.
MOM.
Daniel stared at the phone.
Emily backed toward the dresser.
I pressed it to my ear.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then breathing.
Slow.
Uneven.
“Who is this?”
A woman's voice finally whispered.
“Don't open the envelope.”
The call ended.
I stood frozen.
Daniel reached for my phone.
I pulled it away.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You recognized something.”
“I recognized the number.”
“What number?”
“The caller ID was blocked.”
“Then what did you recognize?”
He didn't answer.
I laughed bitterly.
“Another thing you can't tell me?”
Emily interrupted.
“Claire, I didn't come here to destroy your marriage.”
“Congratulations. You found a terrible way to demonstrate that.”
She flinched.
I immediately hated myself for caring.
“Open it,” she said.
Daniel turned sharply.
“Emily.”
“She's already involved.”
“She was never supposed to be.”
“Neither was her daughter.”
My entire body tightened.
“What does my daughter have to do with this?”
Emily pressed her lips together.
Daniel looked defeated.
Finally, he buttoned his trousers and reached for the shirt draped across the foot of our bed.
Watching him dress somehow made the situation worse.
It made everything ordinary.
Domestic.
As though we were discussing a plumbing problem instead of whatever nightmare had entered my house.
“I met Emily three weeks ago,” he said.
I folded my arms.
“Where?”
“At the hospital.”
“Why?”
“She approached me.”
Emily nodded.
“I'd been looking for him.”
“For my husband?”
“For both of you.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the envelope.
“Because my mother died two months ago.”
I waited.
“Before she died, she gave me that.”
“Your mother knew mine?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don't know everything.”
“Apparently nobody does.”
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed.
“I should have told you when Emily first contacted me.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to verify whether any of it was real.”
“Without me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you're seven months pregnant.”
“So?”
“Because the last thing I wanted was to frighten you with something that might be nonsense.”
I stared at him.
“Do you understand how insulting that is?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“No, Daniel. You don't. You decided my pregnancy made me incapable of hearing information about my own life.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
He looked at the envelope.
That was the moment I opened it.
Inside were three things.
A photograph.
A hospital bracelet.
And a folded letter.
I picked up the photograph first.
Two young women stood outside a hospital.
One was Emily's mother—I knew instantly because Emily had her eyes.
The other was mine.
My mother looked maybe thirty.
She was holding a newborn.
On the back was a handwritten date.
Seventeen years ago.
Beneath it were five words.
We did what was necessary.
I looked up.
“What baby is this?”
Emily shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Next came the bracelet.
The plastic had yellowed with age.
BABY GIRL BENNETT.
My maiden name.
My fingers went numb.
“Daniel.”
“I've never seen that before.”
I believed him.
That frightened me more.
I unfolded the letter.
It was written in my mother's handwriting.
Claire,
If this has reached you, then somebody has broken the promise we made seventeen years ago.
I stopped.
My vision blurred.
Daniel stood.
“Sit down.”
“Don't.”
“Claire—”
“I said don't.”
I continued reading.
There are things a mother does because she loves her child, and things she tells herself are love because she cannot live with what she has done.
My breath caught.
The rest of the page had been torn away.
I turned it over.
Nothing.
“Where's the rest?”
Emily shook her head.
“That is everything my mother gave me.”
“No.”
“I swear.”
I held up the torn edge.
“Someone has the rest.”
Daniel looked at Emily.
She looked frightened again.
“There's something else,” she said.
Of course there was.
She reached into her purse and removed a small flash drive.
“My mother told me never to connect this to a computer unless Claire knew first.”
Daniel stood.
“You didn't tell me about that.”
“I didn't trust you.”
“Smart woman,” I muttered.
Daniel looked wounded.
I didn't care.
Emily handed me the drive.
“What is on it?”
“I don't know.”
“Then let's find out.”
Daniel's laptop was downstairs.
We moved through my house like strangers.
I noticed absurd things.
The coffee mug Daniel had left on the kitchen counter.
The unopened mail.
A tiny pair of yellow baby socks I had purchased yesterday.
Evidence of a life that had existed until forty minutes ago.
Daniel opened his laptop.
I inserted the drive.
One folder appeared.
BENNETT.
Inside were seventeen files.
Sixteen were encrypted.
One was not.
A video.
Date stamped seventeen years ago.
I clicked it.
My mother's face appeared.
Younger.
Terrified.
She was sitting in what looked like a hospital storage room.
“If Claire ever sees this,” she began, “then Ruth and I failed.”
Emily covered her mouth.
Ruth.
Her mother's name.
My mother looked directly into the camera.
“The baby survived.”
The video glitched.
I leaned closer.
“She was never supposed to survive, and if they discover that she did—”
The screen froze.
Then went black.
“What happened?” I demanded.
Daniel checked the file.
“It's corrupted.”
“Fix it.”
“I'll try.”
My phone buzzed.
A text message.
Unknown number.
STOP DIGGING.
A second message appeared.
THINK ABOUT YOUR DAUGHTER.
Daniel read it over my shoulder.
His face hardened.
For the first time that morning, fear became anger.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“We need the police.”
“Why didn't you call them three weeks ago?”
He went silent.
There it was.
Another secret.
“What happened three weeks ago, Daniel?”
He looked at Emily.
Then at me.
“When Emily first contacted me, someone else contacted me too.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“What did they say?”
Daniel walked toward his office desk and opened the bottom drawer.
He removed a sealed white envelope.
“I received this the morning after Emily found me.”
My name was on it.
Again.
But underneath my name was another name.
A name I had never seen before.
Daniel handed me the envelope.
I tore it open.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed me leaving my obstetrician's office.
Taken from across the street.
Someone had circled my stomach in red ink.
On the back were four words.
THE SECOND BABY MATTERS.
I looked at Daniel.
“Second?”
Before he could answer, someone knocked at our front door.
Three slow knocks.
Emily looked through the window and suddenly went white.
“I know that car.”
A black sedan waited outside.
May you like
The driver's door opened.
And the man stepping out was someone I had buried four years ago...
