Chapter 2
The photograph showed me carrying Lily out of Boston Children’s Hospital.
She was three years old.
Her red winter coat was open, and one of her shoes was untied.
I remembered that day.
Lily had pneumonia.
Her biological mother, Claire, had been dead for almost two years.
I had spent three nights beside Lily’s hospital bed.
No one should have been watching us.
Yet the picture had been taken from across the street.
Beneath it, someone had written:
Daniel still wears his wedding ring.
I touched my left hand.
I had worn Claire’s ring on a chain for years after the accident.
Rebecca claimed she first noticed it on the night we met.
She said it told her I was loyal.
Now I wondered whether she had known every detail before she introduced herself.
More photographs covered the wall.
Lily entering preschool.
Me leaving my office.
My mother buying groceries.
My brother, Michael, meeting our father outside a private bank.
Rebecca appeared in several photographs.
In one, she stood across the street from my office eighteen months before we met.
In another, she watched Lily through the fence at her preschool.
My chest tightened.
This was not a collection of family memories.
It was surveillance.
A desk stood beneath the photographs.
Its drawers were locked.
The brass key opened the top one.
Inside was a notebook in my mother’s handwriting.
I recognized the sharp capital letters immediately.
The first page carried only six words.
Rebecca Hall is not her real name.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
I closed the notebook.
The floorboard outside the hidden room creaked.
“Daniel?”
Rebecca’s voice was soft.
I switched off the light.
For one second, I considered hiding.
Then I remembered Lily lying in the hospital.
I stepped into the hallway and closed the narrow door behind me.
Rebecca stood near the staircase in a white robe.
Her face was calm.
Her right hand was hidden behind her leg.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you moved a bookcase?”
“My mother’s bookcase.”
“She told us never to touch it.”
“My mother is dead.”
The words hurt more than I expected.
Rebecca tilted her head.
“Why are you angry with me?”
I looked at the hand behind her.
“What are you holding?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me.”
Her smile disappeared.
She slowly brought her hand forward.
She was holding the fireplace poker.
“I heard a noise,” she said. “I thought someone had broken in.”
“The fireplace is downstairs.”
“I panicked.”
“You carried that upstairs because you heard me moving furniture?”
Her fingers tightened around the handle.
“Did you find anything?”
I watched her face.
“A room.”
She stopped breathing.
“You knew it was there.”
“No.”
“Lily saw you inside.”
“She was confused after the fall.”
“She saw you before the fall.”
Rebecca came closer.
“Daniel, give me the key.”
“Why?”
“It belonged to your mother.”
“Then why do you want it?”
“Because Evelyn became paranoid before she died.”
My mother’s name sounded wrong in Rebecca’s mouth.
They had never liked each other.
Rebecca said my mother resented any woman who entered my life after Claire.
My mother said less.
She simply watched Rebecca.
Now I understood why.
“What was my mother investigating?”
Rebecca’s eyes flickered toward the hidden door.
“I don’t know.”
“You were photographed following me two years before we met.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw the dates.”
“Your mother could have changed them.”
“Why would she?”
“To turn you against me.”
“Three years after her death?”
Rebecca looked toward the staircase.
Then she lowered the poker.
“Your mother hated me.”
“My mother feared you.”
“That woman feared everyone.”
I stepped closer.
“What is your real name?”
Rebecca’s face emptied.
For one second, I saw someone I did not know.
Then tears filled her eyes.
“You’re frightening me.”
“Answer the question.”
“I am your wife.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
She suddenly dropped the poker.
The sound echoed through the hall.
Then she pressed both hands over her face and began crying.
“You don’t know what I sacrificed for this family.”
“What did you sacrifice?”
“My life.”
“To marry me?”
“To protect you.”
“From whom?”
She lowered her hands.
“Your brother.”
The answer caught me off guard.
“Michael?”
“Ask him why Claire’s car went off the road.”
My entire body went cold.
Claire had died when an oncoming truck forced her car through a highway barrier.
The truck was never found.
Police called it a tragic hit-and-run.
“Why did you say Claire’s name?”
Rebecca stared at me.
“You asked what I was protecting you from.”
“What do you know about Claire’s death?”
“More than your mother did.”
I grabbed her arm before she could leave.
She looked down at my hand.
I released her immediately.
“Tell me.”
“Not while you think I’m the enemy.”
“My daughter says you chased her.”
“I was trying to stop her from entering a dangerous room.”
“She fell because of you.”
Rebecca’s expression cracked.
“I did not push her.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Silence.
I heard the hum of the old heating system.
Then Rebecca whispered, “She ran.”
“You were chasing her.”
“I wanted the key.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother hid something that could destroy all of us.”
“What?”
“I never found it.”
She looked at my closed fist.
“But Lily did.”
The key was still inside my hand.
I had not realized how tightly I was holding it.
“You were in that room when she saw you?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing?”
“Searching.”
“For what?”
“Evidence.”
“Against Michael?”
Rebecca nodded.
I did not believe her.
Not completely.
But the fear in her eyes appeared real.
My phone rang downstairs.
The hospital number appeared on the screen.
I answered.
A nurse told me Lily had woken up crying.
She wanted me.
I moved toward the staircase.
Rebecca followed.
“You cannot go back there and fill her head with questions.”
“She is my daughter.”
“She is my daughter too.”
“Then why is she afraid of you?”
Rebecca stopped.
Pain crossed her face.
For a moment, she looked like the woman I married.
Then her voice became cold.
“Because someone taught her to be.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
“My mother has been dead for three years.”
Rebecca picked up the poker.
“Yes,” she said. “And that is why none of this makes sense.”
I drove to the hospital alone.
Lily was sitting upright when I entered.
A nurse had moved her to a private room.
Her left arm was in a sling.
The doctor said she had a fractured wrist and a mild concussion, but no serious head injury.
I sat beside her.
“Rebecca isn’t here.”
Lily looked toward the door.
“Did she follow you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I locked the door.
Her shoulders relaxed slightly.
“I found the room,” I said.
“Did you see the pictures?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Grandma’s box?”
“What box?”
Lily frowned.
“The blue one.”
“There wasn’t a blue box.”
“It was under the desk.”
I had not checked beneath it.
“What was inside?”
“I don’t know. Rebecca came in before I opened it.”
“Did she touch you?”
“She grabbed my sweater.”
“Did she push you?”
Lily looked down.
“She said, ‘Give me what you found.’”
“What happened next?”
“I pulled away.”
Her voice shook.
“I ran to the stairs. She caught my arm.”
“The injured one?”
Lily nodded.
“I screamed. She let go. Then I fell.”
Anger moved through me so quickly that I had to stand.
“Why didn’t you tell the doctor?”
“Rebecca said they would take me away.”
“From me?”
“She said you would go to jail.”
“For what?”
“She said the pictures proved you hurt Mommy.”
Claire.
Rebecca had used Lily’s dead mother to frighten her.
I sat again.
“Listen carefully. None of this is your fault.”
“But I took the key.”
“You did the right thing.”
“Grandma told me to.”
I stared at her.
“What did you say?”
Lily’s face became confused.
“In the video.”
“What video?”
“The one in the blue box.”
“You said you didn’t open it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did you see a video?”
“Last week.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“You found the room last week?”
Lily nodded.
“The door was already open. Rebecca was downstairs.”
“What did Grandma say?”
“She said if I ever saw the video, I had to find you.”
My mother had died when Lily was six.
She must have recorded it earlier.
“Did she say anything else?”
Lily looked toward the locked door.
“She said Rebecca had another name.”
“What name?”
Before Lily could answer, the lights went out.
The medical monitors switched to emergency power.
Someone tried the door handle.
Once.
Twice.
Then a woman’s voice spoke from the hallway.
“Daniel, open the door.”
It was Rebecca.
I had left her sleeping at home less than an hour earlier.
“How did you get here?”
“Lily needs me.”
“No.”
The handle shook harder.
“Daniel, this is my last warning.”
Lily pulled the blanket over the key.
I reached for the call button.
Nothing happened.
The intercom was dead.
Then Rebecca said something that made Lily start crying.
“Rachel knows you found the box.”
I stepped closer to the door.
“Who is Rachel?”
Rebecca went silent.
May you like
Lily grabbed my hand.
“That’s her other name.”
