Chapter 6 - The Girl in the Photograph
Daniel stared at the image of Rachel until Claire took the phone away.
“What do they want me to say?” he asked.
Claire’s fear sharpened into anger.
“You tell us.”
“I don’t know anything about this.”
“Someone kidnapped my sister and wrote your name on the wall.”
“Someone also planted a magnet in my pocket.”
Detective Grant requested an emergency trace on the message, but Rachel’s phone appeared to have been connected through several temporary network relays.
The metadata had been stripped from the photograph.
The newspaper proved only that Rachel had been alive sometime after four that morning.
Claire enlarged the image.
Rachel’s left cheek was swollen. Dried blood marked her temple. Her eyes were open, but they were directed toward something beyond the camera.
A metal cabinet stood behind the chair.
On its door was a faded sticker shaped like a yellow sun.
Claire recognized it.
She had seen the same sticker during a tour of the Bennett Foundation’s original pediatric clinic years earlier.
The clinic had closed after a fire.
“Where was the old clinic?” Claire asked.
Daniel’s face changed.
“Outside Bellweather.”
“Is the building still standing?”
“Part of it.”
Grant contacted local officers and sent a tactical team to the property.
The clinic was forty miles away. Claire wanted to go, but Grant refused.
“If Rachel is there, your presence could endanger her.”
“Doing nothing could endanger her.”
“We are not doing nothing.”
While the team traveled to Bellweather, Claire returned to Lily’s memory of the photograph.
The child described a girl who looked five or six years old. She had pale skin, dark curls, and the same gray-blue eyes as Lily.
The girl stood beside Evelyn in a garden filled with white lilies.
“What did the woman say?” Claire asked.
“She said Grandma lost her because Daddy told a lie.”
Daniel sat down slowly.
Claire watched him.
“You know who the girl is.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
Daniel rubbed both hands across his face.
“When I was a child, my mother kept a photograph in a locked drawer. I saw it once. It showed her holding a little girl.”
“Who was she?”
“My mother said she was a cousin who died.”
“Did the girl look like Lily?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember enough to be frightened.”
Daniel stood and walked toward the window.
“I was six when my sister died.”
Claire forgot to breathe.
“You never told me you had a sister.”
“No one talks about her.”
“What was her name?”
“Laura.”
“How did she die?”
“There was an accident at one of our family properties. She fell into a swimming pool.”
“How old was she?”
“Five.”
The same age as Lily.
Claire looked at her daughter.
“Did Evelyn blame you?”
Daniel’s silence answered.
He finally spoke.
“I was supposed to watch her. My father left us near the pool. I went inside to get a toy. When I came back, Laura was in the water.”
“You were six years old.”
“My mother never said it was my fault, but after that day, everything changed.”
“What lie did you tell?”
Daniel’s face had become pale.
“I told the police I had been inside for ten minutes.”
“How long were you really gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel.”
“Maybe thirty minutes.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Because my father told me to.”
Claire felt a chill.
“What was your father doing?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You were old enough to remember your sister’s body in a pool.”
“I remember pieces.”
Grant’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and then stepped away from Lily’s bed.
When he returned, his expression told Claire the clinic search had failed.
“Rachel wasn’t there,” he said. “But the photograph was taken inside the old clinic. The cabinet and sun sticker match.”
“Was anyone there?”
“The building was empty.”
“Then the kidnapper moved her.”
Grant nodded.
“They left something behind.”
He showed Claire a photograph taken inside the burned clinic.
A child’s red shoe sat in the center of the floor.
May you like
Beside it lay a new message.
THE WRONG GIRL DIED.
