Chapter 5 - The Girl in the Photograph)
Two weeks later, Thomas called at five fourteen in the morning.
"We found her."
Rachel sat upright in bed.
Daniel was asleep beside her.
"What?"
"Emily."
Rachel stopped breathing.
"Alive?"
"I don't know."
Thomas sent an image.
Rachel opened it.
Security camera photograph.
A woman leaving a medical building in Cincinnati.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
Forty years old, maybe.
Rachel's hands shook.
The woman had Emily's eyes.
"Where was this taken?"
"A private neurobehavioral clinic."
"When?"
"Nine months ago."
Rachel slipped from bed.
"What name?"
"Elizabeth Voss."
Not Emily Vale.
But the initials remained.
E.V.
Rachel dressed quietly.
As she reached the stairs, Daniel appeared behind her.
"Where are you going?"
She turned.
He wore sweatpants and a T-shirt.
"Hospital."
"So it is a hospital."
Rachel hesitated.
Daniel gave a humorless smile.
"You said the word the other night."
Rachel looked away.
"Why are you keeping all of this from me?"
"Because your father is involved."
Daniel stared.
"Involved in what?"
Rachel could have told him.
She nearly did.
Then she remembered Walter's fear.
The ledger.
The basement.
The possibility that telling Daniel too soon could destroy whatever fragile trail remained.
"I don't know yet."
Daniel's face hardened.
"That's convenient."
Rachel picked up her keys.
He stepped aside.
"Go."
She did.
Thomas was waiting at the hospital.
On the conference table were three files.
"Elizabeth Voss entered the clinic twelve years ago," he said.
"Why?"
"Post-traumatic amnesia. Dissociative episodes. She apparently had no verifiable family history."
Rachel laughed bitterly.
"Because someone erased it."
"That's what I think."
"Can we see her?"
Thomas shook his head.
"She left nine months ago."
"Where?"
"No forwarding address."
Rachel's hope collapsed.
Thomas pushed a photograph toward her.
"It gets stranger."
The picture showed Elizabeth with an older man outside the clinic.
Rachel recognized him.
Walter Mercer.
She stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
"No."
"Timestamp is fourteen months ago."
"Before the Whitaker accident."
"Yes."
Rachel grabbed the photograph.
"Walter knew where she was."
Thomas nodded.
"Looks like it."
Rachel drove directly to Walter's office.
Retired or not, Walter still maintained a corner office at Mercer Development.
She entered without an appointment.
His assistant tried to stop her.
Rachel ignored him.
Walter was standing at the window.
Rachel threw the photograph onto his desk.
"Tell me where she is."
Walter looked down.
His face changed.
"You shouldn't have this."
"Where is Emily?"
"I don't know."
"You visited her."
"Once."
Rachel slammed both palms on the desk.
"You looked me in the face for twelve years and pretended you didn't know if she was alive!"
Walter stood.
"I was trying to protect her."
"From whom?"
Walter didn't answer.
Rachel picked up the photograph.
"From me?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Walter moved toward the office door and locked it.
Rachel watched.
He returned.
"Emily didn't want to see you."
Rachel went still.
"That's a lie."
"It isn't."
"She thought I abandoned her."
"No."
"What did you tell her?"
Walter looked tired.
"Nothing. Because when I found her, she didn't remember you."
Rachel stared.
"What?"
"She remembered the building. She remembered pieces. Names came and went."
"But not me?"
Walter shook his head.
Rachel turned away.
Her eyes burned.
Walter continued.
"Then something happened."
She looked back.
"What?"
"She started remembering."
Rachel's hope returned.
"And?"
"And three weeks later, she disappeared."
"From the clinic?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I received this."
Walter opened a drawer.
He removed a small envelope.
Inside was a note.
Rachel recognized Emily's handwriting immediately.
She read it.
WALTER,
IF RACHEL MERCER STARTS ASKING QUESTIONS, KEEP HER AWAY FROM ME.
SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT SHE DID.
Rachel's hands went numb.
"What I did?"
Walter said nothing.
Rachel looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying again."
"Not this time."
Rachel read the note again.
She remembered the basement.
Blood.
Emily screaming.
A silver watch.
And something else.
A sound.
Her own voice.
Rachel closed her eyes.
Suddenly a memory struck her.
Emily shouting:
"Rachel, don't open that door!"
Rachel stumbled backward.
Walter moved toward her.
She raised a hand.
"Don't."
Her breath came faster.
A second image flashed.
A metal door.
A red alarm light.
A child crying from behind it.
Rachel's hand on a handle.
Then Emily running toward her.
Rachel opened her eyes.
"What was behind the basement door?"
Walter turned pale.
"What do you remember?"
May you like
Rachel looked at him.
"Enough to know you never wanted me to."
