Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Had Been Dead for Seventeen Years)
The paramedics arrived within nine minutes.
Police arrived three minutes later.
Robert tried to control the story before either reached the basement.
"My daughter-in-law fell."
Diane repeated it.
"It was an accident."
Laura said nothing.
Emily was carried upstairs on a stretcher.
Ethan walked beside her while a paramedic tested sensation in her feet.
At the front door, Emily suddenly gripped his sleeve.
"The envelope."
Ethan had forgotten he was still holding it.
"Don't give it to your father."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Don't open it here either."
Ethan stared at her.
"Why?"
She looked toward Robert.
"Because once he knows what's inside, he'll know what we know."
Ethan almost shouted.
Instead, he lowered his voice.
"What do we know?"
Emily's eyes filled with tears.
"Not enough."
The ambulance took her to St. Matthew's Medical Center.
Doctors quickly determined that Emily had suffered nerve compression and severe bruising around her lower back, but initial tests suggested no permanent spinal damage.
The baby's heartbeat was strong.
Those two facts prevented Ethan from falling apart.
Emily was admitted for observation.
Police officers interviewed her separately.
Then Ethan.
Then Laura.
Robert and Diane were taken to the station after officers discovered the basement door had been locked from the outside and noticed the broken phones.
They were not immediately charged.
Robert insisted the lock had been accidental.
Diane claimed Emily had become unstable and dangerous.
The story changed three times in twenty minutes.
Ethan listened until he could not stand another word.
At 10:38 p.m., he sat beside Emily's hospital bed.
Laura waited in the hallway.
Ethan had not yet asked her to come inside.
He did not know what to call her.
His mother.
Laura.
A stranger.
Emily watched him from the bed.
"Say whatever you need to say."
"You lied to me."
"Yes."
"About my mother."
"Yes."
"For six weeks."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Emily looked toward the window.
"Because I didn't believe her at first."
"You met her?"
"She contacted me."
"Why you?"
"Because she was afraid your father was watching you."
Ethan laughed bitterly.
"This sounds insane."
"I know."
"She told you my dead mother was alive, and you just accepted it?"
"No. I thought she was a scammer."
Emily reached toward the bedside drawer.
Inside was her purse, recovered from the house.
She removed a folded photograph.
Ethan took it.
The image showed Laura standing outside a small apartment building.
On the back was written:
Ask Robert what happened at Lake Mercer on July 14, 2009.
Ethan remembered the date.
It was the day his mother had supposedly died.
Her car had gone through a guardrail near Lake Mercer.
The vehicle had burned.
The body inside was identified through dental records.
There had been a funeral.
A closed casket.
Ethan had been eighteen.
"I checked," Emily said. "The dental clinic that confirmed the records closed three months after the crash. The dentist moved overseas."
Ethan stared at the photograph.
"You investigated this without telling me."
"At first I was trying to prove she was lying."
"And then?"
"I found your mother's death certificate."
"So?"
"The certificate lists a county medical examiner who wasn't working that week."
Ethan looked up.
"How do you know?"
"Because he died four days before your mother's accident."
Silence filled the room.
Emily continued.
"I thought it had to be a clerical mistake. Then Laura gave me copies of bank transfers from your father's company."
"What transfers?"
"Payments to the dentist. A deputy. A funeral director."
Ethan stood.
"No."
"Ethan."
"No."
He paced toward the window.
His father was difficult.
Controlling.
Dominating.
But forging a death?
Paying officials?
Keeping his wife hidden for seventeen years?
That was not difficult.
That was criminal.
"Why would she agree?"
"She didn't."
Emily's answer stopped him.
Laura stood outside the glass panel in the hospital door.
She had not moved.
Emily said softly, "Your mother says your father told her that if she ever contacted you, he would make sure you went to prison for something you didn't do."
"For what?"
"She wouldn't tell me."
Ethan looked toward Laura.
"Then why come back now?"
Emily placed both hands over her stomach.
"Because Robert started looking for her."
"Why?"
"She doesn't know."
"Then why contact you?"
"Because she found out I was pregnant."
Ethan frowned.
Emily looked frightened.
"She said there was something Robert had done once before, and she was afraid he was going to do it again."
The envelope sat on the chair beside Ethan.
He had brought it from the house.
He picked it up.
His mother's handwriting.
Emily Carter.
"Open it," Emily whispered.
Ethan tore the seal.
Inside was a letter.
A photograph.
And a photocopy of a birth certificate.
Ethan looked first at the photograph.
A newborn baby wrapped in a blue hospital blanket.
On the back his mother's handwriting read:
Daniel Carter.
July 21, 2009.
Ethan stared.
"I don't know any Daniel Carter."
Emily looked away.
Ethan unfolded the birth certificate.
Mother: Laura Carter.
Father: Robert Carter.
Child: Daniel Carter.
Date of birth: July 21, 2009.
One week after Laura had supposedly died.
Ethan felt the room tilt.
He read it again.
His mother had given birth to another child seven days after the world had been told she was dead.
Ethan looked at Emily.
"I have a brother?"
Emily whispered, "Yes."
"Where is he?"
She did not answer.
"Emily."
Her eyes moved toward the door.
Laura was crying.
May you like
Emily finally said the sentence that changed everything.
"Your father has him."
