Chapter 15 - THE WOMAN WITHOUT A VOICE
No one answered at first.
Dozens of phones rang from pockets, handbags, and empty chairs throughout the chapel.
Each screen displayed the same caller identification.
ELAINE HARPER.
Laura turned toward her mother.
Evelyn held up her own phone.
It was ringing too.
“I’m not making the calls.”
Laura answered.
No voice spoke.
A faint pattern of clicks repeated through the speaker.
Mark answered his phone and heard the same sound.
Daniel’s face lost its color.
“It’s an old Registry distress code.”
“What does it say?” Laura asked.
Daniel counted the clicks.
“Compromised network. Forced silence. Extraction requested.”
“From whom?”
“The code does not contain a name.”
The chapel lights went out.
Emergency lighting illuminated the aisle.
A woman stood near the rear doors.
She wore a pale coat and carried no phone.
Laura could not see her face clearly.
The woman lifted one hand and formed several signs.
Evelyn gasped.
Laura had learned basic sign language as a child because her mother sometimes used silent gestures while working from home.
The woman signed slowly.
Elaine was not the first.
Laura stepped into the aisle.
“Who are you?”
The woman pointed toward Evelyn.
Then toward Laura.
She signed again.
Ask her about the second daughter.
Laura turned toward her mother.
Evelyn had gone completely still.
“What is she talking about?”
Evelyn did not answer.
“Mom?”
The woman at the doors removed a chain from beneath her coat.
A silver pendant hung from it.
Laura recognized the pendant immediately.
It was identical to the necklace she had worn as a child, the one her mother claimed had been destroyed in the house fire.
The woman opened the pendant.
Inside was a photograph of two infant girls.
One was Laura.
The other baby had the same eyes, the same dark hair, and the same small birthmark near her left temple.
Laura looked at Evelyn.
“I had a sister?”
Tears appeared in her mother’s eyes.
“You had a twin.”
Mark moved closer to Laura.
“What happened to her?”
Evelyn looked at the silent woman by the doors.
“Andrew Vale took her the night of the fire.”
The woman shook her head.
She signed one final sentence.
Vale did not take me.
The emergency doors locked behind her.
Every phone stopped ringing.
A new audio file appeared on Laura’s screen.
Its title contained only three words.
LAURA IS THE COPY.
Laura pressed play.
Her own voice whispered through the chapel.
“Do not trust the woman who calls herself your mother.”
The recording ended.
When the lights returned, the silent woman was gone.
On the floor where she had been standing lay a fresh death certificate.
Laura picked it up.
May you like
The name printed at the top was Elaine Harper.
The recorded date of death was tomorrow.
