Chapter 9 - My Mother Was DeadI felt a strange numbness spread through my arms.

My mother had died eight months earlier in a car accident outside Indianapolis. I'd identified her belongings, attended her funeral, and spent weeks sorting through the paperwork she'd left behind.

I had stood beside her coffin.

I'd watched them lower it into the ground.

“You're lying,” I whispered.

Victoria shook her head.

“I was shown photographs. I was told she was alive and living under another identity.”

“Who showed you?”

“Cole.”

I wanted to reject every word, but memories began surfacing.

Two months before she supposedly died, my mother had called late at night. She sounded frightened and asked whether David had mentioned anyone asking questions about our finances.

I'd assumed she was confused.

After her funeral, a lawyer had told me that a large part of her estate was frozen because of an ownership dispute. I had never received a satisfactory explanation.

And six weeks after her death, Leo was born.

Someone had accessed his records almost immediately.

I looked at Maya.

“Sweetheart, did Grandma ever tell you anything strange?”

Maya hesitated.

Then she reached into her backpack and removed a small envelope.

“I found this in Grandma's things.”

I recognized the handwriting.

My mother's.

Inside was a photograph of her standing beside a woman in a beige trench coat.

Victoria.

Behind them stood a man whose face had been scratched out with black ink.

On the back of the photograph, my mother had written:

If anything happens to me, protect the baby. They will come for him because of what his father knows.

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

David had known about the threat before I boarded the plane.

My mother had known about it months earlier.

And someone had been waiting for Leo to be born.

I looked at Victoria.

“What did my mother know?”

She trembled.

“Your husband wasn't supposed to marry you.”

The words sounded absurd.

“What?”

“Your mother believed David was involved in a scheme to steal newborn identities. She thought he married you to gain access to her estate.”

I stepped back.

For a moment, every part of my life seemed to tilt.

Then Maya tugged at my sleeve.

“Mom.”

Her face had gone pale.

“Look at the tablet.”

The recording had continued while we were speaking.

A new voice had entered the background.

A voice I knew better than anyone.

David's.

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And he was saying something I had never heard before.

“Once the baby is gone, Claire will finally be safe.”