Chapter 4 - THE SECOND BABYThe police arrived twenty minutes later.
They searched the house.
The yard.
The street.
Nothing.
No fingerprints.
No witnesses.
No cameras had caught anyone entering.
The officer asked me the question I had been dreading.
“Mrs. Mercer, why was this baby in your home?”
“She was given to my daughter.”
“By whom?”
“A woman named Emily Carter.”
“Is there a reason you didn't report that immediately?”
I hesitated.
Because there was no way to explain any of this without sounding insane.
My dead husband.
A secret child.
A missing mother.
A mysterious group.
My sister-in-law.
A five-year-old birth certificate for a newborn.
I finally said,
“I thought I was protecting her.”
The officer stared at me.
“From whom?”
I didn't answer.
He leaned closer.
“Mrs. Mercer, I need to know what you saw.”
I told him about the man at the highway.
His expression changed.
“Did you get his license plate?”
“No.”
“Height?”
“Six feet.”
“Description?”
“Dark hair. Black jacket.”
“Anything else?”
I remembered his face.
And something else.
A scar on his left hand.
I told him.
The officer wrote it down.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His face turned pale.
“Where?”
He listened.
“Send someone.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“We found a car.”
“Emily's?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
He hesitated.
“Your husband's.”
My blood ran cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“The vehicle was found abandoned near the north shore.”
“Daniel's been dead for five years.”
“I know.”
“Then what's his car doing there?”
The officer didn't answer.
He simply told us to follow him.
At the lake, police surrounded an old SUV.
I recognized it instantly.
Daniel had owned it.
It was the same vehicle he supposedly sold two months before his death.
The driver's door was open.
Inside was dust.
No body.
No blood.
Nothing.
Except a photograph.
I picked it up.
It showed Daniel standing beside a woman I had never seen.
The woman was holding a baby.
A newborn.
Grace.
On the back of the photograph were coordinates.
The officer looked at me.
“Do you know this location?”
“Yes.”
I stared at the map.
The coordinates pointed to an abandoned lakeside cabin.
The exact place where Daniel and I had spent our honeymoon.
My stomach twisted.
“We're going there.”
The officer tried to stop me.
I ignored him.
Sophie came with me.
When we reached the cabin, the door was already open.
Inside, everything was covered in dust.
Except one room.
A nursery.
Fresh diapers.
Baby formula.
A rocking chair.
A crib.
And dozens of photographs.
All of Grace.
Taken over the past five years.
Someone had been watching her.
But there was something else.
On the wall were photographs of Sophie.
At age six.
Age ten.
Age fifteen.
Age nineteen.
I felt sick.
“Mom...”
Someone had been tracking my daughter too.
Then Sophie saw something.
A photograph of me.
Taken yesterday.
Outside the resort.
I ripped it off the wall.
Then another.
And another.
My entire family had been photographed for years.
At the bottom of the wall was one final picture.
Rebecca.
Standing beside Daniel.
Alive.
Not five years ago.
The date on the photograph was last month.
Sophie whispered,
“Mom...”
I looked at her.
“That's Aunt Rebecca.”
“I know.”
“She knew Dad was alive?”
I shook my head.
“I don't think so.”
But deep down, something colder had begun to form.
A possibility I couldn't ignore.
Maybe Daniel had never been dead.
Maybe his death had been staged.
And maybe Rebecca knew the truth.
A floorboard creaked behind us.
We turned.
A man stood in the doorway.
He raised both hands.
“Don't shoot.”
The police officer drew his weapon.
“Who are you?”
The man looked at me.
Then at Sophie.
Then at the empty crib.
And said,
“My name is Thomas.”
May you like
He swallowed.
“And I'm the baby's father.”
