Chapter 6 - THE GIRL WHO DISAPPEAREDRachel sat on the kitchen floor for nearly five minutes before speaking.
“When we were nine, Claire and I had a secret game.”
“What game?”
“We switched clothes.”
I frowned.
“We would pretend to be each other.”
She stared at the family photograph.
“One night, we switched places during a storm.”
Rachel said Claire had gone outside.
She never came back.
The family searched for hours.
Police were called.
But by dawn, Claire was found unconscious near the lake.
She had suffered a head injury.
After that, Claire became terrified of water.
Rachel took a breath.
“But there was another detail.”
“What?”
“When Claire woke up, she didn't remember the accident.”
“She had amnesia?”
“Only part of it.”
Rachel lowered her eyes.
“She forgot something that happened before she fell.”
“What?”
Rachel looked at me.
“She saw our father.”
I stared.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“She said he was fighting with our mother.”
“And then?”
“She said he told her something.”
“What?”
Rachel whispered:
“He said one of us wasn't really his daughter.”
Silence.
Lily looked between us.
Rachel continued.
“Our mother buried that story.”
“And Thomas disappeared afterward.”
Rachel nodded.
“So Claire spent years trying to remember.”
That explained everything.
The financial records.
The secret room.
The hidden cameras.
But it didn't explain why Claire was taken.
I opened my laptop.
Something clicked.
A thought.
“The documents.”
“What?”
“Claire said someone was using my identity.”
I searched the transfer records.
Then I noticed something.
Every fraudulent signature had the same tiny mistake.
A slightly raised line through the letter M.
I stared.
“I never sign like this.”
Rachel leaned closer.
“Who does?”
I didn't know.
Then Lily spoke.
“Grandma.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“She signs cards that way.”
Evelyn.
I called Detective Cross.
Before he answered, a message appeared on my phone.
COME TO THE OLD CHAPEL. ALONE.
A location followed.
Rachel shook her head.
“Don't go.”
“I have to.”
“No.”
“We need Claire.”
Rachel grabbed my sleeve.
“You don't understand. That's where our father was last seen.”
I looked toward the dark window.
“Then that's where we're going.”
When we arrived at the abandoned chapel, the doors were already open.
Inside, rows of broken wooden benches stretched toward the altar.
A single light flickered overhead.
Then I saw something on the floor.
Claire's engagement ring.
Beside it lay a piece of paper.
I unfolded it.
Four words were written in Claire's handwriting.
SHE IS NOT MY MOTHER.
Rachel read it over my shoulder.
Then she whispered:
May you like
“That's impossible.”
Behind us, the chapel doors slammed shut.
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