Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Ethan sat beside Claire’s hospital bed at two in the morning, staring at the bruises forming along her wrists.
He had been looking at them for almost an hour.
Claire noticed.
“You keep staring.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
“There are three years to understand.”
His voice cracked.
Claire turned toward the window.
Rain slid down the glass.
Outside, reporters had already gathered.
Someone from the party had posted a ten-second video showing Eleanor standing over the balcony as Claire fell.
By midnight, it had been viewed more than four million times.
BLACKWOOD MATRIARCH ACCUSED OF PUSHING DEAD DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.
Ethan hated the headline.
Not because it damaged the family.
Because it reduced Claire’s nightmare to entertainment.
“I searched for you,” he said.
Claire didn’t answer.
“For months.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I hired investigators in three states. I went to the lake myself every weekend.”
“They told me you stopped looking after six weeks.”
He stared at her.
“Who?”
“The doctors.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know if they were real.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Claire looked at him.
“You can’t fix three years in one night.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He flinched.
Claire immediately looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m angry at you even though I know it may not be fair.”
“You’re allowed.”
“They showed me papers with your signature.”
“What papers?”
“Commitment forms. Divorce documents. A statement saying you believed I was dangerous.”
Ethan stood.
“I never filed for divorce.”
Claire looked at him sharply.
“What?”
“I never divorced you.”
“But Eleanor told me—”
“My mother told everyone I eventually signed papers because it was necessary to settle your estate. I refused.”
Claire’s breathing changed.
“So legally…”
“We may still be married.”
Silence filled the room.
Neither knew what to do with that information.
Three years earlier they had been planning a nursery.
Now they were practically strangers.
Detective Maya Brooks entered with a folder beneath her arm.
“I have something.”
Ethan turned.
“Did you find the box?”
Brooks nodded.
“Forensics has it.”
She placed photographs on the table.
Claire saw her medical bracelet.
CLARA BELL.
PATIENT 314.
ADMITTED MAY 18.
No year appeared in the photograph, but Claire remembered the date.
May 18.
The morning after she disappeared.
Brooks placed another photograph beside it.
A prescription bottle.
Claire leaned closer.
“That medication.”
“What about it?”
“They gave it to me every night.”
Brooks glanced at Ethan.
“The prescribing physician was Dr. Samuel Voss.”
Claire’s face changed.
“You found him?”
“We found his medical license.”
“And?”
“He died eight months ago.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Brooks continued.
“The facility was called Bellweather Recovery Institute.”
Ethan frowned.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It closed sixteen months ago after an insurance fraud investigation.”
Claire stared at the detective.
“Where?”
“About seventy miles north of here.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“I thought they took me out of state.”
Brooks nodded slowly.
“That may have been intentional.”
Ethan looked sick.
“She was seventy miles away?”
Brooks said nothing.
Ethan walked to the window.
“For three years?”
“Ethan,” Claire whispered.
“I flew across the country looking for you.”
He pressed both hands against the windowsill.
“You were seventy miles away.”
Claire watched his shoulders shake.
She had imagined this reunion hundreds of times.
In her darkest nights, she imagined Ethan discovering her.
Sometimes he rescued her.
Sometimes he admitted he had ordered her confinement.
Sometimes he looked at her and said he no longer loved her.
Reality was somehow harder.
Brooks pulled out another document.
“We found something else.”
Claire recognized the signature instantly.
Ethan Blackwood.
Her husband.
Brooks placed it in front of him.
“This is an emergency psychiatric detention request dated the day after Claire disappeared.”
Ethan read it.
Then again.
“That isn’t my signature.”
“It looks convincing.”
“I don’t care how it looks.”
His face hardened.
“I didn’t sign this.”
Brooks nodded.
“We’ll have a handwriting expert examine it.”
Claire saw another name near the bottom.
“Who witnessed it?”
Brooks looked down.
“Marcus Vale.”
Ethan froze.
Claire knew that name.
Marcus Vale had been the Blackwood family attorney for twenty-five years.
He had attended their wedding.
He had drafted their prenuptial agreement.
He had cried at Ethan’s father’s funeral.
“He’s still your attorney?” Claire asked.
Ethan nodded slowly.
“He was at the party tonight.”
Claire’s blood ran cold.
“Where?”
“I saw him near the library before you arrived.”
Brooks closed the folder.
“We’ve already requested that officers locate him.”
Ethan took out his phone.
“No.”
Brooks stopped him.
“Don’t call.”
“He lives fifteen minutes away.”
“Exactly why you shouldn’t warn him.”
“I trusted that man.”
Claire laughed once.
It wasn’t humor.
“So did I.”
A nurse entered with an envelope.
“This was delivered downstairs for Mrs. Blackwood.”
Brooks immediately stopped her.
“By whom?”
“A courier.”
“Did they leave?”
“I’m not sure.”
Brooks took the envelope.
There was no return address.
She put on gloves and opened it carefully.
Inside was a single photograph.
Claire gasped.
A newborn baby.
Tiny.
Pink blanket.
Hospital identification band around one ankle.
Claire reached for the picture, but Brooks stopped her.
“Let me check it first.”
Ethan came closer.
“What is it?”
Claire couldn’t speak.
Brooks turned the photograph over.
Three handwritten words appeared on the back.
SHE NEVER DIED.
Claire made a sound Ethan would remember for the rest of his life.
Not a scream.
Not a cry.
Something deeper.
The sound of a mother discovering grief might have been a lie.
“My baby.”
Ethan stared at the photograph.
“Is that her?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire was shaking.
“I only saw her for maybe thirty seconds.”
Ethan turned toward Brooks.
“You need to find whoever delivered this.”
“We’re already checking cameras.”
“Do it now.”
“Mr. Blackwood—”
“Someone knows where my daughter is.”
Brooks’ expression softened only slightly.
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Claire grabbed Ethan’s hand.
He looked down.
“Don’t.”
His anger broke.
She whispered, “We need her thinking clearly.”
Brooks’ phone rang.
She stepped into the hall.
Claire reached for the photograph after it had been placed in an evidence sleeve.
She studied the baby’s face.
“I held her once.”
Ethan sat beside her.
“Tell me.”
Claire swallowed.
“They wouldn’t tell me when I went into labor. I remember screaming because I thought something was wrong.”
Tears rolled silently down her cheeks.
“Then I heard her cry.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“She was loud. So loud.”
Claire smiled through the tears.
“I kept saying, ‘Let me see her.’ Finally a nurse put her on my chest.”
“What did she look like?”
“Dark hair.”
She looked at Ethan.
“Like yours.”
He lowered his head.
“I told her I was her mother. I told her I loved her.”
“What happened?”
“They gave me an injection.”
Claire’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“When I woke up, she was gone.”
Ethan looked toward the photograph again.
“And they told you she died.”
“Dr. Voss said she stopped breathing.”
“Did you see her?”
“No.”
“A death certificate?”
“No.”
“A funeral?”
Claire shook her head.
“He said the facility handled everything.”
Ethan stood.
“Then she could be alive.”
Claire looked afraid to believe it.
Brooks returned.
“We found the courier.”
They both looked at her.
“He was hired anonymously online. Paid cash through a third party.”
“Nothing?” Ethan demanded.
“One thing.”
Brooks held up her phone.
“The envelope was picked up from a locker at Union Station.”
Claire stared.
Brooks continued.
“Security footage shows the person who put it there.”
“Who?”
Brooks hesitated.
“Nora.”
Claire’s eyes widened.
“The maid?”
Brooks nodded.
Ethan was already heading toward the door.
“Where is she?”
“That’s the problem.”
Brooks’ face tightened.
“Nora never came home tonight.”
Claire felt cold.
Brooks added, “Her phone was found in a trash can two blocks from Blackwood Manor.”
Ethan stopped.
“And Nora?”
“Missing.”
Claire looked again at the photograph of the newborn.
If Nora had known about the bracelet, the hidden boxes, and the baby, then she knew more than she had admitted.
Perhaps much more.
Ethan returned to Claire’s bedside.
“We’ll find her.”
Claire shook her head.
“You don’t understand Eleanor.”
“I’m beginning to.”
“No.”
Claire stared toward the dark window.
“When Eleanor believes someone might expose her, she doesn’t negotiate.”
A shadow moved beyond the glass.
Claire screamed.
Ethan spun around.
Someone stood on the narrow maintenance balcony outside the hospital room.
A figure in dark clothing.
The figure lifted one hand.
Then pressed something against the window.
A photograph.
A little girl.
Around three years old.
Dark hair.
Blue eyes.
And around her neck hung the silver heart necklace Ethan had given Claire on their first anniversary.
Underneath the photograph was a message.
May you like
STOP LOOKING.
OR YOU LOSE HER AGAIN.
