Chapter 5 - THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Evelyn stared at the photograph for almost a full minute.
“That isn’t me.”
Nobody answered.
“It can’t be.”
Her voice sounded younger than Claire had ever heard it.
Dominic laid the photograph beside Anna’s rosary.
“You were six?”
“Seven.”
“Did you live in Baltimore?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Dominic noticed.
“So where did you live?”
Evelyn looked at the photograph again.
“My mother moved us constantly.”
“You told me you grew up in Connecticut.”
“I went to school there.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Evelyn’s eyes flashed.
For the first time that night, some of her old defensiveness returned.
“My mother didn’t enjoy explaining our lives to strangers.”
“We’re engaged.”
“Yes.”
Her voice broke.
“And apparently I still qualify as a stranger in this family.”
Dominic let that sit.
It was not entirely unfair.
He had demanded access to Evelyn’s life while giving her only carefully selected portions of his.
But Claire’s humiliation still stood between them.
Understanding Evelyn’s fear did not erase what she had done.
Lily looked at the photograph.
“That’s Miss Evelyn.”
Evelyn sat beside her.
“You think so?”
Lily nodded.
“You still make that face.”
Everyone almost smiled.
Almost.
“What face?” Evelyn asked.
Lily pointed.
“Like you’re mad but you’re gonna cry.”
Evelyn looked away.
A nine-year-old had described her more accurately than most adults.
Victor approached the photograph.
“I saw that child once.”
“Where?” Dominic asked.
“At the Baltimore clinic.”
“You never knew her name?”
“No. Pike said she was another patient’s daughter.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I don’t remember a clinic.”
“Trauma can alter childhood memory,” Claire said gently.
Evelyn’s gaze snapped toward her.
For a second, old hostility appeared.
Then shame replaced it.
“I suppose you would have every right to hope I’m losing my mind.”
Claire looked directly at her.
“No.”
Evelyn seemed surprised.
“I want to know why you put jewelry in my pocket.”
“I told you.”
“You wanted me gone.”
“Yes.”
“That explains what you did. Not why you decided I was dangerous.”
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“Pike showed me one of Lily’s drawings.”
“What drawing?”
“A woman standing beside Lily’s bed.”
Claire frowned.
“I’ve never seen that.”
“He said Lily called the woman Mommy.”
Dominic turned toward Lily.
“Did you?”
Lily hesitated.
Then nodded.
Evelyn’s face tightened.
Dominic crouched.
“Who was the woman?”
Lily pointed at Claire.
Evelyn inhaled sharply.
Claire stared at the child.
“Me?”
“No.”
Lily shook her head.
“You were in the picture too.”
She took a crayon from the writing desk and drew quickly.
A bed.
A small stick figure.
Another woman at the side.
Claire near the door.
Then Lily added something around the unknown woman’s neck.
A cross.
The rosary.
Everyone looked at the wooden beads recovered from Pike’s coat.
Dominic asked carefully, “Have you seen that woman for real?”
Lily nodded.
Evelyn stood.
“When?”
“Sometimes at night.”
“Where?”
“In the hall.”
Dominic’s pulse changed.
“You never told me.”
“She always went away.”
“Did she speak?”
Lily shook her head.
“She cried.”
Claire remembered sitting outside Lily’s room during nightmares.
Twice she had heard movement farther down the hall.
She had assumed it was security.
“What did she look like?” Dominic asked.
Lily shrugged in the helpless way only children could.
“Old.”
Evelyn almost laughed.
“How old?”
“Like Claire.”
Claire raised an eyebrow.
“Thank you very much.”
Lily looked confused.
“You are old.”
For the first time that night, Dominic smiled.
It lasted less than a second.
Then Marcus entered carrying a tablet.
“Found something.”
Security footage.
Three weeks earlier.
A woman entered through the service corridor at 2:13 a.m.
She wore a maintenance jacket and baseball cap.
Her face remained hidden.
But around her wrist was a silver bracelet.
Lily leaned forward.
“Mommy’s.”
Dominic froze.
The silver bracelet on Lily’s nightstand had belonged to Anna.
Or so he had believed.
Victor leaned toward the screen.
“Pause.”
Marcus stopped the video.
The woman’s left hand rested against the wall.
A distinctive scar crossed her thumb.
Victor whispered, “Anna cut herself opening a bottle the summer she turned sixteen.”
Dominic remembered the scar.
He had kissed it a hundred times.
Nobody spoke.
Hope could be crueler than grief.
Dominic refused to surrender to it.
“This proves someone knew Anna’s scar.”
Victor nodded.
“Correct.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You don’t believe she’s alive?”
“I believe evidence before desire.”
Dominic appreciated that answer.
He turned to Marcus.
“Track every appearance of that woman.”
“There’s more.”
Marcus opened another clip.
The woman entered Lily’s room.
She did not wake the child.
She stood beside the bed for forty-three seconds.
Then she placed something underneath the mattress.
Lily ran upstairs before anyone stopped her.
Dominic followed.
Claire and Evelyn came behind.
Lily threw back the blanket and reached beneath the mattress.
Her hand came out holding a folded blue coat button.
No.
Not a button.
A fabric-covered medal.
Dominic recognized the cloth.
Anna’s winter coat.
The blue wool coat she had worn on their first date.
Lily opened the small seam around the fabric.
Inside was a tightly rolled strip of paper.
Dominic unfolded it.
Numbers.
Dates.
Initials.
And one sentence.
RAYMOND KEEPS THE CHILDREN WHO REMEMBER.
Evelyn sat down hard on the bed.
“What does that mean?”
Victor looked sick.
“I don’t know.”
But Claire was staring at something else.
The numbers.
“They’re dates.”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“No.”
Claire pointed.
“They’re birthdays.”
Seven dates.
Seven sets of initials.
E.H. was one of them.
Evelyn Hart.
Dominic’s eyes lifted.
Victor whispered, “Pike treated children.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“My mother said I saw a therapist after my father left.”
“What therapist?” Dominic asked.
She shook her head slowly.
“I don’t remember his name.”
Dominic already knew.
“Raymond Pike.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Then Lily reached beneath her pillow again.
“There’s another one.”
She pulled out a Polaroid.
Anna.
Older than in the Baltimore photograph.
Alive.
Standing in the Russo mansion kitchen.
The date was six months earlier.
Dominic felt the floor shift beneath him.
On the back, Anna had written four words.
CLAIRE BENNETT CAN HELP.
Claire stared at her own name.
“I never met your wife.”
Victor looked at Claire.
Then at the photograph.
His expression changed.
“Maybe Anna wasn’t referring to you.”
Claire’s heart began beating faster.
“What do you mean?”
Victor asked quietly:
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
Claire answered.
“Bennett.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
Claire frowned.
“My mother was Teresa Bennett.”
Victor looked toward Dominic.
“I knew a Teresa.”
Claire’s face tightened.
“What are you saying?”
“She used Bennett after she left Baltimore.”
Claire took a step back.
May you like
Victor finished:
“Before that, her name was Teresa Pike.”
