Chapter 2 - The Girl Standing Behind Me
Lily almost screamed.
A hand clamped over her mouth before the sound escaped.
“Quiet.”
Madison.
Lily twisted around so quickly that her elbow struck a shelf, making two empty mason jars rattle against each other.
Madison caught one before it fell.
For several seconds, neither girl moved.
The old phone continued playing on the shelf between them.
Catherine Carter’s pale face filled the screen.
Madison slowly removed her hand from Lily’s mouth.
“You need to turn that down.”
Lily stared at her.
“You knew?”
Madison’s expression changed.
Not smug.
Not amused.
Scared.
“You need to turn it down now.”
Lily grabbed the phone and lowered the volume until Catherine’s recorded voice became barely louder than a whisper.
Rain tapped against the small pantry window.
From upstairs came the distant hum of the bathroom fan.
Vanessa was still awake.
Lily looked at Madison again.
“You knew this was here?”
Madison crossed her arms tightly.
“I knew there was something in here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You opened the door.”
Madison looked toward the hallway.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
Lily felt something tighten in her chest.
Three days.
Madison had known for three days that a recording of Lily’s dead mother existed inside the house.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t know what it was at first.”
“You watched it.”
Madison’s silence answered.
Lily looked back at the phone.
Onscreen, Catherine was sitting at the same kitchen table that still stood twenty feet away.
She looked thinner than Lily remembered.
Cancer had hollowed her cheeks and darkened the skin beneath her eyes, but her voice remained unmistakable.
“I’m recording this because I don’t know what else to do.”
Lily swallowed.
Catherine glanced behind her.
A shadow moved across the kitchen doorway.
“I told David everything was fine today,” Catherine continued. “It isn’t.”
Lily’s fingers went cold.
Madison stepped closer.
“There’s more.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. A lot.”
“You watched all of it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Madison gave a humorless laugh.
“Because I heard my mom’s name.”
Lily stopped breathing.
On the phone, Catherine reached toward the camera.
The image shook.
Then she whispered, “Vanessa Hale came back today.”
Lily looked at Madison.
Madison had turned white.
“Hale?” Lily whispered.
“My mom’s maiden name.”
The pantry suddenly felt too small.
Lily remembered David introducing Vanessa almost a year earlier.
Vanessa Pierce.
That was the name she had used before marrying David.
She had said Pierce came from her first husband.
Lily had never heard the name Hale.
Catherine continued speaking.
“I told her she was no longer welcome in this house. I told the agency the same thing.”
Agency?
Lily leaned closer.
“She wasn’t supposed to come back after what happened with my medication.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Both girls froze.
Silence followed.
Madison reached over and paused the video.
Neither moved for several seconds.
Finally Lily whispered, “She knew my mom?”
Madison nodded.
“I think so.”
“You think so?”
“I found another video.”
“Show me.”
“Lily—”
“Show me.”
There was something in Lily’s voice Madison had never heard before.
For months, Lily had endured Madison’s insults. She had cleaned her bathroom. Washed her clothes. Let Madison mock her dead mother because fighting back only made Vanessa worse.
But now Lily’s fear had changed shape.
There was anger inside it.
Madison took the phone.
She opened a folder labeled HOUSE.
Thirty-seven videos appeared.
Most were only a few minutes long.
Madison scrolled to one dated three months before Catherine died.
She pressed play.
The video showed the kitchen again.
This time Catherine was not sitting.
The camera appeared to have been hidden behind something on a countertop.
Catherine stood near the sink in a bathrobe.
And another woman stood across from her.
Only the woman’s back was visible.
Dark hair.
Blue medical scrubs.
Lily leaned closer.
Then the woman turned.
Her profile appeared for less than two seconds.
Lily’s stomach dropped.
Vanessa.
Younger.
Her hair shorter.
But unquestionably Vanessa.
“What…” Lily whispered. “What was she doing here?”
Madison didn’t answer.
Onscreen, Catherine said, “You told me you gave me the medication exactly as prescribed.”
“I did.”
Vanessa’s voice.
Lily’s knees nearly gave out.
Catherine held up a small orange bottle.
“Then explain why these tablets aren’t the same ones my oncologist prescribed.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“You’re confused.”
“I photographed them.”
“You’re sick, Catherine.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You told David my memory was deteriorating.”
“Because it is.”
“No. You told him that because you wanted him to stop listening to me.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“You should sit down.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Vanessa stopped.
Catherine’s voice trembled, but she continued.
“I called the home-care agency.”
That explained the scrubs.
Vanessa had been one of Catherine’s caregivers.
Lily remembered them.
Different women had come during those final months.
Some stayed for three hours.
Some stayed overnight.
David had still been working full-time because Catherine’s treatment bills had become enormous.
Lily had been nine.
She remembered almost nothing except whispered conversations, pill bottles, soup trays, and strangers coming through the front door.
Vanessa had been one of them.
And somehow David had never told Lily.
Or perhaps he hadn’t known.
Onscreen, Vanessa said, “You shouldn’t make accusations you can’t prove.”
“I can prove you copied my financial documents.”
Madison inhaled sharply.
Lily looked at her.
Catherine continued.
“The insurance folder. My will. The deed to this house. You went through all of it.”
“You asked me to organize your paperwork.”
“I asked you to find my insurance card.”
“You’re twisting things.”
“And I found the photographs on the tablet.”
Vanessa stopped moving.
Catherine stepped closer.
“You took pictures of everything.”
For the first time in the recording, Vanessa looked afraid.
Then she smiled.
It was the same smile Lily knew.
The calm smile Vanessa used before saying something cruel.
“Who is David going to believe?”
Lily felt the blood drain from her face.
The exact same threat.
Two years earlier.
Same woman.
Same house.
Same weapon.
Catherine answered quietly.
“He’s going to believe me.”
Vanessa laughed.
“No, Catherine.”
She leaned forward.
“He’s going to believe the healthy woman standing in front of him before he believes the dying woman whose doctors already documented confusion from medication.”
Lily gripped the shelf.
Madison whispered, “Oh my God.”
The video ended.
For several moments, nothing existed except the rain.
Then Lily looked at Madison.
“Why is she here?”
Madison shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“She knew my mom. She worked here. Then Mom died. Then she met Dad?”
“I swear I didn’t know.”
“You knew her name.”
“I knew Hale was Mom’s old name. I didn’t know anything about this.”
Lily backed away.
Her mind raced through memories.
The first time Vanessa had come to dinner.
The way she knew where the glasses were kept.
Lily had noticed.
She had even asked.
Vanessa had laughed and said, “Lucky guess.”
The first time Vanessa made David’s coffee, she knew exactly which cabinet held the filters.
The first time she went upstairs, she didn’t ask where the bathroom was.
Lily had thought nothing of it.
Now she remembered everything.
“She already knew the house,” Lily whispered.
Madison nodded slowly.
A sound came from the hallway.
Not a creak.
A footstep.
Madison grabbed the phone.
The pantry door began to move.
Someone was opening it.
Madison shoved Lily behind a row of hanging coats and switched off the phone screen.
The door opened wider.
Light spilled inside.
Vanessa stood there.
“Madison?”
Her voice was soft.
Dangerously soft.
Madison stepped forward, blocking Lily.
Vanessa’s eyes traveled around the pantry.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Looking for my charger.”
“At midnight?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Vanessa stared at her daughter.
Then her gaze dropped.
The old phone was half visible behind Madison’s arm.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
Lily saw the exact instant she recognized it.
Her face changed.
Madison quickly moved her hand behind her back.
But it was too late.
Vanessa whispered, “Where did you get that?”
“No idea what you mean.”
“Madison.”
“Mom—”
“Give me the phone.”
Madison backed away.
Vanessa stepped inside.
“Give it to me.”
Behind the coats, Lily pressed both hands over her mouth.
Madison shook her head.
And for perhaps the first time in her life, Madison looked her mother directly in the eyes and said one word.
“No.”
May you like
Vanessa’s face went completely still.
Then she reached back and quietly locked the pantry door behind her.
