Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
The police sirens grew louder.
Inside the ballroom, nobody moved.
Anna stood beneath the chandelier, still wearing the faded hospital gown beneath her black coat.
She looked nothing like the woman I remembered.
Eight months earlier, she had disappeared.
Daniel had identified her car after it was found abandoned near a Tennessee river.
Her purse had been inside.
Her driver's license.
Her wedding ring.
There had been blood on the driver's seat.
Enough blood for the police to conclude that she had almost certainly died.
Daniel had cried at the funeral.
Rebecca had stood beside him.
And Sophie had spent eight months asking when her mother was coming home.
Now Anna was standing ten feet away from them.
Alive.
Daniel stared at her as if he were looking at a ghost.
“You can't be here.”
Anna's eyes never left him.
“You said I was dead.”
“You are dead.”
His voice cracked.
Rebecca stepped forward.
“Anna…”
Anna finally looked at her.
Rebecca stopped.
“You knew.”
It wasn't a question.
Rebecca's face went pale.
“I didn't know where you were.”
Anna laughed softly.
“You knew enough.”
Marcus stepped between them.
“Anna, what happened?”
She looked at me.
For a moment, I saw the woman my sister had always been.
Then fear returned to her eyes.
“Not here.”
A police officer entered through the side doors.
“Everyone stay where you are.”
Daniel immediately pointed at Anna.
“She has been missing for eight months. She may be dangerous.”
Anna flinched.
I stepped forward.
“No.”
The officer looked at me.
“She came here carrying evidence.”
I held up my phone.
“And so do I.”
Daniel's face changed.
The officer noticed.
“What kind of evidence?”
I looked at Anna.
She nodded.
“Play it,” she whispered.
I opened the recording.
Static filled the ballroom.
Then Daniel's voice emerged.
“You can't tell anyone.”
Anna's voice answered.
“They're going to find out.”
“You don't understand what happens if they do.”
“I know what you did.”
A pause.
Then Rebecca's voice.
“Daniel, stop arguing with her.”
The guests gasped.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
Daniel said:
“If Anna disappears, the trust becomes ours.”
Silence.
Someone dropped a glass.
I stopped the recording.
Daniel shook his head.
“That isn't real.”
Anna stared at him.
“You said that before.”
The police officer stepped toward Daniel.
“Mr. Whitmore, you're going to explain that recording.”
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca looked back.
And for the first time, I noticed something strange.
They weren't looking at each other like husband and wife.
They were looking at each other like two people who had just realized the same secret was about to destroy them.
Then Anna whispered:
“That's only the first recording.”
I turned toward her.
“What do you mean?”
She reached inside her coat.
She pulled out a second phone.
“This one tells you why I had to disappear.”
The screen lit up.
One file.
Eight months old.
The title was:
IF I DIE, PLAY THIS.
Anna pressed play.
May you like
And the first voice we heard wasn't Daniel's.
It was our mother's.
