Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN IN THE TURQUOISE COVER-UP
The woman did not mean Nora.
I understood that three seconds later.
Her fingers tightened around my wrist as she looked past my shoulder toward the street.
“She can’t know you’re here.”
My husband Michael stepped beside me.
“Who?”
The woman lowered her voice.
“Lydia Mercer.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Who is Lydia?”
Her face went pale.
“The woman who brought your daughter here.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Michael caught my elbow.
“What did you say?”
The stranger pulled us toward the side of the café.
“My name is Ruth Calder. Please don’t stand out here.”
“Where is Nora?”
Ruth looked at me.
“Alive.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Michael grabbed me before I hit the table.
“No.”
The word escaped me like air from a punctured lung.
Ruth’s eyes filled.
“She’s alive.”
“Where?”
“Two blocks away.”
I stared at her.
Eight years.
Birthday cakes nobody ate.
Police calls.
False sightings.
Bodies found in rivers that I was asked to identify and then told were not my child.
And my daughter was two blocks away?
“Take me to her.”
Ruth shook her head.
“You can’t just appear.”
“She is my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then move.”
Ruth’s expression hardened.
“She believes you’re dead.”
That stopped me more effectively than a locked door.
“What?”
“Lydia told her you died eight years ago.”
Michael whispered:
“Why would Nora believe that?”
Ruth looked at him.
“Because when Nora arrived here, she had a head injury, no phone, no identification, and a woman beside her claiming to be her aunt.”
My heart hammered.
“What do you mean arrived?”
Ruth touched the turquoise fabric.
“Eight years ago, Lydia brought a sixteen-year-old girl to the motel I used to manage.”
My vision blurred.
“Nora?”
“Yes.”
“She was wearing this?”
Ruth nodded.
“She changed clothes because it was wet and torn. Lydia told me to throw it away.”
“Why did you keep it?”
Ruth looked down at the crooked yellow sun.
“I don’t know.”
Then:
“Maybe because the girl kept staring at it like she was trying to remember something.”
I pressed both hands against my mouth.
Michael asked:
“Where is Nora now?”
Ruth hesitated.
“She works at a bookstore called Blue Lantern.”
My body moved before my brain did.
Ruth grabbed me again.
“Rebecca, please.”
I froze.
I had never told her my name.
“How do you know who I am?”
She reached into her purse.
Pulled out a folded envelope.
My name was written across the front.
REBECCA VANCE.
The handwriting made my entire body go cold.
I knew those letters.
I had watched them form on homework assignments, birthday cards, notes stuck to our refrigerator.
Nora’s handwriting.
Ruth whispered:
“She wrote this three weeks ago.”
May you like
My daughter had known I might come.
And for some reason, she had been too afraid to contact me herself.
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