Chapter 2 - MICHAEL HAD BROUGHT ME TO THIS TOWN ON PURPOSE
Before I could open Nora’s letter, Michael said:
“Rebecca, I need to tell you something.”
I turned.
His face told me I was about to lose another piece of solid ground.
“What?”
“This trip wasn’t random.”
I stared.
Ruth looked surprised too.
Michael reached into his jacket.
Pulled out a photograph.
Nora.
Older.
Twenty-four now.
Standing outside the Blue Lantern bookstore.
My daughter.
Eight years had changed her face.
Narrower.
More mature.
But I knew the curve of her mouth.
The small crease near her left eyebrow from when she fell off a scooter at nine.
I pressed the photograph against my chest.
“Where did you get this?”
“Three weeks ago.”
My eyes snapped toward him.
“You’ve had this for three weeks?”
“Rebecca—”
“You knew she might be alive?”
“I knew someone wanted me to believe she was.”
My anger arrived so fast I almost welcomed it.
“You brought me six hundred miles without telling me?”
“I was terrified it was another hoax.”
We had lived through seven false sightings.
One extortion attempt.
A woman who contacted us claiming she knew where Nora was and demanded $20,000.
Michael had learned to distrust hope.
I understood that.
I still wanted to scream.
“What came with the picture?”
“A postcard.”
He handed it to me.
No return address.
One sentence:
IF YOU STILL WANT THE TRUTH ABOUT NORA, COME TO PORT MERCY.
My hands shook.
“Why you?”
“I don’t know.”
Ruth whispered:
“I didn’t send it.”
Michael looked at her.
“I thought you had.”
“No.”
I finally opened the letter with my name.
Inside were only four lines.
Mom,
If you’re really alive, I’m sorry.
I don’t know what’s true anymore.
Please don’t come looking for me until I know whether I’m allowed to want you back.
Nora.
I sat down hard.
Allowed.
My twenty-four-year-old daughter believed she needed permission to want her own mother.
Ruth lowered herself across from me.
“Lydia controlled everything.”
“What did she do to Nora?”
Ruth’s answer came carefully.
“She controlled the story.”
After Nora arrived in Port Mercy, Lydia told everyone she was her niece Eleanor.
Nell.
A troubled teenager whose mother had died.
She produced documents.
School records.
A temporary guardianship order.
Medical papers.
All under the name Eleanor Mercer.
“Were they real?”
“Some were forged.”
“Some?”
Ruth looked at Michael.
“One document had your signature.”
Michael went pale.
“My signature?”
“A consent transferring temporary guardianship to Lydia.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I know that now.”
Then Ruth said something worse.
“Nora saw it.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course she believed it.
Her mother was supposedly dead.
Her father had supposedly signed her away.
Then Michael asked:
“Why did Lydia choose Nora?”
Ruth looked toward the street.
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect something.”
“Yes.”
She pulled out her phone.
An old photograph appeared.
Lydia Mercer standing beside a teenage girl.
Same dark hair as Nora.
Same height.
Similar face.
“Who is she?”
Ruth whispered:
“Lydia’s daughter, Cora.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died.”
“When?”
“Two years before Nora disappeared.”
My stomach turned.
May you like
Then Ruth looked directly at me.
“Cora was sixteen.”
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