Three days after Emily's birth, Rebecca disappeared from the protected residence.
Not with Owen.
Alone.
She left one note:
Tell my mother I loved her when it is safe. Tell my daughter the truth when she is old enough.
Catherine folded forward.
I reached across the carpet and took her hand.
Two strangers.
Two women lied to by men who believed timing belonged to them.
I kept reading.
Zane searched.
Year after year.
Private investigators.
Databases.
Hospitals.
Marriage records.
Name changes.
Nothing.
Until last year.
A rehabilitation hospital three states away admitted a woman named Rachel Bellamy after a stroke.
Her old emergency paperwork included the birth surname:
Rebecca Bell.
Zane went.
The hospital photograph Catherine had shown me was real.
My husband standing beside a fifty-year-old woman in a wheelchair.
Rebecca.
Alive.
Then I reached the last page.
Catherine, I found your daughter.
Claire, if Catherine has allowed you to read this, then you now know that Emily is Rebecca's child.
