Chapter 2 - Eleven Months Earlier
Margaret Hale had supposedly died after a fall at her coastal home.
David had been traveling in Chicago.
Claire had been the first family member to reach the hospital.
Doctors told them Margaret suffered severe intracranial bleeding.
She deteriorated overnight.
By morning she was gone.
David remembered the body.
Or believed he did.
The coffin had been closed from the shoulders down because of injuries.
He had touched his mother’s hand.
Claire had stood beside him.
Lily had cried through the service.
Margaret had been Lily’s grandmother through David’s late first wife, Anna, who died when Lily was three.
Claire entered David’s life two years later.
She had always said she wanted Lily to feel like family.
Until now.
David asked police to secure the phone.
Margaret’s call disconnected before she revealed location.
The number was masked.
Claire refused to answer in front of guests.
David canceled reception.
He took Lily to a private suite with her nanny and family attorney.
Then returned to Claire.
“Where is she?”
Claire looked exhausted.
“I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
“Not like this.”
David stared.
“My daughter just watched my dead mother call us from somewhere you apparently know about.”
Claire sat.
“She didn’t die eleven months ago.”
David already knew that much.
“What happened?”
Claire closed eyes.
“The woman in the coffin wasn’t your mother.”
That sentence should have sounded impossible.
Instead it matched the terror Claire had shown when Margaret appeared live.
“Whose body was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You stood beside me at funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
“When did you find out?”
“Four months ago.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to get her back safely.”
“From who?”
Claire hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
Then Lily’s phone vibrated.
A message appeared from unknown sender.
DON’T LET CLAIRE LEAVE THE HOTEL.
SHE ALREADY MOVED MARGARET ONCE.
David looked at Claire.
“Moved her?”
Claire went pale.
“That is not what it sounds like.”
“Then what does it sound like?”
Before she could answer, hotel security called.
A woman wearing Claire’s wedding planning credential had entered the service corridor twenty minutes before ceremony.
She had carried a medical transport envelope.
May you like
The name printed on it:
MARGARET HALE.
