Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WITH MY FACEClaire Donovan had existed at the edge of my childhood like a photograph kept in the wrong drawer.
I remembered meeting her twice.
Maybe three times.
She was two years younger than me and the daughter of my mother's estranged sister, Rebecca.
The sisters had stopped speaking when I was thirteen.
Mom's official version was that Rebecca was unstable and jealous.
I'd never questioned it.
Children inherit family stories before they're old enough to recognize propaganda.
By noon the next day, I was sitting in a federal office in Richmond looking at twenty-three photographs of Claire pretending to be me.
In one, she entered a courthouse.
In another, she sat in the passenger seat of a prison-transport contractor's vehicle.
In several, she wore baggy clothes and kept her face partly hidden.
She never appeared close enough for a clear identification.
That was the point.
“These photographs were provided whenever somebody questioned your father's account of your incarceration,” Reed explained.
“Who took them?”
“We're determining that.”
“Was Claire paid?”
“We believe so.”
I studied one image.
Claire had my height.
My coloring.
Even our profiles were similar.
But anyone who truly knew me would have recognized the difference instantly.
Which explained why my parents had discouraged questions.
A lie works best when curiosity becomes socially impolite.
Agent Reed placed another document in front of me.
A payment record.
Lakeview Holdings had sent Claire twelve thousand dollars every three months.
For nearly four years.
“Forty-eight thousand a year,” I said.
“Approximately.”
“To occasionally walk past a courthouse?”
“We suspect she did more.”
There were signatures.
Video verification calls.
A recorded statement supposedly from me.
Even a brief telephone conversation with an insurance auditor.
Claire hadn't merely resembled me.
She had studied me.
“What happened to her?”
Reed folded his hands.
“Her apartment is empty.”
“Did someone hurt her?”
“We don't know.”
That scared me more than hearing she'd fled.
“Her mother?”
“Rebecca Donovan moved to North Carolina seven years ago. We're trying to locate her.”
I stared through the conference-room window.
Four years earlier, while I was learning how to lace boots correctly and survive on too little sleep, my family had been constructing another Emily.
A criminal Emily.
A shameful Emily.
An Emily who existed solely to absorb blame.
My phone vibrated.
Nathan.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“What's wrong?”
“Mom's at the house.”
“So?”
“She's destroying things.”
I stood.
“What things?”
“Documents. Photos. I don't know.”
I looked at Reed.
“We need to go.”
Federal agents were already watching the house, but my mother had been permitted inside under supervision to collect personal belongings from rooms outside the warranted office spaces.
When we arrived, smoke was pouring from the backyard.
Mom stood beside Dad's old steel fire pit.
She had burned a box of photographs.
Inspector Cho was furious.
“Step away from the fire!”
Mom dropped another handful.
Two agents rushed forward.
I saw a photograph fall beside the pit instead of inside it.
I picked it up.
Three girls stood beside a lake.
Mom.
Aunt Rebecca.
And another woman I didn't recognize.
Written on the back:
Diane, Rebecca & Laura — Summer 1987. Forever sisters.
“Who is Laura?”
Mom stopped moving.
I held up the photo.
“Who is she?”
“Nobody.”
“Apparently she was somebody.”
“Emily, please.”
I walked toward her.
“What are you burning?”
“Old family trash.”
Inspector Cho began photographing everything.
I knelt beside the box.
Most of the contents were ordinary family pictures.
Christmas.
Vacations.
School events.
Then I found an envelope.
Inside was a hospital bracelet.
BABY GIRL CARTER
Date of birth: May 14, 1997.
That wasn't my birthday.
Mine was September 9.
I looked at Mom.
“What is this?”
She stared at it.
Her face became expressionless.
“Your brother's hospital gave us the wrong bracelet once.”
“Nathan is a man.”
She closed her eyes.
I turned the bracelet over.
Mother:
REBECCA DONOVAN.
My pulse pounded.
“Why does Aunt Rebecca's baby's bracelet say Carter?”
Mom walked toward the house.
I grabbed her wrist.
“Answer me.”
“Let go.”
“Answer me.”
She yanked free.
Agent Reed stepped between us.
“Mrs. Carter, I strongly recommend you stop destroying material and speak with counsel.”
Mom laughed bitterly.
“You people think this is about money.”
Reed's eyes narrowed.
“Isn't it?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
For the first time, I saw hatred in my mother's face.
Not annoyance.
Not disappointment.
Hatred.
“You came back and ruined everything.”
Something inside me snapped.
“I ruined everything?”
“Yes!”
“You forged my name!”
“I protected this family!”
“You told everyone I was in prison!”
“Because you were supposed to stay gone!”
The words struck the backyard like a gunshot.
Even Mom seemed startled by them.
“Supposed to?”
She turned away.
I followed.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you think I was going to die?”
“No.”
“Then why was I supposed to stay gone?”
She wouldn't answer.
Agent Reed's phone rang.
Again.
Every phone call around my family seemed to uncover another floor beneath the basement.
He answered.
“Reed.”
He listened.
Then he looked at me.
“You found Rebecca?”
He walked several steps away.
“Where?”
A pause.
His expression changed.
“How long?”
He ended the call.
“What?” I asked.
“Rebecca Donovan was located in Asheville.”
Relief came first.
Then I saw his face.
“What happened?”
“She died six months ago.”
My throat tightened despite barely knowing her.
“Natural causes?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the hospital bracelet.
“Did she have records?”
“They're retrieving what they can.”
Mom turned pale.
Agent Reed studied her.
“Mrs. Carter, is there something you want to tell us before we obtain those records?”
“No.”
“About Emily?”
“No.”
“About Claire?”
“No.”
Then a car stopped in front of the house.
A woman stepped out.
She looked about fifty.
Tall.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
I recognized her immediately from the burned photograph.
Laura.
She walked through the side gate without hesitation.
Mom saw her and whispered, “No.”
The woman ignored her.
She came directly toward me.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You're Emily.”
“Yes.”
She reached for my hands, then stopped herself.
“I'm Laura Bennett.”
“Who are you?”
She looked at Diane.
“Someone your mother has spent twenty-nine years hoping you'd never meet.”
Mom's voice sharpened.
“Leave.”
Laura didn't move.
“I saw the news.”
“Leave!”
“I promised Rebecca.”
Mom lunged toward her.
Inspector Cho blocked her.
I stared at Laura.
“Promised her what?”
Laura opened her handbag.
She removed a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
EMILY.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
“Rebecca wrote this four months before she died.”
“Why didn't she send it?”
“She was afraid.”
“Of my mother?”
Laura glanced at Dad's empty office window.
“Of both of them.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside were seven handwritten pages.
The first sentence changed my understanding of my entire life.
Dear Emily, if Diane has told you I am your aunt, then the first thing you deserve to know is that she lied about that too.
I stopped breathing.
Laura whispered, “Keep reading.”
My hands trembled.
I am your biological mother.
The backyard disappeared.
The agents.
The police.
The reporters beyond the fence.
Everything became distant.
I looked at the woman who had raised me.
Diane stood perfectly still.
“You're not my mother?”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Laura answered for her.
“Rebecca gave birth to you when she was nineteen.”
I looked down at the hospital bracelet.
Baby Girl Carter.
Rebecca Donovan.
“How?”
Laura spoke carefully.
“Diane and Richard couldn't have another child after Nathan. Rebecca was young, frightened, and financially dependent on her family.”
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
“Did she give me up?”
Laura hesitated.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Rebecca agreed that Diane would temporarily care for you.”
Temporarily.
The word felt impossible.
“But months became years.”
“Why didn't Rebecca take me back?”
“She tried.”
My eyes moved to Diane.
Laura continued.
“Richard threatened her. Your grandparents pressured her. Diane said taking you away would traumatize you.”
“How old was I?”
“The first time Rebecca tried?”
“Yes.”
“Eleven months.”
I felt sick.
“She tried again when you were five. And again when you were twelve.”
I remembered being twelve.
Mom suddenly pulled me out of school for three weeks and took me to Florida.
She told everyone it was a family vacation.
Had she been hiding me?
Laura nodded as though reading my expression.
“Rebecca had hired a lawyer.”
Diane finally spoke.
“She was unstable.”
Laura spun toward her.
“She was nineteen!”
“She abandoned her baby.”
“She trusted her sister.”
“I raised Emily.”
“You kept Emily.”
The difference silenced everyone.
I sat on the edge of the patio.
The letter shook in my hands.
Near the final page, Rebecca had written:
I watched from far away because I was told that disturbing your life would only hurt you. I convinced myself that silence was love. I was wrong. Silence protected Diane, not you.
Then came another sentence.
Claire knows everything.
I looked up.
“Claire knew?”
Laura nodded.
“Rebecca told her years ago.”
“Then why would Claire help my parents frame me?”
“I don't think she did willingly.”
Agent Reed stepped closer.
“What do you mean?”
Laura looked toward him.
“Three weeks before Claire disappeared, she called me.”
“What did she say?”
“She had found documents proving Richard was stealing from the fund.”
Reed went still.
“Did she tell you where they are?”
“No.”
Laura swallowed.
“But she said something else.”
“What?”
“She said Richard had discovered she was planning to contact Emily.”
My heart accelerated.
“When?”
“Two weeks before you came home.”
Exactly when Claire disappeared.
Agent Reed immediately began making calls.
My mother whispered, “You don't understand.”
I stared at her.
“Then explain.”
She shook her head.
“Claire wasn't supposed to betray us.”
“Betray you?”
“We helped her.”
“You paid her to impersonate me.”
“She needed money!”
“And when she wanted out?”
Diane's face crumpled.
“I don't know.”
I stepped closer.
“Where is Claire?”
“I don't know.”
“Mom.”
She looked at me.
Despite everything, the word escaped automatically.
Mom.
May you like
Her eyes softened for half a second.
Then she whispered, “Richard does.”
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