And then a third message arrived.
This one contained a photograph so old that I almost didn’t understand what I was seeing.
Jack.
Claire.
And Martin Hale.
All three standing together outside the hospital.
The timestamp was from six weeks before Jack died.
But the thing that made my hands start shaking wasn’t Martin Hale.
It was the fourth person standing beside them.
A woman.
Older now, but unmistakably the same woman from the faded photograph.
Jack and Claire’s mother.
The woman Claire had just told me vanished more than thirty years ago.
I looked up.
Claire was crying.
“Emma,” she whispered, “I can explain.”
The man outside knocked once more.
And then he said something that made every hair on my body rise.
“Mrs. Carter, please step away from Claire.”
Claire backed toward the hallway.
“No.”
Martin Hale’s voice hardened.
“She’s not Jack’s sister.”
