PART5

“Did you find anything?”

“We found something unusual.”

“What?”
He hesitated.

“Your mother’s bedroom.”

“What about it?”

“There was a second phone.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“A phone hidden in a drawer.”
I had never seen it.

“Was it hers?”

“We believe so.”

“What’s on it?”

“We’re still examining it.”

My heart began pounding.

“Could it have my mom’s messages?”

“Possibly.”

“Messages to who?”

“We don’t know yet.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep.

I kept thinking about the second phone.

The secret phone.

The phone my mother had never mentioned.

The phone she had apparently hidden before leaving for vacation.

And then I remembered something.

Three days before she left, Mom had been in her bedroom with the door locked.

I had heard her arguing with someone.

I couldn’t hear the entire conversation.

But I remembered one sentence.

“You promised me this would stay quiet until after the wedding.”

At the time, I thought she was talking about wedding decorations.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

The next morning, Elena came to see me again.

She wasn’t alone.

Derek was with her.

He looked completely different from the man who had smiled at me in the driveway.

His face was pale.

He sat across from me and placed both hands on the table.

“Maya, I owe you an apology.”

I stared at him.

“For what?”

“For believing your mother.”

I didn’t answer.

He swallowed.

“She told me you were staying somewhere safe.”

“You believed her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she showed me a message.”

“What message?”

“She sent me a photograph.”

“Of Chloe’s house?”

He nodded.

But then he said:

“It wasn’t a recent photograph.”

My stomach dropped.

“What do you mean?”

“She sent me a picture of you standing beside the lake.”

I stared at him.

“I’ve never been there.”

“I know.”

“Who was in the picture?”

He looked at Elena.

Then back at me.

“We’re not sure.”

“What does that mean?”

Derek opened his phone.

He showed me the photograph.

It was me.

Standing beside a lake.

Wearing a blue sweater.

Smiling.

But I had never seen that photograph before.

I stared at my own face.

Then I noticed something.

Behind me was a wooden cabin.

And on the porch stood a woman.

A woman I had never met.

Derek zoomed in.

My blood went cold.

Because the woman was holding a little girl.

And that little girl looked exactly like me.

Same dark hair.

Same face.

Same age.

Same blue sweater.

I whispered:

“Who is she?”

Derek didn’t answer.

Then Elena quietly said:

“We don’t know yet.”

Derek looked at me.

“But your mother does.”

And for the first time since she left for Hawaii, I realized something terrifying.
Maybe my mother hadn’t abandoned me because she wanted a vacation.

Maybe she had left because she was running away from something.

And whatever it was…

It had already been waiting for me.

The photograph stayed on the screen between us.

I couldn’t look away.

There I was, standing beside a lake I had never visited, wearing a blue sweater I remembered owning when I was nine.

Behind me was the cabin.

And behind the cabin stood a woman holding a little girl who looked exactly like me.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then I whispered the question that had been burning inside me.

“Is that my twin?”

Derek’s face changed.

Elena looked at him.

He slowly shook his head.

“We don’t know.”

“But she looks like me.”

“I know.”

“Then who is she?”

“We’re trying to find out.”

I pushed the phone away.

“I want my mom.”

Derek looked down.

“I know.”

“I want to ask her.”

“I know.”

“Then call her.”

Nobody moved.

“Call her!”

My voice cracked.

Derek finally picked up his phone.

He dialed.

The call went unanswered.

He tried again.

Nothing.

Then a message appeared.

I’m unavailable. Stop calling.

Derek stared at it.

“She sent that to me earlier.”

I felt something inside me break.

My mother knew I was safe.

She knew the police had found me.

She knew I was asking for her.

And she still wasn’t coming home.

That was when I stopped hoping she would walk through the door and explain everything.

Something had changed.

I no longer wanted an explanation that made everything okay.

I wanted the truth.

Three days later, investigators found the cabin.

It wasn’t in Hawaii.

It wasn’t in California.

It was in a small mountain community nearly four hours from our home.

The property belonged to a woman named Rebecca Mercer.

Rebecca had never met me.