We reached the old station in eleven minutes.
Dad drove too fast. Evelyn sat rigid in the passenger seat, one hand braced against the dashboard while I called Carl again and again from the back.
Every attempt went directly to voicemail.
The station appeared between two rows of abandoned warehouses, its brick facade darkened by decades of rain and exhaust. The city had stopped using most of the building years ago. Only commuter trains on the eastern line still passed through two renovated platforms on the opposite side.
Platform Four had been closed.
A chain-link gate blocked the old entrance.
Dad killed the engine.
"Maybe we should wait for the police."
"No."
"We just received a threat at your house."
"And my daughter may be here."
Evelyn had already opened her door.
"We don't have time."
We crossed the empty parking lot.
Wind pushed scraps of paper along the pavement. The station clock above the entrance had stopped at 6:17, though I couldn't remember whether it had been broken when I was a child.
A padlock hung from the gate leading toward Platform Four.
Evelyn took a small key from her purse.
I stared at her.
"You have a key?"
"Not to the station."
She bent beside the gate.
A narrow maintenance door was almost invisible behind an advertisement board.
The key fit.
Dad looked at her.
"How many secrets does this place have?"
"More than it should."
She opened the door.
The passage smelled of rust, rain, and old electrical wiring.
We moved single file.
At the end, sunlight spilled across cracked concrete.
Platform Four stretched beside two weed-choked tracks. The old canopy remained, though several glass panels were missing.
No passengers.
No Carl.
No Emily.
I called out anyway.
"Emily?"
My voice traveled down the empty platform.
Nothing answered.
Then I noticed the lockers.
A row of dented metal doors stood beneath the canopy.
Evelyn walked directly toward them.
"How do you know where to go?"
"Carl used this place before."
"For what?"
"Dead drops."
Dad frowned.
"You're saying that like you're in a spy movie."
"I wish it had been that harmless."
She stopped at locker 214.
The lock was electronic, an odd modern replacement on an otherwise ancient cabinet.
I looked at her.
"Do you know the code?"
"No."
I thought of Carl's last words.
Platform four.
Instructions.
Something went wrong.
Then a memory surfaced.
The twins' birthday.
March 14.
I entered 0314.
Red light.
Dad tried our wedding anniversary.
Nothing.
Evelyn stepped back.
"Carl wouldn't use something obvious."
"He spent thirteen years trying to make sure I could find this."
I stared at the keypad.
Green paint.
Stuffed rabbit.
The details he had used to convince me Emily remembered.
Then I remembered something I hadn't thought about in years.
Emily's favorite number had been seventeen.
Not because she understood it.
Because Lily once told her seventeen was "the biggest number before twenty."
Emily had believed her.
I entered 1717.
The lock clicked.
My breath caught.
Inside was a canvas bag.
I pulled it out.
There were clothes, cash, two prepaid phones, bottled water, medical supplies, and a sealed envelope.
My name was on it.
Again.
This time I tore it open immediately.
Inside was a photocopy of a birth certificate.
Maya Bennett.
Date of birth: March 14.
The same birthday as Emily and Lily.
I read the parents' names.
Thomas Bennett.
Sarah Bennett.
Evelyn leaned over my shoulder.
"Those are the adoptive parents."
"Did Carl meet them?"
"They died four years ago."
"How?"
"Car accident."
Dad glanced at her.
"Convenient."
Evelyn's mouth tightened.
"I thought so too. Carl couldn't prove anything."
I turned to the next page.
Adoption records.
They listed Maya's original identity as unknown.
Placement occurred six weeks after Emily disappeared.
"Six weeks."
My voice sounded distant.
"For six weeks somebody had my five-year-old daughter."
Evelyn didn't answer.
There was another document.
A photograph.
Emily—Maya—around six years old, standing beside Sarah Bennett in front of a small yellow house.
She looked happy.
That hurt in a way I hadn't expected.
Part of me had spent thirteen years imagining Emily afraid, calling for me.
Seeing evidence that someone had loved her should have brought relief.
Instead it created another grief.
She had learned to survive without us.
A sound came from the far end of the platform.
Metal scraping concrete.
Dad turned.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
Evelyn motioned for us to stay behind her.
I ignored her.
"Emily?"
A figure stepped from behind an old ticket booth.
Young woman.
Brown hair.
Gray jacket.
For one breathless second, I believed it was her.
Then the woman came closer.
She was older than eighteen.
Mid-twenties perhaps.
And unfamiliar.
She stopped twenty feet away.
"Mrs. Carter?"
I clutched the canvas bag.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Anna."
"How do you know me?"
"Carl showed me your picture."
Evelyn moved in front of me.
"Anna what?"
The young woman looked at her.
"Hart."
Evelyn froze.
Dad looked between them.
"Your daughter?"
Evelyn whispered, "No."
Anna gave a humorless smile.
"That depends on what you call a daughter."
Something passed across Evelyn's face.
Recognition.
Then horror.
"Anna?"
"You remember me now."
Evelyn lowered her arms.
"I thought you were dead."
"So did everyone."
I looked from one woman to the other.
"Where is Emily?"
Anna's attention shifted to me.
"She came here."
"When?"
"Twenty minutes ago."
My heart accelerated.
"Where did she go?"
"She left."
"With whom?"
"Nobody."
"Then why didn't Carl meet her?"
Anna hesitated.
"Because Carl was being followed."
The words made the empty platform feel suddenly exposed.
Dad looked toward the entrance.
"By who?"
Anna ignored him.
She took something from her pocket.
A small silver object.
A flash drive.
"Carl told me to give you this if he couldn't."
I reached for it.
Evelyn caught my wrist.
"Wait."
Anna's expression hardened.
"Still deciding who gets the truth?"
Evelyn looked wounded.
"Tell me who you are."
"You already know."
"No. The Anna I knew was nine years old."
Anna stepped closer.
"Patient 3079."
Everything inside me stopped.
Dad whispered, "The child who supposedly died."
Anna nodded.
I stared.
"But Evelyn said—"
"I said the child assigned number 3079 died," Evelyn interrupted quietly. "That's what the records showed."
Anna laughed once.
"The records showed a lot of things."
My thoughts raced.
"Then whose body was buried as Emily?"
Anna's eyes moved to mine.
"I don't know."
It was the first time the sentence sounded less like avoidance and more like a wound.
I held up the photograph of Maya.
"Where is she?"
Anna nodded toward the eastern end of the platform.
"She got a message."
"From whom?"
"Someone claiming to be her birth mother."
My throat closed.
"What?"
"They told her Carl had fabricated the DNA results."
"Why would she believe that?"
"Because they knew things about her childhood with the Bennetts."
I looked at Evelyn.
"Who could know that?"
"Someone who had access to the placement."
Anna nodded.
"Exactly."
I stepped closer.
"Where did Emily go?"
"Bus terminal."
Dad checked his watch.
"That's fifteen minutes away."
"Why?"
"She was told someone there had proof of who she really is."
I started toward the exit.
Anna caught my arm.
"There's more."
I pulled free.
"There can be more in the car."
"You need to know before you see her."
Something in her voice stopped me.
Anna looked directly at me.
"Maya knows she may be Emily Carter."
"I know."
"But she doesn't know whether she wants to be Emily Carter."
The words landed harder than any threat.
"She's my daughter."
"Biologically."
"She's my daughter."
Anna did not argue.
"She grew up as Maya Bennett. Sarah and Thomas were her parents. Whatever happened to her before she reached them, they didn't know she had been taken."
My anger had nowhere safe to go.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because Carl made the mistake of thinking finding her would fix everything."
"And it doesn't?"
Anna's expression softened.
"Finding the truth and surviving it are different things."
I looked away.
Across the tracks, weeds moved in the wind.
I had imagined this moment without realizing I was imagining it.
Emily running toward me.
Emily remembering everything.
Emily calling me Mom.
But the eighteen-year-old woman moving through the city right now had spent thirteen years belonging to somebody else's family.
I couldn't demand that memory disappear because mine had returned.
"Did she say anything about me?"
Anna hesitated.
"She asked what kind of mother stops looking."
The sentence struck so deeply that I almost doubled over.
Dad moved toward me.
I raised a hand.
"No."
Anna's voice softened.
"She doesn't know what happened."
"She thinks I gave up."
"She doesn't understand why Carl knew she was alive for years but you didn't."
I swallowed hard.
"Then I need to tell her."
"Yes."
I turned toward the exit.
Anna followed.
Evelyn caught her shoulder.
"How are you alive?"
Anna stopped.
For several seconds she faced away.
"When the records were switched, they weren't only hiding what happened to Emily."
She turned.
"They were hiding what happened to me."
"What happened?"
"I was supposed to disappear."
"Why?"
"My mother found out children were being moved through private placements that weren't legal."
Evelyn went pale.
"Your mother was Clara."
Anna nodded.
I recognized the name from nowhere, but Evelyn clearly did.
"Clara Hart worked with me."
"She was my mother."
"I know."
"You promised her you'd protect me."
Evelyn closed her eyes.
"I failed."
Anna looked at her without mercy.
"Yes."
Dad stepped between them.
"We need to move."
For once, everybody agreed.
We headed through the maintenance passage.
Halfway to the parking lot, a phone began ringing inside Carl's canvas bag.
All four of us stopped.
Not mine.
One of the prepaid phones.
I pulled it out.
Unknown number.
Anna said, "Answer it."
I did.
"Carl?"
No response.
Then a young woman's voice.
Unsteady.
"Is this Rebecca?"
My knees nearly failed.
Nobody had called me Rebecca with that particular hesitation before.
"Yes."
Silence.
I pressed the phone tighter to my ear.
"Who is this?"
The answer came almost as a whisper.
"Maya."
I shut my eyes.
Dad grabbed my elbow.
I could hear traffic behind her.
"Where are you?"
"I don't know if I should tell you."
"It's okay."
My voice cracked.
I forced it steady.
"You don't have to trust me. You don't have to call me anything. Just tell me you're safe."
Another pause.
"Are you really my mother?"
Every answer I could have given felt too large.
"I believe I am."
"That's not what the woman here says."
My entire body tightened.
"What woman?"
"She says her name is Dr. Laura Voss."
Evelyn inhaled sharply.
Anna's face went white.
I covered the phone.
"You know her?"
Anna nodded.
"She was there."
"At the hospital?"
"Yes."
I returned to the call.
"Maya, listen carefully. Do not go anywhere with her."
The traffic noise disappeared.
Then Maya whispered, "Too late."
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Maya Had Already Entered the Car With Dr. Voss, and Anna Revealed Why That Name Terrified Everyone Who Knew the Hospital
Thirteen Years After We Buried Emily, My Father Put a Photograph on the Table That Should Not Have Existed
Part 5 of 44
