Chapter 7 - THE GIRL NEXT DOOR Lily had heard Sophie crying.
At first, she thought it was a strange animal.
Then she discovered the hidden opening.
She started bringing crackers.
Fruit.
Water.
Then sandwiches.
Three nights before we found Sophie, Lily had already been feeding her.
She had never told us because Sophie had said it was a secret.
When police searched Mara's rental, they found children's clothes.
Food.
Blankets.
And another entrance to the maintenance passage.
Mara had been moving Sophie between the two houses.
She had told Sophie that police would take her away.
She had told her that Ryan and Emily were dangerous.
But Caroline had left something behind.
A photograph.
And a warning.
“If something happens to me,” Caroline had told Sophie, “you need to know there are people who belong to your story.”
Sophie remembered only fragments.
A photograph of me.
My name.
A woman named Emily.
She didn't understand genetics.
She understood family.
So when she saw me in the hallway, she had called me Daddy.
Emily asked Sophie one evening:
“Do you know who I am?”
Sophie stared at her.
Then whispered:
“The lady whose tummy I was supposed to come from.”
Emily began crying.
Sophie looked terrified.
Emily immediately wiped her face.
“No, sweetheart.”
She knelt beside her.
“You didn't do anything wrong.”
That was the moment everything changed.
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We weren't trying to claim a child.
We were trying to help one.
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