Chapter 3 - The baby in Vanessa’s photograph
The date made no sense.
I was twenty-three.
Finishing graduate school.
Living in Chicago.
Vanessa was nineteen and living in Ohio, according to everything she had ever told me.
We had never met.
At least I thought we hadn't.
I turned the photograph over again.
LILY CARTER.
“Did Lily tell you her last name?”
Ethan nodded.
“Carter.”
“How old is she?”
“Fourteen.”
Exactly.
I sat on the attic floor.
“Where did she go?”
Ethan said she disappeared that morning.
Before Vanessa started questioning him.
“She told me if Vanessa asked, I should say I didn't know anything.”
“What did Vanessa want from her?”
“A box.”
“What box?”
“Lily had it.”
“What was inside?”
“I don't know.”
I found a second item beneath the mattress.
A bus ticket.
Purchased three weeks earlier.
Cincinnati to our town.
Passenger:
Lily Hale.
Not Carter.
Hale.
Vanessa's maiden name.
I called Vanessa.
She answered instantly.
“Are the children okay?”
“What is Lily Hale?”
Silence.
Then:
“Where did you hear that name?”
“Answer me.”
“She isn't your concern.”
“She was living inside my house.”
Another silence.
“Daniel, don't touch anything in that room.”
“Why?”
“Because you don't understand what she is.”
“What she is?”
“That girl lies.”
“What is she to you?”
Vanessa exhaled.
“My sister.”
That fit the surname.
Almost.
“You told me you were an only child.”
“I thought I was.”
“Explain the photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“You holding a newborn in 2011.”
She stopped breathing.
“I need to come home.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“Who is the baby?”
“Lily.”
“You said she's your sister.”
“She is.”
“You're holding her as a newborn.”
“Yes.”
“That part I understand. Why is ‘Carter’ written on the back?”
Nothing.
“Vanessa.”
She finally whispered:
“Because your father wrote it.”
My father.
Robert Carter.
Dead six years.
“What did Dad have to do with Vanessa's baby sister?”
“More than you know.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Then her tone changed.
Fear.
“Did Lily take the box?”
“What box?”
“Daniel, listen to me. If she has it, you need to find her before anyone else does.”
“Who?”
“I can't tell you on the phone.”
“You're not coming near Ethan.”
“I wasn't trying to hurt him.”
“You struck him.”
“I lost control.”
“You terrorized him.”
“He was protecting her!”
“Yes.”
And suddenly I understood something.
Vanessa hadn't been asking where Lily lived.
She already knew Lily had been in the attic.
She had been asking where Lily had gone.
I looked at Ethan.
“Did Lily say where she was going?”
He shook his head.
Then remembered something.
May you like
“She said she was going to find Grandpa.”
My father had been dead six years.
