Chapter 6
Claire was sitting up when I entered.
Mia slept beside her, one small hand wrapped around Claire’s wrist.
Noah was in a crib nearby with a stuffed bear Lily had insisted on giving him.
Claire looked at me like she was afraid I might disappear.
“I know some of it,” I said.
Her lips trembled.
“How much?”
“That you were my wife.”
She closed her eyes.
A tear slipped down.
“I waited for you.”
Those four words hurt worse than anything Caroline had done.
I sat beside the bed.
“I don’t remember our wedding.”
“I do,” she whispered. “You cried before I even walked down the aisle.”
“That sounds like me.”
She gave a broken laugh.
Then pain took it away.
“I woke up after the accident and Caroline was there,” Claire said. “She said you were dead. She showed me a fake death certificate.”
My hands curled.
“She kept you hidden for years?”
“Not at first. She moved me from place to place. Then when you bought the house, she brought me there.”
“Why would she keep you so close?”
Claire looked ashamed, though none of it belonged to her.
“She wanted access to my trust. She needed signatures. She needed my voice for calls. Sometimes she forced me to say things.”
I thought of the walls.
The food.
My daughter feeding children in secret.
“She made Lily help.”
Claire shook her head quickly.
“Lily saved us. She brought food when Caroline forgot. Mia told her where the vent was loose.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
Claire reached for me, then stopped herself.
“You don’t owe me love because of a past you can’t remember.”
I looked at Mia.
At Noah.
At the woman who had survived inside my own home.
“I owe you the truth,” I said.
Detective Harris entered quietly.
“We found another hidden room.”
Claire went pale.
“What was inside?”
Harris looked at me.
May you like
“Files. Cameras. Recordings.”
Then he added, “And a crib.”
