Chapter 2 - Emily Morgan Never Died That Night
Claire stared at the photograph until the balcony behind Emily became
more recognizable than the woman herself.
Same iron railing.
Same limestone columns.
Same glass doors.
Detective Mason pulled a chair beside the hospital bed.
“Emily Morgan married Ethan six years ago.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.”
Claire stopped breathing for a second.
Not died.
Disappeared.
Ethan told friends his first marriage ended quietly and Emily moved
overseas after the divorce.
There was no death certificate.
No missing-person investigation.
Because Emily herself had sent messages saying she wanted no contact.
Mason placed copies on the bed.
The messages were brief.
I’m safe.
Please leave me alone.
I’m starting over.
Claire asked why police now doubted them.
“Because Emily’s sister kept the originals from before she vanished. The
writing style doesn’t match.”
That was not proof Ethan wrote them.
But it justified looking closer.
Then Mason showed Claire a second photograph.
A section of drywall had been opened in the Morgan house after
detectives obtained a warrant based on Margaret’s attempted suffocation
and Claire’s statement about the balcony.
Inside the wall they found a narrow metal case.
It had not been opened yet.
The case carried two names.
EMILY MORGAN.
CLAIRE BENNETT.
Claire stared.
Bennett was her maiden name.
Emily disappeared years before Claire ever met Ethan.
“How could my name be on something she hid?”
Mason answered:
“That’s what we need to understand.”
Margaret had tried to kill Claire.
Ethan had watched Claire fall.
But suddenly the most frightening person in the story was a woman Claire
had never met.
May you like
A woman who somehow knew Claire’s name years before Claire became Ethan
Morgan’s wife.
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