“Then who did?”

Before she could answer, Spencer’s phone rang.

Unknown number.

Detective Lawson raised a hand.

“Speaker.”

Spencer answered.

“Hello?”

For several seconds, there was only silence.

Then a woman spoke.

Her voice was calm, almost pleasant.

“Spencer.”

Mallory turned white.

“That’s her.”

Spencer swallowed.

“Who are you?”

A soft laugh came through the phone.

“Ask your wife.”

Mallory stepped closer.

“Caroline?”

The woman’s tone changed.

“You were told not to remove the camera, Mallory.”

Detective Lawson motioned for an officer to begin tracing the call.

Mallory gripped the edge of the counter.

“You lied to me.”

“I gave you what you said you wanted.”

“That child has parents.”

“You wanted a son.”

Grant stepped forward.

“Who are you?”

Silence.

Then the woman said his name.

“Hello, Grant.”

His face tightened.

“How do you know me?”

The woman answered softly.

“Ask Natalie what really happened to Patrick.”

Grant stopped moving.

“What does my wife have to do with my brother?”

The woman gave a faint laugh.

“More than she told you.”

The call ended.

The Woman With Mallory’s Face

Detective Lawson’s phone buzzed a few moments later.

Natalie Avery had regained consciousness at the hospital.

More importantly, she had given investigators a description of the woman who carried Lucas away.

Mallory looked almost relieved.

“She’ll tell you it wasn’t me.”

Detective Lawson studied her.

“She did.”

Mallory began to cry.

Then the detective added, “She said the woman looked almost exactly like you.”

Nobody spoke.

Spencer stared at his wife.

“What does that mean?”

Detective Lawson continued.

Natalie remembered seeing the woman’s face briefly when her mask slipped near the elevator.

The woman had introduced herself as Mallory Reed.

Mallory took a step backward.

That had been her name before marriage.

Spencer looked confused.

“Who would use your old name?”

Mallory did not answer.

Her eyes remained fixed on the security image.

Finally, she whispered, “There is one person.”

“Who?”

Mallory looked at Spencer.

“My sister.”

He frowned.

“You don’t have a sister.”

Mallory’s eyes filled.

“I do.”

It took several moments before she could continue.

Her sister, Valerie, was not simply close in age.

They were identical twins.

When Mallory was nineteen, the family home in northern New Jersey burned late one night. Their mother was found inside. Valerie disappeared soon afterward.

Mallory’s father told relatives and neighbors that Valerie had also been lost and asked everyone never to speak of that period again.

Spencer stared at her.

“You told me your parents had lost another child before you were born.”

“I lied.”

“Why?”

“Because I spent years afraid she would find me.”

Detective Lawson asked what Valerie had done.

Mallory swallowed.

“She came back three days after the fire.”

Spencer’s eyes widened.

“Then why did everyone think she was gone?”

“Because my father paid people to help her disappear.”

The detective’s voice became quieter.

“Why would he do that?”

Mallory looked toward the floor.

“Valerie said she knew who started the fire.”

Before the detective could ask for a name, Lucas started crying again.

Grant adjusted the baby’s shirt.

Something crackled beneath the fabric.

A folded scrap of paper had been taped inside.

Grant carefully pulled it free.

There were six words written across the center.

CLAIRE WAS NEVER THE REAL TARGET.

Underneath was an address.

Spencer recognized it immediately.

“That’s where Mallory grew up.”

Mallory shook her head.

“That house hasn’t been standing for years.”

Detective Lawson reached for her phone.

Mallory caught her wrist.

“You don’t understand Valerie.”

“Then help me understand her.”

Mallory looked around the kitchen, at the flour scattered over the tile, the abandoned colander, the small camera on the evidence tray, Grant holding the son he had been searching for, and Spencer standing several feet away as though the space between them had become impossible to cross.

Then every light in the house went out.

Lucas began to cry.

An officer shouted from the hallway.

Three tiny red indicators appeared along the security cameras overhead.

One.

Two.

Three.

The system had turned itself back on.

The television in the adjoining family room flickered to life.

Static filled the screen.

Then a woman appeared.

For a moment, I thought I was looking at Mallory.

The same pale hair.

The same gray-blue eyes.

The same narrow chin.

But the woman on the screen looked harder, older in ways that had nothing to do with age, and entirely unafraid.

Mallory made a quiet sound beside me.

The woman smiled.

“Hello, sister.”

Spencer froze.

The woman leaned closer to the camera.

“And hello, Spencer.”

Mallory gripped the countertop.

“Valerie.”

Her sister’s smile widened.

Then she looked directly into the camera and said the sentence none of us understood until much later.

“You married the wrong twin.”

The screen went black.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Then, somewhere beneath our feet, a telephone began ringing.

It was coming from the basement.

From the locked room the officers had already searched.

Detective Lawson looked toward the stairs.

Mallory closed her eyes.

And I understood, standing there with my cheek aching and flour still scattered across the kitchen floor, that finding Lucas beneath that metal colander had not uncovered the end of a secret.

It had opened the door to one that had been waiting for more than twenty years.