It rang again.
Dr. Harris slowly picked it up.
“Hello?”
His face changed.
He looked directly at me.
“It’s for you.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who is it?”
He held the receiver toward me.
“She says her name is Margaret.”
I took the phone with trembling fingers.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
Then an elderly woman whispered:
“Don’t believe the woman in the parking garage.”
My heart stopped.
“Who are you?”
“You already know.”
“Are you Margaret?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then tell me who the woman downstairs is.”
Silence.
“Margaret?”
When she finally answered, her words made Mom grab the side of the bed.
“That woman isn’t Evelyn.”
“Then who is she?”
Another pause.
“She’s the reason Evelyn disappeared.”
I looked at Mom.
“What does that mean?”
But Margaret kept talking.
“And if she knows your name, you don’t have much time.”
“Time for what?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“To find your real mother before she does.”
Then the line went dead.
I stood there holding the receiver.
And before I could tell anyone what Margaret had said, the security officer’s radio exploded with shouting.
“Level three! Subject is running!”
“Which subject?”
“The woman!”
A second voice broke through.
“She left something on the windshield of a silver sedan.”
The officer looked at me.
“What kind of car did you arrive in?”
My stomach dropped.
“Silver.”
Twenty minutes later, security brought the object upstairs.
It was an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Inside was a photograph.
A woman stood outside a small white house.
The picture appeared recent.
She looked to be in her early sixties.
Gray streaks ran through her dark hair.
And on her wrist was a tiny blue flower.
I turned the photograph over.
There was an address written on the back.
Underneath were seven words.
YOUR MOTHER HAS BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.
I looked at Mom.
She stared at the address.
Then she whispered something I almost didn’t hear.
“I know that house.”
My pulse jumped.
“How?”
Mom raised her eyes to mine.
“Because I went there once.”
“When?”
“Forty-three years ago.”
She swallowed.
“The morning after I escaped with you.”
I stared at her.
“What happened there?”
Mom looked at the photograph again.
And the fear on her face returned.
“That was where I was supposed to give you back.”
“To Evelyn?”
Mom slowly shook her head.
“No.”
“Then to whom?”
She looked at me.
“To the person who arranged your disappearance.”
And suddenly I understood something terrifying.
Mom hadn’t simply escaped St. Catherine’s with me.
Someone had been waiting outside.
Someone had helped erase my original identity.
And after forty-three years, that person had apparently found me again………………
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