Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEADVictoria did not take Lucas home.
Seven years of expensive charity galas had taught her how easily wealthy people could look directly at suffering without actually seeing it.
That Tuesday afternoon, Victoria was sitting outside a crowded café on Michigan Avenue, answering messages about her foundation’s annual dinner, when a thin boy in an oversized gray sweatshirt stepped between the tables.
He looked eight years old.
Maybe nine.
His shoes were held together with silver tape.
A woman at the next table immediately pulled her purse closer.
“Hey,” Victoria said gently. “Are you hungry?”
The boy ignored the question.
Instead, he stared at the diamond clip above her left ear.
His expression changed.
Recognition.
Then fear.
Before Victoria could ask what was wrong, he grabbed her hand and shoved something into her palm.
“Keep it hidden.”
Victoria looked down.
Her breath stopped.
Eight tiny diamonds surrounded a blue sapphire.
A hair clip.
Exactly like hers.
“No.”
Her chair scraped backward.
The café disappeared around her.
Seven years earlier, Victoria and her identical twin sister, Elena, had owned the only two clips in existence.
Their father had commissioned them for their eighteenth birthday.
One sapphire for each daughter.
Two sisters.
Two clips.
When Elena’s car plunged through a guardrail into the Fox River seven years ago, police found twisted metal, blood, and one damaged diamond clip.
No body was ever recovered.
Victoria’s husband, Conrad Hale, had been the one who identified Elena’s belongings.
He had stood beside Victoria at the riverbank and told her there was no possibility Elena could have survived.
Victoria looked at the boy.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mom.”
Every sound around Victoria seemed to disappear.
“What’s her name?”
The boy hesitated.
His eyes moved toward the street.
A black SUV had slowed near the corner.
“Tell me.”
“Elena.”
Victoria’s knees almost failed.
“That isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“My sister died.”
“No, she didn’t.”
Victoria grabbed the table to steady herself.
The boy looked frightened now.
“My name’s Lucas. Mom said if I ever saw a woman who looked exactly like her, I should give you the clip.”
Victoria stared into his face.
Dark brown eyes.
Small scar beneath his chin.
A familiar dimple appeared when he swallowed nervously.
Elena had that dimple.
Victoria’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Where is she?”
Lucas glanced toward the SUV again.
“We were staying at a shelter. Mom saw somebody she knew this morning.”
“Who?”
“She said we had to leave before he saw us.”
Victoria crouched in front of him.
“Lucas, who was she afraid of?”
His hand trembled as he reached inside his sweatshirt.
He removed a folded photograph.
“She told me if anything happened, I should show you this too.”
Victoria opened it.
The picture had been taken recently.
Elena stood outside a motel.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
One arm was wrapped around Lucas.
Victoria pressed a hand over her mouth.
But then she noticed the man standing twenty feet behind them.
Partially turned toward the camera.
Expensive navy coat.
Silver watch.
Distinctive scar beside his right thumb.
Victoria knew that hand.
She had held it at their wedding.
She had kissed it that morning.
Conrad.
Her husband.
The date printed on the photograph was three months earlier.
Victoria looked at Lucas.
“My husband saw your mother?”
Lucas nodded.
“He came to our motel.”
A sick coldness spread through her.
“What happened?”
“Mom made me hide in the bathroom.”
“What did you hear?”
Lucas’s eyes filled with tears.
“She told him he already stole seven years from her.”
Victoria could barely breathe.
“And what did Conrad say?”
The boy looked directly into her eyes.
“He told her she should have stayed dead.”
The black SUV stopped.
Two men got out.
Lucas turned white.
“That’s them.”
Victoria grabbed his hand.
“Run.”
They sprinted through the café.
Chairs crashed behind them.
Someone shouted.
Victoria pulled Lucas through the kitchen as two men entered through the front.
“What is happening?” the manager yelled.
Victoria ignored him.
She pushed open the rear door.
They emerged into an alley.
Lucas stumbled.
Victoria caught him.
Behind them, the door burst open.
“There!”
They ran.
Victoria had worn heels because she had expected a board meeting, not a chase through downtown Chicago with a child who claimed her dead twin sister was alive.
She kicked the shoes off.
Barefoot, she pulled Lucas around the corner.
A taxi stopped at the intersection.
Victoria yanked open the door.
“Go!”
“Where?”
Anywhere.
She almost said her house.
Then she remembered the photograph.
Conrad lived there.
“Saint Catherine Medical Center.”
Lucas climbed inside.
Victoria followed.
The taxi accelerated.
Through the rear window, she watched one of the men raise a phone.
She knew exactly who he was calling.
Her own phone began ringing ten seconds later.
CONRAD.
Lucas stared at the screen.
Victoria didn’t answer.
It rang again.
Then a message appeared.
Where are you?
Another followed.
Victoria, call me immediately.
A third arrived.
This one made her blood run cold.
You need to understand that boy is dangerous.
Victoria stared at it.
She had never told Conrad there was a boy.
Slowly, she turned toward Lucas.
“How does he know?”
Lucas reached for her hand.
“He always knows.”
Then Victoria’s phone buzzed again.
A photograph appeared.
Victoria standing outside the café three minutes earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Beneath it, Conrad had written five words.
Bring the boy home now.
Victoria looked at the child beside her.
For seven years, she had mourned her sister.
For five years, she had trusted her husband.
And in less than ten minutes, an eight-year-old homeless boy had given her enough evidence to destroy both realities.
Victoria closed her fist around Elena’s diamond clip.
“Lucas.”
“Yes?”
“You said your mother told you to find me.”
He nodded.
“Did she tell you anything else?”
Lucas hesitated.
May you like
Then he whispered the sentence that changed everything.
“She said you’re the only person Conrad hasn’t killed yet.”
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