Chapter 8 - The Woman in Room Twelve Was Not My Mother
Room twelve smelled of lavender cleaner.
A woman lay beneath a pale blanket.
Her gray hair covered half her face.
I rushed toward her.
Then stopped.
She wasn't my mother.
The woman opened her eyes.
"Are you Kate?"
My throat closed.
"How do you know me?"
"Your mother told me you'd come."
Her name was Grace Holloway.
She had survived nineteen years in hiding.
Vale's people had found her last month.
They had brought her here to silence her.
Grace had convinced a nurse to contact my mother.
The two women had been exchanging messages.
"Where is she now?"
Grace lifted a trembling hand.
She pointed toward a photograph.
It showed a farmhouse near the coast.
"She told me to give you this."
On the back were coordinates.
Damon called the prosecutor.
A rescue team moved toward the location.
I waited in the corridor with Grace.
She held my hand.
"Your mother kept the first ledger," she whispered.
"That's why they need her."
I asked where it was hidden.
Grace shook her head.
"She never trusted anyone with that secret."
I thought of our small apartment.
The recipe box beside the stove.
The photograph of my father.
The battered sewing machine.
Then I remembered her crossword books.
May you like
Every completed puzzle had a date written beneath it.
My mother had been leaving a trail in plain sight.
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