Chapter 3 - Two Girls in Pink Pajamas
Emma sprinted down the stairs. The front door stood open, letting snow whirl across the foyer tiles. At the curb idled a black SUV with tinted windows and temporary plates.
A child-sized figure sat behind the rear glass. Pink sleeves. Brown curls. White teddy bear. Emma ran into the snow without her coat buttoned.
“Lily!”
The rear window lowered two inches. A startled girl turned. Same age, same hair. Not Lily. The child wore a hospital wristband and gripped a brand-new toy bear that had been stained to look old.
A man in the driver's seat hit the door locks. “Ma'am, please step away.”
Emma pulled out her phone to photograph the plate. The SUV bolted, clipping a planter and sending ice across the driveway. Emma stumbled, then caught herself on the brick pillar.
Rosa reached her first. “Did you see her?”
“It wasn't Lily.” Emma coughed into the freezing air. “It was someone dressed like her.”
Daniel appeared on the steps, breathing hard. “Get inside. You're going to freeze.”
“You knew about that car.”
Emma had bought that teddy bear at a roadside pharmacy when Lily was two and sick with a fever. Its left ear was flattened from years of bedtime hugs. The bear in the SUV had two perfect ears. Even from the curb, the difference had been enough to tell Emma something was terribly wrong.
“I knew Mother had arranged transportation. I didn't know she'd—”
“Transport our child? Or trick me into chasing the wrong one?”
Inside, an electronic chirp came from the security panel. The system had rebooted. Emma ran to the kitchen monitor and called up the last recorded clip.
At 11:39 Victoria stood beside Lily in the upstairs hallway. She wore her emerald velvet dress, pearls shining under the chandelier. She knelt, smiled sweetly, and said something too low for the camera's faulty microphone. Lily shook her head.
Then Victoria took a small silver key from Daniel's coat pocket while he wasn't looking.
Daniel grabbed the edge of the counter. “She stole it.”
“Why did you have it?” Emma asked.
His silence gave her the answer before his words could.
“That key opens the old nursery in the west wing,” he admitted. “Mother told me she wanted to store her things there.”
The screen flickered to a second clip, timestamped one minute later. Lily was walking toward her bedroom. Behind her came a woman carrying the white teddy bear and wearing Emma's cream winter coat.
The woman lifted her face to the camera. She was not Emma.
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And Daniel whispered a name Emma hadn't heard in seven years: “Natalie.”
CHRISTMAS EVE BETRAYAL • THE MISSING DAUGHTER
