Chapter 1 - The Mark That Stopped the Room
"Can I see your birthmark?"
The question hit the dining room so hard that even the pianist missed a note.
Emily Hart froze beside our table, one hand still under the white dinner plate she had been lowering in front of me. She was young, maybe eighteen, with dark honey-colored hair pulled into a neat ponytail and the careful smile of someone used to being invisible around wealthy people.
My husband, Thomas, looked up sharply.
"Margaret," he said under his breath. "What are you doing?"
I barely heard him.
I had seen the mark when Emily reached across the table to refill my water. A small, deep-red birthmark sat on the back of her left hand, just below the thumb. It curved at the top and narrowed at the bottom.
A heart.
The exact same heart I had kissed every morning for three days after my daughter was born.
Emily slowly set the plate down.
"It's okay," she said, confused. "I've had it my whole life."
She turned her hand over.
The room disappeared.
Eighteen years vanished in one breath. I was back at St. Catherine's Hospital, smoke in the hall, alarms screaming, nurses running, Thomas holding my shoulders while I begged someone to bring me my newborn daughter. I remembered a nurse telling me there had been a fire in the nursery wing. I remembered Thomas saying the baby was gone.
Gone.
Not dead in front of me. Not identified. Not buried.
Just gone.
My chair scraped backward as I stood.
"Where did you get that?" I asked.
Emily blinked. "Get what?"
"The mark."
"Margaret," Thomas snapped. His face had drained of color. "Sit down."
I ignored him.
Emily's professional smile faded. "I was born with it."
My knees weakened.
Then a thin silver chain slipped from beneath the collar of her uniform. A small oval locket swung against her chest.
I knew that locket.
My mother had given it to me the week before I delivered.
I reached for my handbag with shaking hands and pulled out an old photograph I had carried for eighteen years. It showed the locket in my palm, open, with the initials M.A. engraved inside.
Emily stared at the picture.
Then she touched the locket at her throat.
"Why do you have a picture of this?" she whispered.
Across the table, Thomas stood so fast his wineglass tipped over.
"Emily," he said, too calmly. "You need to leave. Now."
May you like
She looked at him.
And for the first time that night, I saw fear in my husband's eyes.
