Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1 — THE VOICE ON THE PHONE
At 9:47 on a Thursday night, the phone rang.
Emma Carter almost ignored it.
She was sitting halfway up the staircase in her pajamas, holding an old silver hair clip that had once belonged to her mother. Downstairs, her father and Vanessa were talking quietly in the kitchen.
Seven months had passed since Claire Carter disappeared.
Seven months since adults started using words like left, needed space, and moved on.
Emma hated all of them.
The phone rang again.
She padded down the stairs and picked it up.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Emma frowned.
“Hello?”
Then she heard breathing.
Slow.
Uneven.
Frightened.
There was a metallic scraping sound somewhere in the background.
Emma's fingers tightened around the receiver.
“Who is this?”
Another breath.
Then, barely audible:
“Em…”
Her entire body went still.
Nobody called her Em anymore.
Nobody except—
“Mom?”
The line went dead.
Emma stared at the phone.
Then she screamed.
“Dad!”
Daniel rushed from the kitchen, Vanessa close behind him.
“What happened?”
“It was Mom.”
Daniel stopped.
Vanessa did too.
For half a second, the wineglass in Vanessa's hand remained suspended near her lips.
Daniel's expression softened in the way Emma had come to hate.
It was the face adults made when they thought a child was hurting too much to understand reality.
“Emma…”
“It was her.”
“Honey—”
“I know my mother's voice.”
Daniel crouched.
“Where did the call come from?”
Emma looked at the display.
Vanessa stepped closer.
Emma read the number aloud.
Something changed in Vanessa's face.
Only for an instant.
Then it disappeared.
“That’s Hale & Vine,” Vanessa said.
Her restaurant.
Daniel looked at her.
Vanessa shrugged.
“It must have been one of the kitchen lines. Someone probably dialed accidentally while closing.”
“She said my name.”
“You heard someone breathe,” Vanessa replied gently.
“She called me Em.”
Vanessa smiled.
But her eyes didn't.
“You've been thinking about your mother a lot.”
Emma stared at her.
Daniel touched his daughter's shoulder.
“Maybe we should call Dr. Levin tomorrow.”
Emma pulled away.
“You think I imagined her.”
“No. I think you miss her.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Daniel had no answer.
Emma went upstairs and shut her bedroom door.
On her dresser sat a photograph taken the summer before Claire disappeared.
Emma was missing a front tooth.
Her mother had both arms around her.
On the back, Claire had written:
Wherever I am, I'll always find my way back to you.
Emma had read those words so many times that she no longer needed to turn the photograph over.
Twenty minutes later, headlights swept across her bedroom wall.
Emma went to the window.
Vanessa was leaving.
Daniel stood on the porch.
“Everything okay?” he called.
“Restaurant alarm,” Vanessa answered. “Probably nothing.”
Emma watched the car disappear.
Probably nothing.
May you like
That was what adults said when they desperately wanted something to be nothing.
Emma grabbed her coat.
