Chapter 10
We found Relle at the caretaker house.
Alive.
That was the first thing.
Everything else could wait.
Danielle reached her before I did.
Relle looked thinner than the woman in the old photographs, but the moment she saw her sister, she made a sound that did not belong to language.
Then Amara came through the doorway.
Relle stopped moving.
Her knees gave out.
Amara stared.
Fourteen months is almost half a three-year-old’s remembered life.
She did not run immediately.
That hurt everyone.
Relle held out one trembling hand.
“Baby?”
Amara looked at Danielle.
Then at the woman.
Then at the sapphire ring in my hand.
“Mommy?”
Relle started crying.
“Yes.”
Amara walked closer.
Slowly.
Then she pressed the stuffed rabbit into Relle’s chest.
The reunion belonged to them after that.
I turned away.
Not every important moment needs an audience.
Later, Relle sat wrapped in a blanket.
She looked at me.
“You found the key.”
“Amara did.”
A faint smile.
“Of course she did.”
“What happened that night?”
Her expression changed.
“Vanessa caught me first.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“Not then.”
“What did she do?”
“Took my ring.”
Danielle’s jaw tightened.
Relle continued.
“She said I had one chance to tell her where the recording was.”
“And when you refused?”
“She called Caleb.”
I asked the question carefully.
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
Relle looked toward Amara.
“Because I told them there were copies.”
Smart.
There had not been.
“But they believed you.”
“Yes.”
She smiled weakly.
“I had a daughter to get back to.”
Then her smile disappeared.
“Vanessa came every month.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“To ask the same question.”
May you like
Relle’s voice hardened.
“And every time I refused, she told me Amara would eventually stop remembering me.”
