Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
There was no time for an answer.
A window shattered somewhere down the hall.
Emily heard firefighters shouting below.
She carried Noah toward the bedroom window and kicked a small table aside.
“Can you open this?”
He nodded through tears.
Emily unlocked the window and shoved it upward.
Fresh air rushed in.
She leaned out.
“UP HERE!”
A firefighter looked up.
“WE SEE YOU!”
Within seconds, a ladder rose.
Emily held Noah tight until a firefighter reached the sill.
“Boy first.”
Noah refused to let go.
“No!”
Emily looked into his eyes.
“You have to.”
“My mom said—”
“You can tell me outside.”
He hesitated.
Then let the firefighter take him.
Emily followed.
By the time her boots hit the lawn, her knees nearly gave out.
Paramedics rushed Noah toward an ambulance.
Emily started after them.
Then a firefighter blocked her.
“You need oxygen.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
A mask went over her face.
She sat on the curb and stared at Noah.
He kept staring back.
Then a woman arrived running.
Forty-ish.
Red coat.
Ash on one sleeve.
“NOAH!”
She ran to the ambulance.
Noah looked confused.
“Aunt Sarah?”
Emily went still.
Aunt.
Not mother.
Sarah climbed into the ambulance.
Noah grabbed her arm.
“Where’s Mom?”
Sarah looked away.
That was the first crack.
Emily noticed everything now.
The house.
The broken wheelchair.
The boy’s strange sentence.
The aunt arriving instead of a mother.
Then a firefighter handed Emily a plastic bag.
“We found this beside the bed.”
Inside was a framed photograph blackened around the edges.
Emily took it.
Her breath stopped.
A woman stood beside Noah in the picture.
Dark hair.
Soft smile.
Scar near the left eyebrow.
Emily knew that face.
She had not seen it in twelve years.
“Rachel,” she whispered.
May you like
Her older sister.
The sister who disappeared when Emily was seventeen.
