Chapter 4 - THE GIRL WE THOUGHT RAN AWAY
Emily Kane was fourteen when she disappeared.
Marjorie said she had been rebellious.
Angry.
Involved with an older boy.
The family story was simple: Emily stole cash, took a bus west, and refused contact.
No body.
No confirmed sighting.
No serious investigation after the first year.
Then Isabelle died.
And somehow Emily’s dental chart was used to identify the body.
I sat in Evelyn’s office staring at both photographs.
Emily at fourteen.
Sofia at twenty-three.
They did not look alike.
Emily had dark brown eyes and a wider jaw.
Sofia had Isabelle’s hazel eyes.
That meant the body in the burned car might have been Emily.
And Isabelle might have been the injured girl found on the roadside.
The questions became unbearable.
Why was Emily in Isabelle’s car?
Why did Marjorie close the Jane Doe file?
Why did Charles certify the wrong body as our daughter?
Evelyn requested the original crash evidence.
Vehicle registered to Charles Laurent Holdings.
Driver listed as unknown due to fire damage.
Passenger body recovered.
No second body.
Blood found on the driver-side airbag.
At the time, the blood was never fully typed beyond basic markers.
The sample still existed.
Modern DNA testing could answer who had been driving.
Sofia agreed to provide a sample.
So did I.
Charles refused.
“You are reopening trauma for a fantasy,” he said.
I met him at his office anyway.
He looked older than when we divorced.
Silver hair.
Perfect suit.
Cold blue eyes.
I placed the two emerald necklaces on his desk.
His face changed.
He knew them.
“Where did she get that?”
“Anna Reed.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Isabelle was wearing hers when she died.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it with the body.”
I stared at him.
“You told me the body was too damaged to see.”
He froze.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
Charles recovered.
“I saw personal effects.”
“Which were?”
“The necklace. Her ring.”
“What ring?”
He said nothing.
Isabelle had not been wearing a ring that night.
I knew because she left her rings in my bathroom before going out.
I still had them.
Charles looked away.
Then Evelyn called.
The preliminary DNA result from the preserved crash blood was back.
Maternal relationship to me:
99.98 percent.
My daughter had been driving the car.
Sofia’s DNA test was still pending.
If Isabelle had been driving, she was alive after impact long enough to leave blood on the airbag.
The body in the passenger seat was someone else.
Then Evelyn said:
“Vivienne, there’s another result. The passenger’s preserved tissue did not match your maternal line.”
May you like
I closed my eyes.
Isabelle had not died in that car.
