“Who is in there?”

Silence.

“Caroline.”

Her shoulders dropped.

And she whispered the sentence that made me stop breathing.

“They weren’t supposed to still be here.”

I hit the door with my shoulder.

Once.

Twice.

The frame held.

I was about to try again when Caroline screamed.

“Stop! There’s a key.”

She removed the thin silver chain around her neck.

I had seen that necklace every day for nine years.

I thought the tiny object attached to it was decorative.

It was a key.

The lock clicked.

I opened the door.

The room beyond was larger.

Windowless.

There was a table.

Medical supplies.

A cot.

Stacks of folders.

And sitting in a chair beneath a battery-powered lamp was an elderly woman.

Her hair was almost completely silver.

One side of her face drooped slightly, perhaps from a stroke.

She stared at me.

I stared back.

There was something familiar in her eyes.

Then she whispered, “You have Daniel’s hands.”

I had never heard that name.

A man stepped from behind the doorway.

I spun.

He was around sixty, tall, gaunt, wearing a black coat.

I recognized him instantly.

“Dr. Vale?”

He nodded.

Emily Vale’s father.

The man who had spent decades accusing the police of abandoning his missing daughter.

I backed away.

“What the hell is this?”

Caroline stepped through behind me.

Dr. Vale’s eyes settled on her.

“You told us he wasn’t ready.”

“He wasn’t.”

“Ready for what?”

No one answered.

I pulled out my phone.

“I’m calling the police.”

The old woman laughed.

It was a dry, bitter sound.

“They came before.”

I froze.

Dr. Vale said, “Ryan, if you call anyone before you understand this, Maya may disappear forever.”

“Maya is leaving this house tonight.”

“Yes,” he said. “She should.”

That wasn’t the answer I expected.

I looked at Caroline.

“You’ve got sixty seconds.”

She wiped her face.

“My maiden name wasn’t Hart.”

I stared at her.

“What?”

“It was Vale.”

Dr. Vale closed his eyes.

My chest tightened.

Caroline continued.

“Emily was my older sister.”

The room tilted.

“No.”

“She disappeared when I was twelve.”

“You told me you were an only child.”

“I lied.”

“You told me your parents died.”

“My mother did. My father—”

She looked at Dr. Vale.

“—didn’t.”

I laughed once.

There was nothing humorous in it.

“So you married me because of Emily?”

“At first?”

Caroline looked straight at me.

“Yes.”

I felt something inside me break.

Nine years.

Every kiss.

Every anniversary.

Our wedding.

Lily’s birth.

I heard myself say, “Why?”

Dr. Vale answered.

“Because Emily didn’t run away from Camp Briarwood.”

He placed a thick folder on the table.

“She was taken.”

I remembered search parties.

Helicopters.

Emily’s photograph hanging in grocery stores.

“She disappeared the same night a camp physician named Dr. Nathan Mercer left his position without notice.”