Sadie stared at him.
“Yes, he did.”
“No.”
“I met him three years ago.”
“You met him three years ago,” Thomas said. “But he knew about you before you were born.”
Sadie’s lips parted.
Thomas reached into his coat again.
This time he pulled out a second photograph.
He gave it to her.
Sadie stared down.
Then her entire body went rigid.
“What?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
I stepped closer and looked over her shoulder.
Rebecca lay in a hospital bed holding a newborn baby.
Sadie.
Beside her stood Christopher.
On the back, written in Rebecca’s handwriting, were four words.
Christopher, with his daughter.
My blood turned cold.
“No,” Sadie whispered.
Thomas looked at me.
“Your husband wasn’t her father.”
I almost laughed from sheer confusion.
“The photograph says—”
“I didn’t say Christopher wasn’t her father.”
I frowned.
Thomas’s next words made the entire world stop.
“I said the man you buried yesterday wasn’t your husband.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Behind me, Mason called from the kitchen.
“Mom?”
I couldn’t answer him.
Thomas kept his eyes fixed on mine.
“The real Christopher Bennett disappeared seventeen years ago.”
My throat closed.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“The man you married took his identity.”
“No.”
“He took his name, his history and eventually his life.”
“No.”
“And if I’m right, Claire…”
Thomas looked toward the photograph of Christopher holding newborn Sadie.
“…the real Christopher Bennett may still be alive.”
A cold wind swept through the doorway.
Sadie’s fingers tightened around the photograph.
Then something slipped from between the photograph and its cardboard backing.
