“What are you doing?”

He picked it up.

His hands began trembling.

Maria stepped closer.

“What is it?”

Anthony looked from the photograph to Maria.

Then toward me.

“Oh, God.”

I felt cold.

“What?”

He placed the photograph back down.

“Maria, what was your mother’s name?”

She frowned.

“Why?”

“Just tell me.”

“Teresa.”

“Before marriage.”

“Teresa Alvarez.”

Anthony slowly shook his head.

“No.”

Maria’s expression hardened.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Your mother used another name before Alvarez.”

“How would you possibly know that?”

Anthony didn’t answer.

Maria stepped closer.

“How would you know my mother?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Anthony looked toward me.

And suddenly I knew I didn’t want to hear the answer.

Not because it was d@ngerous.

Because it was personal.

More personal than anything else that had happened that night.

“Anthony.”

He swallowed.

“Catherine Hale disappeared fourteen years ago.”

I stared at him.

“No. You said she left when I was six.”

“She did.”

“That was twenty-eight years ago.”

“Yes.”

“Then what happened fourteen years ago?”

“She resurfaced.”

My mouth went dry.

“Where?”

“New Jersey.”

Maria became completely still.

Anthony looked directly at her.

“Under the name Teresa Alvarez.”

Silence.

Maria’s lips parted.

No words came.

I felt the room shift beneath me.

“No,” she whispered.

Anthony looked devastated.

“Your mother wasn’t Teresa Alvarez.”

Maria stepped backward.