PART 2 — THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
My fingers tightened around the photograph.
The woman beneath Wren looked older than I remembered her.
Her hair was longer. There were faint lines beside her eyes. But none of that mattered.
I knew that face.
I had spent half my childhood staring at it across a kitchen table.
“Where did your mom get this picture?” I asked quietly.
Wren frowned. “That’s Mommy.”
“I know.”
My voice sounded strange even to me.
Ms. Dorsey leaned closer. “Ms. Bell, do you recognize her?”
I looked at the woman again.
“Yes.”
Wren immediately straightened.
“You know my mommy?”
I swallowed.
“Her name wasn’t always Celia Ellis.”
The office suddenly felt too small.
Rain struck the windows harder while Wren watched me with those dark eyes that looked far too much like mine.
I turned the photograph over.
Nothing was written on the back.
But I didn’t need a name.
“I knew her as Claire Bell,” I said.
Ms. Dorsey stared at me.
Wren blinked.
“She was my sister.”
The room went completely silent.
Wren looked from me to the photograph and back again.
“Mommy has a sister?”
“She did.”
I stopped.
“No. She does.”
Even saying it felt impossible.
Claire was 6 years older than me.
When I was little, she had been the person who braided my hair before school, taught me how to ride a bike, and sneaked cookies into my bedroom whenever our parents were fighting.
Then, when I was 15, she disappeared.
Not dramatically.
There was no kidnapping. No police search. No blood on the floor.
She simply packed a suitcase one night and left a note saying she needed to start over somewhere no one knew her.
At first she called.
Then the calls became less frequent.
Eventually they stopped.
Our mother died 4 years later still checking the mailbox every afternoon.
Our father refused to say Claire’s name after that.
I had searched for her myself when I became an adult.
Social media.
Public records.
Old friends.
Nothing.
Claire Bell had vanished.
And now, 13 years later, her daughter was sitting across from me.
“My mom never told me she had a sister,” Wren whispered.
I didn’t know what hurt more—the fact that Claire had been alive all these years or the fact that she had apparently built an entirely new life without me.
Then another thought hit me.
“Wren, why did your mother have my address?”
She shrugged. “She wrote it down last week.”
“Last week?”
Wren nodded.
“She said we might need it.”
A chill moved through me.
“What exactly did she say?”
Wren looked nervous now.
“She told me if something happened and she didn’t come back, I had to find Naomi first. If Naomi didn’t answer, I had to find Mara Bell.”
Ms. Dorsey and I exchanged a look.
I leaned closer.
“Did she say why?”
Wren shook her head.
“She just said, ‘Mara will understand when she sees you.’”
My stomach tightened.
Before I could ask another question, the office door opened.
A police officer stepped inside, followed by a second officer carrying a folder.
“Ms. Bell?”
I stood.
“I’m Mara Bell.”
“I’m Officer Daniels. We’re looking into Celia Ellis’s disappearance.”
His eyes moved toward Wren.
“Could we speak privately for a moment?”
Wren grabbed my hand.
It happened so quickly that neither of us seemed prepared for it.
Her fingers wrapped tightly around mine.
“Don’t go.”
I looked down at her.
Three hours earlier, I hadn’t known she existed.
Now this frightened little girl was holding onto me as if I were the only familiar person left in the world.
“I’m staying,” I said.
Officer Daniels hesitated, then pulled another chair into the office.
“We checked Ms. Ellis’s apartment.”
My heart began pounding.
“Was she there?”
“No.”
“Her car?”
“Missing.”
“Phone?”
“Turned off around noon.”
Wren’s grip tightened.
The officer continued carefully.
“We also found signs that Ms. Ellis packed several personal items.”
Relief flickered through me.
“So maybe she left voluntarily.”
“Possibly.”
“But?”
He glanced toward Wren before answering.
“But she left behind her wallet, passport, and medication.”
That didn’t sound voluntary.
Then he placed a clear evidence sleeve on the desk.
Inside was a sealed white envelope.
My name was written across the front.
MARA BELL.
I stared at it.
“Where did you find that?”
“Inside a locked drawer in Ms. Ellis’s bedroom.”
My hands started trembling.
Officer Daniels slid it toward me.
“We opened it because of the missing-person investigation.”
“What does it say?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, his expression changed.
Not fear exactly.
More like concern.
“Ms. Bell, before I tell you that, I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know a man named Daniel Voss?”
My breath caught.
Wren looked at me.
Ms. Dorsey looked at me.
Even the officers noticed.
Because I knew that name too.
I hadn’t heard it since I was 15.
Daniel Voss had been Claire’s boyfriend the year she disappeared.
And according to everything my family had ever believed, he had disappeared with her.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Officer Daniels opened the folder.
“There’s a sentence in your sister’s letter.”
He turned the page toward me.
Claire’s handwriting filled the paper.
My eyes immediately found the line the officer had marked.
Mara, if Wren ever reaches you, it means Daniel found us.
My chest went cold.
I looked at Wren.
She was staring at me, confused and frightened.
Then Officer Daniels placed one final item on the desk.
It was a photograph taken earlier that afternoon from a security camera outside Wren’s school.
A man stood across the street beside a dark SUV.
His face was partly turned away.
But I recognized him.
Older.
Heavier.
Gray through his hair.
Still unmistakable.
Daniel Voss.
And beside the photograph was a timestamp.
3:17 p.m.
Nearly 3 hours before the school called me.
He hadn’t just found Claire.
He had found Wren too………
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
