"Who’s asking?"
"My name is Nate. Ma’am, we’ve been looking for you for years."
"For me?"
"For you and your granddaughter."
"Ma’am, we’ve been looking for you for years."
"Why?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled a photograph from the envelope and slid it through the gap in the door.
I almost refused to take it. But then I noticed the ring.
A smiling woman stood beside a teenage girl, her arm wrapped around the girl's shoulders. On her finger was the same enormous diamond ring Ellie had found at Walmart.
I looked closer at the girl.
He didn't answer.
The smile. The dark hair. Those familiar eyes.
My hands went cold.
It was Claire. My daughter-in-law. Ellie's mother.
I'd known her since she was twenty, but I'd never seen a picture of her as a teenager.
Claire and my son Daniel had died in a car accident three years ago. Ellie was only four.
