Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Laura Pierce
An hour later, the security system chimed. Luis checked the monitors before unlocking the front door.
A woman stepped into the foyer. She was in her early forties, wearing a dark trench coat dusted with Seattle rain. She had the same wavy, chestnut hair that I did, the same slight upturn at the corners of her eyes, and the same small, crescent-shaped mole just below her collarbone.
I stood in the center of the living room, frozen. It was like looking into a mirror that showed a version of myself fifteen years into the future.
The woman stopped. Her breath hitched, and her hands flew to her mouth. The leather handbag she was carrying slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor.
"Natalie?" she whispered.
The name didn't feel quite as foreign this time.
"Sarah?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
She didn't hesitate. She crossed the room in three strides and threw her arms around me. She smelled like rain, vanilla, and something deeply familiar—a scent that triggered a sudden, fleeting memory of being held in a warm, brightly lit kitchen while someone sang a soft, nonsensical lullaby.
I stiffened at first, my body unaccustomed to the raw, overwhelming emotion radiating from this stranger. But as she held me, weeping into my shoulder, a dam broke inside me. I wrapped my arms around her and sobbed, the grief of twenty-three lost years finally pouring out.
"I knew you were alive," Sarah cried, pulling back slightly to cup my face in her hands, her thumbs wiping away my tears. "I told them. I told the police, I told the investigators, I told everyone who would listen that a baby doesn't just disappear from a car crash. They told me I was traumatized. They told me I was in denial. But I never stopped looking for you, Natalie."
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't know. I swear I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't, sweetheart," she said, her voice fiercely protective. "You were a baby. This isn't your fault. But the people who did this... they are going to pay. I swear to you, they are going to pay."
We sat on the sofa, our hands locked together so tightly our knuckles turned white. Sarah began to tell me about my biological parents. She pulled out a small, silver locket and opened it. Inside were two tiny portraits.
The man had a kind, open smile and crinkles around his eyes. The woman was beautiful, with a laugh captured in her expression that looked so much like mine it made my chest ache.
"Your father, David, was an architect," Sarah said, a soft, sad smile touching her lips. "He designed the library downtown. He was the gentlest man I ever knew. He used to carry you around on his shoulders, singing terrible show tunes. And your mother, Laura... she was my best friend. She was an artist. She painted the mural in your nursery—hundreds of tiny, glowing stars on the ceiling so you’d never be afraid of the dark."
A sudden, sharp memory flashed in my mind. A bedroom. A ceiling that glowed with faint, green stars.
"My bedroom in our old house," I stammered, looking at Sarah. "The ceiling had glow-in-the-dark stars. I... I always thought my dad put them there."
"No," Sarah said, her eyes turning cold. "Martin Ellison didn't put them there. He probably copied it because he knew you remembered them. He’s a monster, Natalie. A predator who used his badge to steal a child from a crime scene."
"We have to be careful with our legal strategy," Margaret Shaw interrupted, stepping back into the room. "Martin Ellison is a highly decorated former detective. He still has deep-seated connections within the Seattle Police Department and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. If we simply file kidnapping charges, his friends on the force could easily compromise the evidence or tip him off, allowing him to flee. We need to build a case so airtight that not even the police union can protect him."
"How do we do that?" I asked.
"We need the physical evidence from the night of the crash," Daniel Price said. "Specifically, Martin's personal logbooks and the original, unredacted dispatch recordings. And we need to find the clerk who forged your birth certificate. We believe he’s still alive, living under a pension in Oregon."
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"And what about me?" I asked, looking down at my hands. "What do I do?"
"For now, you stay dead to the world," Margaret said. "Because if Martin realizes we are close to exposing him, he won't just run. He’ll do whatever it takes to silence the people who can destroy him."
