“Old personnel files. Legal records. Photographs. Newspaper clippings. We were digitizing materials from one of the original administrative buildings before demolition.”
“And?”
“There was a file.”
“What file?”
Stephen hesitated.
“It wasn’t supposed to be in the archive.”
Something cold moved through me.
“What was in it?”
“Mostly correspondence. Some reports. A photograph.”
“Of a missing woman?”
He nodded.
“Her name was Claire.”
That name meant nothing to me.
“Claire what?”
Stephen’s expression changed again.
This time I recognized what I was seeing.
Fear.
Not fear of Lily.
Fear of telling me.
“Claire Bell.”
I stared at him.
My maiden name was Bell.
For a few seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Then I managed, “Bell is not exactly an unusual surname.”
“No.”
“What did she look like?”
Stephen didn’t answer.
“Show me.”
“I don’t have the photograph.”
“You saw it years ago and somehow remember it well enough to recognize a four-year-old?”
