Chapter 4 - THE GIRL IN THE WINTER PHOTOGRAPH
My sister had written to me from a place she'd been taught to believe was safer than home.
I studied the photograph until the woman on the beach became more than a stranger. She had my mother's dark brows and my father's stubborn chin. The wind covered one eye, but there was something about the angle of her smile that pulled an old memory from the edge of childhood: a baby curling her fingers around mine while a nurse told me to be gentle.
I'd spent decades believing that memory was a dream.
Celia sat across from me with the blanket in her lap. Her fingers traced the embroidered star as carefully as if touching a living thing.
“She would be twenty-two now,” she said.
“Do you recognize the beach?”
“Not from this.”
“Is the writing really hers?”
“I knew her handwriting from the letters she sent when she was a teenager. We had a private arrangement, once a year, through Margaret Dunn.”
I looked up sharply. “You told me you didn't know where Isabella was.”
“I didn't. We wrote through a forwarding address. Then the letters stopped.”
“Why did you keep that from me an hour ago?”
“Because I'm ashamed, Dean. There isn't a noble explanation. Every secret I admit leads to another one.”
I could have shouted. Instead, I stood and walked to the window. Outside, lights strung around the palace gardens glowed through the gathering dusk. The ceremony had been canceled. Two hundred invited guests had left under police supervision, and the news stations were already spinning elaborate rumors about an attempted assassination.
What would they say if they knew a child had been hidden under a false death certificate and that the man who'd inherited the palace had no idea?
My phone rang. Naomi Fletcher.
“We authenticated the courier's fingerprints on the wrapping,” she said. “There are several sets, nothing conclusive. But the postmark is from coastal Maine. The photograph paper was produced recently.”
“Can you locate the sender?”
“We can investigate without publicly exposing her. I want you to be careful about using your private men. If she's been hiding for decades, an armed convoy will frighten her.”
“Understood.”
“There's something else. We've contacted a state prosecutor about the foundation records. They're willing to arrange witness protection and independent interviews. Your cooperation will matter.”
“Tell them I will cooperate.”
Naomi paused. “You say that easily. It may not be easy when we get to your father's transactions.”
“Then remind me of this conversation when I start making excuses.”
After the call, I went to Lily's suite. She had fallen asleep on a rug surrounded by toy horses while Helena sat beside her reading a medical report. Evelyn had insisted Lily remain at the palace only until a secure and child-friendly location could be arranged. I agreed. The child had already been carried through enough danger for one lifetime.
“She's exhausted,” Helena whispered. “And she keeps asking for her mother.”
“How is Evelyn?”
“Stable. She'll need time, and she'll need a specialist to assess the nerve injury. But she should recover.”
I crouched beside Lily. The silver tiara had been placed on the table. Without it she looked like any sleeping toddler, small mouth open, fingers tucked beneath her cheek. I wondered how many times she'd had to sleep in unfamiliar places, how often Evelyn had lifted her into the night to escape another threat.
Helena noticed the blanket in my hand. “Where did you find that?”
“Someone sent it.”
She touched the embroidered star. “Evelyn made Lily one like it. She said a woman taught her the pattern.”
“My mother.”
“Maybe.”
I sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa. “Doctor, why did Evelyn trust you?”
Helena didn't answer immediately. “When Lily was born, Evelyn had no permanent address and no family she could safely name. I worked at a clinic that treated people who couldn't pay. She came to me with a baby who had a fever and a mother who hadn't slept in three days. I helped because that's what doctors do.”
“And later?”
“She began leaving emergency contact instructions. Never addresses. Never names of other people. I didn't understand why until two months ago, when a man approached my office and offered to pay for my clinic if I would give him Evelyn's phone number.”
“Did he identify himself?”
“He gave me a card from Halden Charitable Trust. I kept it.”
She handed over a photograph of the card. A silver key was printed beside the name. Silas's people were everywhere, hiding behind charitable language and expensive paper.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don't thank me for refusing to sell a patient's information.”
I almost smiled. “Fair.”
Lily stirred, reached for something, and found my sleeve. Her eyes opened. She blinked at me.
“Birdie Dean.”
“That's me.”
“Mommy?”
“She's sleeping in the hospital room. We can visit when the doctor says it's okay.”
Lily considered this seriously. Then she touched the photograph of my sister poking from my pocket.
“Star lady.”
I froze. “You know her?”
She nodded with absolute confidence. “Auntie star.”
Helena and I exchanged a look.
“Where did you see her, sweetheart?” I asked.
“Phone. Mommy phone.”
“A video call?”
“Wave. Hi, Wiwy.”
So Isabella and Evelyn had remained in contact after all. Why had Evelyn said they hadn't met? She'd been truthful in the narrowest sense: Lily hadn't met her godmother in person. But there had been calls. There was a path to finding her, one I didn't intend to expose casually.
I visited Evelyn again just after midnight. Her face tightened when I mentioned the star lady.
“I wasn't lying,” she said. “We never met in person after the separation.”
“You omitted the calls.”
“Because they lasted thirty seconds on an encrypted relay, always from a different number. Isabella has a life. I was trying to protect it.”
“Someone sent me a photograph from Maine.”
Evelyn closed her eyes. “Then somebody found her.”
“Or she's reaching out.”
“Silas would love for you to believe that.”
I placed the photograph where she could see it. She studied it silently.
“It's her,” Evelyn said at last. “But she looks frightened.”
“Can you contact her?”
“Not through the old channel. It went dead three days ago.”
“That's when your hiding place was compromised.”
“Yes.”
She shifted painfully in the bed. “Dean, the messages I exchanged with Isabella used a phrase. A question and an answer. If anyone claims to be her, ask: What did the little star steal? She'll answer: The moon's blue ribbon.”
I memorized it. “Why that phrase?”
“Your mother told a story about a star that borrowed a ribbon from the moon to help lost children find their way home. Isabella loved it. She'd repeat it whenever she was frightened.”
Before leaving, I asked Evelyn something that had been troubling me since the throne.
“Why hide underneath it? Why not go directly to the authorities when you arrived?”
“Because the eastern garden gate was open and the main entrance was controlled by Silas. Lily had slipped away when I fell. I crawled through the stage maintenance access, thinking I could reach a service telephone. Someone locked the outer door behind me. When I heard a man preparing the charge, I knew the trap had closed.”
“Did you know he was coming?”
“I heard him call someone. He said the boy would open it himself.”
The boy. Silas still thought of me as the eighteen-year-old who followed his instructions without asking questions. He was about to learn how much I had changed.
By dawn, Naomi's investigators had identified the beach in the photograph. A distinctive lighthouse stood blurred in the background, and the photographer had apparently been standing near a public trail outside a town called Port Alder. There were several reasons a hidden young woman might choose such a place. There was also a ferry terminal, a small airfield, and enough forest roads to disappear along.
“Don't send an armed team,” Naomi repeated when she told me. “If she is there, we need a trusted intermediary.”
“I'll go with you.”
“No bodyguards in the village.”
“Two discreet security officers at a distance.”
“Agreed.”
I left Lily with Helena and Celia, with Evelyn's explicit approval. Then I drove north with Naomi, carrying only the photograph, the blanket, and the question Evelyn had taught me.
We reached Port Alder after dusk. The streets smelled of salt and woodsmoke. At a bakery near the harbor, a woman behind the counter recognized the photograph but refused to say anything until she saw Naomi's identification.
“She works at the old lighthouse museum,” the woman said quietly. “But she hasn't been there since Tuesday.”
“Did she leave a message?” Naomi asked.
The woman looked at me, then nodded toward a small envelope taped under the counter.
It contained a silver paper star and three handwritten words.
HE CAME FIRST.
On the reverse was a drawing of a bird with one wing missing.
My raven.
May you like
I hadn't told Isabella about my tattoo. But someone had.
And from the harbor, beyond the rain-speckled glass, I saw a man in a dark coat watching the bakery. On his finger gleamed a black ring with a silver key.
