Her fingers tightened around each other.
“He wanted a folder I was carrying.”
Thomas remembered the weeks before the crash. Rebecca had worked as an accountant for Vale Maritime, one of the largest shipping companies in the region. She had seemed distracted, often staying late at the office and checking the locks twice before bed.
She had told him it was because of an audit.
“What was in the folder?”
“Evidence. False cargo records, payments to shell companies, names of officials who had accepted bribes. I found them by accident. When I realized what they were, I copied everything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid you would try to protect me.”
“I was your husband.”
“That was exactly why I couldn’t tell you.”
Thomas turned away.
Every clock in the room seemed suddenly louder.
Rebecca continued.
“The man searched my bag. The train entered the storm before he found the folder. There was a violent jolt. The lights went out. I remember glass breaking, then fire.”
She touched the scar near her temple.
“I woke beside a river two days later.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I had been pulled from the wreck by a volunteer rescue worker named Nathan Cole. At least, that was what he told me.”
Lily’s father, Thomas thought.
Rebecca nodded as if she could see the conclusion forming in his mind.
“I had no identification. I didn’t remember my name. I barely remembered how to speak. Nathan told the hospital that I was his wife because he was afraid they would separate us while I was confused.”
“Why would a rescue worker do that?”
“He wasn’t a rescue worker.”
Thomas slowly faced her again.
Rebecca’s expression darkened.
“Nathan had been hired to retrieve the folder. He was working with the man who attacked me.”
Thomas felt the skin on his arms tighten.
“He kidnapped you.”
“At first, yes. But I didn’t know it. He told me my name was Anna Cole. He said we had been traveling together when the train crashed. He showed me photographs he had taken after the accident and claimed they were proof of our life.”
“How long did you believe him?”
“Almost two years.”
Thomas sank into a chair.
Rebecca stared down at her hands.
“He moved us constantly. Whenever a doctor suggested specialist treatment, Nathan said we couldn’t afford it. Whenever I remembered something that contradicted his story, he told me the injury had confused me.”
“And Lily?”
Rebecca’s eyes softened.
“Nathan brought her home one night when she was four months old. He said she was the daughter of his younger sister, who had died.”
“She isn’t your biological child?”
“No. But she is my daughter in every way that matters.”
“What happened to Nathan?”
Rebecca glanced toward the staircase.
“When Lily was two, I found a locked case beneath the floorboards. It contained passports, cash, newspaper clippings about the train, and a list of passengers.”
“My name was on the list.”
Thomas felt sick.
“There were photographs of you,” Rebecca said. “Your house. Your workshop. The cemetery.”
“He watched me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make sure I never reached you.”
Thomas rose so quickly that the chair struck the wall.
“You knew I was alive after that.”
“I knew a man named Thomas Alder existed. I didn’t yet understand who he was to me.”
“But you saw the photographs.”
“I saw a stranger standing outside a grave.”
Rebecca’s voice broke.
“My grave.”
The clocks continued ticking.
“The memories returned slowly,” she said. “Not like a door opening. More like light entering through cracks. I remembered your hands. The kitchen window. The blue cup you always used. I remembered dancing with you when the radio stopped working.”
Thomas remembered that night.
They had continued dancing in silence, Rebecca laughing against his shoulder.
He looked away before she could see his face.
“I confronted Nathan,” she said. “He told me that contacting you would get you killed. He claimed the people behind the records still believed I had hidden copies of the evidence. He said they had been watching you for years.”
“Was that true?”
“I don’t know. But I believed him.”
“What happened next?”
“Nathan disappeared three days later. He took the money and the passports. He left Lily behind.”
Thomas looked toward the ceiling.
“How long ago?”
“Five years.”
“You had five years to come home.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than any excuse.
“You remembered me.”
“Not everything.”
“You remembered enough to keep our photograph.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I had buried you.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed here.”
Tears moved silently down her cheeks.
“I was terrified. I had spent years being told that finding you would destroy your life. By the time I understood how much Nathan had lied, I no longer knew whether the danger was real.”
“You could have sent a message.”
“I wrote dozens.”