The Beggar Girl Said My Dead Wife Was Alive

CHAPTER 1 — The Girl Who Knew Her Face

The photograph slipped from Daniel Whitmore's pocket without him noticing.

A little girl picked it up from the wet street.

"Sir, why do you have a picture of my mommy?"

Daniel stopped breathing.

"What did you say?"

"My mommy."

He knelt before her and stared into the green eyes he had once seen every morning across the breakfast table.

"That's my wife," he whispered. "She died years ago."

The girl shook her head.

"No. My mom is alive."

Daniel's hands began to tremble.

Seven years earlier, his wife, Amelia, had disappeared after her car plunged into a river. The police recovered wreckage, blood and a badly damaged body identified by Amelia's best friend, Vanessa.

Daniel never saw the body.

Vanessa told him it was too damaged.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Lucy."

"How old are you?"

"Six."

The answer struck him with brutal precision. Amelia had disappeared seven months before Lucy was born.

"Where is your mother?"

"She's sick. She can't get out of bed anymore."

Lucy touched the red cord around her neck. Hanging from it was Daniel's wedding ring, the one Amelia had worn on the day she vanished.

He turned it over.

Inside were the words he had engraved himself.

Until every star goes dark.

"Take me to her."

Lucy hesitated.

"Mom said I shouldn't trust you."

"Why?"

"Because you sent her letters saying you wished she had died."

Daniel stared at the child.

He had never received a letter from Amelia.

And he had certainly never answered one.

His phone rang.

Vanessa's name appeared on the screen.

Lucy saw the photograph beside the name and stepped backward in fear.

"That's her."

"Who?"

"The woman who comes to our room when Mommy is sleeping."

Then Lucy whispered, "She told my mother you would kill us if we ever came home."